He's No You

"She's only a picture from a magazine."

I gender bended a line from the Jesse McCartney song “She’s No You.” One of my favorites in March.

I have always thought there was nothing harmful in having crushes on men who fall somewhere on The Hierarchy of Unavailable Men. There are many wonderful things about unavailable men, the best of them being: you don’t have to actually deal with their reality. I may be ready for reality at some point but for now I enjoy metaphor.

Erica Jong wrote in detail about how we fall for men because we want to BE them: they tell us something about what we want to be. I’ve learned to listen to that rather than focusing on the actual person, who is always really a fantasy. Other people are largely our own constructions even when we think we know them well. Perhaps the most then - when we think we have nothing to learn.

I had a dream the other night that reminded me of one of the most extreme contrasts in unavailable men I’ve crushed out on in the last year or so. One embodied the picture perfect story of American success. The other embodied the picture perfect story of American failure, followed by a rise into helping others in ways that almost no one else could. Both have enemies. I can’t stand a man without enemies.

The danger, speaking for myself, of spending too much time alone or in long distance friendships and relationships, is that it’s too easy to mistake real people for the fantasy figures of our dreams. I go through an exercise where I remind myself that my dragons are metaphors, the guy on the phone is not Jon Snow, and no one is whisking me and my cat off to Israel on an IDF helicopter… today. I think.

So I dust my apartment, work hard at my full time job, make a plan to buy a small pumpkin. Get involved with real people in the real world.

Yet I find it fun to recall what is that inspires me about the fantasy fictional characters who happen to be real, on some level, at least as much as Luke Skywalker.

Stability. A sense of humor that only the super smart get. Devotion to family and duty. Compassion. Kindness with absolutely nothing expected in return.

Fire. Anger. Anger at the right people. Refusal to be kept down by the forces that have managed to steal my identity for years on end. Edge. Could pass for a more hyper, older version of the Sith Lord in Acolyte.

Devotion to God and Country and family above all. The strength of that place I’ve never been. Kindness to a stranger.

It’s hard to relate to people in real life again after being so isolated for so very long. It takes practice. I want to go back into the bubble I was in when organizing or doing other very intense kinds of work, but that doesn’t work.

“Why do you love people who can’t go as deep as you can,” the Sith Lord asks Osha.

“Cause they’re the only ones around,” she didn’t reply, but I would.

I remind myself of the pull to stability. I want stability, but I want to stay real. I have an acute sensor for people who are hiding something behind a glittering image - and you should all read Susan Howatch. I can sense the cracks and I simultaneously want to protect people and to smash up their masks. Not very nice of me really, but I never did claim to be nice.

One thing I came across this year or so is a level of kindness that I was totally unaccustomed to. I am used to the world being brutal, and I am used to fighting. But kindness - wtf?

I would never settle for less again.

Being a hyper-empath, I have an incredible ability to sense what someone wants and turn myself into that girl, “For a month,” as Taylor Swift says.

I’m not doing that anymore. This is me. I have survived for a very long time, through things that have broken many others. I know enough to thank God and family and friends for much of this survival. I am a classic case of harm reduction working: my family and friends kept me from “hitting bottom,” which for me would have been death. They are the reason why I lived long enough to recover. I hope they are proud.

This afternoon I am talking to one of my favorite harm reduction warriors of all time. I can’t wait. She’s a light to the world, and has introduced me to so many fabulous people. It’s always good to catch up and work together.

So grateful for all of you.

And I know that Happy Yom Kippur is like Happy Good Friday. That’s not it.