Go And Never Darken My Towels Again

Groucho Marx was, to my knowledge, a comic genius. He was a genius at linguistics, offbeat, wacky and hilarious. He was rude, aggressive taj residencia prices, and verbally abusive. In film after film Margaret Dumont was on the victim of his harsh humor. He would seduce her with his charismatic charm, and the audience would smile at the absurdity of plots and seduction.

Groucho remains a legend, not the least because of his ingenuous jokes, such as the often quoted: “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” His bon mot came unbidden to me recently, when I read an email from a person whose relationship with her friends and partners is one where she is sought-after and enters into a close intimate, sometimes exclusive, relationship. But, she is soon turned on by the other person in her relationship.

“I was thinking about it for a long time”, she writes “and I am convinced that there must be something fundamentally unwholesome within me that has more to led to me connecting with such people in the first place. I’d like to remove whatever it is so that I would not have to endure the same emotional pain each time one of these characters tries to attack me so brutally.

She believes that the bad behavior of another person is her fault. This is, of course, not true. However, this is as close as she can get to articulating the idea that something about her attracts abusive people. After a brief exchange and a few minutes later, they begin to “hang around” her and desire to spend time with each other. (Her words.)

What draws these people is their sure awareness of how easily her limits can be violated. A delightful, gentle person, she radiates vulnerability in every part of her body. This is the reason she has a fascination for them.

But what is the attraction they hold for her? She is vulnerable and vulnerable, regardless of her intellectual ability.

This is the hook. Like many others, she was taught messages regarding her inability to be valuable and stupid. How can she refuse a person who offers her the attention and affection she deserves? She believes that the attraction is due to the affection they are able to show for her.

Naturally, there is the cost to pay: the intimacy of the relationship is of the “Us and Them type and she is required to accept the critique of all those who fall into the ‘Them’ category.

It starts small, with a joke, but it soon becomes harsh and potentially compromising. In the end, if she is unwilling to condemn people she has no quarrel with, the relationship shatters and she becomes the target.

Groucho is on the right track in this regard: The ones who will do everything to get you involved in their group, and who work too hard and overly eagerly will likely be to be the only members of a club that you wouldn’t wish to be a member of.