Inspiration is a funny thing. Here at “Ryan’s Ego Dot Com”, we usually get inspiration by combing websites and having our collective Spider-Sense go off. Could be a picture, could be an article. The blast of inspiration can either be simply responding directly to the content we’ve come across, or leading us on a bizarre tangent. I tend to work best as a reactive writer, which is very convenient as it usually lifts from me the burden of having to be original in any way, shape, or form.
Today’s inspiration comes from a conversation last night with someone dreaded an upcoming visit with an ex. I’m going to paraphrase, since I don’t log all of my IM sessions for future legal use. Ahem. She said:
“Yea, I imagine dinner won’t go too badly; unless of course he’s wearing his hate outfit; in which case violence may be what’s for dinner.”
“His hate outfit…” I muttered. And I just thought it was a neat concept.
I thought distilling the idea even further would strengthen it. First rule of comedy---specificity is key. That and Double Stuff Oreos. But I digress.
A hate outfit? Decently funny. A hate coat? Goldmine, baby.
Let me try and explain what a hate coat is.
What my friend was getting at, I think, was an explanation for the Jeckyll-and-Hyde tendencies people have with each other, especially after breakups. Some days are good, some days are bad, and some days you really would prefer SARS coupled with a nice envelope of anthrax to what’s currently happening.
Break ups, generally speaking, go one of two ways:
1) A real break---no contact whatsoever for a good, long time. The final conversation betwixt the couple involved affair amount of tears, anger, and statement such as “Whose panties are these, you jerk?” I know from these breakups.
2) “Let’s make this work as friends”---after a suitable shiva, you attempt to reestablish contact, not outwardly acknowledging the awkwardness, trying to be the “good” person, which inevitably leads to simmering tensions on one (or both) party’s utter contempt and rage bubbling to the surface.
This bubbling forms the hate coat. It would be easy if the person’s anger towards the other took the form of simple, declarative sentences. Instead, the rage hides under buried layers of dialogue, that, if read in a court transcript, would seem utterly benign. But, to the recipient of such dialogue, cut to the bone. What’s worse, this buried dialogue is easily defended as “normal” conversation. So, if the party who feels wronged brings something up along the lines of “What is THAT supposed to mean?”, the hurler of the veiled insult can bat their eyes (well, women can bat their eyes…men who bat their eyes simply have a tic, and I’m standing firm on this one) and say, “What do you mean?” The insulter triumphs, knowing they’ve gotten under the skin of their prey, and the prey feels humiliated, either because they are truly stung b the perceived subtext ort because they know the insulter is trying to get under their skin.
The hate coat, quite frankly, sucks.
Now, as if this wasn’t complex enough, not everything that the Insulter hurls is meant to insult. So the Prey is consistently on guard. Case in point:
He: “I tried asparagus last night for the first time.”
Subtext: “I tried asparagus last night for the first time.”
She: Really.
Subtext: “What did he mean by that? Why is he buying asparagus? He never bought asparagus when we dated. I bet that new slut of a girlfriend he hasn’t told me about is a vegan.”
Or it could also mean:
He: “I tried asparagus last night for the first time.”
Subtext: “I never knew sex could be so wonderful.”
She: Really.
Subtext: “I picked a good week to buy a gun.”
It all depends on the relationship of Insulter and Prey. Maybe asparagus played a key part in their relationship. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe the woman left the man because he wouldn’t try new foods. (Well, that’s not the only reason, but in typical breakup fashion, a host of real problems get subsumed beneath the service, and one night she wants Thai, and he doesn’t, and she unleashes upon him with great vengeance and furious anger.) Maybe the man was dumped and he’s exacting an ill-sought bout of revenge against the women who scorned him. Maybe she’s a member of the NRA.
You just can’t know for sure.
The hate coat is a remarkable piece of imaginary clothing. It can form fit over anybody who wants to wear it. Sometimes, you don’t leave the apartment wearing it, but by the third drink, it’s on so tight that it threatens to cut off circulation. When the going gets really rough, it can form a protective cocoon over both Insulter and Prey, shielding the duo from all annoying sense and reason.
Anybody have anything to contribute to the Hate Coat Theory?