Assholes aren’t necessarily guys that hate themselves, but guys that hate themselves are always assholes. Brought up from birth by men whose shortcomings and unfulfilled prophecies ruled their cloudy disposition and critical view of the world around them got me acquainted with the likes. Projection knows no gender, this is true. But the uniqueness can best be defined by the inferiority they aim to inflict upon you. In a world built by them for them, their unsuccess feels especially misplaced. And because they have not received what was promised, power and authority are yielded over whomever and however. This is usually felt most by the women who love them.

~ My journal entry, March 2024

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The 2013 Indie Documentary ‘I Hate Myself:)’ had all my least favorite things: a white male edgelord, impromptu penis, and self-destructing female heroine. Le Cinema Club posted it for free describing it as ‘Joanna Arnow’s unashamed documentation of her yearlong relationship with an open-mic provocateur’. The hour-long film is a hard watch filled with the subject’s racially charged comedy shows in a Harlem dive bar. And Joanna, a nice Jewish girl from a middle-class background in Brooklyn, dissects her relationship with the dumpster fire that is James.

Through dialogue with loved ones, Joanna establishes herself early as a wallflower. A film student hiding behind the camera, a girl who wasn’t kissed until the age of 22, desperate to please her conservative parents. It’s through the initial drunken, grotesque rants and degradation of Joanna by James that you feel an immediate sadness for the director. Her obvious timid, vulnerable disposition makes her an obvious target for guys like James.

It’s not a foreign concept. A lot of women view romatic history as a lens into how little they felt about themselves at that point in time. Nice girl loves bad boy. ‘We accept the love we think we deserve’ and all that Y/A novel scripture. There is some universal pity to be offered for that. And I don’t mean people who disguise their true colors in the beginning, only to reveal who they are when things like time or marriage or babies binds you together. I mean men who make it clear early on that they’re wretched.

Mid-film, narration by Joanna changes this palatable narrative.

I like compelling, charismatic people. Maybe I would like to be him. I would like to be a performer - I think that’s the best thing you can be.

This was the beginning of the end for me. End being my sympathy for the director and my greater understanding the true reality. The voyeuristic view of their crumbling relationship begins to look like a consensual kink. Some of the most compelling moments of the film are when she breaks the fourth wall, so to speak, and we see her recording him from reflected surfaces as James terrorizes everything in his wake. It’s a reminder that past her well-meaning parents and friends pleading she escapes from his clutches, she is a willing participant.

James’s own insecurities become evident by his own admittance. Like all White Male Edgelords, his contrarian nature insists you see him as a rebel rather than the truth behind his overcompensation. He gets off to yielding power over Joanna, Joanna gets to be in proximity to someone with perceived power. She gets to agitate her parents. She gets to be a part of something bigger.

Whatever wave of feminism we’re on right now makes it next to impossible to criticize other women for their willingness to date God awful men. Melania Trump is a prime example of this. Society has marked her as some Sugar Baby to First Lady Greek Tragedy. We insist that all she wanted from Trump was a meal ticket. And now she’s forced to platform human rights campaigns and painstakingly, decorate for Christmas (lol I had to). I believe this is actually a great disrespect to Melania, whether or not you like her. Her humble Yugoslavia beginnings often seem to mask the reality of her true intelligence. Her fluency in six language and widely successful career established years prior to her marriage with Trump that seems lost upon us. She was 28 when she met her husband. For lack of a better word, she was and is A Grown Ass Woman. But it simply isn’t the better story.

I knew a few heterosexual couples in college who had frequent screaming matches at every party and bar outing. After observing these arguments weekend after weekend, I saw them more as an act of public roleplay. Not just sexually, but a cathartic, necessary part of the relationship’s dynamic. In the sense that the relationship couldn’t exist without it. It feels dark to suggest such a thing. I think it feels that way because it forces you to look inward and find that maybe you yourself have used romance for your own acts of perversion.

I’m not completely sure if Joanna fully acknowledges responsibility in her willingness to date someone like James. The end of the film feels as though she has come close to a few revelations about herself. I commend her for the willingness to explore shame with such a public medium. The relationship is proof that she does harbor a darkness, or longs to be immersed in someone else’s. Either way, there are two willing participants. It was the kind of thing you only ever watch once, that tests your ability to see past the comforting belief that you lack agency over your own life.

I think one of the most beautiful things about love and romance is how self-revealing they can be. It requires you to critically think about the nature of your attraction. What we need from people at certain points of our lives, no matter how sinister. Maybe that’s the one thing none of us ever wish to discover about ourselves.

thank you so much for reading. if you have any thoughts, comments, or conversational points never hesitate to reach out. take care of yourself.

xoxo,

hailey

email: Hailey.Noecker99@gmail.com