hmpf

if he didn't have nicer elements to his character - I may idealise the men I'm attracted to, but there's usually *some* basis in fact for that idealisation. (I don't get attracted to unredeemably unpleasant people, generally speaking. Conflicted, contradictory ones? Yes. But never real 'bad guys'. I don't really get the 'bad boy appeal'.)

But it's striking that we only ever see a nicer side to Sam in his fantasy world, and that both of the framing sequences from his actual/primary reality show him in a very different light than his fantasies do. Also, it's at least noticeable that while Sam does care about people, he's often shockingly bad at recognising and acknowledging their actual needs and desires, and at reading and responding to human behaviour in general - a bit of characterisation that is somewhat at odds with his supposedly being a very able police officer, incidentally. So, I think he has definite deficits in the interpersonal department (possibly somewhat along the lines of my own deficits there - I, too, care deeply about people in general and my friends and family in particular, yet am almost completely unable to maintain normal human relationships; I'd say I probably fall somewhere on the margins of the autistic spectrum. And so, probably, does Sam.)