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“We can’t play this game anymore, but can we still be friends?”
Our broken heart is asking, pleading with us, whispering: “Can’t we be friends with this person”? As a last resort? First, we have to understand the love story, on a deeper level. Let me tell you about David Aames, to answer this question.
In the amazing movie “Vanilla Sky”, David (Tom Cruise) is a playboy millionaire. He suddenly finds himself head over heels in love with a girl. All is wonderful, in fact, better: it’s perfect!
David’s world will soon begin to show cracks in the perfect façade. But: He is so happy, in a way that he’s never been before; his life has meaning, now he’s found the perfect love. So he clings to that, with all that he is. Naturally, who wouldn’t? After all, isn’t the meaning of life, to love and be loved in return? David is spellbound and refuses to see the evidence in front of him. We, the viewers, can all too well sympathize with David. We root for him; we hope the nightmarish flashes of another, harsh and cold reality, are all just a bad dream.
Even we, the viewers, can see, that the love David is feeling, is so real. Sure, he’s been troubled before in his life, but now, he’s found true love and his life is complete. The love is so vibrant, alive, passionate, tender, that we can almost touch it…..
Then he wakes up, finally. And what he wakes up to is not a lover who has left him. No. It’s a thousand times worse. Cause when a partner leaves, (or passes away) there are still memories of what was real, to comfort us, in our grief. But David finds out he’s been living in an alternate reality. The love of his life never existed. At all. All the time, David’s body was actually frozen, in a tank. Cause after David’s life had taken some wrong turns, he had killed himself and arranged to let himself be put in a frozen state (with cryo-techniques of a very futuristic nature). The company responsible for the cryo-technique had then made his mind live on in a “lucid dream”, a world David helped to design, that was supposed to be perfect. But David’s subconscious creates cracks in the dream world, ultimately making him realize his now wonderful “life” is not real. The shock and trauma that ensue, are heartbreaking. But David chooses to be “resurrected” into a real life again.
And that is what a narcissistic relationship is like, to a T. We believe 100% we have the love of our dreams. The narcissist is that real in his performance. We wake up, to find there is no person there. It was all a game, a mask. Unlike David, we didn’t design the “lucid dream” ourselves. If only that was the case, so we could blame ourselves more, for getting our hearts ripped out in this way! No. It was all the work of…. a phantom, parading as an ordinary human being. But a human being with only the flesh, blood, and brain. Not with a heart. Nor a conscience. No empathy, remorse, or accountability. In essence, a human being that might aswell be…. a robot. Naturally, if we spent years, or even decades, on this…”person”, we’re so drowning in disbelief, that we often wonder if we’ll ever find our way back to sanity.
Our first (and recurring) instinct, is so very human, in the most touching way; we want to run back to the illusion. We deny: It can not be! How can there be people who are mere actors, and have absolutely no soul, moral values, no love, no…. anything, within them? We have encountered a phantom, a void. And we want to hide under the bed, like a child. And we want someone to tell us it’s not true, this nightmare! We spent years and years, loving this…. machine, and we wish for nothing more than for the machine to tell us, that they do have real feelings for us.
Since this robot we encountered, is “programmed” to extricate as much narcissistic “supply” as possible from us, he/she/ will grant us this request. They will try to persuade us to stay in the lucid dream world, even after the cracks have revealed an underlying nightmare. Since there’s neither empathy nor conscience programmed into this “person”, they’ll hurt us, any way they can, to get their supply/fuel. It’s what keeps the machine going.
Amazingly, there seems to be a human need greater than the need for love! The need for truth. Authenticity. In movies on this topic (Vanilla sky, Matrix, Truman show), people are not happy anymore, once they know they’re living in a lie. That’s what I’ve seen in real life too. We need love. But, if we find evidence of the love being “fake”, we don’t rest until we’ve gotten to the truth of things. We may live in denial for a while, but the truth will always catch up to us in the end. A feature of being human; and why we’ve reached so far, in science and progress. We need to know. And we need to live in, and trust, our reality.
So, can we be friends with the narcissist?… Do you think David in this movie wanted to stick around and be friends, (or lovers), with a computer animation of a girlfriend?….No. We want real, just like David. In his case, he knew: if he left the Lucid Dream-computer-world, he would be disfigured in the real world. And face other unimaginable challenges; he would be waking up 150 years after he died, with all the people he knew, gone. He chose real, anyway. Just like we should.
Trust me when I say: You can not be friends with the robotic personality of the narcissist. We didn’t program them, but they do operate by a programmed agenda, as predictable as computers; they’ll only try to gather “fuel” from you, in the form of emotional reactions. They don’t care about being your friend, support you, have you lean on them. They can not. Their programming is: to use you. If they offer the “friendship card”, it’s only a manipulation, to be able to steal more from your soul, heart, energy. Do not go there. Please.
Let us live in reality….it may be horrible, it may be wonderful….but at least, it’s real and it belongs to us.
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(P.S If you like good old school music, I highly recommend the song in the beginning of the post. I also recommend the movie Vanilla Sky: if you like existential questions and love; but I guess most of you have seen it already).
Love/Survived 💜
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(image quotes: Vanilla Sky through Pinterest)
How true. When I told Loser that he would never see me again after the divorce, he was astounded. He kept trying to play the “friendship” card. When I told him there was NO way…he said he “understood but that wasn’t the way HE wanted it,” (I still think he thought he was going to bring that trash to my house and sleep with her in MY bed, I was going to be okay with it and we were all going to be “friends.”)
What a PIG!
You’re right…we cannot be friends with these people. They are destroyers and they have done enough damage. What makes them think we would allow them to stay in our lives…under ANY pretense?
Nice re-cap of Vanilla Sky. I have never been a Tom Cruise fan but I have this movie and I watched it. I had no idea what was going on. LOL
Yes…. the narcissists almost always try the “friendship card”… unfortunately, not cause they even want to be friends, but just to try and keep getting fuel from us… it is so very heartbreaking and of course, so wrong, in every way, expecially considering after all they put us through already.
It speaks volumes to them not having a soul or even any moral values, that they would even try to be “friends” with us. Anyone (with normal moral values), who had behaved so appallingly towards us for a long time, would understand instinctively, that there would be no talk of friendship. They would perhaps still apologize and so on. But they way narcissists talk about friendship after an abusive relationship has ended…it’s like they are just, oblivious, you know? They just can not feel the level of pain that they caused.
I am delighted that perhaps now you have more of an idea about what the movie was all about. 🙂 I chose to write about it in this post, cause I have thought about it many times…. how we live in cush a deep delusion, that it is almost like an alternate reality. Until reality breaks through and shows us what is…well, real. 🙂 So, we have to live in reality. I chose to write this piece, to try and clarify what we have all been through. And, perhaps one day, someone still living in the “lucid dream world” stumbles upon this blog post, and says: “AHA! That is what I’ve been through”! Wouldn’t that be great. If just one or two persons could be “saved”…. 😉 One can always hope. Hugs.
I think the reason Loser wanted to stay “friends” was for the control….the one thing he wanted the most…knowing where I was and if I was “okay.”
What a piece of pig-shit.
Yes, good point! Narcissists hate to lose control over any of their sources. That in itself is infuriating, to us. We can only be glad to be away from them and not living in the dream/nightmare any longer… 💜
Sometimes that’s how people stay sane by living a lie…
Hello Lavender. I agree completely. Many of us do so, or have done so, myself included. I do believe that reality and our human nature tend to try and wake us up from the lie though.. but it can take a very long time, for some. And some people may choose to continue in the lie, cause it seems easier at the time. Thanks for your comment and making a good point. 🙂
Yes because continuation in the lie gives them hope.
Of course. So many lies, well, mostly those we tell ourselves, are meant to give hope, when perhaps it should be time for us to give up hope for that particular situation. I am guilty of that myself.. but mostly after I have been manipulated quite a lot…. 😉 Which I hope will not happen again. I wish to live in reality. Hugs.
Hugs back ☺
Great post. You wisely connected this reality lie theme with similar movies. Discovering you lived a lie or a false realistic relationship can be devastating. Just as discovering the person you are with was not the presented themselves to be. Be well.
Thanks. 🙂 Yes, I have thought about it often, the way we live in that dream world which turns out to be a nightmare. But we can never stay in an illusion forever. We need real… 🙂 xo
That is true. The longer we stay in an illusion the more delusional we become.
I have never seen the movie; now I’m dying to see it.
I appreciate the way you connect things in a way to better understand this situation. Where were you long ago? I could have used that advice…lol 🙂 <3
Haha I love that sentence “Where were you long ago”? That just sounds so sweet. 😊💜 And yes, watch the movie, I hope you like it after my description. Xo
Im,in love with it BECAUSE of your description.
Haha that is great! 😁 I hope you do not get disappointed. Most people I have spoken to have liked it. But it is always a matter of personal taste. I do like movies where you have to “think” at least a little bit… 😄 xo
I love movies that cause me to think.
That movie broke my heart for him. 💔 Truth is more important. It really is.
Yes.. truth before all. I want to apologise in advance to you before you happen to stumble over my next post. It is sort of… non-god-fearing, well worse than that I guess… but I think you will not be upset about it since you are so open minded and cool. 😉 💜
Lol! It’s okay. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve been around lots of different worldviews. I don’t take offense easily. 😉
See? I told you you was cool guurrl! 😉 Your reply here is just further testament to that! 💜
😁
I am way late here… I just want to say no you can’t be friends. And yes the reason is all about the truth. Once it’s known and the level of betrayal is understood, the very basis of friendship has been undermined and destroyed. I figured out the same thing, and wrote a blog a while back “why we can never be friends.” If I can find it I’ll put a link up great post S. Xo
Gosh. This so good.
‘Drowning in disbelief’ totally sums it all up. But I choose real and truth every single time.
Thanks beautifullioness! (Nice name by the way!) 🙂 I am glad you choose real and truth, I do too.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Be well.
Have always wanted to see this and even more so now. Will have a box of tissues nearby…I too love movies that give me “food for thought” and speak to both my heart and mind. Thanks for your interpretation. Loved it! (Heartbreaking story and worse when it’s a “reality” of sorts such as is with narcissism) Blessed Be. Hopefully, we all live and learn ❤
Hey Crystal! Yes I think it is quite an amazing little movie. This is only my description and interpretation and it is a movie where one has to concentrate or it gets confusing since there are a bit of time jumps and so on. But it is indeed worth watching! I rewatched the other day and still shed a few tears even the second time. 🙂
You are so right, hopefully we can live and learn! Take care and be well. ❤
You too 💕