People go to therapy looking for answers. Our more obsessive patients, preoccupied with their investments, want to make sure they’re getting a good deal. They spend most of their time fixated on their decisions. “Did I choose the right person to marry?” “Do I really hate my job?” “Can I do better?” While the questions appear to be simple, their answers, unfortunately, aren’t as evident. But people tend to repeat the same mistake: They seek out clear and objective conclusions. So, they may present a dataset to a therapist and ask, “Is this a good or a bad decision?”
Life, however, is chronically secretive about those sorts of answers, mockingly providing one counterexample after another for our need for certitude. The 1986 film Manhunter, about an FBI profiler named Will Graham, who’s in search of a serial killer, presents us with a vivid portrait of the cloudiness of human personality and, more broadly, human nature. Will seeks out the counsel of the notorious Hannibal Lecter for insights into the killer’s mind. Initially, Lecter, still resentful for having been arrested by Graham, refuses to cooperate. He later agrees, but his underlying motive, to work with the killer to murder Graham, is revealed, implying his inability to be rehabilitated. Lecter believes he and Graham are the same, which is likely how he justifies attempted murder to himself, if he even needs to. And that’s revealed in a profound conversation they have when Lecter calls Graham to congratulate him on creating a clever ruse to bait the killer.
In that conversation, Lecter remarks, “You would be more comfortable if you would relax with yourself. We don’t invent our natures; they’re issued to us, along with our lungs and pancreas and everything else. Why fight it?” Essentially, Lecter implies that Graham, who also becomes elated when taking a life (albeit in self-defense in his case), is a psychopath as well. Both, according to Lecter, crave power, desiring to feel as a god does. Yet Lecter behaves more like a layperson than a clinician. He lumps Graham into a simple category while minimizing a profound point: Graham fights the desire. Regardless of any personality assessment, there’s some unexplainable part of him—even if we chalk it up to increased empathy, we’d have to explain how it co-exists with his lust for dominance—that wills himself away from himself. And I love that the film doesn’t attempt to explain it. Director Michael Mann leaves it up to the audience to judge Will and try to make sense of what differentiates him from Lecter, even if all we come up with is his choices.
This is a prime example of why these questions are impossible to answer in any objective way, although we can argue that Lecter is certainly not husband material, but that’s an extreme case. The obsessive maximizer, who needs to perfect everything and to waste no time, tends to find treatment frustrating at best and infuriating at worst, another waste of their time. I cite the example from the film to help present the case that these types of questions, like those about compatibility (of whether we are or aren’t compatible with others because of politics, values, goals, and philosophical beliefs), aren’t easily answerable by merely looking at the facts, regardless of how extensive you believe them to be. It isn’t like consulting a psychic.
Consider a time when you cooked something. Did it taste the same as the time before? You used the same recipe in seemingly the same manner. Yet sometimes our cooking, for whatever reason, turns out better or worse than it did previously, while we remain certain we didn’t change anything. There are elements that we just can’t seem to account for. Thus, experience matters. Whether you are or aren’t compatible can only be approximated, and that occurs with time and constant reappraisal. The most difficult part of trying to answer these questions is accepting the randomness involved in giving up or continuing; fundamentally, you can either continue to reassess or move on, with no real hope for insight into the best reasons for doing either. (To be clear, I’m not referring to abusive relationships, where the imperative is to leave.)
But the silver lining is that this provides you with immense freedom, allowing you to lean into your preferences. Obsessive-compulsive tendencies imply a preoccupation with proof. So, the individual refuses to accept the limitations of their own knowledge, the limitations of being human. It’s impossible to prove that some relationship is going to go well just as it’s impossible to prove what’s obviously true about you. For example, a partner may struggle to prove to you that you’re beautiful because the reality is self-evident, meaning it isn’t open to being proven in the way an argument may be. They may say, “I can’t prove the obvious,” which you may discount because, in a black and white way, you only allow yourself to believe what’s conclusively true, no matter the topic—a way of living that promotes depressive spirals and perpetual hopelessness.
With that said, whatever the ingredients, you are the cook, and so is your partner. Whatever happens with them—whether the meal is good, bad, or neutral—is up to you. But if you prefer to cook something else, with someone else, that’s OK, too.