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Okay this is not really about magic although it is about magicians so it's sort of relevent so I thought I'd ask this here. I am a young woman who has started a relationship with a magician somewhat older than me. I'm interested in card magic myself and that is how we met and he's a really great guy funny, blindingly quick, well read, intelligent I could go on. However he seems to have a few emotional problems and having been brought up by an amateur magician I can't help but draw some parallels between my current partners personality and my Fathers and some other magicians I have met and read about. It seems that many of them have real issues around control, issues with women and use magic as away of keeping themselves at a distance emotionally. I think it may have something to do with the fact that the majority of their formative years were spent locked away in their rooms learning some effect or another or if they were engaging with people it was through the guise of a persona with a set patter. This means that when it comes to being intimate with another person they panic because their whole lives have been about contoling the other persons perception of them and the situation they are in. I really do have deep feelings for the man I am involved with but as far as I can see he has been making the same mistakes in relationships romatic and other wise for years. He just can't let go of his need to control and he cannot trust. Consequently he can be prone to bouts of jealousy, paranoia and delusion. I see that being alone in life is destroying him but my father could never be changed and I don't know if it would ever be possible for him to change.

I am in no way suggesting that all magicians are like this but in my experiance with them it seems to me that often those most obsessed with magic seem to have some of these personality traits. Of course the irony is not lost on me that I am this board highlighting the emotional terrain of a magician while I myself seem in some way to be trying to fix my own father's problems through my relationship with this man ... maybe it's me who can't give up control!

Anyway I would be interested in your perspective. Do you think that relationships with magicians have there own particular pitfalls? Or that being a magician somehow shapes your personality or attracts a certain kind of person?

Many thanks for reading.

Lily

A very different yet interesting post! If you managed to catch "Wife Swap" (if your sad like me ) you might have seen the Celebrity edition with Paul Daniels. It was widely acknowledged and noticed afterwards by a lot of people including myself that he was almost completely useless in social situations without bringing up magic. After years of perfecting an art form and dedicating pretty much your whole life, it begins to rub off.

When your main social interaction is demonstrating an amazing feat of magic and/or skill, your use to getting a certain kind of reaction. I am guessing that after a certain length of time, forming new relationships in certain situations could become awkward.

Just my opinion I guess, but I certainly saw it in Paul.

Hi Lily,

Firstly I 'd like to just say thank you for being so honest and forposting such a thought provoking first post on this forum, it must have taken some courage.

I'm sure that all performers (not just magicians) share some common traits. The desire to entertain people is often (imho) linked with a need for acceptance from those same people. I wonder how many performers had difficulty with their peers at school for being different (I know I had problems). And Ihave noticed that a few magicians can be slightly awkward in some social situations (myself included).

But I guess when you look at the negative sides it is also easy to lose perspective of the way these personality traits contribute to creating the positive sides of the performer as well. And I also would like to say that all people (performers or not) are complex creations and a mixture of both good and bad elements. It is my hope that in this case the good outweighs the bad and you can help your partner to overcome the more negative of his traits or that you can come to terms with them as it is obvious from your comments that you care very deeply for him.

Sorry if I'm not much help, but I do hope some of the more learned of my colleagues will be able to give you their perspectives on this matter.

I think that when ever someone is very passionate about something they tend to immerse themselves into it so deeply that they can tend to forget about the other people and things in their lives.

If you think magicians are bad, you want to try living with a cyclist. He's up and out riding at 6am in the mornings, gets home from work and if he's not out riding, he'll be upstairs oiling something or adjusting something else. Come the weekends and, yup you've guessed it he's out on the bike. If I say anything about it, he'll just say 'well I need to train to beat this time or win that race'. But I'm sure that I'm the same too, I'll spend hours with my nose burried in a book working out a new effect or listening to a track over and over to find a good cue to produce a silk.

The thing with us is that we both know we're like that so always put aside a couple of evenings a week where we wont do anything except spend some time together.

lily wrote: and use magic as away of keeping themselves at a distance emotionally....

.... Of course the irony is not lost on me that I am this board highlighting the emotional terrain of a magician while I myself seem in some way to be trying to fix my own father's problems through my relationship with this man ... maybe it's me who can't give up control!

Lily

What totally juicy post!

This post verbalised some of my issues around magic, not just in terms of relationships but in one's social life etc. I have spent the last 8 months rediscovering my magic but feel unable to perform to lay people as I cannot get round the "distance" that is created by me going into a fake spiel. I always plan to show magic to friends and my partner, but something always blocks me from doing it. So I practice and I come on talkmagic and I read and I keep it to myself and then perform in front of other magicians at clubs and societies and the magic shop where I occasionally do the odd day. Very frustrating for me. Magic, at the moment, makes me feel very "un-real" as opposed to being "real" (as the kids might say) with people. I don't like that "gap".

I also do Tarot and I also sing and I have none of the problems with these crafts that I do with magic. And I think it is because of the "I-know-something-you-don't" which is always inherent in magic.
The only time I have been able to perform magic in front of the laiety, was doing a stage competition in a bar a few weeks ago, and I chose to run through my routine in front of a couple of friends in their living room and it was so painful to do it, although they did look astonished at the end. I think I am more comfortable with a stage as it implies a boundary around me.

Anyway I feel like I'm hijacking this thread from Lily's original post, sorry! In direct response to Lily, I would say two things...

Firstly, when I became seriously invested in the persuit of "relationship" my magical interest absolutely died. And 8 months ago, when I rediscovered my magic as it fell out of a cupboard one day and I remember how I used to love it, it was at a low point in relationship.
And it did occur to me that I might have been using magic as a way of finding refuge from a disillusionment in relationship; rediscovering a secretive former interest that had nothing to do with my partner ha ha ha.

Secondly, I think it's great that you are aware that you are trying to fix your Dad through your current partner and if I may take my counsellor's hat and stick it on my head for a moment I'd say that, in my opinion, people don't radically change and when it comes to relationships, what you see is what you get. You can spend the next chunk of your life trying to "fix" him so you get what you want (a satisfactory level of intimacy) and heal the pain of your childhood, but it's an ambitious project.
But maybe I'm being a bit gloomy like the weather today lol.

And to hijack this thread further, how many people actually SHARE their magical secrets and inner magical thoughts with their nearest and dearest? I'm very precious about the secrets, so precious that I think I choose not to do magic at all rather than spill secrets left, right and centre, not even to my partner. But there's that fine line between practicing and messing up and gaining the experience and confidence and sometimes I think that it wud be easier to include my partner more, than being so paranoid and insular.

Food for thoughts...

It is not hard to see that a mistrusting magician who live and breathe deception might become pretty paranoid.

If you go shopping and arrive one hour later with
the groceries a normal partner would feel safe. A paranoid magician who is breathing and thinking deception would not fall for such a simple trick . Clearly the groceries were hidden in the garden where you secret lover left them. You and your secret lover could then have an affair while you pretended to be in the supermarket.

The story you told your partner about there being many people in the supermarket is obvious just smoke......

But you ensure him that you love him!

This is obvious just a part of another ploy. There can be no doubt that you are planning to poison him slowly to death. Clearly, you are trying to hide this fact by always making his favorite food. But, such a simple trick will of course not fool him. All the signs are there.... Why did he never see you go to pharmacy? You clearly must have been at the pharmacy and is trying to hide this from him.....

I am sure that to live with a possessive and paranoid partner can be a serious challenge. To live with a possessive paranoid magician cannot be any easier.

I suggest that you show him a bit of your magic . And I am not thinking about showing him your cards.

Hi Lily,
I'd say "thought provoking first post" but I am wondering if you are looking for advice on just this issue and we might not see much of you after that! But that of course is fine and well done for being so resourceful in your seeking of answers.

I agree with a lot of what has been said on here, especially with regard to intense hobbies or obsessions. Perhaps a difference for magic is that you are probably right - for many if not most people, it is an aid to a facade of varying degrees.
Magic has often been seen as the "nerd's revenge" against those who were more traditionally popular or socially attractive in their younger days, the athletes and the barbies etc, and without wanting to generalise, many magicians I have met do have a mild degree of social awkwardness or shyness - I have no problem with that, because I think magic really can help people get past that and not only communicate but take a more confident social role... have a crack at being the "party guy" if you like. If this guy uses magic to overcome his shyness, great - some people use alcohol etc, so you could actually see it as a positive way of dealing with something that would be much more problematic otherwise.

I think one thing to remember is that if we look into it, many people have other insecurities and character "flaws" too (although I would prefer to call them simply traits or characteristics) that are hinted at through their choice of past time. Those jocks and bimbos we mentioned earlier - I know people of both persuasion, and both are often images portrayed to cover up their own insecurities.

If you know anything of "Barnum statements" - statements used by mind readers to make you think they know something about you, but actually apply to everyone - two classic examples are "you have a strong need for other people to like and admire you" and "calm and collected on the outside, you have a tendency to be worrisome and insecure on the inside." These are statements which supposedly apply to everyone to an accuracy of around 70% (as I remember), so you can see how infact the magician in your life is not so different or unusual after all!


There are however 3 things that stick out to me from this that perhaps you could think about.
1) The big thing that sticks out is the jealousy, paranoia and delusional state. Many people have all on trying to live happily and normally when their partner develops these characteristics having previously been more mentally stable. Without wanting to queer the pitch for this guy I would be extremely cautious about deliberately entering into a relationship where these things were already a factor, unless you feel you simply love him so much you are prepared for a difficult life. The other option would be to ask him if he loves you enough to seek help about these issues.

2) Change... er, unlikely! It can happen, but there's a good old cliche "women spend their lives trying to change their husbands and then leave them on the basis that "he's not the man I married"!" Joking aside, please please please don't get into a LTR on the basis that you will be able to change things about him. For safety's sake, I would consider the theoretical situation in which things not only stayed the same but perhaps if they even got a bit worse.

3) Who comes first? Some women smilingly accept that the car, the bike, magic, football etc. is "the other woman" and will always come first, although I think this is not something to accept lightly. Others really struggle because they just assumed that when it came to it, their boyfriends/husbands would obviously prioritise them, only to find it's not necessarily the case! I would suggest that you need to be sure for yourself that you come above magic (if, as mentioned, you're not willing to play second fiddle), and put things in place like Lady of Mystery and indeed myself in which you set side time for the both of you which you allow nothing - no hobbies, friends or family - to interrupt.

I wish you all the best in this situation.

Thank you all for your thoughtful replies some very interesting perspectives. I do understand that many people not necessarily magicians display these traits but I think it is interesting in how often I find these in magicians. I think that VoodooMick makes a very intersting point when he talks about the distance required in order to make an effect work. I myself have never been able to"perform" magic exactly because of this, I'm just not capable of that distance.
I think in my relationship I am well aware that magic is his first love and in many ways that is fine but not if it becomes a block or a misdirection if you like from what is real.

Looking at my post it does seem some what negitive and of course we have many great times together but I do feel that in some fundamental way it is almost these negitives that are what draw me in and I can't help but feel that for some although not all magicians these issues exist.

I did not see that wife swap with Paul Daniels although I heard others discuss it and it sounds very interesting, apparently he did not come off too well in it. I don't know maybe Debbie McGee had a troubled magician for a father!

I think for us the good does out weight the bad and out of the relationships he has had I am perhaps the best placed to understand him and he me so that it something at least. I don't know if change is the right term but perhps be able to function better. I think that magicians at their best can be true artists and I think that my guy is just a little too sensitive and so reacts badly in situations he cannot control for example an intimate relationship. I guess he is just shy and has used magic and his reactions as a buffer to protect himself perhaps the same way that a shy person might as a teenager pick up a guitar or a camera it's both something to hide behind and a tool of expression and the same could be said for a pack of cards.

A lot to think of here, of course if anyone has anything more to add I'd love to hear it.

Thank you to everyone who replied it's all very helpful

lily - do you also feel on some level, you are trying to heal or make better any kind of internalised feelings you have towards your father in this relationship with your boyfriend?

there seems to be parallels...

if you take the magic out of the scenario - how does he make you feel? and how does he behave?

you are obviously concerned enough to come and ask a group of strangers...what have your friends said?

have you sat down with your fella and said how his behaviour makes you feel?

youre right, and i can see why this would happen. the entertainment industry, especially magic, music and acting, is bound to attract social misfits - an area where they can be in control, and where they dont have to be themselves in many instances. entertainment has long been a route to escaping real life.

during my professional life as a musician i have come across many characters like this and often find it hard to network and socialise with them. one guitarist i knew would often lock himself in his room for days no tv, phone or anything and pretend that he wasnt in. he would never offer any explaination, nor often could he see how his behaviour seemed odd.

maybe a of these people find acting/music/magic as a way they can communicate better than normal social interaction? or perhaps as already said they simply shut themselves away while they practice again nd again alone while young, so miss out of the formative years of learning social behaviour.

im sure weve all seen a close up magician, and afterwards tried to chat to them, or maybe the guy aat the shop, etc. sometimes you can tell they cant really relax around people and just converse.

anyone whos seen david blaine being interviewed would im sure cast some judgement on his rather odd character. same with many celebrities - they just dont seem to act 'normal'. different genres of course attract different personality types, and this is most obvious in music. we all have opinions about what sort of people listen to which music, and 95% of the time ive seen this to be accurate first hand (and of course ive found the wierdest folk while playing jazz but thats another story).

fact is while many dream of fame (which is another trait they show - dreaming, not sensing reality the way the majority of us do), entertainment will always attract these types of people. just look at big brother contestants to see what i mean

lily wrote:I am in no way suggesting that all magicians are like this but in my experiance with them it seems to me that often those most obsessed with magic seem to have some of these personality traits.

Think yourself lucky he's not an RPG'er.

I recall a statement from I think Eugene Berger that I recently read ad he said that "magicians are either sculptors or potters"

Sculptors are happy with their own persona and simply chip away at improving it where potter try to build a character to perform through.

It certainly struck me and got the grey matter working as Berger often does.

It may be that you have a potter when what you want is a sculptor.

I've been working full time for around 3 years now, and these days I can't walk into a pub or restaurant or hotel without looking round the place, checking out all the tables, and imagining which table I'd "hit" first. Honestly, it's awful. I can be sat in a pub with my wife and I'm looking at each table, thinking "they'd be good to perform for" or "they'd be awful". The only way I can enjoy "going out" these days is if I'm working. Tonight I worked in a restaurant for three hours then spent another 30 minutes reading the palms of the staff. I had a great time! I guess it justs gets in your blood.

I'm sure many others involved in performing feel the same way. You want issues? Fall in love with an actor!!! Now they're really screwed up.

themagicwand wrote:
I'm sure many others involved in performing feel the same way. You want issues? Fall in love with an actor!!! Now they're really screwed up.

Arnt magicians just actors acting at being magicians

I find that I have had troubles at school because I either want to be the center of attention, I want to manipulate what people see, or I use card tricks as a way of distancing myself from other people in general. I would like to think that alot of magicians have this problem, although if I am on my own, I know Im going wrong somewhere, but a friend of mine once said: I hate magicians - he himself is a magician (working in Skipton if I recall) but he doesnt get on with other magicians because he wants to be the one who is the centre of attention, as do all the other magicians.
There will always be an air of trying to better the other one, and a sense of competition will be forever looming.
I think that we can all use our deck of cards as a barrier to the real world, as I have found - for one - that when I perform magic - I have been told that I am a completely different person. This is because I know what I want to say, and it has been practiced. In the real world of course, we dont get time to practice what we want to say - when doing magic, I am fairly confident, because, as I say, I have practiced it, until I can do it when Im not thinking. If I had the choice, I would much rather be my performing self than my normal self - simply because my performing self simply because he is the more confident of my alteregos.

I am sure Im not the only one who feels this.