EPTWhen I used to be on websites like Friendster, Myspace or Facebook I would always have a heavy scholarly and intellectual emphasis on it. I was at a point in my life, moving from one graduate to another, one degree to another before eventually obtaining my Ph.D. where I seemed to live for having "deep" and "profound" conversations and real passionate discussions about social justice and political issues. This often times puts me at odds with most of my generation, but so be it. Therefore on these networking websites I always make it clear that I am looking for real conversations and always seek out people who say that that's what they want as well.
What I usually found was that girls who said they want "deep" conversations or real intellectual conversations have probably never been in one before. Whenever I find someone on the net who claims these things and then begin to talk to them, inevitably the comments on "wow, do you ever shut off?" or "I think you're looking too much into that movie" follow. It is of course times like this that I wish some extra-governmental body would intervene and offer some workable definition of what "deep" is supposed to mean in conversations.
Occasionally miracles did happen, and in my memory one girl sticks out in particular as being someone who I found incredibly engaging, but ultimately ruined any possible chance of being with. I found her through Friendster and we began to email each other, usually debating points and asking each other impossible questions. She was attending graduate school in the Bay Area of California and so we were both regularly drowning in theory for our work and for our classes and so it was actually alot of fun chatting as well as arguing. I finally got the chance to regularly talk theory and movies together! After this whole mess ended I realized how much I missed having someone of the opposite sex to have those sorts of regular discussions with.
After emailing for about a month or so, she told me that she was attending a conference in San Diego and that we should meet. I was incredibly excited about this, I mean, this girl was INCREDIBLE through email. Even though we were arguing and debating, I felt that we were really connected too through an intense shared political commitment. She was beautiful as well, but this was just delicious, sultry sauce on the side compared to the mental attractive I was feeling for her.
I was of course nervous, and one of my many problems is a tendency to cover up nervousness with people I am with is to constantly tease them. A ridiculous interpassive strategy, but one I seem to have little control over.
We met for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and at first of course we were both nervous and admitted to it, hoping that eventually we would find that flow we have over email, in real life. For whatever reason, I found this really really hard to do, and just kept making nervous wisecracks about things, trying to get her to laugh. I do this all the time, you can spend an hour with me and you might laugh alot or learn alot (about Guam, about Zizek, about politics, about world history, about indigenous cultures, about war strategy, about SC2, about movies), but you probably haven't learned very much about me.
After a while I could tell that she was annoyed. I was kind of letting her down, I wasn't really helping to facilitate the "intensely intellectual conversation" that we both claimed we wanted. She decided to intervene very explicitly, like in a very textbook, formalist way. I might have been offended if I hadn't been going out of my mind, so I actually invited the clarity.
Her intervention was a straight out grad seminar question on Levinas and ethical violence. "If I am responsible for this other, by virtue of my act in creating it, recognizing it, is the ultimate violence upon it, therefore only mine? My responsibility?" Movies that this might invoke are films of peculiar, almost protective violence such as Oldboy or Dancer in the Dark.
We began to discuss the issue, and I at last got some focus. We became our playful email selves. Deftly moving back and forth across Levinas, Heidegger, Derrida, Butler, Hegel. We both had a general enough knowledge to know the base positions of different theorists and so we tried to articulate against each other, violence in each of their theories. What it does, what it signifies, etc. How they each rely on a certain type of violence and therefore what does this reliance mean when applied to an ethical framework?
At first I was really excited, but after almost an hour, I realized that our debate was getting too intense. We were cutting each other off, making pissy little remarks such as "well, if you believe that, then I guess that explains your love of __insert here diminutive reference to something like a films by a certain director, or a certain type of music__." It was all falling apart. Our arguing was becoming more and more antagonistic. Suddenly our responses were punctuated with exasperated and frustrated noises. The overly dramatic and dismissive hand gestures started.
Given the impending doom we were facing, the conversation naturally turned to the topic of death. She of course began discussing the role of death in Heidegger and in Hegel. Bringing out the productive aspects of death. I knew these things, and I of course agreed with them, but given the antagonistic mode we were both in, I decided to be a punk and disagree just to disagree.
When I said this line, I didn't remember at the time where I had heard it, all I knew was that it was such a perfect punk ass line and so I had to say it.
"Deaths produces nothing."
Her overly morbid, but nonetheless impressive response a few moments later was,
"Your death, will create an opportunity."
Not a good position to be in, when your out on a date and your date tells you that your death will create an opportunity.
I was stunned for a few more moments and she didn't say anything else, just sort of pretending to play with her food which had long since been eaten.
And then it hit me, we had just repeated dialogue from the anime Evangelion. In The End of Evangelion Gendo is talking to SEELE, right before they are about to attack NERV and capture the Evangelion units. Gendo says to SEELE, "death creates nothing." To which they respond "your death will create an opportunity" right before they cut off communication and began their attack.
As soon as I realized this I was put into a strange position. Had she only said that, responding to my statement which had unknowingly quoted Evangelion? So she didn't really mean it but was just playing around? Should I laugh uncomfortably and apologize for how things have turned out, ask for another chance, offer to change my ways?
In retrospect, I probably should have done those last few things. Instead I pushed on with our argument and the evening ended terribly. We never spoke again.
Thinking back, we might have made a fantastic couple. The random reference to Evangelion, that intense, awkward moment that we created could have been a sign, that there was something deeper there, something truly connecting us.
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