It is quite fascinating to witness the crazed, tragic, unattractive downward spiral of someone (I’ll call her Mlle. R) who, when in her 20’s, was dramatically pretty, charismatic, witty, and who was, for better or worse, very entertaining. Those were Mlle. R’s main good qualities and if you were on her good side, good for you.
If you happened to fall on the bad side of Mlle. R, then melodrama, gossip, public scenes, and public incidents would abound. Those that fell on the bad side of Mlle R were mostly her female friends, those she felt had betrayed her in some way (real or imagined). Mlle. R always found a way to forgive or blithely overlook the real or imagined transgressions of the males in her life. (Funny, that.)
While in her 20’s and during her 30’s, Mlle. R. became more popular due to several specific creative associations, including one or two that benefited her personally as well. This time period certainly suited her - she took wing, she soared and glimmered and gleamed in the social spotlight for a bit.
However, as with most of us in life, many unfortunate things occurred. Instead of learning from, growing and evolving past these unfortunate events, Mlle. R looked around for people to blame and her consuming vanity and misplaced aggression took over. (She apparently has not even yet considered that she might be responsible for at least some of her unpleasant fate.) In the past year or so, Mlle. R’s lovely sparkle began to sputter and fade along with, apparently, her rational thinking skills.
During the Unfortunate Events time frame, Mlle. R sought refuge with numerous friends. These friends gave her unlimited free shelter, fed her, covered most of her expenses much of the time, provided her with emotional, psychological, material and social support. Mlle. R has since viciously turned on many of these people, spreading slanted and delusional gossip about many of them (some who are also friends of mine).
Things continue to get worse for Mlle. R, according to latest reports. She is now in her early 40’s, unemployed (and not bothering to look for a job) and couch surfing still (after years of doing so, except when she snagged a love interest with which to live ). She has been bitterly and ruthlessly judgmental about those who were once her friends (myself included) for trumped up reasons, some of which have no real foundation or which had been resolved, but have been conveniently forgotten so that Mlle. R could play the wounded, fragile victim. At this point, Mlle. R’s tunnel -visioned narcissism is pretty delusional, or so it sounds from recent reports.
Although I am angry at how my friends have been treated, and how the slimy tentacles of Mlle. R’s theatrics are attempting to pull my friends back into the cesspool of her chaos, I am also starting to pity poor Mlle R. She was once an interesting force to be reckoned with. Now she is an erratic, victimized, breathless damsel in distress who needs a tolerant, doting male arm (or the healthy bank accounts of remaining friends) to lean upon.
How terrified Mlle. R must be to be in her 40’s with no place to live and no viable means of supporting herself except to live off of others. She used to be able to use her looks, charisma and youth as bait to acquire advantage. These days, however, she is no longer the most striking woman in the room and she is especially not the youngest, and won’t ever be again. And while interesting, her psychotic antics cannot be considered particularly charismatic.
The clock tics. The days are slipping by and so are the years. Yet still Mlle. R races around and around in ever tighter downward spirals, cavorting, pleading, spinning, bitching, whirling, accusing, all the while seemingly trying to recapture a glory for herself that wasn’t really all that glorious, merely entertaining.
Oscar Wilde has some amusing quips that seem apropos to this scenario:
She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.
There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband.
Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
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