Playing Misty

I have this friend – her name is Misty. Okay, Misty and I aren’t really friends; more like acquaintances. But our paths cross every few weeks at various business functions, without which she probably wouldn’t even register on my radar. We move in different circles. Not one better than the other, just… different.

Misty is a source of endless fascination for me – she’s a beautiful, intelligent woman. She runs her own business. She is never alone – kind of like Britney Spears is never alone due to the paparazzi following her 24/7, trying to snap a picture of her doing something that’s sure to get people talking. Misty just has to walk into the room, and everyone else naturally gravitates towards her.

The reason Misty and I are not friends is because Misty is what you would call “unhealthily narcissistic.” To quote Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence, Misty’s goal in life is “to be admired more than to be loved.” To achieve this goal, Misty is known for being a lot of fun – there is always a story circulating about ‘that crazy thing Misty did over the weekend’ or some other of her many outrageous antics.

Misty and I had lunch one time way back when. I had some business proposals for her, and it was actually fun to talk one-on-one. When she meant to, Misty could blow you away with some of the observations she made and some of the thoughts she had – I remember identifying with her in some respects. That lunch gave me a ‘peek’ into Misty's mind, a mind – I felt in my gut – which operated very similarly to my own.

But over time, I realized that Misty was unhappy. For what reason I’ll probably never know, because our relationship never developed beyond the ‘acquaintance’ stage. Maintaining the image of having fun became so important for Misty, I couldn’t get her past the superficial… even though the potential existed. But as one of my son’s friends made the comment the other day when he was hanging out at our house: “’Potential’ means that you’re a loser right now.”

I’ve concluded that Misty is on something I call “the path of self-destruction.” Like those tragic celebrity stories, she’ll probably end up in a Vegas hotel room, dead from an alcohol/sleeping pill overdose. What a waste. But what can you do, I mean, everyone decides how to live his or her own life, right? Even if it’s a soulless, meaningless, and unfulfilled life? That doesn’t affect MY life one little bit, right? RIGHT??

Well, here’s the thing: I believe it does. I believe that everyone on the planet’s life affects everyone else’s. That’s how a little girl in some back east state can be raped and murdered, and some completely unrelated other person in Canada will be so moved by the event that he or she starts a non-profit organization to keep three-strikes criminals behind bars, or establishes a national fingerprinting database. Okay, I’m stretching with this scenario, but you get the idea. If I hadn’t had that lunch with Misty, I might have been able to justify moving on with my life… but as I've said many times before, life unfolds in ways we don’t really understand.

So I did something that I would do if Misty and I had been friends: I staged an intervention. I sent a letter to her closest girlfriend Trish. I told Trish I was worried about Misty’s behavior, and how I felt she was headed for an unhappy end. I also said I knew there would be repercussions once Misty got wind of what I had done, but that I felt very strongly about it and I would deal with whatever personal consequences the universe would dole out to me.

Did I break the rules of convention? The social contract? Maybe. And I’m probably going to get a rash of shit; fallout from my “meddling.” But my heart tells me it was the right thing to do, no matter that I will probably be hated for it. No one ever said making sacrifices was going to be easy, or fun. Maybe someday, someone will write a song about this blog post… it’s one of those stories that deserves to be immortalized in a cool song somewhere. Maybe I’ll even get to sing it.