Summer Obsessions

Obsession. Lust. Neil Klugman is a lower to middle class Jewish college graduate working at a library. One day while he is at the country club, he holds a girls glasses, and instantly falls in love, almost immediately finding out who she is and calling her. She is a part of the upper class, with a different yet parallel lifestyle compared to Neil. Their relationship quickly falls into a lustful summer fling, which ends the first time Neil visits her in college. Neil wastes his time obsessively fantasizing over a summer fling, and in doing so, he separates himself from everyone he cares about. 

In the beginning of this summer fling, it was obvious that Neil was obsessive. He found out who she was without knowing her name, and immediately found out what she was doing and wanted to see her. They meet at the tennis courts, and upon their second time meeting each other, they kiss, showing how there is no substance in the relationship. They don’t even share personal information until their second meeting, and they only do this in between flings to keep it “fun.” As the relationship moves forward, the lustful actions become more apparent, and Neil’s obsession becomes more prominent. While on vacation, they begin running, and Neil goes to having fun to obsessively trying to beat Brenda, until the point that she falls over. This same type of obsessive behavior continues as he is playing ping pong with Brenda’s little sister. He destroys her in the game until the point that she starts crying. This continuation of obsessive behavior does not stop here, but goes to the point that he pushes Brenda to get a diaphragm despite her obvious arguing against it. He does not have any solid reason to get one besides he wants her to have it, and in the long run, it only hurts the relationship. This obsessive behavior and argument should have been a red flag that the relationship was going to end, but Neil, through all of this, thinks he wants to marry Brenda, even despite at one point her saying she only let him stay on vacation for another week so they could be done. After vacation, Neil continues to obsessively think about her, and writes to her as soon as she leaves. On his first visit to her, however, he realizes that Brenda’s mom found the diaphragm , and what once was a fun summer fling quickly ends with Neil leaving her. Ironically, Neil was going to say something about marriage, attesting to his obsessive behavior. In obsessing over the girl he obviously had no future with, Neil upsets his Aunt multiple times with his absence, upsetting her and making her worried sick while he is on vacation with her and making her upset that he is missing the holiday and his parents. Neil should have ended the lustful fling when it started, for it led to him obsessing over a girl he had no chance with, causing him to upset his family.