A Certain Empathy

Woman falls for her male co-worker, learns he's seeing somebody else prompting her to drive 900 miles in a bid to confront her rival, trying to get her back off. It's actually a fairly typical story that I'm sure happens regularly all over the world. What lifts this particular entry far above all others, are the details: the jealous woman was an astronaut...and she wore a diaper on her 900 mile trip.

Now, I haven't lost my sense of humor: the shit is dead funny. It's comedy gold, the kind of tale that's too long to be true..but actually is. The sort of tripe that can keep tabloid hacks employed for years coming up with tawdry puns ("Dark side of the Loon", anyone? How about "Lust in Space"?) and inane innuendos. Even on a deeper level, the comedy proves no less alluring: in a job that requires the highest level of judgement and responsibility, how could her judgement have been so poor?

The answer is, of course, that we're all fucking nuts and only a host of other vices stop us from putting the sheer depth of our insanity, on display. Most of us are, to put it delicately, nobodies. When the scene of my latest romantic indignity unfolds and explodes into an atom bomb of humiliation, only about twelve people are there or thereabouts to bear witness. Mercifully, I might add.

Moreover, who among us doesn't have at least one entry of sheer insanity on their dating resume? A good friend of mine once got into a spitting match with his girlfrend, in public-the kind of behaviour that would grace the stage of Jerry Springer, but not much else-because she slapped him and he couldn't think of any other way to react. I've camped out at this girl's apartment once, cursing her name before finally, in a final gesture of pique, taking a stone and nailing her window. Crazy is as crazy does...but that's underestimating the amount of emotion we sometimes feel and frequently choose to bottle up.

In addition, most people are not confrontational which means that it's doubtful they would ever seek a rival out and try and impress on them the advantages of staying the fuck away from my man (bitch). Curiously, the confrontational aspect of her personality, the problem-solving bent as well, are qualities that were probably lauded upon her admission to NASA. In other words, all our strengths are weaknesses and all our weaknesses are strengths.

I felt sorry for this chick. The same way I cringe while watching American Idol or most reality shows. People are embarrassing and their embarrassments mirror my own. I'm going to laugh at her-I can't help that-but I'm not going to call her crazy. She wanted to be a badass, probably thought her toughness would impress the guy and she got caught with her pants down...and a pair of adult diapers greeted the local police force. She's no crazier than anyone else here or anywhere else.

And boy, her humiliation at what her "boyfriend" thinks of her now must be almost too much to bear. Not to mention her ex-husband who, aside from all the gloating, probably has his lawyers figuring out how best to ride this circus ticket to all kinds of custody and divorce settlements that he wouldn't have dreamed of, prior to "Diaper-Gate".