#my boyband bias john lennon

[glass-onion-soup]

Thanks for this long, thoroughly considered ask. I think you're completely on the money on both points here, that John continued to abandon Julian because it was too uncomfortable to make the effort, and that his Bermuda trip might have been a turning point that made him re-assess his first father-son relationship. I'll explain why I agree tho.

Re: John's comfort zone - I think his "what can ya do?" abandonment of Julian had two factors to it. The first was shame, and his shame-based self hate. John was a classic example of a "thwarted perfectionist" thanks to Mimi's emotionally incestuous and narcissistically stifling upbringing. If you can't do something perfect immediately, there's no point in doing it at all, otherwise you will be subject to ridicule and abuse. Thwarted perfectionists often check out and either don't finish/start projects, or engage in performative self sabotage (John was more of the latter, though he evolved into the former for a while in his 30's). I think his attitude with Julian was "I already fucked this up, I fucked it up right away, there is no fixing it because I was destined to be bad at it, etc". This might not have even been on a fully conscious level, but I can't imagine seeing or thinking about Julian made him feel very good about himself. It was psychologically easier to start with a new kid and do it "right" from the beginning this time instead of fixing what you already broke. In this psychological frame of mind, raising Sean can also simultaneously become redeeming the fuck up with Julian (symbolically; this still left Julian out in the cold). John seemed to view going back to Yoko in 75 in general as an act of maturity based on insight over how he let his first two "marriages" (Cyn, and Lennon-McCartney) fall apart as soon as they got difficult. I would disagree with this personally lol, but if he were talking about anything BUT his codependent relationship with Yoko he'd be totally correct. Like, the sentiment is not wrong, and it says a lot about where his head was.

The other factor is, as you implied, John's belief that he lacked personal agency. This reinforced his thwarted perfectionism, bc the mental hurdle to even imagine himself being able to fix something he broke was too powerful when he was languishing in learned helplessness. It's no accident that the only time he made real overtures to Julian after leaving Cyn was during a period when he was highly productive in a creative sense (and playing a leadership role in many of his creative endeavours to boot) and with a woman who, while she did get sucked into mothering him quite a bit, encouraged him to take risks and uh, like, go outside and shit.

I'm mostly just fleshing out what you've said here with more psychological detail because I think you already hit the key insight: his experience sailing to Bermuda was a huge turning point re: his self perception wrt personal agency. The big elephant in the room, however, is Yoko. It didn't take long for John to start opening himself up a few inches to Cyn and Jules after breaking with Yoko in the mid-70's; it was her who had the zero sum game attitude wrt his first family (which he, don't get me wrong, absolutely went along with at the time, he was so determined and desperate to "break" with his old life; Yoko's "cut everyone out" rhetoric was a useful mental tool and excuse for him). I think the fact that 'Double Fantasy' was originally supposed to be a John-only project that Yoko shouldered her way into indicates that he hadn't actually reclaimed or fully integrated this newfound sense of agency at the time of his death, but the attitude he fostered there hadn't gone away.

So yeah: if John had been able to nurture that positive feeling, if he and Yoko went their separate ways, if he had been able to go back to England and reconnect with his old circle of family and friends, I think it's probably true that he would at least tried to make things right by with Jules (and maybe even Cynthia, but lets not get too crazy here).

As for what it might have looked like, it's difficult to know tbh. I do think that John was one of those people who just had a hard time relating to small children because they couldn't discourse on an adult level (tho notably he was better with young girls than boys). Re-connecting with Julian as a teen/adult who was capable of interacting more as a peer than a dependent probably would do a lot to radically reframe their relationship and give John points of reference and enthusiasm to engage with him. Likely this would have primarily happened through music. However based on observation of similar situations irl, I think there probably would have always been a wedge of distrust present as often happens with adult children of highly irresponsible parents. What I'm saying is that I believe they could have or would have become friends, maybe even close friends, but I don't believe they ever would have become "father and son".

[inspiteallthedanger]

“Oh no, I’m insane. Paul didn’t even like John. What am I doing?” - SAME HAT!!! sorry to harp on this but I'm so glad someone else has the same experience, because my thought process normally goes something like:

"There are two wolves inside of you, one of them looks at the j&p mess and goes They are insane about each other, there is absolutely no way to read this as anything BUT some deeply repressed - likely romantic - tensions from both sides. I'm not saying they were fucking but I AM saying they loved each other and I have a pretty heavy bias, regarding what kind of love that was, but there is no way to argue that they didn't love each other in SOME way. Because why would they be LIKE THAT otherwise, why would Paul McCartney - billionaire, legend, music royalty, high enough up on the food chain that he doesn't NEED to pander to anyone if he doesn't want to - be LIKE THAT about John Lennon even 40 years after his death if there wasn't SOMETHING he's been repressing for years, why would he pretend to like John if he doesn't, why would he go out of his way to talk about him in interviews, even if the interviewer doesn't bring him up first, if he didn't actually like him?!

and the OTHER wolf is actually a little goblin that bangs on a VERY loud drum and goes Okay but what if Paul actually didn't like John and hated him, actually, huh??? Check and mate buddy!" This is then accompanied by my brain getting increasingly tangled in ridiculous justifications about why that is a reasonable argument to make and how that makes sense, actually, if you REALLY think about it.

That latter part is normally also the point in time when I know I'm absolutely in too deep and need to log off and go for a walk or to bed and maybe not look at social media for a week, because I really don't think taking 60s boyband relationships that serious is good for your health, but like... yeah I ABSOLUTELY get where you're coming from. I have never doubted John caring for Paul and that he genuinely loved him, the man was SUCH an open book, but Paul and his emotions on the topic are a huge question mark for me sometimes. Anyway, god I'm sorry this is so long, but again,

tldr; SAME HAT!!!!!

Paul and his emotions on the topic are a huge question mark for me sometimes

YASSSSS. I think this is actually the crux of the problem for me. Paul just doesn't talk about things in a way I understand. And for all his 'I loved John' he also drops in little digs at him and points out that John wasn't as smart of whatever. So... it's confusing.

Plus, we're fighting about the mainstream narrative that is 'Lennon/McCartney' weren't that close. I literally made my three best friends come to Liverpool recently. And, before we went, I went on a (very restrained) rant about John and Paul, and they were all floored. One of them said, "That is weird, because now you say it, it doesn't make sense that they didn't like each other. But, that's just what I always thought."

I do think/hope that's actually changing now, but I sometimes have to stop and go, "Wait, is this because I've been on Tumblr too long? Is there a much more simple explanation for this?"

Ultimately, I come down on your first thought. They were fucking weird about each other. Who knows in what exact ways/the underlying reasons for that. But it remains true however you paint it.

Anyway, yes. I feel you, nonny.