A Beautiful Mind

Nash’s first attempts at sexual or romantic relationships “were one-sided and unrequited” (169). Generally, he was immature and inexperienced in love, acting much like an adolescent with a crush.

However, at the end of the summer of 1952, he experiences what he calls one of his “special friendships” (169), a mutual attraction between himself and another man. Ervin Thomson is thirty years old, homosexual but not open about his sexuality, at least to his family and work colleagues. Such secrecy is not surprising “given the mounting pressure to root out homosexuals in the defense industry in the McCarthy era” (170).

Little is known about Nash and Thomson’s relationship but “it must have been fleeting […] and very furtive” (170). Nevertheless, it is a highly significant relationship for Nash, representing the “first time he found not rejection but reciprocity” and his “first real step out of his extreme emotional isolation” (170). 

When Nash is admitted to hospital to have some varicose veins removed, he meets a “pretty, dark-haired nurse” (172) named Eleanor. She thinks he is “cute and sort of sweet” (173) but after he is discharged, she never expects to see him again. However, she bumps into him while out shopping and he joins her, “clowning around” (179) in the department store.

Eleanor is “shy and lacking in confidence” (173), sexually inexperienced, and “suspicious and guarded, especially around men” (173). However, the young MIT professor disarms her with his “sweetness” (174) and awkward charm, and she feels reassured by the fact that he is, “if anything, less experienced than she [is]” (174).

The two begin a sexual relationship although Nash keeps “his liaison with Eleanor a deep secret for years, even while he display[s] his infatuation with various men more or less in public” (174). Nash enjoys spending time with her and having her cook for him and fuss over him.

When Eleanor tells Nash that she is pregnant, she is surprised that he seems “more pleased than panicked” (175). Nevertheless, despite her hopes, he does not “say anything about marriage, Eleanor’s future, or, for that matter, how she and the baby [will] manage” (175).

Their relationship soon begins to sour, with Eleanor worrying about the future and Nash providing little to no support. Worse, he insults her, “call[ing] her stupid and ignorant,” “[making] fun of her pronunciation” (175), and mocking her desire to marry him. She resents his mockery and “his superior airs and lack of sensitivity” (175) but still believes he will eventually step up and support her.

When their child, John David Stier, is born, Nash rushes to the hospital and is evidently excited and happy, remaining with Eleanor and the baby for “as long as the nurses let him” (176). However, he still does not propose or offer to support Eleanor and their child.

After she loses her job, Eleanor is forced to place John David in foster care, visiting him every Sunday with Nash. She resents Nash for placing her in this position but continues the affair, still hoping that he will marry her.

Eventually, Nash suggests “to Eleanor that she give John David up for adoption” (178), arguing that the child will be better off in the long run. After four years in a sometimes happy, sometimes dysfunctional relationship, the suggestion “all but kill[s] off any remaining love Eleanor felt for Nash” (178). 

In the fall of 1952, Nash meets graduate student Jack Bricker in the MIT common room. Two years younger than Nash, Bricker is “mesmerized,” “hypnotized,” and “enamored” (180), deeply drawn to Nash’s good looks and startling intelligence. Nash is taken with Bricker too, despite usually being “disdainful of lesser minds” (180).

When the two men begin a relationship, they are surprisingly open about it, making “no secret of their affection, kissing in front of other people” (180-181). Another of the “special friendships” (181) that Nash shared with other men, his relationship with Bricker is loving and extremely important, “the experience of loving and being loved subtly alter[ing] Nash’s perception of himself and the possibilities open to him” (181).

Despite this, the relationship is “not an especially happy one” (181). Nash still remains obsessed with his autonomy and freedom and reluctant to offer real emotional engagement. Worse than this, he soon takes “to belittling Bricker just as he belittle[s] Eleanor” (181).

Complicating matters, when Nash finally tells Bricker of his ongoing relationship with Eleanor, the three begin socializing together and Bricker grows “increasingly disturbed by, and critical of, Nash’s treatment of Eleanor” (182). This increases when Eleanor starts “turning to Bricker for sympathy and advice” (182).

The relationship grows increasingly difficult, with Nash’s behavior troubling Bricker and his great intelligence and achievements making him feel inadequate. Eventually, while Nash is away on sabbatical, Bricker “drop[s] out of graduate school and relinquish[es] his dream of becoming an academic” (182). 

In 1954, Nash is spending another summer at RAND. True to his usual working methods, he spends a great deal of time “walking on the sand or along the promenade in Palisades Park” (184), thinking and ruminating on his research. Often these walks extend into the night.

One day, the head of security at RAND receives a call from the police reporting that vice squad officers have “picked up a young guy in a men’s bathroom in Palisade Park” and charged him with “indecent exposure” (184) before releasing him. The RAND security officer confirms that the man, John Nash, does indeed work at RAND.

During the paranoid climate of Cold War America, homosexuality is considered both obscene and dangerous because it supposedly leaves homosexuals vulnerable to blackmail by enemy spies. This is particularly true of those, like Nash, working on national security projects with “top-secret security clearance” (185). In this climate, “criminal conduct and ‘sexual perversion’ [are] both grounds for denying or cancelling a clearance” (185) and Nash’s consulting work with RAND is quickly ended.

Nash does not “appear shaken or embarrassed” (186) when security confronts him about the arrest. Later, however, he is shocked by the turn of events. He has grown accustomed to “to living in a tolerant ivory tower” (188), coming to believe that he can do more or less whatever he wants. 

Here, however, he learns that relationships and connections he is pursuing “[threaten] to destroy all else that he value[s]–his freedom, his career, his reputation, success on society’s terms” (188). Such shock and fear can be extremely damaging and might later be a contributing stress factor that helped trigger his schizophrenia.