There's a specific kind of man who cannot accept that he is, in the most neutral sense of the word, average. Not broken, not particularly damaged. Just ordinary. No mythology, no wound that sets him apart (...not counting self-inflicted), no story worth telling at a dinner party... Just average. There's nothing wrong with that, but to him, it is... agony. Meanwhile, it's like, “DUDE, YOU WON." The safe, supportive nuclear family/safety net, stable job and income (in most cases), no childhood trauma, abduction, bizarre pattern of catastrophic events or abuse to speak of, often a house, and the friends you've known since grade school... But, it's just - not - enough. There's some empty hole burning through him... And so he finds the story, the mythology, the trauma... Or rather, he finds someone to borrow hers from.
I've been that someone. More than once- And I'm not alone in this.
The woman they actually choose, the one they “partner with" or marry, the one they build the whole nuclear family with in some cases, she's not the problem. She's wonderful. She's beautiful. She deserves someone who is fully there. He is always the problem. Because he builds a life with her while quietly maintaining a phantom somewhere else. Someone whose words he reads in secret. Someone whose voice, whose music, whose processing of her own difficult life he consumes from a safe distance. Without her knowledge, and certainly without anything resembling reciprocity.
He casts her: Muse, "cautionary tale," "manic pixie," "the one that got away," the unattainable "thing" he keeps perfect, precisely because he never actually reaches for it. And then when the structure holding his real life together starts to shift, when the grief or the dissatisfaction, or the quiet desperation gets loud enough- He reaches toward the phantom like she's a lifeline. Like she's been waiting. Like she'd want that? Like she fully even remembers him.
What they never seem to understand, is that being someone's mythology isn't a compliment. It is a specific kind of erasure. You're not a person; you're a function. A screen. A mirror. A role in someone else's story that you never auditioned for and can't quit, because you were cast without your knowledge- The real kicker is, he's cosplaying as protagonist, while actually being a real-world NPC...
I've been the fetish/novelty, the one they'd never actually commit to even when they (allegedly) loved me, the joke/punchline, the punching bag/projection screen, "the bitch" "myth" "the genius" "the Barbie" (…) the subject of someone else's narrative that bore no resemblance to my actual life. I've had people insert themselves into my life and work, literally and figuratively, people I've never even met or met in passing, with enthusiasm and contempt, and never my consent. And they often think they're honoring me- That's the part that's both hilarious and dehumanizing. "I'm sorry, but have we actually ever met?" I once said to a woman who needed a reality check on her bizarre over-familiarity. Another tell is when they use a childhood nickname of mine to address me (that I *never* use to introduce myself, and don't even go by now), and I cheekily ask, "Who's that? That's not actually my name. So, who's been talking shit?" The deer in headlights look is priceless.
The women who get "chosen," *pukes in mouth* the ones who “make sense," they're not lesser. They're safer. They won't hold up a mirror. They won't see through the performance. They won't name what's actually happening and hand it back with a raised eyebrow. And so he chooses her, and quietly keeps the phantom.
Here's the truth: I've been single for nearly seven years. Celibate for nearly eleven (there's a 7-11 joke in here somewhere...), and not because I've been waiting by the window or quietly dying inside. I made a conscious choice, and I've been completely fine with it. More than fine. What I haven't been able to locate is someone worth disrupting that for. Someone who shows up as a person, not a casting director. Not someone shopping, not someone extracting, not someone competing, not someone destroying.
What I actually want is not complicated- I want someone who actually sees me and goes, "YES, this is it for me. Only this." Then moves and invests accordingly. Not, "YES, I'm gonna try and siphon this bitch for all the light she possesses, and then when I've baited her into being angry enough, I'll pretend that's what she did to me." …Kind, generous, honest, assertive, someone present and patient. Not trying to break me, compete, or compare… Just someone flawed, but always learning and growing- in a real, non-threatening way (…oh, and handsome). Considering most men sadly don't even like women, and have no real incentive to be better people...
...I'm starting to think that's a relic of a bygone era- But I haven't completely stopped believing it exists somewhere for me.
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