I said in my last entry that I learned what I wanted out of life from two fans, Supergrover and Stephanie. I said what Supergrover brought to the table- a fantastic person that anyone would die to meet and turned out to be a great editor. I did not tell you about what I learned from Stephanie. I learned not to trust the impressed.
I had forgotten about this until my friend John got published and I was telling him to watch out. Fanagans, if you notice me in real life, please do not let me know you have done this sort of thing. I would be secretly flattered but mostly terrified as fuck and I will let you know that because I do not want that temperature in my life.
I am free to love Supergrover as much and as often as I want because there is not a damn thing I want more in this life than friends and lovers who remain unimpressed by me. Supergrover and I could not live on the pedestals we created for each other, and Stephanie showed me why that was the case.
Stephanie invited me for coffee after having read three years’ worth of entries in four days and didn’t get more than a fifteen minute conversation out of me because of it. She treated me like she was a lawyer trying to break me in a deposition. I will go that hard with someone I love like a house on fire. I had known her for thirty seconds and enjoyed none of them. I decided right then and there that I never wanted to pick battles with someone I met that only thought they knew me.
It mattered that my honeymoon with Supergrover was over and we’d never be on those pedestals again. I like us better as we are. It shows our capacity for love is bigger than we ever thought it could be.
If I am going to be the big deal my friends have told me I’m going to be, then it’s good that I’m upping my game instead of bringing everyone else down to mine. I decided that was the coolest thing ever- her weird Barbie when she is Margot Robie in my eyes…….. and she would be that in yours just as easily. The best analogy I have in our relationship is how Mike Wazowski is framed in every single picture.
I just realized she’s my Boo.
But I wouldn’t have known how it felt to be her in most conference rooms until I had it done to me hardcore. People hold her accountable and in a lot of cases, the buck stops with her whether those were the intended consequences or not….. It wasn’t that I was aiming for street cred, I just had it. Tony Robbins in a teacup or some shit. I just understood and had empathy for why she might feel I was coming across that way and why I really didn’t want to be that for her.
I didn’t want to be her other fan, either.
Stories That Are All True 