when did i start needing?
“i am civilized but my needs are not.”
jeanette winterson gut symmetries
a few days ago there was a man at the library i couldn’t tell you if i’d seen him before or not. he just looked like some guy. old, gray hair, brown sweater, homeless, idk. when his time on the computer had run out, he sat outside behind my office. i left the building to grab a sweater from my car and he waved to me. a real tall wave like we knew each other. i love strangers so waving back isn’t out of the ordinary, but this time around waving at him i felt like would have been too personal, would have implied that we had some closer relationship so i looked right past him. some time later, i leave for lunch and he’s in the same spot so i gotta drive past him. i have all of my windows down and he goes “all right, baby,” like he was saying see you later, and it was confirmed for me that i was making an appearance in his daydreams. we knew each other, there was an us in his mind.
living inside men’s fantasies has done some heavy damage to my life. i have always stomped out any ideation with men as soon as i feel it coming. i don’t, and never have, let men talk to me like i’m anything special, because it’s too dangerous. i can’t have a man walking around believing i’m the only one he can talk to, or that i have some special quality that awakens something in him. that kind of thinking isn’t flattering, and it sure as fuck isn’t love. i will never forget my first office job when i was 20 years old working for a city magazine. the art director was a married man who liked to project all these little ideas onto me. one time i didn’t laugh at a joke he tailor made for me and he slapped me. i can’t explain that. the only thing i can say is, controlling what you mean to a man is the only way to stay alive with them.
there is a difference here, tho, and the difference between the homeless man acting out that we have a life together and a financially stable, married man acting out his anger that the hot blonde doesn’t think he’s funny are two different things. this is the difference, i am trying to determine, between want and need.
i think i’m getting somewhere so let me back into it real slow. let me think about being 17 and a nanny for a family that had just moved back in with the wife’s parents. they had a five year old son and a whole mess of animals packed into a tiny new england lake house. their dog was a gorgeous lassie named cooper and cooper was big. he was too big for the house and they electric fenced his ass so the size of the yard was too small for him. they disciplined him for how much he barked and jumped and ran around constantly. but no one ever took him for walks. this one time the kid and i were playing the floor is lava and the rush of two people jumping was an overwhelming amount of activity for an animal that is starving to move his body around. while we were playing, cooper bit me in the neck. it freaked me out pretty bad but the look on his face—it was obvious he had no idea what he’d done. he was too wound up. something that was always on my mind was—when did cooper stop being a dog that likes walks, running around outside, chasing frisbees and instead turned into an overwhelming beast that lives entirely in need?
need is pathological. need is just having a large open bleeding wound and hospitals aren’t invented. there is no person big enough to cover the wound. there is no love that works like a tourniquet. one good meal doesn’t prevent infection. need is enormous and cannot stop. the way i starved for the first 25 years of my life so i oscillate from oblivious to hunger or panicking over finding a snack. i will never live without needing to eat. i will never be alive without needing to be loved. these are large open bleeding wounds i have. i will need to deal with them forever and their enormity will prevent me from transcending them. this is true of the man who waved to me. waving back to him isn’t a token of humanity. i’m not being some beacon of light in a sad and antihomeless world. i am feeding a fantasy that harms both of us. he needs love so bad. he needs someone to love him so bad. i can relate. i know how that feels, but my shared pain does not save me from becoming a victim of it, so i leave him alone. i stay out of his way. i am not your hospital. i will not save you. and pretending to be can make it worse.
you know how you call your mom on her birthday and you’re like happy birthday! and your mom takes the happy birthday! as cue that it’s time to go on and on about how nobody calls her, everybody forgot her birthday, and she’ll just be alone at home shivering in the cold? or how about your weird kind of friend who, in a moment of sincerity you’re like “i’m really worried about how its going to turn out!” and your weird kind of friend takes this as an opportunity to clown on you with how well she’s doing and how it’s just the best ever and maybe you should just take all of her advice forever? what about when you were 14 and the hot older boy at your high school texts you and asks how far you’ve gone with a guy and you’re like oh :) i had a bad experience with a guy taking advantage of me :) and he’s like well i would go all the way with you, haha? this is all the pathology of need. when a man is panting his fucking tongue off just hoping to see a woman’s panties we’re all like jeeeeeeeesus christ brother get it together act civilized. this diabolical need is everything he is. it’s true of your mom who wants to be a victim all of her life. her daughter wishing her a happy birthday is not recognizable in her need. she needs to be the victim. she needs to be forgotten about and ignored. she can’t have a daughter that calls her to wish her a happy birthday, it doesn’t keep the wound open.