I really hope I don't put anybody off, but I'll have to confess that I am way more Ennis-like than you guys about my obsession. Beyond praising the movie to the skies (which I do to everyone I know), I don't tell anybody about the extent of my obsession because I know how weird they would think it is, because I myself would think it was weird if it weren't happening to me. I have always felt Trekkies and Star-Wars fanatics were a little weird. I have always felt people who spend all their free time chatting with strangers on computer message boards were a little weird. And now that I've become one of those people, I guess I'm just not confident enough to boldly proclaim my eccentricity to others and let them take it or leave it. Those of you who can do that have my admiration, but I'm more self-conscious than that.
So there's only one person in the world, my best friend, who even comes close to knowing about it (she herself has seen it four times and checked out the imdb board), but even to her I haven't admitted the full extent of my involvement in these message boards (and of course she doesn't even know about this one's existence). Most people -- husband, kids, other friends -- think I've seen the movie only two or three times (real answer: seven). And even when I tell them that much, they look at me strangely, which makes me uncomfortable. The last time I mentioned something about it to my best friend, she said, "You're scaring me." She likes the movie a lot but is not obsessed. So I guess from now on I will shut up with her, too. As I said in an earlier post, I did mention in passing the seven-times figure to my therapist, and when she gave me an odd look I decided not to go into it with her, either.
Another part of it, though, is that after all these months, that friend is the only person I know who has EVEN SEEN THE MOVIE. I'm really baffled by this. My friends aren't homophobes, and most of them like movies. I don't know why they haven't taken my urgent advice to see it, or even responded to all the reviews and the post-Oscar backlash. But that's their problem. They don't know what they're missing.
When they finally do see it, I will also judge them according to their reaction. If they don't like it at all, I'll be appalled and disappointed and scornful. If they love it, I will be pleased. But I frankly don't expect anybody to share my reaction and start thinking about it day and night.
After all, I think we're pretty special, when you consider how few people in the world, out of all the people who've seen it, are like us. There are the couple hundred of us on this board, plus the people on the imdb board and Dave Cullen's board and I guess you'd include those who've made YouTube tribute videos and so forth. And there are probably some poor souls who are equally obsessed but don't know about the message boards and therefore don't have any outlet for their feelings. On the one hand, that's a lot of people, but on the other it's a fraction of all those who've seen it and probably enjoyed it in a more limited way.
Anyway, all this is to say that I am grateful on a daily basis to have found you guys. We might not have anything else in common, but the fact that we are all on the same page about this one thing is, I think, something to be cherished.
Someday I hope, like Sarah, to find my obsession fading, because it really is interfering with my productivity, and also because I get uncomfortable keeping this huge secret from everyone I know. But every time I start to feel even for a moment like I might be drifting away from Brokeback I get sad. It has become such an important part of my inner life that I am just not ready to let it go yet.