The thing that makes this love story something slightly different from all the others in the self absorbed, teenaged love genre is the triangle that exists between Jacob, Bella and Edward. With Jacob and Bella, aside from the whole hot blooded, werewolf thing, their attraction is totally merited. If you're into the tall, dark and handsome (... and really terrible actor) thing, it's easy to understand how a relationship could so easily formulate between them. Their dads are best friends, Jacob built the engine in Bella's truck, and clearly, they both like to ride dual purpose bikes. It all makes perfect, boring sense.
With Edward, on the other hand, things are always hanging in the balance. With them, it's always life and death. In virtually every single movie, one (or both) of them is incessantly offering up their own lives to save the other. It's like some creepy, sexy vampire sacrifice. It's almost as if Edward has corrupted her (or perhaps, vice versa) and the only thing worth thriving for is their eternal, extortionate, true vampire love.
Now, I don't like to see things in black and white. I feel like real life can only exist within those bendable shades of gray. In those aforementioned shadows of gray is where I visualize the corruption of love. The way in which Edward corrupted Bella, Etta James corrupted Leonard Chess and Yoko Ono corrupted John Lennon. The way we have all been left possessed by that corruption, at one point or another. That truly passionate, fiery feeling in your heart believed to be love.
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power. -John Steinbeck
Another admirable corruption story is that of the tumultuous love that existed between Sid Vicious and "Nauseating Nancy". I'm sure that most of you went through your own bout of teenage angst and at one point, fell in love with the semi talented Sex Pistols. So I'll spare you the sad details of their afflicted and tragic love story.
But for those of you who don't know the epic tale, the end of the story is this: Nancy is found dead under a sink in Room 100 of Manhattan's bohemian style Chelsea Hotel. The murder is obviously pinned on her roommate and heroin addicted boyfriend, Sex Pistols "basist", Sid Vicious. However, we will never know full well what really happened because in a pit of despair, Sid took an overdose (I know, spoiler alert, right? The man did more drugs than Keith Richards and Robert Downey, Jr. combined.) and died in his new girlfriends shabby apartment.
So sappy, right?
Don't get me wrong. Those anarchy boasting punks were almost certainly certifiable but there is something to be said about the hold that they had on each other. They may have been dysfunctional drug addicts but their love was real. And it was one of the biggest in rock and roll history. They were officially deemed the punk Romeo and Juliet.
Originally, when I started reading about Sid and Nancy, it was because it popped up in the true crime library I was looking at online. I thought to myself, "Well, I don't know all the details about this murder. I'll give it a go..." but the more I started to read, the more I realized that this wasn't a story about murder. It wasn't some grisly rip off of the Amityville massacre. Nobody was mutilated beyond recognition and there was no rapid manhunt to catch the meglomaniac murderer.
This was a story about love and tragedy. With the alleged murderer so seemingly distraught that he was wandering the halls of the Chelsea, mumbling to himself. More specifically, this was a story about a man so corrupted by love that death was his only way out. His only escape from the loss he had endured.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. -George Orwell
But here's my thing: the further I analyzed the crazy infatuation they shared, the more everything began to make sense. I immediately remembered a conversation I had with an extremely rational ex boyfriend of mine. [Side bar: We broke up nearly a decade ago and have maintained a healthy friendship ever since. He continues to be one of the few functional male friendships that I currently possess. End Side bar.]
Some time ago, he had mentioned to me something about corruption. He had this theory that some relationships are doomed to never work out because one partner inevitably corrupts the other. With us, he used the example, I was young and impressionable. I would have been too easily corrupted and my view on love, men and relationships would be forever skewed. He couldn't have had that on his conscious, he told me, because he knew what the end result would be.
To be honest with you, I stared at that text for about three minutes. I mean, I know that I prefaced with his innate rationality but that man is so intuitive. And I think he could have been on to something.
In those situations of crazy, absolutely wild love where fights can escalate like my blood pressure when I watch Dr. Phil, is it considered corruption? When you thrive off of dysfunction and fight just as passionately as you make love, are you just another tortured soul on the roller coaster ride of corruption? When you know that something is bad for you and will inevitably be your demise and you still can't let go, have you been corrupted?
Power doesn't corrupt people. People corrupt power. -William Gaddis
A million moons ago, I had this friend who was figuratively beaten down by the love that he felt for his girlfriend. He wore an incessant scowl, a result of the habitual screaming matches that took place between him and the woman he called "the love of his life". Like Nancy, she made a habit of telling him all the things he was lacking and all the traits he possessed that she consisidered to be degenerate. He wasn't smart enough. He didn't work hard enough. He hadn't proposed in ample time, and he had better get on it because she demanded a two carat ring from Tiffany's. He never understood her side of the argument. To be honest, if she were to list his strong suits, it would be a pretty short list. Pretty short, indeed. And that, to me, is unsatisfactory.
And yet, despite their fights and bickering, despite their genuine distaste for each other, they never did (and probably never will) break up. They profess this alleged undying love for each other and then turn around and verbally abuse each other. Sort of like the Abercrombie and Fitch version and Nancy, with Volkswagens and coral cardigans. They actually feed on each other's dysfunction like a twisted, hopeless romantic brand of succubus. They have, at one point or another, corrupted each other. And now, they coexist as this warped little unit, so dangerously corrupted that without each other, they're nothing...
Their entire relationship just leaves an awful taste in my mouth.
Moral of the Crazy: We have all had those relationships that have left us utterly rapt. Those people that we love and hate at the same time, equally as intensely. Those people who seem to somehow render us powerless to their corruptions, as if they've put us under some kind of morbid love spell. I guess my question is, how do you discern between true love and rabid torture? Adoration and crookedness? Rapture and corruption?
To be honest, within the limits of love, shadiness can be difficult to discover and when you learn of said dodgy corruptions, you won't want to believe them. Not about the person you love. And even if you do, it's so hard to let go of them, no matter how much they've warped your innocent, little brain. Affection is addicting, no matter how corrupt.
I wish I could say, "Stay wary of that smooth talking man! He could be a bad egg!" But the truth is that I can't because even those really crotchety people are put in our lives for a reason. And sometimes, they're not bad eggs. Sometimes they can be good eggs.
But if you do happen to get corrupted, I hope there's someone who can knock some sense into you before it takes a vicious turn. (I know, I know. Great pun, right?)
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty little feet. -Mahatma Gandhi
The Crazy version of Dear Abby:
Need advice on something vital or love induced? Have some gossip that you desperately need to share? Want to swap idiot boyfriend stories?
Share your stories with me at: katemeyer@verizon.net with the subject line Crazy Face and be anonymously featured in my blog!
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