The Ontological War

At this stage of their relationship, most people might not think a deep connection is developing between Ann and Graham in Sex, Lies, and Videotape. After all, she tells her therapist Graham is “interesting,” and that isn’t much to go on when considering the ontological depth of the relationship between two people.

But there were two incidents that indicate their relationship is becoming more ontological, meaning it is moving beyond the very common socialself-to-socialself relationship and is developing into a relationship between their realselves.

In the café Graham told Ann she was self-conscious, and she said

Ann: Me? Me? You think I’m self-conscious?

Graham: Well … I’ve been watching you. I watch you eat, you know, I watch you speak, watch you move, and I see somebody who is extremely aware of people looking at you.

Initially, it might seem creepy to have someone closely watching everything a person does. And for socialself-to-socialself relationships, this may be true. But when relationships start becoming ontological, the people involved understand that this heightened “tuning in” to another person is more an expression of one person’s realself getting closer to another person’s realself, and it is not seen as a violation of what might be thought of as a person’s sphere of privacy. Ann undoubtedly took Graham’s actions in this way—she wasn’t upset by them.

Late that night, Graham was sleeping on a couch (Ann and John don’t have a guest room?), and Ann got up, went to him, and knelt beside him, looking at him. She didn’t say anything or wake him; she just looked at him for a little while and then went back to bed. (As it turns out, Graham was actually awake, but he didn’t let Ann know.)

What’s happening to Ann is that Graham is reaching her realself, and unconsciously she is responding to him and his realself from her own realself. She goes to him in the middle of the night because she is becoming aware of ontological thoughts and feelings; she knows they are important, powerful, and good; but she doesn’t know what to make of them. At the ontological state she is passing through, Graham represents something much bigger and deeper in her life, but she doesn’t understand what that something is, other than being drawn to it.

She may think that a part of her may love Graham in some way or that a part of her may be attracted to him sexually. But she is also aware that the feelings she has for him are, before everything else, something beyond sexual and something beyond what is usually thought of as love.

In the café Ann and Graham were engaged in what might be called “ontological flirting”: two people who are aware of the realself in each other enjoying the pleasure of being that self with someone they like. But when Ann looks at Graham in the middle of the night, she is unconsciously taking her first steps forward as an adult woman in developing a conscious, realself-to-realself relationship with a man.