Four Stories by Matthew Wayne Selznick & Matthew Wayne Selznick

Author:Matthew Wayne Selznick & Matthew Wayne Selznick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MWS Media
Published: 2014-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Notes on "Not My Fault"

Every dog has his day. Once in a while, it's his day to get kicked in the nuts.

This story is a character study, and by that, I mean the study of a character and the study of that character's… character!

Brent is a dog. Make no mistake. He totally deserves it when Sue walks out on him, chance encounter with Uma Thurman notwithstanding.

Even though I can't condone his behavior, I can't help but sympathize with Brent, just a little.

Not because he can't keep his eyes in his head!

No, I feel for Brent because of the reasons he's the way he is.

The guy's girlfriend cheated on him in a bathroom, and he found out by overhearing the very act of infidelity. That's gotta sting.

Brent's mistake—and a sign of his emotional immaturity—is that rather than feel that sting, heal, and move on, he rebounded on what might have been the next woman he laid eyes on… which happened to be Sue.

And in the six months they've been together, he's never once told her the truth.

Instead, Sue thinks it was love (or at least lust) at first site. Brent has her believing their first meeting was so amazing—that she is so amazing—he immediately lied to his girlfriend so he could run off with her.

Rather than admit that his girlfriend found solace in the arms… well, the hands… well, the palm and middle and ring fingers… of another man, Brent constructed a situation in which he was the one who left. He was the one in control.

He went from being the victim of a literal infidelity to being the dynamic instigator of a new relationship… except it's all built on a lie; another variety of cheating.

It doesn't do him any good, though, because he's still hurting, and the very act of being with Sue is a reminder of the injury to his male identity.

Subconsciously, he's still looking for the real thing: a relationship that just happens, for and of itself.

Unfortunately, he's so fucked up that rather than man up and break it off with Sue, he keeps one eye open for something mythical.

And he gets caught, over and over again.

If Brent and Sue had a healthy relationship, she probably would have taken Brent's reaction to Uma Thurman in stride. They probably would have laughed about it. A joke about exception lists might have been made on the drive back to Sue's place.

But no. Brent doesn't know himself, he's not happy, and Sue's got a lot of cause to heed her insecurities about the relationship. Uma is, I like to think, the last straw. Let's hope Sue's strong enough to have that be the end.

~

The situation and characters in "Not My Fault" are almost entirely fictional (any resemblance to one particular person is purely coincidental, blah blah blah…).

The exceptions are the restaurant, which (in my head, at least) is based on the special-occasion go-to place when I lived in San Clemente in the late eighties, Ettienne's, and the banging-in-the-bathroom scenario. The real-life bathroom girl wasn't technically my girlfriend.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.