I have always been an advocate for the legalization of recreational marijuana, though never a user myself, and have often argued with my friend about it. Until recently, he always took a firm stance against pot, citing its "stupidity" and calling its users "shit-faces", "lazy-asses", and, my favorite, "fucking losers".
And understandably so--his ex-girlfriend of two years dumped him and then proceeded to become a huge pothead herself. He attributed her "bitchyness" to her pot use, and from that moment on became an advocate for a substance-free lifestyle.
Of course, my friend's ex-girlfriend probably isn't a bitch, at least not more so than any other average American middle-class pretty white girl, but because of the sense of betrayal and hurt that my friend felt at the time of the break-up, she sure seemed like one to him.
It is natural for people, especially adolescent boys, to respond to bad situations with a negative attitude, and to attribute the factors that led to the bad situation to others. It is a psychological method of coping with stress, but a negative one. It leads to more stress, more anger, and more aggression. In the case of my friend: he became obsessed about the break-up, and was wishing horrible things about the girl who he had just days before been fawning over. He began to attribute obscene and ridiculous qualities to her that he suddenly realized "had been there from the start." In a matter of moments, his greatest object of desire had become an object of repulsion.
Or had she? Nick's hatred towards Hailey was not a repulsive power, but one of attraction gone wrong. Many philosophers and psychologists have asserted that hatred and love are closely related, and that hatred is merely a perverted form of love, a formerly intense and positive passion transformed into a new, just as intense, negative one.
The law of conservation of energy states that energy can never be destroyed, although it may change forms. If we apply this physical law to a person's emotions, the relationship between love and hate can clearly be understood.
As the ex-lover becomes disillusioned with his former partner, he will generally come to understand that the intense emotional investment he had entrusted to this one individual has become a failed investment, and that he must pull out now. This massive sum of emotional capital, or energy, is left raw and unfocused after the withdrawal, and is searching for a new object to invest itself in. The most available enterprise is most often the former recipient.
Here, the emotional capital changes forms, but maintains its intensity. It switches from "love" to "hate" and is now transformed from a vulnerable, trusting energy into a fully-loaded machine of defense. This was clearly the case for Nick.
As Nick scrambled to find a justifiable reason to hate his ex-girlfriend to bring his mind in-line with his heart, he chose marijuana as a scapegoat. Thus, one girl in a matter of moments did what years of anti-drug education and "just say 'no'" tactics had only hoped to accomplish.
So, for the years following the break-up, my friend stayed completely drug free. That all changed this summer.
Nick has never had a good family life. His parents are distant, to say the least, and really don't take the time to understand him and his needs. His older brother is a slob, and offers no example to be followed. As a result, Nick has had to turn to friends outside of his family for most of his emotional and intellectual needs.
So, as this summer progressed-the last summer before entering college, a very important transitionary stage in a young man's life-Nick began to feel bored and a little bit empty. His high school life, all the friends that he had made over the years, the reputation he had established for himself, everything would be gone. He would have to start all over. He couldn't turn to his family for security because, as mentioned above, they were largely dysfunctional. So he decided to try new things.
At first it was just to try it-he had always been curious despite his cognitive and emotional aversion to the stuff. What harm can it do? It's just pot. It's natural. All this had been said before as justification by countless pot users, and now it was serving my friend as a gateway into a new life.
Before his first time he texted me, asking if he should try it or not. I responded with the typical "I'm not going to stop you or think of you less if you do, but I don't recommend it" response and reminded him of his previously expressed opinions about pot users.
He responded, "Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't."
He did.
And so it goes.
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