Experimenting on Others
Oscar Wilde and My Lack of Childhood Rizz
“It often happens that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.”
- Oscar Wilde
I recollect with cringed nostalgia on my early attempts at romance. First in high school—well, no… really it was first in kindergarten.
Miranda had just gotten five dollar bills from the tooth fairy to supplement the new gap in her grin. She was my first girl friend; that is, my first friend who was a girl. The first that wasn’t an arranged playdate by our moms, anyway. And it was with her that I realized that I might, in fact, like girls.
She invited me to play a game with her where she would put her dental dowry down between us and, when she said go, we’d race to see who could grab it all first. Looking back, I imagine this was a big moment for her. These were the first items of tangible adult value that were hers, and the first thing she did with them was put it all on the line with the shy boy from class. Well, not really on the line though. She made it very clear that “this is a game. You can take it, but you have to give it back. It’s my money.” I can still, 22 years later, hear the tone with which she said “my money.” There was a declarative power surging in her. Not quite sure what chord it struck in me, but clearly something, as it persists to stochastically drift through my mind to this day.
The first few rounds I basically let her win, wary of rousing her anxiety that I would snatch her hard-earned bounty. I thought she would appreciate my child’s chivalry, but to my surprise, she insisted that I had to actually try. Okay… so it’s not that she wants me not to take it; she wants me to take it, but then to give it back. One thinks of the young princess tossing her Golden Ball back and forth with her wild twin on the edge of the forest. She doesn’t just want to win, to keep what she has; she wants to feel the thrill of risk. The gold we possess is only as real as the possibility of it being lost.
So I went on playing with her. This seemed to be a functional strategy for getting the girl I liked to like me more. Take note of this. She won some, I won some, but always, we put the money back in the middle to play again. I’d sometimes tease that I was going to take the money and walk away.
…
Just kidding. 5-year-old me didn’t have game like that. But if I could travel back in time to tell a younger version of myself one thing, it wouldn’t be lottery numbers or Bitcoin; it would be to pretend to really take the money. Eventually give it back, of course, but give her a little stir. Let her think for a moment, “What if?” I firmly believe that this little tip would change the course of my entire romantic life, and general sense of confidence, more than any money could ever buy.
Nonetheless, the game played out how it did and built some good rapport between us. This was the first real instance of me doing something to try and get a girl to like me. My first conscious attempt at experimenting on another person to get what I want. But as Mr. Wilde told us up top, when we think we’re experimenting on others, we’re really experimenting on ourselves. It wasn’t just that I was trying different methods to court my kindergarten consort; I was trying on a different way of being.
I got to experience early on that at least one of the things a girl wants is to see that I could pull one over on her, but then chose not to. She wanted to see that I could handle the relational tension between us, even if just for a moment. That I was okay with her being unsure about me. It wasn’t about any particular action—anything I could do—it was about who I could be. I think part of the reason this memory sticks with me is that it was an early moment of me aspiring to be more than I was, and letting eros be my guide in that.
This should have been my sign that relating to girls was more complicated than I’d ever understand, and to simply content myself with that reality. But unfortunately for awkward me’s to come, it would take a few more relational blunders for that to sink in.
It didn’t help that I forgot the bit about really trying almost immediately. It seems I needed her reminder for that and would need it a good amount more before I’d ever learn it for myself. I went on thinking that letting her win was a good way to get a girl to like me. I’m sure you can fill in my dismay to come. I never got as bad as some internet cave dwellers you’ve seen roaming around the digital dung pits, but I did become something of a #niceguy. It wasn’t until after high school that another girl friend I was trying to make my girlfriend sat me down and explained to me that my methods of wooing her were woefully subpar. I needed to be more of a tease, risk upsetting her a bit, and for God’s sake, stop agreeing with her on everything. It was a very good thing that our friendship was strong enough for her to patiently endure my calamitously clunky attempts at being a “bad boy.” A modern saint, she gave me lots of needed feedback.
(It’s striking me as I write this how indebted I am to the remarkably generous woman who suffered my relentless awkwardness that often pushed the limits of bearable.)
Such was that season of relational experimentation. Of figuring out who I was by testing how different ways of being affected others. And this is just to survey the realm of romance. Extrapolate this to friendships, co-workers, strangers, and family. Life is an endless stream of trial-and-error with others, that’s really a trial-and-error of self. Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray inspired my reflection on this memory. One of the book’s central figures, Lord Henry, deeply relishes the art of social fuckery. Other characters regularly chide him for “not meaning what he says.” But for Lord Henry, self-consistency is not the goal. For him, the goal is the experiment. The goal is to drop pebbles into the social pond and study the ripples. To know himself by how he impacts those around him (whether he knew he was doing this or not). And you can’t experiment as a distant observer; you must get your hands dirty.
Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad’s mad adoration of someone else caused him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by it. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no import. And so he had begun vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life—that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one’s face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulfurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature.
…
He began to wonder whether he could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others.
…
It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions… It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.
The only way to find out who we are is to dive into the mess of it, and the only way to truly dive into the mess is to forget ourselves. It is only in ec-statically going beyond myself—made forgetful by eros—that I can ever become myself. Self-knowledge is always looking back and in, but self-transcending is looking onward and out. To avoid getting too caught up with maintaining the egoic statis quo, I need to let myself believe it’s you I’m meddling with. Only then does the death grip of stagnant self-maintenance loosen enough to become truly dexterous. If I think you want me different, I’ll become anything. The demands of the social world have a command of us that makes our self-guided will seem fantastically feeble. So I’ll convincingly export the me I want to be into my perception of the me I think you want me to be. Nothing else is adequately motivating. But what do we do when you and I both get privy to that little trick? When we catch ourselves in the game of projecting our desires onto each other? It’s then that we finally toss it up High to the One we actually mean to please.
Other people can only hold our aspirations so much. The conscious few will shirk off our projections, while the rest will co-op our need of them to meet their own unconscious claims. Spiritual maturity is realizing that there is only one Person whose hands can hold our becoming. I still have to play in the relational world of enfleshed persons, but it is not for them that I am ultimately experimenting. My self-becoming is an offering of an encomiastic ode. My impact on you is not for you.
To become who you are, you must dare to affect someone else. In all my lovesick fumbling, I really thought I was trying to cause an effect in the Other. But I am for myself. My every act is singing myself into existence. And the song of myself is not for me.
Thank you for reading! This blog is all about exploring the contours of relationship and how the ways we relate to self, other, world, and the Sacred shape our worlds. I’m trained in the Circling Approach and John Vervaeke’s Dialectic into Dialogos, and I specialize in facilitating relational presence and philosophical practice to find insights into life.
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