At the center of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby is… a man–a man grappling with his seemingly predestined love life, career, friendships, and place on this Earth. The dialogue between Rob Fleming’s decisions and his actual thoughts reveal the nuances of manhood and how the search for it can be messy, complicated, and often takes the help of a woman to clean up that mess.
The book starts with Rob’s Top 5 Most Memorable Split-Ups, briefly touched upon in chronological order. From this first chapter alone, one thing is very clear about Mr. Fleming–he is much more concerned about optics than he is his actual, albeit metaphorical, heart. Memorability is not judged by intensity of the heartbreak but rather the intensity of his shame after each split-up. Specifically, shame surrounding the way in which each woman left him.
He details how each relationship he was wronged and made to think less of himself–the first one being Alison Ashworth at age 13. One night at the park, Alison chose Rob. She took his arm, got him alone, and it was then that he had his first kiss. This union lasted for three nights, when suddenly on the fourth night, she had found someone else. Despite barely knowing her and not knowing if he wanted to be with her in the first place–he was crushed. Maybe he had done something wrong or he hadn’t seen the signs, but she should’ve communicated with him and perhaps he could’ve made things alright.
From then on, all of Rob’s relationships were drastically affected by how this incident left him: doubtful and questioning of what he deserves and what he truly wants and failing at having either.
The rest of his split-ups consist of Penny–who won’t let him touch her, Jackie– who’s in a relationship with Phil but loses her sparkle once she’s single, Charlie– who he was convinced was too good for him so she discovered that for herself and left him for some guy named Marco, and Sarah– who he thought was a safe bet because she was just as average as him–until she also left him to try her hand at someone better.
At every step of the way, he reminds us that “Women who disapprove of men–and there’s plenty to disapprove of– should remember how we started out, and how far we have had to travel (15).”
I disapprove of men. However, it had never occurred to me how much disapproval men hold for themselves–the kind that festers inside of them from their relationships with their parents to their first heartbreak and eventually turns into disapproval that awaits them in all of their relationships. Disapproval that causes them to forever be proving something.
Making your decisions as a reaction to what people think of you or what you think they think of you, leaves you in a constant battle between your internal wants and desires and external perceptions. Unfortunately for men, they aren’t supposed to express how they feel internally so their shitty decision making ends up lacking nuance–making them easily unforgivable.
Rob is stuck in a ‘will they, won’t they’ dance with his ex-girlfriend Laura when he attends her dad’s funeral. While he’s there, he gets into an argument with one of her friends and despite knowing that perhaps a funeral is not the right place to see this argument through, he perseveres. He justifies it with the realization that he feels like he’s never allowed to speak his mind.
“I can’t speak to Laura because she lives with somebody else and calls from phone boxes and she pretends she doesn’t, and I can’t speak to Liz because she knows about the money and the abortion and me seeing someone else, and I can’t speak to Barry and Dick because they’re Barry and Dick, and I can’t speak to my friends because I don’t speak to my friends, and I can’t speak now because Laura’s father has died (245).”
If Rob can’t be honest about how he truly feels with anyone in his life, he also can’t be honest with himself. If you can’t say how you feel, your thoughts and feelings will stay in the comfort of your head forever and you never have to admit they’re real so you never have to actually change anything. The whole point of saying things out loud to someone you can confide in is that you’re really just talking to yourself.
So instead, Laura has done all of Rob’s self searching for him and knows exactly what’s wrong with him. He will spend his whole life keeping his options open so he can never say he was in too deep to back out of something–when in reality he’s not keeping his options open, he’s just closing himself off to the possibility of anything risky, real, and rewarding (266).
And he knows she’s right but he won’t admit that to her! Because if he admits that he’s gone and fucked up this whole life thing till now, he has to accept the blame, take matters into his own hands, and come to terms with the fact that his life is a mess because his thoughts and feelings are just as blurred around the edges as everyone elses. He would realize that compiling a list of your Top Five Split-Ups is not so simple after all.
What happens if we can’t be messy and nuanced and paradoxical in nature? We become less human and more ‘made up heteronormative man.’ While women in this world may not have the freedom of choice, we do have the ability to create a safe space with one another–one in which we are seen, celebrated, and allowed to be vulnerable enough to realize that everyone else is equally as messy. That we are not singular so much as we make up a greater whole, and maybe men are so bad at running this country because they continue to chip away at themselves in an attempt to preserve the powers of manhood instead of seeing us all for what we are: intertwined. So as long as we continue to hate women, men will continue to secretly hate themselves.
Currently Listening:
- Part of the Band by The 1975
- Crush by Ethel Cain
- Blur by Dhruv
- Horses by Maggie Rogers
Currently Watching:
Only Murders in the Building
