...in any situation where either a devastating occurrence causes you to lose your emotional stability, or you have a character conflict where you need to conceal improper sentiments.
Basically, what I mean by a devastating occurrence is when somebody breaks up with you, or somebody cheats on you or is having an affair, or something in the romantic world, I guess. (
NOTE: This is for
future reference. Hopefully nobody out there has already had to deal with this. Not without my handy advice! Okay, joking.)
Some examples in literature; from a book I'm reading, and from a story compilation I'm kind of writing.
Janie had looked up. Reeve could not meet Janie's gaze. There was something glinting about her, like a setting sun in his eyes. Without inflection, just plain words, as if reading a vocabulary list, Janie said to him, "Don't call me. Don't come to my house when you're home."
"No, Janie, please," he said, and his voice cracked. "I still love you. Let me talk to you alone. Please."
"If you even liked me, you would have stopped yourself from doing this."
"That's not true. I just wasn't thinking. I still love you" (122).
Reeve leaned against a building and slid down the bricks to the sidewalk, like a drunk. The expression on Janie's face! The stunned blankness, as if he had slapped her (125).
Source: Cooney, Caroline B.
The Voice on the Radio. New York: Ember, 1996. Print. (
This book here.)
Whatever it is, he's already done it.
And he's not asking for forgiveness.
He's pleading for punishment.
All at once I realize it. I put the pieces together – his state of being disheveled, the look in his eyes, the pleading for punishment – and I get it.
He cheated on me.
He must now see my newfound knowledge on my face, because he takes a step closer to me, arm outstretched in a pleading gesture.
“Please – I can explain-”
“Please do,” I say, trying not to let the iciness come through in my voice. I try to sound even, to sound diplomatic. I try to sound like I empathize: people make mistakes, forgiveness is almost always reached somehow. I try to sound like a counselor or therapist, and he's speaking about having done this to someone else, someone out of my reach, someone I have no ties to and no desire to meet face-to-face. But it hurts. It cuts, right into my heart, and there's a hollow feeling in my chest that I can't remedy. He's done this to me. And all of a sudden I snap. I can't help it.
“How could you do this to me?” I say, my voice hoarse and weak and raspy. My breath catches and my heart pounds weakly in my chest, aching and throbbing for every beat. I can't look at him but I have to, I have to transmit my pain to him. “How?” My voice starts trembling then, like I'm scared I'm going to be hit even though I already have been.
“I- I don't know.” Suddenly, the voice I used to love is strangled and tied up in knots too. His guilt is so overwhelming that he needs no words.
Saying his name crushes my frantically pounding heart, willing it to disappear. “I would like you to get your things and go.”
“It wasn't me,” he pleads, but I catch his eyes and know instantly that it was.
“My God!” I shout then, not even bothering to keep my voice down. “I'll bet it was a coworker, wasn't it? You figure, we're getting out late. My son won't notice. My wife won't care. And oh boy I can't control myself!” I'm shrieking so loudly I don't even recognize my own voice, shrieking so my voice can get through my tightening throat. My eyes spill over with tears, and my rage only fuels their fire (25).
Source: my story compilation of tidbits of the lives of characters from the age-old tale, S
unlight. (Oh, new readers. I do not pity you for not knowing in the least about what I am talking.
Sunlight was a torture I do not ever want to put anyone through again. There is a reason I excluded names from the above passage.)
Okay, so, my point is comparing how we act in these situations to how I think it would be better to act. (My personal opinion, based on my personal, and not so intense, but similar, experiences.) If someone you really cared about were to tell you that things weren't working out, or they were seeing someone else, or to just initiate a break-up, we would inevitably feel betrayed, upset, infuriated, and desperate, right? But, as I see in all these romance novels and movies, I don't think lashing out or pathetically begging is really the answer. I understand that when you're mad at someone, it's
really hard to hold that inside and pretend it doesn't exist. But I've thought about it, and I would hope that if someone were to break up with me, they would come talk about it with me in person, so we could have a reasonable conversation and say our goodbyes in a civil fashion.
However, in this day and age of IM and texting and Facebook and Twitter, I hardly think it's likely that anyone would take the time to break up with you face-to-face, especially if they're cutting you off to get with someone else. So, if you maybe see a post online somewhere saying "We're done" or "I want to break up" or maybe something more accusatory, or a status update saying "single", or pictures of some new girlfriend/boyfriend, I would hope you can try to get a time to talk to them about it (don't start throwing out the insults or groveling at their feet; they deserve neither for the way they broke up with you) and get both sides to understand and say goodbye the way they should.
If someone is cheating on you/having an affair outside of your relationship, it's going to be a bit harder to understand that because, like the breakup, it's them leaving (or maybe not leaving) you, but, unlike the breakup, they're not acknowledging they want somebody else
before pursuing it. If they tell you straight out, however, bravo for them. I can see how it would be horrible to have to admit to someone what you're doing, especially if it's of that magnitude. Like in my story compilation, I think it's easier said than done to act like it's all happening in the third-hand, and you are completely on the outside, especially if it's happening to you. But, if they truly feel badly about it, it's hard to hold a really long grudge.
However, if they don't feel badly about it and they're just letting you in on a long ongoing secret and they don't really care how it affects you or your relationship with them, it's better to still be civil. Maybe just let them off the hook as neutrally as you can, if manageable. I can infer that it would be horribly crushing if this happened, if somebody you love had betrayed you in this way. But, not even jerks like them deserve your anger.
I stand up and
something overtakes me. I feel my arm prepare to strike him across
the face, but I hold myself back. “No. You're not worth
that. That's what you want, isn't it?” (more from my story compilation, 26).
Because they (maybe) expect you to crumble, you should hold back - in their presence, at least - from showing them your weakness. If you are so broken you can't possibly refrain from any sort of release of emotion, I can understand.
If the case is that it's just somebody who pushes your buttons and for some reason there is an unavoidable "character conflict," I believe it is easier to feign politeness and niceness. In some situations. I've found that I just end up talking in very short sentences, because long sentences will make it easier to start to vent my anger. Sometimes I paste on a polite, "I'm in the presence of unsuspecting strangers" smile and keep my angry monologue running full-speed inside my head. (Trust me, you wouldn't want to hear that one out loud.) I try to act as I feel they would expect me to, and keep up conversation or polite gestures until I can get away from them. Okay, if it's a sibling, there's probably less need for formalities, but no need to lash out on them. (Well, I'll admit, I do kind of lash out by criticizing them loudly to myself in a sing-song voice until they storm off.)
My hope is that some of you readers have your own ways of dealing with these emotional outbursts that are tried and true. If so, help us out! (Half the time, I don't even know what I'm talking about. I've never been there. I don't
really know how it feels.)
By the way, The Voice on the Radio
is part of the series of the "corny '90s horror books" (OTTILT Sep 7).
