“A mirror reflects what you see, and a black mirror shows the dark side of it” – Madeline Brewer
The dark side of human nature is serious business. The dark side leaves wreckage in its wake, and it is a facet of human nature that’s so mysterious that we feel drawn to decipher it. The dark side is not about dark thoughts and twisted desires, it’s about being a human. It’s about the dark places where we find ourselves as human beings. To say that not everyone has a dark side is untrue, one can act all holy and noble but deep within, all of us have a dark side that is just waiting to be unravelled.
My world, my life, it’s filled with experiences that I have acquired by observing people who have come in my life at some point, either for a brief moment or to stay for a while. I am often disappointed by the plethora of plain, dull and predictable personalities that cross paths with me but occasionally I come across someone interesting worthy of my time.
Couple of years ago, I met an interesting person who had a darkness around him that would make you want to demystify, blame human curiosity if you may but he sure seemed like someone with a lot of layers. Men often mask their true feelings and sentiments by displaying a serious and rugged look. You only need to look at the anti-heroes of popular culture – James Bond, Don Draper or Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall Street – to realize that men often correlate dark personalities with sex appeal. They are characters who lurk in the night but not in a creepy way but in a dark knight way, saviour to the damsels in distress. They are often “risk-takers” who can be manipulative, narcissists and exploit the vulnerabilities of other people all the while keeping their own in control.
I like to approach such people because no matter how much darkness they emit, they are often intellectually stimulating. So after passing each other in the corridors for almost a month, I approached him and introduced myself (since I’m such a nice and friendly person).
It’s been 2 years since I said hi to him and we have been friends ever since. We have what one would say sweet-bitter friendship because of differences in our opinions but we can still connect mentally even if it’s to indulge in a battle of wits.
Although I have my opinions about his choice of clothes (they are pretty much the same everyday, dark jacket and blue jeans) and movies, he is smart in terms of conversation that he brings to the table. We have often engaged in hot debates about human behaviour with him being a believer of old school principles and me wanting to change the world with my erratic theories. But his arguments, his personality and his behaviour has often left me intrigued into thinking as to what exactly is he hiding behind all the machoness. I do admit that a certain dark trait to your personality helps you achieve success, it plays with the curiosity of the person sitting on the other side of the table, often leading to winning contracts but too much darkness can make you anti-social.
Our friendship has evolved a lot since we started talking, from being debate buddies, to him hitting on me when drunk, but it has always maintained a platonic boundary that our dark masks can never penetrate through.
After I moved out of the coworking space, we sort of lost regular touch but he made me wonder why we humans mask our pleasing side and always put forward our dark poker face. Is it because we don’t want to look vulnerable or we simply don’t want to bring emotions in this chaotic world where you need to be strong to survive? I have learned to always mask my true feelings and smile no matter the situation by acquiring traits of conscientiousness, self-discipline, adjustment, curiosity, competitiveness and tolerance that have helped me survive in this selfish and meaningless world but deep inside it has left me frustrated. After letting the world believe that you are so strong, it’s not easy to show your vulnerabilities, you need to continue being dark and strong and I think it’s the same for him.
I don’t want to call him “dark” except maybe his clothing style which can definitely use some colour but I do feel that a prolonged mask of stubbornness has left him with a narcissist personality characterized by vanity, arrogant egotism, lack of empathy and deeply cynical. I honestly feel that all he needs is a woman’s touch (metaphorically, not sexually) to break the dark mirror to unveil a human heart that is intelligent and sensitive, worthy of love and care. Although he refuses to let women look beyond the shield, I would like to live another day with a new hope and a new day!
