I just got a ping from old Tumbler page, which for some reason is still active. Zoomer nostalgia, maybe? Someone liked a blog post that I wrote in September of 2011. It has aged remarkably well, considering — right down to the unreliability of AT&T. Here ya go. Enjoy all over again.
(The illustration is a picture I took of Steve Nicks at the US Festival in 1983, because I just found a pile of forgotten stuff from my rock journalist days and also because she’s kind of a patron saint of love addicts.)
This newswire story landed in my inbox a few times, as you can imagine:
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Dutch prosecutors are charging a 42-year-old woman with stalking after she allegedly called her ex-boyfriend 65,000 times in the past year.
The 62-year-old victim from The Hague filed a police complaint in August due to the persistent phone calls. Police arrested the suspected stalker Monday, seizing several cell phones and computers from her home in Rotterdam.
Hague prosecution spokeswoman Nicolette Stoel said Thursday the woman argued to judges at a preliminary hearing she had a relationship with the man and the number of calls she placed to him wasn't excessive. The man denied they had a relationship.
The court ordered her not to contact him again.
It’s the kind of story that makes a love addict wipe her brow and exclaim, “See! I don’t have a problem. She has a problem.” It’s analogous to the feeling of relief a closet drinker has when a Skid Row wino cleans his windshield with a dirty rag. “See!” he smiles through the streaky window, “I don’t have a problem. He has a problem.”
Old joke:
Him: “Would you have sex with a stranger for a million dollars?”
Her: “A million dollars? Sure I would.”
Him: “How about having sex with me for fifty dollars?”
Her: “Are you nuts? What do you think I am?”
Him: “We already established that. Now we’re negotiating price.”
The point is… it’s all matter of degree. Fifty bucks is a whore; a million is a Demi Moore movie. Sixty-five thousand phone calls is a stalker; 65 is an episode of Gossip Girl. Where do you draw the line? Can you honestly say that you never called someone a second (or third) time when they didn’t return your call the first time? After all, they might have accidentally deleted your message. Or the cell phone might have cut out -- it’s AT&T; it happens. Or maybe they lost your digits. Or lost their phone. Or they did call you back, but you didn't get it because... um, it's AT&T. It’s amazing the excuses the addict brain will come up with and the urgency to which it attaches making that call.
I feel that Dutch woman, unable to go ten minutes without at least hearing the sound of his voice on his voicemail. I relate to that urgency; it's like drowning and suffocating at the same time. Withdrawal in love addiction is as physical and palpable as a nicotine fit, and she had a three-pack-a-day crush.
You might only smoke half a pack a day — that doesn’t mean you’re not a nicotine addict. Just because you don’t make 65,000 phone calls but only peek at his Facebook page sometimes… or occasionally drive past her house… or just happen to join the same gym… don’t think that none of this applies to you.