The Social Network - All about a Relationship!

The last line spoken in the movie ‘Social Network’ is "I don't think you are an a**hole, I just think you are trying hard to be one", the intern of the attorney speaks to Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook. In fact, that one line ‘says it all’ as far as the movie is concerned. But I think the movie also has another angle which gives the pithy observation an interesting meaning.

In the last scene of the movie following this astute observation, Mark, flips open his laptop, sends a Facebook friend request to his college sweet-heart whom he flippantly had humiliated for rejecting him, but still was deeply enamored about. He sits, 'refreshing' his Facebook page waiting calmly for a response, with a smile of a kid watching the rain, waiting for the bright sun to show up and lighten up his sullen afternoon. The movie ends.

In fact the first scene of the movie is in a bar where Mark is trying to convince this sweetheart into being his girlfriend. He says if she was his girlfriend she would have access to an exclusive club which she couldn’t otherwise get to at all. She doesn't seem impressed. He then foul-mouthedly shoots-off about how she, who would sleep with a door keeper to get to any club, was acting up as though she did not care to get into this exclusive club. She tells him 'go to hell'. Mark goes to his room and writes a scathing blog disparaging her about many things, one of which had to do with his opinions on her lack of features.

A casual viewer of the movie may say that Mark comes of as an a**hole. Yes, true, but I think there is also something else going on there. I think he really liked her and wanted to be with her. But being a nerd, with a brilliant analytic mind and challenged social and relational counter parts, he does not know how relationships work. In an effort to try to impress her into having a relationship with him, he blurts out about she getting access to exclusive clubs through him, which she could otherwise not even dream of getting into, all the while not realizing how much he was denigrating her sense of self-worth. Even when she is appalled by his analytic rationale, he does not still get it. He tries to justify his rationale by saying that she wouldn't get access to even into a less privileged club, if she wasn't willing to sleep with the doorkeeper. As horrible as it sounds, in his mind, he is only making an analytic argument to prove to her that he was worth a shot. Even though his rationale is odd, to say the least, his intent is to prove to her that he can provide for her something that makes her happy. She says 'go to hell'. Now, he is in rage, and pours his anger on the blog, dooming any possibility of reconciliation.

In venting out his rage at having been rejected, and wanting to salvage his sense of impressiveness of himself, he quickly creates a website that get so many hits within the first hour, that it brings down the Harvard computer network. He wanted to prove to himself that he as impressive enough win her back even after snubbing her. Creating a website in 1 hour and creating enough hits to bring down the network is awesome. In fact, it is this tryst that eventually leads him to create Facebook.

Someone may say that Mark comes off as an heartless a**hole. But disagree, I think he appears so because he is relationally and socially challenged. There is a scene where he meets her again by this time, now he is already a minor celebrity with a fan base at Harvard. Facebook has already made him a name. He with his impressive accolades walks to her and sheepishly asks to speak to her. He tries to tell her about Facebook. She refuses to even listen to him. Mark has the most perplexed look on his face, ever. He has hit a wall but he does not know how to get through it. He walks off confused and tells his friend that she refused to speak to him. His friend asks, "Well, did you apologize to her". His face registers, if only for a short while, the look of a guy who threw a million dollars into trash can because he did not know how dollar bills looked like. He was so relationally challenged that it did not even occur to him that he really needed to apologize, just as an analytically challenged person would read a sentence like this 'when A is not equal to B and B is not equal to C, then there is no way one can say that A is definitely not C', more than once but still find it confusing.

Mark's longing for his sweetheart does not stop here. Facebook is growing. He is famous. He meets with Sean Parker who created the infamous yet iconic phenomenon of Napster. Sean tells Mark that he created the prototype for Napster when his girlfriend dumped him and he wanted to prove he was valuable. Mark brightens up. He sees the parallel. Mark asks Sean what happened of that girlfriend after he became famous, “Did you two get back?” The question does not even register in Sean's mind, he is already showing off to his umpteenth one-night girlfriend. Sean is who I call 'a complete a**hole'. Mark is lost his heart still longing for his sweetheart.

The other high point of Mark's longing for his sweetheart is depicted at the seminal moment of his phenomenal achievement when Facebook crosses 1 million users for the first time. Everyone is at a party enjoying. Mark is sitting alone in his office thinking about the one he is missing. His hour of greatest achievement, on the road to becoming the youngest billionaire ever, was the lowest point of his life. He did not have his sweetheart to share his achievement with.

Then we move to the last scene where Mark is grilled by attorney representing his Rich-brat Harvard-mates who are suing him, with wealthy attorneys that their Father’s deep pockets could buy, to get a share on Facebook. Mark is indignant. His rationale is that Facebook is his because he invented it. Once the grilling is complete and everyone has left. He is alone, and hasn't had any food all day. You would think he would be totally pissed of. And he is. But he remembers that his pursuit wasn't really fame or money, even his closest friend who was suing him says on testimony, "Mark never cared for money". Right from the night that he brought the Harvard Network down

it was a Relationship that Mark was pursuing . If Shajahan built the Taj Mahal as a momument for the celebration of his love for Mumtaj, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook as a means to impressive before his sweetheart and to win her back.

The real problem was that being relationally challenged, he did not understand the basic tenet of relationships. Real lasting relationships are built on the ability of a person to love, not on impressiveness factor. His analytically brilliant, relationally challenged mind did not understand that a man who tries too hard to be impressive ends up becoming an a**hole.

Ps: This spin in the moive is entirely fictional. The real life Mark Zuckerberg is perhaps relationally challenged but he has had one girlfriend since his Harvard days and they have been together all along. Commendable!