Thereafter in movie after movie, cheating is seen as an acceptable condition till we get to the point where baseball coaches are stealing signs and heroic football players are deflating balls for an advantage. Cheating is okay if you win. Pete Rose is still a controversial character. How many times have you heard, “There is no evidence his gambling on the games ever affected his performance.” Hello, McFly! Why are we even having this discussion? He’s a cheating piece of shit, end of story. There’s no rationalization.
Movie moments have changed everything - literally everything - about what people THINK they know. There is a famous story that you have all heard that police academies had to teach police trainees that when they get shot they DON’T grab their chest, fall over and die. Because the trainees had been ingrained so successfully by what movie actors do that that is what they do in training when they are “shot” and then in real life. Even minor wounds cause death. They fall down and die. In real life, you don’t just “die” and you have to keep fighting. They have to be completely retaught.
In the old days, for better or worse, morality came from ideals pushed by the government - remember television PSAs about the dangers of smoking - and the Church. Now, we need Tom Cruise and Leo DiCaprio and George Clooney to tell us right from wrong - and they are only mouthing the words of writers who are changing us by remote control and we don’t even know who they are.
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But now, in large part because of the relentless training we get from movies, everything - literally everything - we think we know, comes from movies. There is no original thought or approach to morality. It’s already been decided for us by Captain WIllard and the CIA’s “Terminate with extreme prejudice” and John Wick killing his way to heaven because he killed for his cute dog. And Al Pacino justifying selling out the CIA to the Russians because he didn’t get a promotion boo hoo hoo or Philip Seymour Hoffman struggling as an English teacher of 7th grade girls about fucking them.
The same goes for morals - and on a national scale. The USA, which was originally taught all kinds of morals even from movies like “Angels With Dirty Wings” and “It a Wonderful Life” and “North by Northwest” was suddenly seeing a movie trend where instead of “Truth, Justice and the American Way” that cheating was acceptable to win. In so many movies, the good guy, under the gun, cheats, and then he wins against the bad guy and the triumph is supreme as if he really EARNED that triumph. When the movie MASH came out (and in the book), doping the football game opponents to win and cheating on play after play because the other team was bigger and more skilled…. was completely okay. When I first saw that movie, my first desire was to see Hot Lips naked in the shower (which was a mean spirited immoral cheat too) - but I didn’t jerk off to that later. I wondered instead how the cheating conflicted with MY moral values and how could the 4077th be “the good guys” when they had to cheat.
When I was 12 years old, my parents took the family to a Chinese restaurant for the first time. It was a novel experience for me. I have no idea what I ate. I was a picky eater then. But the one thing I remember - as if it were fucking yesterday - was cracking open that fortune cookie at the end and reading my fortune. It said, “There are no degrees of honesty. Either you are honest or you are not.” I believed that then because that was how I was raised. And I never forgot it. And I try to live up to that ideal, though I will admit I sometimes fail and when I do, those words come right into my head.
Hi everybody! I have been looking at posts on narcs and narc abuse on here and if has really helped me out a lot. I am currently struggling with my situation and need some advice/support.
I met a narc last year, everything seemed to good to be true. Love bombing, always texting calling and taking me on dates. Everything changed when someone warned me about him out in public in front of him and who he is. This caused a conflict with us and the love bombing seized.
he would tell me that everything is okay and i can come and talk. He would set a time limit on me and kick me out after that.
he would then text me like everything was fine and we hung out again and after that he completely ghosted me for one week. He came back and texted me a week later laughing about the ghosting and acting like nothing had happened.
he continued to text me ( not like in the beginning) make plans with me, then on the day of the plans he would just ghost me. One day he would act interested the next silence.
i contacted him a month later and he acted like nothing happened. He was on a vacation and sent me a picture of another woman ( someone he allegedly met on the trip) to strike a reaction but i never gave him one. After the trip he came to my place and was extremely rude, accusing me of going on dates with a bunch of men. The next day he accused me of being an alcoholic and that he wanted nothing to do with me but said well maybe we can be "friends" then ghosted me
i assumed at this point it was over and i would never hear from him again. He contacted me on the holiday a month later acting like everything was great. We ended up hanging out a month or so later and when we hung out it went well, i thought things were going in the right direction.
after we hung out.. silence. I would try to text him and if he replied it would be very short then he just stopped replying. He ghosted me for almost three months. I thought he was done this time and of course he popped up again like nothing happened. At this point i was getting sick of if so i questioned him as to why he dissapeared and always does this. Of course he had some sob story about a injury and family member dying of cancer. I felt pity for him and he gave me an apology.. so i took him back stupidly.
things seemed to be going smooth for a couple months, of course until his family member died and his injury got better he never contacted me and was distant. Menawhile, i was there for him during the difficult time for him. He lied to me about the funeral and never wanted to chat. I was chasing him and he would always claim nothing was wrong but when i said i thought he used me when he was down he could not handle it and would always tell me he didnt care and to go away. I would get so upset i would try texting him to work it out he would barelt respond and if he did he would not be nice about it.
we did hang out a couple times after that, he would ignore me after. One day i was like hey i think you are seeing someone else, and i was like well ixam seeing someone so no problem if you are he said " buy bye good luck with your new guy stop contacting me" i was devastated and tried to get into contact with him for weeks then i just gave up and accepted it was over. He ended up contacting me a month later acting like everything was fine. He wanted to go out and have drinks i told him i would. He and i both seemed to have a great time. He ends up ignoring me again. I kept texting him trying to figure out what was wrong. He kept saying everything was fine and i said ok can we hang out again? He said maybe i was like why? He just kept saying maybe …
our last conversation we had… i said what is wrong ? He said nothing is wrong everything is fine. I asked him why he keeps saying maybe. He said " maybe but i dont want to see you right now" i said why? He saix " im just not feeling it, if i wanted to date i would" i said why did you contact me less then a week ago wanting to go out? He said i didnt.. even though he did. So i said should i just move on or what? He said whatever you want to do. So i said that he was really confusing me and asked him if he had anything more to say before i move on? My messages were turning green so i panicked he blocked me and reacted irrationally. I said " omg did you block me? My messages are not going through. Even texted him on my work phone asking what was up. And called him twice ( please dont judge me i know it is pathetic i never was this type of girl before him) so he replied and said " Ok I'll block you now" then immedietly blocked me. He has never blocked me before since I have met him he will just ghost. Is this ths final discard aka " grand finale? Did i just push him too far?
this has upset me so much its hard to even function.
The same goes for everything - even me. I was a bartender in college and I saw a television show that had an actor tell an angry drunk to “Be cool” and that totally de-escalated the situation so when I tried the same thing in the bar, I got a punch in the mouth. The drunk said (unlike the actor in the show), “I AM cool. I’m ALWAYS cool.” so all I accomplished was escalating the situation.
