Gossip

[porphyry]

It strikes me as rather cowardly in some ways to be making a post—gossiping, really, which is why I feel conflicted in writing about it—about a friend of mine who can’t read what I say and defend herself (she has her own blog but isn’t aware of our LJ); still, she has engaged, and continues to engage, in a longstanding pattern of behavior that is so irrational and self-destructive I can’t make sense out of it anymore. So if you don’t like reading about one person’s life through the eyes of another, stop reading now.




Jackie’s “love life,” if I may call it that, is of course the subject. And she recently e-mailed me about her latest episode; I don’t know how to reply or even if I want to. I don’t like ignoring her, either. But she wants me to call or e-mail her back, and I don’t want to because I’m tired of the story and have run out of things to say. How many times can you say you’re sorry for a friend’s eyes-wide-open misfortune before you start to feel foolish? How many times do you listen to the same story over and over before you find you no longer feel sympathetic but irritated? Especially when this person keeps making the same stupid choices over and over?

I have known Jackie for about fourteen years. We met when we both started our PhD programs. As I got to know her, I found many of those Aristotelian second self traits in her that were true of me as well: she had (and still has) a sharp eye for irony; she was witty and even clever at times; she had a good sense of humor; she was melancholy, cynical, Romantic, and idealistic all at the same time. We became friendly on the first day of graduate assistant orientation and had two seminars together because we had common interests in literature, so as time passed we carried our school friendship into our outside social lives as well: coffee, lunch, parties, shopping (which I hated but she liked, so my job was to humor her and talk her out of buying $250.00 purses she couldn’t afford since I’m a miser, but I’m afraid my miser lessons failed for the most part). The only way in which we differed dramatically was in our dating lives.

When I first knew Jackie, she confided to me early in our friendship that she was still a virgin. At the time, we were both in our mid-twenties (or was it late twenties? I forget because now it seems like a wholly different life I was living), and I thought it was mildly unusual but nothing all that special. She was not, however, a virgin by choice. She had not ever really been on a real date or had a relationship, serious or casual, with another person. She was not a lesbian. She was not a closeted lesbian. She was simply afraid of men (that was her characterization of her feelings, not mine), but she had never been a victim of one in any way. I thought the most sensitive way to handle the situation was to not talk to her about anybody I was seeing because she let me know it was a sensitive subject with her; I kept that part of my life from her. If she asked me anything about my life in that regard, I would answer, but I never went out of my way to bring up anything. I also refused to set her up with anyone though others in our circle thought someone should; not being one to ever tell others how I think they ought to conduct their lives, I figured she would take care of it on her own when she was ready.

The other thing I learned about her was that she was not the biological child of her parents; she had been adopted as a newborn infant. The only thing she knew about her birth parents was that her biological father had been in the military at the time of her conception and that her birth mother was an eighteen-year-old secretary in an office. She figured the rest out—in those days, 1967-68, a young, unmarried woman didn’t have and keep her baby like women do now. The unwed mother-to-be went away to a home for unwed mothers and gave her baby up immediately after birth without even seeing the baby—“snatched away and given to someone else” was how Jackie put it—and so from the first Jackie ultimately viewed this as the initial rejection: a father who didn’t want her and a mother who might have wanted her but couldn’t keep her; somehow Jackie had it in her mind that if her birth mother had only wanted her enough, she would have found a way. I’m not sure it was that simple; it’s easy to judge one generation by the standards of another, and I am also sure other adopted children don’t view the decision to be adopted out as rejection, but Jackie did. “They didn’t want me,” she would say. “Social mores aside, neither of them wanted me enough to try to keep me.”

“Jackie, maybe they really couldn’t,” I would say, attempting to console her. “Maybe in your biological mother’s mind, giving you up for adoption was an act of love.” I didn’t know what else to say except the old clichés, and I knew in her heart, it troubled her.

Her adoptive parents, though, wanted her badly; their only biological child had died at the age of two from a staph infection and had been born when Jackie’s adoptive mother was nearly forty years old; unlike today, having a child when a woman is older is far more common now than it was then.

Growing up under the shadow of this child, Jackie’s adoptive mother, a rather domineering and controlling woman (and this is not Jackie’s evaluation of her alone; we spent many weekends at her parents’ house and while I liked her mother, I could see those characteristics), apparently made absurd comparisons between her dead child and her adopted one—and the one she didn’t have, of course, could be a model of what-might-have-been perfection whereas the one she had continually fell short. Jackie’s father, however, doted on her; she was a daddy’s girl and still is. One thing that Jackie learned as she grew up, though, was that while her mother was the prime mover in the house, her father had a secret life: a Valium addiction, an overdependence on alcohol, a long, ongoing affair with another woman. And her mother just looked away, and looked away, and eventually all those things went away, too.

And Jackie was an only child; no siblings and no cousins who lived close by. Because both her parents worked, she learned early on to be independent and spent a lot time as a child by herself.

But plenty of people also grow up in these kinds of families and still manage to date, move in with someone, marry.

Now, you might be wondering: what was wrong with her? What made her exceptional?

Nothing, really. If you were to pass her on the street, likely you wouldn’t notice anything about her or remark to yourself that she was particularly attractive or unattractive; no, she was no great beauty but most of us aren’t; nor was she lacking in intelligence or good personality traits. I have known people who were less attractive, physically or intellectually or both, and some people who were downright nutty, who have happily paired off nevertheless. She possessed all the traits one might find desirable in another, but still—no man ever asked her out. If you were to watch her at a party, you wouldn’t have thought she was shy or awkward or anything extraordinary to make others find her distasteful; she actually was quite good at building a rapport with others. So it was nothing like that. I could never figure it out.

I have written and rewritten paragraphs here, attempting to somehow analyze or explain the whole situation, but nothing I write seems adequate. I’m not entirely without the ability to observe, predict, and understand another’s actions; I can usually read people fairly well, but Jackie’s case mystified me then as it does now—in every other area of her life and her perception of herself, she’s forthright and not self-deluded at all. All I know is the ultimate effect of all this, and that is that she is convinced that her destiny is always to be the one who loves and not ever actually be the beloved.

Eventually, the virgin state passed. We were both out of school and working in two different places. She was thirty-three or thirty-four. It was a Christmas party; she was just drunk enough and he was willing. I don’t know whether or not he was aware he had deflowered her.

After that, she became a little more proactive in her search for love. By this time, all of us who had been in school together had paired off, moved away, took jobs, started families.

Her first love was a man named Mark. He had moved to St. Louis under the promise of a job and they started to go out about that time. The job itself didn’t work out—the company he was working for decided to hire only one person in that position, and he was one of two—so he moved back to Detroit. Nevertheless, he and Jackie decided to continue their relationship long distance. It’s a relatively short flight from St. Louis to Detroit, but what troubled me was that she was flying up there much more often than he was coming here, and she could ill afford all those plane tickets, but I kept my opinion out of it. Jackie was in love. I had never seen her so happy, and I was happy—relieved, almost—for her.

This relationship lasted about ten months. And then one day, out of nowhere, he stopped talking to her—completely and totally cut her off. He wouldn’t answer her calls, return messages, or e-mail back. She reported to me that no disagreement had occurred between them, and Jackie wasn’t a liar, so of course she was devastated and frantic. And she also became relentless and obsessed.

“What if he’s sick? What if he can’t get back to me?” she said.

“Jackie, you’ve met his mother and sisters,” I said quietly. “Surely one of them would let you know if something was wrong.”

“Maybe they don’t have my number,” she said.

“But you’ve left messages on his home phone. If you’re going to keep calling, leave your number, so his family can get back to you,” I said. Still no response. Then one day his home phone number was no longer in service.

I knew what had happened—he’d met someone else, and the cowardly bastard didn’t even have the guts to tell her it was over.

“Silence communicates a message, Jackie,” I told her. “Why don’t you just let it go?”

“Because I need a reason,” she said, and we dropped the subject.

And she didn’t let it go. Eventually, her one-sided communication (an oxymoron if ever there was one) with him lessened to the perhaps monthly e-mail she would send him. I don’t know what she wrote, but I thought it was pathetic.

And two years later, he e-mailed her back. I must admit I was surprised, but I couldn’t see any good to come of picking back up with him after all he’d done to her.

“He’s coming to St. Louis,” she told me. “On business. He wants to see me.”

It took all the effort I had to hide my anger and scorn. “And what are you going to do?” I asked.

“What would you do?” she said. “Oh, I know what you’d do—you’d set up a time and place to meet him and then not show up. Or you’d show up just to punch him in the nose,” she laughed.

“Or kick him in the balls,” I said. “That would be much more satisfying. That’s exactly what I’d do. Want me to do it for you? I’d show up in your place and he’ll be singing soprano the rest of his life, I promise. But you’re not me, and I can’t tell you what to do.”

Of course she met up with him and they picked up their affair. Her visits up to Detroit weren’t as frequent as they were before, and eventually she confided to me that I had been right; it was another woman, and he’d married her. The wife even kind of looked like Jackie, but now Jackie’s status wasn’t as the girlfriend, it was as the other woman, and she was willing to do this; having a little of him was better to her that not having him at all.

It was all clear to me now; she was going to be one of those women who will do anything to keep a man—she was desperate. I did not approve of the relationship, but for the sake of our friendship, I remained neutral. Maybe that was a mistake, one I wouldn’t commit now, but at the time I couldn’t decide what exactly my responsibilities as her friend were: tell her truthfully what I thought or stand by, keep my opinions to myself, and be there if she needed me. For the time being, I chose the latter.

One Saturday morning, she called me crying from Detroit. She was in a hotel room—naturally!—and he hadn’t showed up at the agreed time. Finally, he had called—“Big of him,” I said, but she missed my irony (or ignored it) and talked to her briefly, about ten seconds—his wife’s weekend trip for business had been cancelled. Then he hung up on Jackie.

You would have thought she might have learned from all this—I could see exactly what she meant to him—exactly nothing—but on the other hand, how could she not see that it was completely within her power to stop it?

Only once did I bring this up with her and tried to express my true assessment.

“He’s no good, Jackie,” I told her. “He’s going to break your heart as many times as you let him do it.”

“You couldn’t possibly understand,” she said bitterly. “Men have always liked and wanted you. You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to never be wanted by anybody.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But I sure would like to think I’d rather be alone than be used like that. You think if you just stick it out and suffer for him, he’ll eventually be enlightened by your sacrifice and ultimately see how much you care? Come on, I’m the Catholic! Martyr yourself for somebody more noble if you have to do it. He fucking knows how much you care, but he doesn’t care. He’s using the best thing about you—your loyalty—to his own selfish advantage.”

Things cooled between us for a while after that. She was angry with me and felt I’d overstated my case, so I didn’t hear from her for a while, perhaps six months, and when she did contact me again and we resumed talking, we never talked about him, at least not at first. When she tentatively started talking about him again, I would nod in the right places but voiced no opinions aloud. We had an unstated agreement.

Things went on like this for about four years. Naturally, he divorced. Jackie was happy. I was disgusted. She finally thought she’d get what she wanted, so I didn’t point out to her the fact that he would be about as faithful to her as he’d been to his wife. That was something she’d learned from her own mother, I guess: look away and look away and eventually you’ll be the one he’ll return to. And from her father she learned that it’s normal to have a second life, I guess.

By the time the whole thing was ending, Jackie had taken a job in Florida. Since he lived in Detroit, she started looking for work there after his divorce was final. She actually got an interview, too; the two of them made plans to spend the whole interview weekend together, almost four days of bliss.

He picked her up at the airport as promised. They spent Thursday night together; her interview was Friday morning. He was supposed to arrive at her hotel Friday afternoon. He didn’t. She called and called; she left messages. No answer. She didn’t sleep at all Friday night, and Saturday morning she made one final attempt to reach him. Then she called the airport and arranged to move her late Sunday flight up to Saturday afternoon. She left Detroit and returned to Florida.

When she told me all this, I didn’t say “I told you so” or anything else; I did truly feel very sad for her. “I’m so sorry, Jackie,” was all I could say.

As if all this weren’t bad enough, she also started “dating”—if you could call it that—various men while she was still living in St. Louis. Most of them turned out to be men who were simply seeking sex. I met a few of them. One in particular whom I found especially revolting, though he was very handsome, was one she’s kept up with even up to two weeks ago. The first time I met him, Jackie and I were set to have lunch. I walked into her office and there he was, a suit he thought well cut, fine shoes, and arrogance.

“This is my friend Rita,” Jackie said.

He immediately stood up, smiled at me way too familiarly, started to invade my personal space, and said, “Hello, Jackie’s friend Rita with all that long pretty hair,” he said.

I didn’t answer him. I wanted to say, “Get away from me, asshole,” but I didn’t want to create an awkward situation for her. I backed away and refused to shake his outstretched hand. “I’ll wait for you outside,” I told Jackie.

And he’s proven to be another version of Mark. There have been others too; the only difference is the duration of these encounters—a night; a few weeks; a few months; years. It always ends the same. They call her when they want sex or a friendly person to talk to and she makes herself available. The last time she was in St. Louis, a couple of weeks ago, the one mentioned above who tried flirting with me in her presence the first time I met him was supposed to pick her up at the airport and he didn’t show up. So Jackie called Percy (a mutual friend of ours) who dutifully went to the airport, loaned her his car and let her stay at his place, and Jackie took Percy’s car and went to find this creature. She did find him; she gave him what he wanted or she wanted or whatever it was—well, I guess he wanted the sex and I guess she thought maybe this time he’d pledge his everlasting love to her. That evening, he didn’t show up to dinner, nor did he show to take her to her parents’ house downstate. I’m glad I wasn’t able to go to dinner that night (I try to spend as much time as possible these days keeping Andrew occupied with various activities) because every time I see that look of hurt in her eyes and every time I hear the excuses she makes for these types, I want to demand she hand me her cell phone so I can tell them what I think myself—but then, I remind myself, isn’t she responsible too? After she returned to Florida, she reported on her blog: “I don’t understand men. I really don’t.” When I read it, I just sighed, called Percy to find out how bad it was this time, read her e-mail to me with her request for me to call her as soon as I could, and wrote this epic post.

Malkhos thinks she’s quite simply to be understood through a Freudian lens. He thinks she needs serious psychoanalysis. He knows how logical she usually is; how stable and reliable. He thinks she can’t control these impulses. I guess the cynic in me wants to reject that—I always tell Malkhos there is a vast difference between belief and truth; and that belief is much more powerful than truth, and also that our self-perception may be miles apart from others’ perceptions of us.

Still, none of this makes it easier for me to know what to say or not say to her. I’ve said everything I can think of. Maybe I should just let the friendship die a quiet death, but I do truly like her very much and we have a long history together. She’s never hurt me or done things that make me feel like I need to compromise my own ethics to be her friend; she’s never asked me to lie for her or cover for her in any way. I only know if I had the words to make her stop doing this to herself, I would say them.

Comments

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

I found this fascinating. My response to it is empirical, , typically British, so first let me describe someone I know who exhibited very different traits but shares, I think, some of the same motivations.

I used to have a member of staff who was known for his brilliance. He saw himself, and was seen by others, as wonderfully creative, highly intelligent, but with a degree of eccentricity that made his behaviour unpredictable. He didn't think that he was appreciated enough at work. Over a period of years I'd seen him make a series of catastrophic judgements and career decisions - being unprepared for major presentations and attempting, disastrously, to 'wing it', ridiculous fallings-out with people seeemingly on a whim, and projects started but never finished. Over at least a couple of years of this I tried to make him understand the impact of his behaviour and what to do to put it right, he had enough intelligence to have a bright future and I found it frustrating that his character flaws kept holding him back. Eventually I gave up, concluding that:

- his character was the problem, not the behaviour (which was just a manifestation of a fundamental flaw)

- at 44, he wasn't going to change

- he got far more satisfaction from doing what he did than changing (or at least thought he did).

The root of the problem was, I concluded, that he saw himself as a misunderstood genius and everything that happened reinforced this self-image. When he messed up he got commiseration from sympathetic colleagues, it gave him the opportunity to rail against authority (the people who just didn't understand him), he didn't have to take on extra responsibility and he could stay comfortable where he was, he could feel sorry for himself (which he enjoyed above all other things), and he could blame the whole world but himself. I haven't seen him for some years, but suspect he is doing exactly the same things in exactly the same way.

I suspect that there are similarities in your friend's case. She feels unloved and has a strong self-image as a loser in love. Her behaviour guarantees the same result time and again. As a consequence it reinforces her self-image (and there is a satisfaction in that), she avoids taking on further responsibility (avoids the risk that comes from stepping over the threshold), and, what is more, she gets attention and sympathy (love, in her eyes) from those closest to her. The love and sympathy she gets paradoxically makes her feel more cared for while the messed up relationships conform to her 'unlucky in love' self-image.

She sounds sad and lost but then we don't necessarily choose our friends because of their strength of character. I think that what you do helps her but that there is little that you can do to change her. Malkhos is probably right in thinking that some kind of professional intervention is what is needed to cause a more fundamental change in her behaviour. If you like her and get pleasure in her company then why stop?

Anyway, I've rambled enough, hope this helps.

[lapidus-93.livejournal.com]

This woman's willful blindness to her real situations, and refusal to take counsel from you, shows that she has real psychological problems with regard to relationships with men. She will have to change on her own or not at all. Fortunately it seems that she is competent in most other respects.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

An important detail that was left out of the original post and which tends to confirm your anaylsis, was that Jackie's first dating experience was with a Lutheran minister, a man of her same class and comperable education who seemed to be compeltely infatuated with her and an excellent match. She couldn't get away from him fast enough.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

No, no--a rambler you are not! I always read your posts because your prose is so engaging.

And from reading your reply, you are obviously clever too. I think you are correct in your comparison between that person you knew and her... absolutely. It just seems so--pointless to me, to live that way. Why do everything in your power to destroy what you want most? And yes, her good points far, far outweigh the bad, so likely as not I'll just continue as we've been but it makes me feel weird to have to censor myself so much when this topic comes up. But I can do it; I've had lots of practice.

Alpha

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I started to read this in the morning but then had to tear myself away to go to work. Now I get the full story at last. An interesting case study! I think Jermyn's analysis has quite a lot going for it; a strong self-image as a loser in love. She reminds me of a couple of women I know, both very capable and confident in other areas of their lives.

I wonder if there's not also another dimension to this sort of heterosexual female behaviour; a fixation with the alpha-male, or at least the idea of one. An inability to be attracted to anyone who isn't at least slightly abusive and disinterested, and finding men who are not these things somehow weak and laughable. Obviously people of both genders and all orientations are prone to this kind of low self-esteem behaviour (I know I've done it), but it always seems so much more extreme and common with straight women.

Jermyn, are you a media mogul of some sort?

Re: Alpha

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I have seen that alpha male attraction, too; the "bad boy" syndrome. And I think Jackie's case has that element, too--she was the epitome of the stereotypical "nice girl" who needs to prove she's not, and in her case it also had that "my love will make him better" part. I certainly can understand it happening (like you, I did it too; I think that's part of the whole process but it was from that I learned what I didn't want) but while most of us move through and beyond it, people like that just get stuck in the same situation over and over and over. It's crazy.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Hm,
haven´t written in here before, only shyly popped in now and then since we friended each other, and starting out on this theme is perhaps a soemwhat rough start, but it sounds all too familiar...

Agreeing "along" with several comments up above, I must say that unfortunately I can see it out of several angles simultaneously. As do you and others like JermynSavile, whose analysis sounds well grounded and again reminds me of several personages.

I can see a personal line from my own early teen experiences and experiments along the Jackie-line as well as "diva-phases" and later tried-for "alpha-female" behaviour. Or is it "wolverine", or something, then? But having found both or all those "methodes d´usage" equally tedious and ill-fitting, after a reasonably short while of testing-testing one-two (except for when I was blackmailed by suicide threats which does get at me, unfortunately, to a certain degree; until I grow furious) and seems to become quite "the trend" nowadays, besides working along similar strains of non-reasoning, in human behaviour and consequently choosing manipulation threads.

How is that for a german syntaxed sentence...;) Sorry.

Therefore, I can only state that there is not much one can actually "do" except listen and be the human being one is, up to a degree where it starts stealing one´s energy at the cost of other things one would prefer to do. And there one must stop being emphatic, when the burden is heaved over on another. Or be emphatic, but keep a distance and show where the line is drawn. Never easy, but works sometimes, after a while, to make actual changes in some people(´s) show.
Then,
there are hopeless cases and those will forever stay such. Hurts to look on, but it is, after all, their problem. Am with those here who think a therapy might help her?

Just to say so much: I have had girl friends with similar behaviour living in my own house, meaning flat, and "going through" all of my husbands male friends in her quest, after she had left her own man (our mutual friend), and she was -or probably still is- intelligent, pretty, sexy, etc.: what you like.
She then went berserk and it was impossible to even talk to her, it went so far that she accused me of callousness and "shutting her down/up", whatever, in my own kitchen after having made come-ons to my husband, then she left, nose up forgetting her little handbag with everything in it and me running after her trying to give her her necessary money et al but she refused talking to me, witch.
Then she later showed up, clinging to my husband, faking how "sorry she was" until I got a seldom but powerful wrath attack and cried: "get out!"
You get the picture.
Have canceled contact, but hear she is still alive and kicking.
Fine with me, I refuse all contact. = Last way out!
There is a limit to everything...
wherefore this comment should stop instantly!

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Gosh, seeing the length of my comment should forbid further;) but, also seeing how I got "lost in translation" in that one first sentence, I´d still like to make it clear, how I am not (really!) a fan of manipulative ways in any human relations. Naturally, who is, except weirdoes? That is what I meant/tried but failed, to say. Having experienced it myself, from others both then and now, I got carried away. Sorry. But it sounds to me, as if your friend had some such minor or major strains towards you, even if she is possibly not aware of it herself?

Sometimes a (very swedish in my own understanding and experience, as I was born there) directness and more or less blunt honesty, saves all parts lots of trouble. It can be hard to deal with or take, in this case for your friend then, but with some candour (which I gather you are not exactly lacking) and sensitivity, it might just clear things for you.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Well, this is interesting because more and more I find myself finding excuses not to be around Jackie. Perhaps, as you suggest, she's just wearing me out. I don't like to do that; it makes me feel like I've abandoned her or not helped enough, but I'm much better at getting people out of my life who become burden-like than I used to be!

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Write as much as you want! I love the lyrical cadence of your prose; I really do. :)

I agree--I guess sometimes I do feel like Jackie manipulates all of her friends here whenever she's in town, and most indulge her because they feel sorry for her; for example, when one of her "boyfriends" doesn't show up, why then she just calls one of us to help her out.

So she does manipulate a little as well as let herself be manipulated; all this manipulating mixes me up! As I said above, I have withdrawn somewhat, and another of our mutual friends told me he was tiring of it, too, but I'll bet she learns nothing from it. She'll just get mad at us.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Only saw this very friendly comment of yours just now, and felt happy to read it, looking into some of my favourite journals while Wilbur (husband) is writing love-letters to the financial department, a very consuming sort of love, that.

This makes me "jog my lyrical cadence" at once! (So sorry, but have to giggle here, it is so very sweet of you, but I do know my faults, nonetheless. Which are, as it happens, more in the line of ghastly fantasy-genre prose, at least considering length of anything written, rather than preferably "Joycean" -cough-, for as the thread started by King Gustav III -on Swedenborg- went:" One isn´t necessarily a genius, just because one is acting mad", & you see it hereby proven;)

I have a soft heart, it is better to openly admit it, than trying for tough tomcat. Have therefore fallen, several times, accident-prone, for manipulative behaviour in my life, with most disastrous results for self, just barely surviving at times.

Yet insist on considering emphaty an important and vital character trait, not to be abandoned, but perhaps, distributed ..."correctly" (PC!) to the truly, non-faking deserving, of which I gather there are quite an assembly in this best little world of ours, besides all the self-centred western well-to-do people suffering agony.

Have developed stern allergy. Main symptoms: Wish to kill those who have threatened to kill themselves to press emphaty from me (in courts also labelled: "blackmail" and a capital crime next to murder and laying fire. Going from irony (common swedish, uncontrollable & preferred mode of conversation) onto cries of "Deeeaaath to the orchs!"
I mean, after all, with some that seems to be exactly the issue??

This allergy can get acute with obvious symptoms like nose growing all white, eyes black hole suns, etc. while still trying to use verbal "weapons"; if any.

In short: however understanding a character one (tries to) possess(es) oneself, one still has the good right to be taken into account with one´s own needs too, like for instance injured children demanding attention or even a husband of one´s own, (in the Woolf sense;) Ne c´est pas?!

OK, I overdid it again...