Like this:

Just so you know, the best shows on television come on around 1 am thereabouts.   For instance, I just watched a documentary on the exploding whale of Tainan on National Geographic.  SyFy has X-Files reruns.  And AMC eventually stops showing Goodfellas and (holy shit, again?) Constantine in order to usher in the occasional horror movie from the eighties.

The other day, I had the pleasure of catching Ben Affleck’s mug on tv late at night.  He was just about to give his impassioned soliloquy to an increasingly-pissed Joey Lauren Adams, and I stopped to watch.  Chasing Amy is one of those films I enjoy more and more the older I get, which is a little alarming because I don’t particularly care for Kevin Smith and his, uh, alleged whip-smart wit.  But I like the film because it follows a bunch of comic book enthusiasts, and I’ve also grown fond of Affleck’s Holden McNeil over the years.  Brendon tells me Affleck himself is an underrated actor, but I feel compelled to point out that Brendon has also never seen Daredevil.  Nevertheless, he carries the film well: naive, believably stubborn and set in his ways, and ultimately unable to transcend his insecurities when he finally nabs Alyssa.  Heroic flaws, I suppose, are incredibly attractive if only because they remind you of how reassuringly acceptable your own faults are.  For a number of years, I insisted I would name something of mine (cat, child, etc.) Holden as some sort of teenage tribute to this self-awareness.  I let people believe it’s because Catcher in the Rye resonated with me (it didn’t) when in reality, the truth that I am naming something after a character Ben Affleck personified is mildly to severely embarrassing.

So I watch Holden confess his love to Alyssa at two in the morning.  I have to admit, that Holden is one sincere motherfucker.  But then anything is sincere and absurdly profound at two in the morning.

Having tea with Cynthia the other day, she pointed out to me that there is a discrepancy between loving someone and loving the way they make you feel.  One professes a kind of selflessness while the other an unabashed pursuit of self-interest.  Chasing Amy interweaves the two, insisting there is a kind of personal maturation that can only occur from fully loving and interacting with another human being.  I don’t think I ever fully embraced that idea–at least not in recent adulthood–which probably correlates to my fistful of short and baffling relationships with people who were completely mismatched.  I’ve always insisted that I never regretted any of my relationships or those charading as such because at the very least they’ve allowed me to indulge in a certain high: I like the obsessed way they make me feel, the anticipation of communication, the way I feel when I see their faces appear from around the corner.  The equation becomes much simplified when you put their existence second to your own emotional whims, or don’t factor in their existence at all.  For what seems like an eternity, I don’t think I have ever considered it could be any other way.  Sometimes, I can be a terrible person.

Anyway, now I’m huddled in the dark and staring at Alyssa respond to Holden’s confession, which more or less amounts to several high-pitched squeaks and expletives.  I don’t ever wonder if I’ve got it all wrong these past few years, but more so if I am simply missing out by not trying at all to negotiate between selflessness and pure selfishness.  Surely there would be more emotional trauma, which is alluring if only because my zeniths would be just as aggressive as my nadirs.  But I wonder if that would turn me into the trainwreck of a Holden, who despite all his depth and earnestness, still boils down to having his emotional integrity portrayed by an actor no more compelling than Ben Affleck.

Things, I’m starting to realize, are a lot more simple and meaningless when I am awake in the daytime.