Breakfast at Tiffany's

Finally.

Living where I live gives me a lot of options for ways to spend my (limited) free time. On Saturday, 16 July, I spent some of that time (just under 2 hours) at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland watching this classic American film.

I will say this...it is an interesting picture.

For one, I definitely gained an appreciation for diamonds from watching it. I know that whenever it is replayed in theaters, people must flock to their closest Tiffany & Co. store over the course of the following week. I know I started looking for one (and though I didn't find it at first through lazy searching, I found it was closer to me than the De Beers store I eventually found). One morning soon, I look forward to having breakfast at Tiffany's. There is just something inspirational and powerful about diamonds, on this point I can agree with Holly.

Audrey Hepburn killed it in her role as Holly Golightly. It has been a while since a female character caused both feelings of distaste and disrespect concomitant with feelings of remorse and pity. Holly is truly someone we should feel sorry for as much as we despise her. She's a completely reprehensible character and yet you can empathize with how she got to where she is. Or at least I can, but I'm weird for a guy. Holly truly is the incarnation of everything that is "wrong" with American women.

What really came up for me was the idea that I've known so many women who are real Holly Golightlys. Women who use men in myriad ways, and I'm sure in some cases, its not a conscious decision to do so. (In most cases, however, it's damn well conscious!) Women who get themselves into these difficult situations due to their having used men, and then wonder why the men feel misled, betrayed, used, abused, and angry. Really? You thought there were no consequences to your behavior? That all of this stuff he bought you, and all of the places he took you, and YOU allowed him to feel like he was successfully buying the pussy. Then when you reneged on the implied agreement (money, things, trips in exchange for sex), you honestly can't see why he's upset? Or even worse, you run from him, the situation and yourself?

As a wise man (aka Buckaroo Banzai) once said "No matter where YOU go, there YOU are." As our "heroine" finds out in the movie, you can't run from yourself. No matter how long and hard and far you run, you can't escape yourself. Remember this, ladies. That face you see in the mirror, and the (mis)deeds that come with it, will be with you forever.


So here we are in a world filled with Holly Golightlys, desperately seeking love, attention, and respect yet so empty, unfulfilled, and lonely with no idea how to obtain that which they seek. Maybe seek isn't the best word, because their behavior can hardly be called seeking. Yearning may be accurate. However, they have no idea how to reciprocate - for whatever reasons - and thus they deprive themselves of opportunities to obtain that which they really want. Its arguable whether they even know what they really want. I'd surmise that these Hollys living amongst us actually have no idea what they want from life, what they want from a relationship, nor what they need from a partner. They don't know themselves, and all of their seeking is with the goal of learning - from someone else! - who they are and awhat they want.


Seeking to find out who you are from someone else is pretty pathetic and is doomed to fail.


All that said, Breakfast at Tiffany's really got me thinking about my past relationships (litany of FAIL that they are) as well as attempts at creating a new one. It was then, after realizing how many of Holly's behaviors are vividly apparent in many of the women I've met while dating, that I became quite sad. If you're a relationship-minded Black man such as I am, and the majority of the Black women you encounter appear to think as Holly did, then you realize that your chances of having a marriage and building a family with a modern day Black woman are pretty grim.


Damn.