Low Fidelity

I can't recall when I first saw High Fidelity, but I do recall being pretty darn proud of myself for having done so.  Well, to be more specific, pretty darn proud of myself that like John Cusack's Rob, I too was a sensitive, brooding, somewhat-lost-and-misunderstood nice guy with amazing taste in music.  And so of course I could totally relate to his girl problems and the resulting ennui he felt.  Not to mention, we were both really, really deep and intense.

Of course, that was all bullshit.  I looked it up, and High Fidelity came out in March of 2000, right smack in the middle of my freshman year of college.  I suppose that explains a lot of the above.  It's funny looking back on that time and how much I was enthralled with that movie when at the ripe old age of 18 I was neither sensitive nor brooding nor somewhat-lost-and-misunderstood.  I wasn't deep or intense.  I definitely didn't have good taste in music.  And why I thought I could relate to Rob's girl problems is beyond me given my lack of any track record in that area.  Maybe Rob was someone I aspired to be?  Which I guess is odd given that he was an antisocial thirty-something loser struggling with major commitment issues. . . Wait a second.  Maybe. . . 

Just kidding!  No, I don't think that a decade later I've morphed into Rob (thank goodness), but I do think that today I have a better understanding of where he was coming from.  You know, the whole sentiment of "where did I go wrong?" that fueled his retrospective odyssey through the ghosts of romances past.  I guess it's tempting to want to learn from the past.  Or, perhaps more selfishly, use it to try and justify the present; as vindication that you've done no wrong.  But no matter how many times I replay the film on all of my failed relationships, no big secret jumps out at me.  I don't see a lack of commitment.  I don't see infidelity.  I don't see the second shooter on the grassy knoll.  I just see a kid managing as best he could and doing what he thought was the right thing.  Of course, the benefit of some seasoning reveals that "the right thing" was actually a little immature and a-not-so-little hurtful.  

Now, I'm not about to go calling up old girlfriends (much to their relief, I'm sure), but, naturally, as a single thirty-something, my thoughts do occasionally drift into "where did I go wrong?"  And those thoughts are amplified and distorted by the fact that my past relationships can, for the most part, be placed into two categories--(1) Girls I Screwed Over; and (2) Girls I Didn't Screw Over As Badly.  I suppose if it's any consolation, most (all?) of my own ghosts of romances past are either married, on their way to getting married, or otherwise in a stable long-term relationship.  I don't think I'm some sort of good luck charm, but I do think that in realizing what you don't want, the contours of what you do want come clearly into focus.  

Anyway, given my track record, I guess it's fair to say that to some degree my single solitude is justified (or at the very least self-inflicted).  A romantic karma of sorts.  Fortunately, I read somewhere that karma (good or bad) isn't forever--good balances out bad and bad balances out good.  So I guess until the scales of romance even out for me, I'll have to put up with some more "low fidelity" distortion; some static and clutter as my mind and my heart search for peace and quiet.  For some romantic harmony.

--KM

"And these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new."