Vampires True and False

“How can I tell if my girlfriend is an energy vampire?” this wonderful question appeared in the Dark Side’s chat recently.

I can picture it vividly. The reader, having carefully whittled their wooden stake, is preparing to strike down their new lover. I suggest they put down their weapon, restore the cloves of garlic to the kitchen cabinet, and get that silver bullet melted down. Maybe it could make a nice pendant for the “vampiress”…

The common definition of “energy vampires” has made quite the mess of things. The thing is, the people who brought the term to the public eye were themselves… vampires, or rather “vampirelings”. But, one thing at a time.

First, let’s talk about false vampirism. I have a short sketch on this topic in my notes. Boy meets girl. Falls in love. One small hitch: he is a couch potato. Meanwhile, the girl is a party animal. She gains energy from being around crowds of people giving her constant attention. He, on the other hand, recharges his batteries by sitting in a dark, noiseless room.

For the sake of great love, the party girl moves to the guy’s middle-of-nowhere town. She abandons her social life and withers away. Her health is suffering, she can't see her girlfriends anymore, her career… what career can you even have in this godforsaken place? She gets depressed and requires treatment. Thankfully, there’s life coaches around like flies in a shithouse. So she goes and sees one of those shithouse denizens about her problem. The Instagram healer opens her eyes to the terrible truth:

“Your husband is sucking away your energy! Just look at these old photos of you: you’re beautiful! And look at you now! He’s a classic energy vampire. I’d deck him right in the kisser if I were you!”

The girl looks closer at her beloved. And the more she looks, the clearer she can see Count Dracula hiding behind his face… In horror, she escapes the “bloodsucker” to the big city. But he’s in love, too, don’t you see. And for this love, he is also capable of sacrifice. He moves to the city, starts going to parties. But our guy goes impotent from nervous exhaustion — in the noisy city, there’s barely a place for him to decompress…

One day, he’s out drinking with a buddy of his. The buddy, carried away by friendly solidarity, exclaims:

“Your girl, she’s… a vampiress. She’s sucked you dry… you’re even smaller somehow. She ever blow you? See, I’m telling you… she’s sucking you out. At night. I mean, just look at her face… She’s like a predator..!”

Was there even a single vampire in that sketch? No there wasn’t. The guy didn’t force his girlfriend to move to the country. Nor did she demand he follow her to the city. Each of them made a willing sacrifice in the name of love… And idiocy in relationships does not equal vampirism. Alas, stupidity is a dime a dozen compared to malice.

Most people once dated a person it’s harmful to stay with for long: you’ll harm them, and you’ll harm yourself. That’s just how fate rolls the dice sometimes. Is this cause enough to suffer? If you want, you can torture yourself. Some of the best love stories are built upon this conflict. The heroes enjoy themselves in the moment, but living together for years is ill-advised. Impossible love is a principle topic of literature and cinema. From Stendhal’s The Red and the Black to films like La La Land and A Star Is Born…

But my personal choice is to enjoy being happy with a girl while remaining sensible. If we can’t play the long game, maybe we could do with just a short one..? There was one woman I spent the most fantastic of days with. We drank wine, listened to music, we enjoyed one another… And we both knew: years of happy marriage were not in the cards. Oh well. There was, at least, one day of happiness. After which, we parted our ways. She went north, and I — south.

Some writers compare relationships to a bottle of wine. And we all know: if the drink has run out, trying to salvage the last few drops is just… improper. Same as chugging the whole thing in one go. For a good evening, just a couple shots will do… An alcoholic is not someone who drinks. An alcoholic is someone who can’t leave a half-empty bottle on the table. A cunt chaser is not someone who falls in love easily. It’s someone who has one passionate night and can’t stop until his girlfriend has been “drained dry”. And until the last dregs are all gone, other women stop existing for him. A person so incapable of shifting their attention is definitely not right in the head.

After all, if you can’t control your own thoughts, any pursuit can become dangerous. And this does not make the object of the pursuit a vampire… But what does? What do real vampires look like? If you want to see one, open the website of any cult you can find. Find a photo of their leader, and enjoy. Here is a regular vampireling. Their M.O.: enriching their world by impoverishing yours. How do they do it? Like this, for example:

“Your mother (father/brother/wife/sister) or close friend is a ‘vampire’… It’s time you cut any ties with them…”

The vampireling wants you to stop talking to the “wrong” people, using any possible excuse. Why? So that your only social contact is the bloodsucker. Then, you will become reliant on them. You will have no closer friends, and no closer family than the vampireling. And that would enable them to impose their will on you. This is also how you spot a vampiress:

“I don’t want you to talk to Frank anymore. He’s using you. He’s poor, he’s a womanizer, he means trouble…” the reasons don’t matter. The point is to cull your herd of loved ones. This is how you recognize a vermin.

But the most extreme form of vampirism was exhibited by comrade Stalin. He went as far as to lock up the wife of his faithful servant, Molotov.

“We’ll find you a new one,” the Secretary General told the ex-commissary. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin would purposefully destroy the familial and social ties of his subjects. He bent whole peoples to his will. And he drank more blood than anyone before or after him. He deserves to be called a vampire. Meanwhile, these modern “gurus” and wives who forbid their husbands to talk to their friends… how can you call them vampires? They’re just… vampirelings. The disgraces of the bloodsucker clan.

Free text. Sign up to read more articles.