Sympathy for the devil

Heads up, this post isn't about the Rolling Stones and, spoiler alert.

Being the balls out millennial that I am, I binge-watched You on Netflix like a mother bitch when it first came out. Partly because of my love of Penn Badgely and partly because, well my love of Penn Badgely. I loved it and ended up watching the entire second series on my way back from New York.

Incidentally, I had the first nightmare I'd had in as long as I can remember that night. It involved eggs, tsunamis and Penn Badgely beating a sink with a rolling pin. It didn't make much sense.

Don't worry, this post isn't going to be a post defending Joe for his actions, I'm not a psychopath. What it is going to be about is the protagonist's belief that he's doing the right thing. For all of Joe's faults, he really does believe that he's doing what needs to be done to protect and care for the people he loves. He killed the people that he thought we hurting Beck, killed the people he thought were coming between him and making her happy. All the way through he thought that he was doing the right thing, even though the rest of the world knew he wasn't.

You can calm down and move your thumb away from the 9 key, I'm not about to confess to murder, nor do I have any plans to commit murder. However, as a borderline, I can see a connection to Joe because he acts in a way that he thinks is appropriate, regardless of whether or not he's right. When I broke up with River, I contacted him way more than I should have. Desperately trying to convince myself that the reason he wasn't messaging me was that he was busy, trying to convince myself that a morning hello message was nothing more than a light and breezy comment that was going to develop into a day-long conversation that would bring him back into my arms. All the while knowing that he was never, ever, going to want me.

Recently, as in two days ago, I broke up with a guy I had been seeing for about six months after I finally realised that he was a complete douche. He was weirdly obsessed with homeless people, considered respecting the chosen pronouns of the trans and non-binary community to be pandering to mental illness and told me that feminists believe that all men are rapists, despite the fact that he knew I'd been raped. In contrast to my relationship with River, my actions towards this guy were a representation of how what I thought I needed to do for me to be happy. I thought I wanted to be with him, thought that he was my only option. In a similar sense to how I felt when I was in my last long-term relationship, I believed that I had no other choice than to feel like shit throughout every moment I spent with him because I believed I didn't deserve anything more.

As I said, I'm neither sympathising nor empathising with Joe, his character is not a good guy. What I'm saying is that there is one thing that I can relate to, and that's having no idea whether or not I'm feeling the right things or behaving in the right way, regardless of the situation.

Here's Sympathy for the Devil though, just in case you wanted it.

xXx