Trudie has been thinking about a Prudie response for a few weeks now, and he can't get over his feeling that there are few true coincidences in romance...
Here is the query:
I have fallen in love with a woman I knew from childhood and ran into
again after not seeing her for 20 years. As kids we hardly noticed each
other, but when we met again after all these years we felt an immediate
[sic] attraction. The problem is that when I was 12 years old I did something
terrible that caused an accident that killed her father. No one ever
found out it was me and I’ve never told anyone after all these years. I
feel horrible about what happened, but it was a long time ago and I’ve
gotten on with my life. But now what? Should I tell this woman that I
caused her father’s death many years ago? I’m afraid it would ruin our
relationship and we love each other a great deal. The accident occurred
when I was in a cornfield at night—we were throwing corn at cars when
they drove by. We couldn’t see the cars because we were hidden in the
field. An ear of corn I threw went through the open car window and
struck her father in the head, causing him to lose control of the car
and crash into a tree. I ran from the scene and was never implicated.
Prudie thinks this is a tough moral dilemma, but that the guy has to come clean for his self-respect ("You cannot build a healthy relationship on such deceit"), admitting that her lawyers give the opposite advice.
Trudie starts from a different framework, namely that falling ln love is not entirely a spontaneous event. It is planned by our subconscious more than we realize. What could prevent us from falling in love with someone? Trudie could not, for instance, fall in love with a woman Trudie knew to be a communist, even if, like the younger Yoko Ono, she were extremely smart, attractive, and loved atonal music. Trudie also could not fall in love with a woman whose father he had killed, however "accidental" the event (what *was* he aiming the corn cob at, at what angle did it enter the window, and did he glue a rock to it?)
The simplest hypothesis, based on the near-universality of self-deception, is the following: a) the guy is a murderer, and b) he loves having the power over this girl that follows from having murdered her father and then holding this secret from her. He feels he can reduce her to a quivering mass of jelly anytime by coming forward with the information. He loves having that power so much that first he falls in love with her (who has he been dating in the meantime?) and then he writes into an advice columnist so as to report that power to other people, even at the risk of legally incriminating himself. Sick, sick, sick.
If that scenario is true, if only with some positive probability, what advice should Prudie give the guy? And under what conditions can you fall in love? Can you trust your conscious self-reporting of what you are doing any more than the murderer who wrote Prudie?
If only Tim Harford were here to set us straight…
Tyler,
This is all very interesting and clever, but could you kindly wait with your really disturbing posts until after lunchtime? I am still on my first coffee here, you know…
This sounds far to much like a novel to be genuine. I suspect that if it were a novel, and Romeo’s really just a tragic character, than Prudie’s advice sounds reasonable. If it is in fact genuine (or simply a thriller instead of a romance), I suspect that Trudie’s hypothesis is the most likely scenario. Then again, I suppose that truth can be stranger than fiction: Before today I believed John Lennon to be the only person, living or dead, who could find Yoko Ono attractive.
The corn lobber letter sounds like a (not very good) Creative Writing 101 assignment. But assuming the story is true, how would Trudie reconcile this post with Tyler’s views on the neuroeconomics of torture? If we allow that the experience of pain occurs in a separate neuropersonality than the experience of agency relevant for attributions of responsibility, why not say the same for love? Trudie calls the guy a “murderer† (for a childhood crime—not obvious) and attributes sicko feelings of power and control rather than true love. On what grounds can Trudie even use the language of agency and responsibility if the corn lobber has been reduced to a quivering mass of jelly by the cascade of dopamine and norepinephrine in his system? Perhaps Tyler and Trudie are blogging from different neuropersonalities?
The beauty of the “marginal revolution = USA Today” thing is that Tim Harford reads this blog regularly and will, I am sure, weigh in on the issue precisely because you wished it and since it is right up his alley. And I think you know that, Professor Cowen.
What I find interesting is why not just e-mail Harford inviting him to lend insight. Oh, and what do you think about Harford not having a Doctorate degree yet. Think it is worth it for him to get one?
Prudie’s advice is absurd.
Is it possible that the writer is guilty for depriving the girl of her father and want’s to fill the gap?
Plus:
The accident occurred when I was in a cornfield at night—we were throwing corn at cars when they drove by. We couldn’t see the cars because we were hidden in the field.
Who else was in that field? What happened to them? What would they think if he reveals his secret.
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