Kramer from Seinfeld was the one guy that pretty much drew applause every time he burst into the room. It didn’t matter what his reason was for being there as he just about fell through the door, it’s the fact that he was there in the first place. He could have been just stopping by to say hello or coming to say something urgent, he was there with a purpose. And yet if you really look at the character he was just as much of a mess internally and externally as anyone else on the show. His fashion sense was a riot, his hairstyle made him look like he stuck his finger in a wall socket when he woke up, and his mannerisms made you wonder if he was on speed or cocaine half of the time. And yet for all that he was a loved character that elicited nothing but positive vibes no matter what kind of hijinks he got up to.
And Kramer certainly had his share of those while the show was still running. There was no shortage of schemes that went on when he was around. From trying to return subpar fruit to ‘installing’ an AC unit in Jerry’s apartment he was always trying to run some angle that was hard to see and even harder to believe when he finally revealed what he was doing.
For all that he’s such an obvious weirdo Kramer is still supremely confident in himself. There’s no shortage of self-esteem with this guy even though he’s so off-balance that you have to wonder how he leaves his home each day. He’s the kind of guy that you don’t know how to deal with at times since you really have to wonder how he survives. He doesn’t work for anyone, he pulls one scheme after another, and yet he lives this life that’s somehow moderate to luxurious in a frustrating way that makes you wonder just how it’s cosmically allowed to happen.
He’s that friend that you somehow put up with and don’t know why. He says things and does things that you have to shake your head at times or simply let go since you couldn’t possibly understand them. In some ways he’s like two of the Three Stooges wrapped into one man. That’s the impression I get from Kramer.
I honestly think that with a friend like Kramer I’d be setting some well-defined limits and hoping against hope that he would find a way to recognize them and live by them. Of course having had a friend that was kind of like him I can say that it doesn’t always work that way. The kind of friend that does what Kramer does and acts as he acts is the type that was either raised without boundaries or was raised in a way that was too strict and thus they refused to recognize boundaries as an adult.
In any case, having experienced the Kramer in at least one person in life I can say that I’d rather not do it again, if only because it can be fun, but can also lead to a lot of headaches.
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