I shall have this woman; I shall carry her away from the husband who profanes her; I shall even dare to ravish her from the God she adores. What a delicious pleasure to be alternately the cause and the conqueror of her remorse! Far be it from me to wish to destroy the prejudices which torture her! They will add to my happiness and my fame. Let her believe in virture, but let her sacrifice it to me; let her slips terrify her without restraining her; let her be agitated by a thousand terrors and not be able to forget and to crush them save in my arms. Then I agree, she may say “I adore you,” and she alone among all women will be worthy to say so. I shall indeed be the God she has preferred. -- Valmont, Dangerous Liaisons
Beautiful, M.E.
ReplyDeleteSimply beautiful.
Agreed.
ReplyDeletespelled virtue wrong.
ReplyDeletethere's nothing so pathetic as being caught up in what someone else thinks or feels about you.
To need the woman's emotional reaction is pathetic, to revel in it is equally pathetic and infantile.
Yo anonymous, re-read it.
ReplyDelete“What a delicious pleasure to be alternately the cause and the conqueror of her remorse.”
That’s about manipulating someone into feeling sorry for you, cause and conquer. It’s followed by…
“They will add to my happiness and my fame.”
This leans toward him doing it to gain notoriety. It’s not for her gain, his.
This entire passage wasn't about being caught up in what someone thinks about you, nor was it about needing a woman's emotional reaction…it was about mind games and using another for your own gain and amusement.
I forgot to mention the overall goal—corruption of one by the act of another.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous is an idiot. There's nothing pathetic about accomplishing your goals, so long as they're your own. I don't care if your goal is to eat a leper's shit, if you do it... kudos! You're living the dream.
ReplyDeleteThat is the single greatest bash I have ever read, kudos to you Peter!
ReplyDeletethe sociopath i was with for 7 years used to be obsessed with valmont and watched this movie to practise being him...sad boring git lol
ReplyDeleteso got out when i did. and i never thanked him for inadvertently making me so strong and so impervious to the dull blitherings of any other socios.
how strange that the name 'JAZON' is the captcha i must type in.
how strange indeed
might i add
ReplyDelete"VANITY AND HAPPINESS ARE INCOMPATIBLE"
NOT good news for the sociopath lol
at least it was wonderful to see my ex lay down weeping his pretend tears and tearing out his actual hair as this was the sole reason for my departure.
There are so many jilted lovers that come onto this sight talking about "sociopath" boyfriends they themselves have diagnosed without any professional help while in an intensely emotional state that it would be optimistic to assume anything over half of the individuals in question are true sociopaths.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually kind of hilarious when you consider the possibility, ney probability, that many of the "evil" boyfriends were in fact feeling all the emotions their poor, victimized girlfriends threw back in their faces. For the record, I've never met a sociopath in my life that would cry like a baby and pull out tufts of hair just to prove a point; this is especially true if his main source of pride and self worth had been vanity. (He's probably a narcissist who deceives everyone within his small sphere of influence, including himself.)
He no doubt has many deeply rooted and complex psychological issues, which your actions have probably made much worse, but the inability to love or feel remorse don't seem to number amongst them.
It's always fascinated me how easily "normal" people can dehumanize those that cause them some form of discomfort, and proceed to act against them without even the restraint of cool intelligence. Did I say I found it fascinating? I meant pathetic.