On Disappointment

Philosophy begins with an experience of disappointment 

- Simon Critchley

I. La déception

It's arguable, I think, that the human condition is ultimately marked by a sense of disappointment; for our expectations and hopes are never quite fulfilled and everything, everyone, and everywhere lets you down in the end (I was going to say even the things, people, and places one loves most, but, of course, it's especially the things, people, and places one loves most). 

Some psychologists, concerned with decision analysis and who study disappointment in terms of causation, naively believe that we might not only learn how to deal with the stress and anxiety that it induces, but avoid disappointment altogether. But I'm afraid that's not possible: life is disappointing (and death isn't all that it's cracked up to be either).

Best, then, to curb your enthusiasm and acknowledge that the world is imperfect and indifferent (if not actually malevolent); meaning that all great expectations are false (nothing good awaits you) and all high hopes are in vain (God is dead and you, my friend, are not special).   


II. Syndrome de Paris

Is there any city on earth that disappoints more than Paris?

The French capital is, in fact, so triggering of disappointment that a Japanese psychiatrist, Dr Hiroaki Ota, working at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Centre, coined the term pari shōkōgun [パリ症候群] in the 1980s and even published a book on the phenomenon. 

Syndrome de Paris is a condition exhibited by some individuals - particularly Japanese tourists - who, when visiting the city, discover to their dismay that it's not as sexy, nor as stylish, nor as romantic as they anticipated. The condition is often characterised as an extreme form of culture shock and produces symptoms including acute alienation, anxiety and paranoia (as well as nausea, vertigo, and rapid heartbeat).

In 2004, Libération published an article on the syndrome in which Mario Renoux, president of the Franco-Japanese Medical Association, blames popular culture and the media for creating this syndrome by endlessly perpetuating a myth of Paris rooted in la Belle Époque, rather than present the contemporary reality of crime, overcrowding, outrageous prices, air pollution, poor service, etc. This leads to huge disappointment and, for some, physical and mental disorientation.  

III. Une aventure parisienne

Of course, those with some knowledge of 19th-century French literature will not need shrinks and medical professionals to inform them about this ...

In his short story Une aventure parisienne (1881), Maupassant tells the tale of a "little provincial woman who had led [...] a boringly blameless life [...] looking after her family" [41], but whose heart was ravaged by an all-consuming desire to experience life in Gay Paree. Above all, she was fascinated by the promise of illicit pleasures:

"From where she lived, she looked on Paris as representing the height of all magnificent luxury as well as licentiousness. Throughout the long, dream-filled night, lulled by the regular snoring of her husband [...] she conjured up the images of all the famous men who made the headlines and shone like brilliant comets in the darkness [...] She pictured the madly exciting lives they must lead, moving from one den of vice to the next, indulging in never-ending and extraordinarily voluptuous orgies, and practising such complex and sophisticated sex as to defy the imagination. It seemed to her that hidden behind the façades of the houses lining the canyon-like boulevards of the city, some amazing erotic secret must lie." [42]  

After long and careful preparation, the woman decides she simply has to go to Paris ... But she is, of course, quickly disappointed:

"Up and down the boulevards she walked, seeing nothing particularly wicked or sinful. She cast her eye inside all the well-known cafés [...] But she found nothing that might lead her to the great orgies she imagined actresses and artists enjoyed all the time." [42-3]

Then, however, her luck changes and she bumps by chance into a famous author in a shop selling colourful Japanese ornaments, trinkets and knick-knacks (or bibelots as the French call these things). Seizing her opportunity, she latches onto Monsieur Jean Varin and cleverly persuades him to take her first for a walk in the park and then for a glass of absinthe. Naturally, she was wild with joy.

Then he takes her to dinner and, afterwards, to the theatre. Finally, they retire to his home and, without speaking, climb the stairs to his bedroom, where she quickly disrobes. Alas, things do not go well. She was as sexually naive and inexperienced "as only the lawful wife of a country solicitor can be", whilst he - no longer young, no longer handsome, no longer elegant - was "as demanding as a pasha with three tails" [46], which, even if I don't quite know what that means, I'm assuming to be very demanding indeed.  

Afterwards, by the light of a Chinese lantern:

"She looked in dismay at the tubby little man beside her, lying on his back with the sheet draped over his hot-air balloon of a belly.

      While he snored like a pipe-organ, with comic interludes of lengthy, strangulated snorts, the few hairs he possessed, exhausted by the onerous responsibility of masking the ravages of time on his balding skull during the day, now stood perkily on end. A dribble of saliva flowed from the corner of his half-open mouth." [47]

She got up and dressed as soon as dawn finally broke. As she does so, M. Varin also wakes. It took a few seconds for him to recover his senses, but when he does so, he asks her what her game is. To this she replies: "'I always wanted to know what it was like to be ... wicked ... and actually ... it turns out to be not all that much fun ...'" [47]

With this confession of disappointment, she ran from the room and out into the streets of Paris once more, just as an army of sweepers advanced towards her:

"They swept the pavements and the cobblestones, driving all the litter and filth into the stream of the gutter. [...] And as she ran through street after street, still they came to meet her, moving like puppets on a string with the same mechanical, mowing movement. She felt as though something inside her, too, had now been swept away. Through the mud, down to the gutter and finally into the sewer had gone all the refuse of her over-excited imagination.
      Returning home, the image of Paris swept inexorably clean by the cold light of day filled her exhausted mind, and as she reached her room, sobs broke from her now quite frozen heart." [47-8]

See: Guy de Maupassant, 'A Parisian Affair', in A Parisian Affair and Other Stories, trans. by Siân Miles, (Penguin Books, 2004). All page references given in the text refer to this edition.