Some People Are Just Too Helpful
Not everyone agrees that being saved from choking is a favor worth remembering fondly. In a candid moment of reflection, one man was asked to name the top three people he felt the world could do without. His answer cut straight to a specific, formative grievance: a gay man who performed a Heimlich maneuver on his friend at a Wolf house party, years ago, while the group was on LSD.
The complaint, delivered with complete sincerity, was not that the intervention was unwanted in principle — it was that he did too much.
The Incident in Question
The scene: a youthful gathering, an altered state of consciousness, a friend in apparent distress. By most accounts, a Heimlich maneuver in this context would qualify as heroic, or at least decent. But the memory that stuck was not one of gratitude. The man who stepped in — characterized here primarily by his sexuality and his apparent enthusiasm — apparently left an impression that has outlasted the trip itself.
What "too much" means in this context remains open to interpretation. Too forceful? Too eager? Too present in a moment that already felt overwhelming? The transcript offers no further clarity, and perhaps that is for the best.
A Window Into How We Remember Rescue
There is something worth noting in the structure of this grievance. When given the opportunity to identify people who "shouldn't be people," the respondent did not reach for the powerful, the corrupt, or the cruel. He reached for someone who helped — and helped, by his account, with too much energy.
It is a remarkably human response: to resent the person who saw you at your most vulnerable, even when — or especially when — they acted well. The Heimlich maneuver works by force. It is not subtle. Being on the receiving end of one, or watching a friend go through it while under the influence of a hallucinogen, is probably not a gentle experience.
Still, the friend presumably lived. The man who acted did what needed doing. And yet, years later, he tops the list.
