The dark side of darkness

I love a moody setting. A moody aesthetic. I’m all for the dark side of romance. I like art with a side of “holy shit that’s twisted.”

What I’m not into? When romantic darkness turns into real-life harm.

In literature, for me, it’s a line – it depends on how it’s presented. I’m a fan of stories that show that slide back and forth between atmospheric and abusiveness, between love and torment, between dominance and coercion. I believe stories should deal with uncomfortable topics. You can torture a fictional character in ways that you shouldn’t do to actual people. Literature is catharsis, it’s sublimation, it’s representation, it’s awakenings and recognition and identification…and sometimes, yes, it’s just gratuitous and that can be okay, too.

Art should challenge. It should go to dark places. Not all the time – joyful and uplifting creativity is also necessary – but so is the hard stuff. The stuff that turns your stomach. The stuff that triggers tears. The stuff that won’t stop haunting you. (The books haunting me right now are Burial Rites and Migrations.)

But as you absorb all the things that art evokes in you, it’s important to know when the dark narrative ends and when real life begins. You can’t get so caught up in a frenzied fantasy that you forget that there are real people on the other side – not just supporting characters in some sort of 3D novel.

Yesterday someone who, over the years, has claimed to love me announced – on a public social media account – that they intended to show that love by harassing a queer college student for the crime of…talking to me. Because, you see, a key element to their idea of love is possessiveness.

This is something she picked up from literature – she’s a superfan of an author who wrote some pretty deliciously fucked up books. Books I also like – but would never try to emulate in real life.

This is not speculation. She has said that she wants that sort of romance. I have told her that those things are not sustainable in real life. They have consequences.

She either doesn’t care, or doesn’t quite grasp that.

My online connection with this college student isn’t anything romantic – I don’t do romantic with people less than half my age. (Power dynamics, general ick, ethics, etc.) They’re a very young adult who is in the closet right now for their own safety, planning for a future where they can become who they fully are. They’re a young adult who was looking for validation, and that’s what I provided.

And…somehow, an absolutely narcissistic piece of shit who latched onto me thought I would be…okay?…with her harassing this college kid to demonstrate her deep dark possessive love. I called it out for what it was. I told her, I don’t feel loved by this. Her email in response when I called it out began with “You don’t understand me,” and I just hit the block button. Wasn’t worth the time it would have taken me to read it.

There’s no other way to justify this except to engage in Olympic-level mental gymnastics.

The fact is, she tagged the college student and made a direct threat (“I will destroy them”) after having trolled through their social media account and reposted something to get both their attention and mine. That’s not romantic. That didn’t make my heart go all a-flutter. (Er, it did, but in a bad way.) That’s just disgusting. That’s announcing your intent to bully a vulnerable young person and expecting me to be complicit.

She thought it was romantic. She thought I would be receptive to it. She thought it would make me see how much she loves and wants me. Because that’s how it works in the books. That’s what the characters who have imprinted on her behave. They would be flattered by her urge to destroy anyone who took any attention off of her.

I am not.

“You don’t understand me.”

Oh, but I do.

I understand that a 20 year old was tagged in a post that said she was going to “destroy them.”

I understand that targeting someone for harm who is part of a vulnerable group because you want to prove something is psychopathic. (See: MAGA Republicans.)

I understand how abusive people will twist a situation to try to pass off abuse as love, and blame you when you don’t react the way they want you to. (“You don’t understand me” –> “I’m not doing anything wrong, this is somehow all your fault because you just don’t understand.”)

I understand the necessary dissonance between what we like in art and what we’re willing to tolerate in real life.

I understand that what the author was exploring in her books is not something she would actually engage in or condone.

I understand that as a creator, sometimes really shitty people will latch onto your work and use it to validate their shittiness.

I understand that I can love an unhinged woman, but I can’t love a bully.