There is no reason at all that I have to have concern for him; none. It seems that he is gearing up for what immature people do all their lives, which is to take the efforts of people to help them in painful times and, with that support, recover enough to start the next set of immature and irresponsible behaviors.
What is it this time, a slinking back toward corrupted ties with politicians, corporations, throwing me to the ever-voracious media, selling me out again in his ceaseless quest to get more of whatever it is that he wants at any given time?
A totally disposable life; that's what he seems to think I have. That's what all conglomerate men seem to think that all women have, despite their occasionally impassioned protestations that they can't live without this woman or that woman.
Did I not say the magic words that would make his entire life better? If not, does someone believe that I had the obligation to know what those words were and say them? Has he never heard of "Doing the best you can with a bad situation?"
It seems to me that much of the media frenzy about his marriage and alleged infidelity has quieted; is that a problem for the addictive side of his personality? Onto the next crisis and the next and the next, proceeding with the utmost confidence that someone will be there to fix it, or at least make it easier, every time.
The ads that got put around Boston in anticipation that I'd park myself in the lobby of the most expensive hotel in Boston and publish a page inviting him to take all my financial troubles away as soon as he announced his divorce have not been removed. It is disgusting how many people were sure that was what I would do, and it's disgusting that they haven't stopped thinking it, and it's disgusting that he has turned yet again, in his cowardice, to attack me with the rest of the bullies.
I can tell exactly what I saw that day when I walked past the magazines a few years ago and saw him on a cover, and knew, which I hadn't before, that he was interested in me. Interest, guilt and some hopelessness because he was married and because he and his friends had already caused so much damage to my life, and also something that I'd seen before; the cool, appraising look of a man who has had a lot of money for a long time and who rarely has to hear the word "no" from anyone. By that time in my life, I recognized that look. I should have heeded what it boded.
I think that American celebrity does a disservice to the people whose lives it takes over. Americans are slow to relinquish the idea that the heroes of their youth never go bad. All the signs are always there, but it takes the intoxicated car crash, the drug arrest, the threats recorded on tape, the murder, or, horror of horrors, substantial and prolonged weight gain, for us to start to let the people who make us like them when we're young be the humans that they can't help being, and to let them start the long-delayed process of taking responsibility for their lives.
I think that the mental muscle that processes the hearing of things that a person doesn't want to hear tends to atrophy in very rich people, while the reflexes of casting responsibility onto others and lying to try to preserve one's image, particularly for people who are both rich and famous, get sharper every year.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, August 19, 2015 @ 7:40 p.m.
