obsession
Obsession
Vocabulary
| flaw | flawless | take care of |
| desire | prospect | fulfillment |
| long for | longing | completion |
| heady | torture | crush (2) |
| pale | hope | hopelessly |
| saga | twilight | sensitive |
| rush | gobble | dream |
| wired (2) | nonsense | fascinating |
| thirst | gobble | conditional |
| revoke | irrevocable | unconditional |
| sacrifice | everlasting | doesn’t matter |
| bet | terrible | contribute |
| fair (3) | missing | betray |
| crave | diffuse | miserable |
Video: Obsession
Transcript
Sasha: “There’s just nothing bad in him. He always wants the best. He wants to protect everything, and he takes care of everyone.
Edward is so flawless! He’s PERFECT!”
A desire without prospects of fulfillment. A figure that’s desirable because it’s unreachable. A sweet longing torture.
Longing is never as heady as it is in youth. The first crush. The feeling that something’s missing. The longing for completion.
Sasha Beshtein attends high school and go back and forth between her mother’s and her father’s houses.
She’s 13 and hopelessly in love with Edward.
Like millions of other girls all around the world, she has given her heart to one of the pale undead.
He’s beautiful, strong and sensitive — the hero of the Twilight saga.
And he’s not from this world. Her dream prince is a blood-sucking vampire. Edward is their ideal, someone to project fantasies and feelings on.
They rush to the cinemas and gobble up book and spend the nights dreaming of the love story between the student Bella and the romantic vampire.
Sasha: “I think it’s fascinating that he’s so mysterious. He’s so quiet.
When you look at the boys today, they’re all wired and only have nonsense in their heads.
But that’s different from him. He’s so quiet and mysterious.
Lucy Kik has also fallen for the Twilight saga. She’s 16 and attends a Waldorf school.
Lucy: “There were three things I was absolutely certain of. Firstly, Edward was a vampire. Secondly a part of him—and I didn’t know how powerful this part was—thirsted for my blood.
And thirdly I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him!
That’s when you can tell if she really in love with him. And it doesn’t matter whether he can kill her or not.
She doesn’t care because she loves him.”
It’s the longing for the big everlasting love for which someone would sacrifice everything—even their own life.
It’s the romantic ideal.
Sasha: “Edward wants to protect Bella. And I want that for my boyfriend too.
I think Edward has everything that I want from a boyfriend. I think it’s great how he treats Bella. He doesn’t force her into anything. He just lets her be herself.
Lucy: “What bothers me about boys today is that is that they’re mean to girls. They make bets with their friends about what girls they can get.
They go out with a girl—and then they leave her after a couple of days. They just play with girls’ feelings. And I think that’s terrible.
There’s definitely a fairer, better world. And it exists in our thoughts, fantasies and imagination. We want what will contribute to our happiness.
But we look for it in a place where we won’t find it. Our longings tell us that something is missing.
But they’re not the problem: it’s the diffused craving that makes us miserable. It’s when we feel complete and secure in our longing that the loss of this feeling is more painful than the longing for it ever was.
It smells like betrayal when it breaks our trust.
Questions
1. Many girls consider Edward to be perfect. Is this correct or wrong? Why is Edward perfect?
2. What can you say about Sasha’s parents?
3. Who is Edward? Are girls worried about their safety?
4. The girls like the boys in their school. Yes or no? Why do the girls hate the boys? What do they say about boys?
5. Do many people feel happiest if their dreams, imagination and fantasies came true?
A. Did or do you and your friends have a crush on movie star and singer?
B. Do teenagers outgrow their crushes?
C. Our first love is always the best or true love. Do you agree?
