The story begins with this scene: friends sitting in a kitchen drinking gin. I began to think it would start with them discussing their afternoons but immediately I am taken to this scene of violence. Terri tells this story of a horrible tragic night that almost took her life. Her perception drove her to believe that this behavior was love in a weird, twisted, and polluted kind of way. She in my opinion had a warped view of things. I am not even sure if she thought the behavior when he was drunk was love, as much as she believed that his sober moments were ones filled with love due to him being in a conscious and more aware state. However, if he truly loved Terri, he would not become so inebriated that he was acting contradictory to love. I am sure at one point when he was sober it may of felt like love but when someone acts like this love becomes nothing other than a word. Yet, through all of the pain that was caused to Terri she had a desire to be next to him when he gasped his last breath. It makes me think was this love or madness? Or is it possible that love gone wrong can turn into death?
I can view this scene so clearly in my head. Two couples sitting in the kitchen looking at one another discussing love while consuming alcohol that is probably causing them to release more information than normally. Its this contrast of scene in which a couple has been married for years and the other just getting started in a sense. Due to this time frame their views on love are seemingly different. One couple is excited on spending the rest of life together, the other is contemplating if "true love" even exists.
This story really made me dislike Mel. I feel as though Terri jumped from a physically abuse relationship to a verbally abusive one all. I see many contradictions to this story. These couples are discussing love but all I see in Mel is selfishness. Perhaps this is their problem with the idea of love. If their emotions towards one another is skewed how can they possibly have a healthy functioning relationship. This couple that sits with them (Laura and Ed) I can tell as the conversation continues they would rather be anywhere but there. When I am reading this story I wish I could extract them and move them to a place where their exposure as a new married couple is not one that is so polluted, but that would not be reality.
I have mixed feelings about Mel. Certainly, I think that he gets obnoxious. I don't at all like how he does all of the talking. But, on the other hand, he's very complex, and he says a few pretty insightful things. But having insights about love is different than being able to live it.
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