In Your Eyes

You may have seen the story about a man in Britain who is planning on playing the piano in a public square until his ex girlfriend takes him back. A few people have congratulated him on his romanticism, though more are thinking he should really move on. This is an example of a phenomena I've seen many people point out: that the behaviour portrayed in romantic movies - particularly rom-coms - would be creepy if not abusive in real life.

What's interesting is that although most people agree that the man's behaviour is not healthy, there's a divergence in the explanation for it. Some have seen him as just another love-crazed guy, albeit one who's taken it too far (and too public.) And some people have gone straight for a paternalist explanation, saying that he is acting out of a feeling of entitlement. They would say that he is unable to cope with a woman rejecting him, since he - as a man - feels he has a right to a sexual relationship with his chosen woman.

I'm certainly not saying that doesn't happen; there are a lot of men who look at the world that way, including many that you would think would know better. But that's hardly the only explanation. After all, our messed-up sex roles make people do crazy things, but love alone also makes people act plenty crazy. I'm not absolving him of blame - harassing behaviour is harassing no matter the reason. But that's also kind of my point; bad behaviour doesn't necessarily have a bad cause.

There are a couple of lessons here: One is that we have to be careful when we go from trends to individual cases. For instance, even if you know that many blacks are unfairly treated by the police, that doesn't mean that you can assume that any particular black person who gets arrested is being framed. Secondly, we as a society still have a long way to go in figuring out heterosexual men. There's an assumption out there coming from people of many backgrounds that all a man's actions are motivated by sex, and that sexuality is purely about ownership and dominance. I doubt it was ever that simple, and in today’s world, you just can’t jump to conclusions about a person’s motivations.