I was in love with a girl who didn’t love me back. I hadn’t had sex in nearly two years. My face had been marred by a bacterial infection that destroyed my right eyelid; it took a year for the subsequent surgical swelling to subside. I was ugly, out of shape, and I reeked of desperation.

So when she (inevitably) ghosted me, I decided enough was enough. I would learn to attract women — no matter the cost.

Until then, I had been a Good Feminist Boy. I grew up in a liberal bubble — a college town in the Midwest where ‘female empowerment’ was the air we breathed. My role models were women: single mom, older sister, and figure skating coaches. Even in college, I’d never questioned the narrative that men oppressed by manspreading and mansplaining. I’d only ever voted blue.

But in my hopeless state, I felt that feminist dating advice (be sensitive! be vulnerable!) had failed me. So I sought the forbidden fruit. Red Pill ideology validated my suspicion that my core beliefs were fundamentally flawed. It offered an alternative worldview.

The truth, it promised, would convert me from Chud to Chang.

Let’s take a closer look at the ‘truths’ in question:

1. Men and women differ psychologically.

In 2017, a senior engineer at Google released an internal memo suggesting that gender representation in software engineering and leadership differed primarily due to inherent psychological differences rather than overt discrimination.

James Damore’s ideas challenged the popular egalitarianism of my youth — the concept that “men and women are psychologically identical apart from social conditioning.”

But Damore cited robust scientific research: women tend to have higher verbal IQ; men, higher spatial. Women are more neurotic, men more disagreeable. Women prefer working with ‘people’; men prefer ‘things’. These, in addition to consistent population-wide differences in brain structure and hormone environment, strongly suggest that men and women fundamentally process the world differently.

Did this mean that women were less capable than men? Absolutely not. Damore was careful to specify: individuals exhibit a wide range of preferences, interests, and ability. Any particular woman could outperform any man in any given field. But individual variance does not negate population-wide trends; the sexes are asymmetric.

expands on how differences in personality are synonymous with differences in values, which have downstream implications on morality and political orientation: Disagreeable men are more likely to value competition, power, and truth over social compliance and become drawn to ideologies that celebrate these masculine values rather than condemn them. (Hint, hint.)

Unfortunately, Damore’s memo was ahead of his time. Intended only for his peers, it was leaked to Gizmodo, reprinted without sources or citations, and framed as an “Anti-Diversity Screed.” In response to the frenzied social media backlash, Google made the prudent business decision to renounce the supposedly ‘harmful stereotypes’ contained within, and James Damore was fired.

2. Women like being sexualized.

At the time, I was a freshman in college.

It was the heyday of ‘woke’. Progressive liberalism, concerned with social justice and political correctness, cultivated a culture of strictness, censorship, and cancellation — of which James Damore was an early casualty. Campus protestors rallied over trans-inclusion, reproductive rights, and the event that shaped my generation’s sexual politics: the #MeToo movement.

Undergrads attended mandatory sexual conduct seminars, where we learned that drunk sex was rape, women shouldn’t be sexualized, and consent had to be verbally explicit: “Can I touch you? Can I kiss you? Do you want to have sex?” Though well-intentioned, institutions failed to distinguish between genuinely predatory behavior and normal masculine desire. The goal seemed not to be correction, but castration.

Additionally, absence of important legal rights like due process in Title IX cases contributed to campus-wide false-rape-phobia. Men had no protection against false accusations or social media mobs. We had our futures to consider. When it came to sex — better safe than sorry.

This societal fear compounded with my instinctual fear of rejection and personal fear of intimacy (divorced parents, we can unpack that later). The Red Pill, in contrast, was a refreshing escape. Consent doesn’t have to be verbal — it can be expressed physically. Women do want to be sexualized — by men they find attractive.

It’s alright to want to have sex with a woman. It’s alright to express it openly. In fact, she probably already knows.

3. You can learn to be attractive.

Fast forward to that desperate, sexless summer post-eye-infection.

What the hell did women want? When I was younger I thought it was all about looks. Then I heard it was personality: girls like guys that are sensitive and nice. But actually, nice guys finish last, so just be confident. No wait, don’t try too hard; just be yourself.

I spent weeks digging through Pick Up Artist forums, looking for answers. But what I found only complicated the picture: Women like Alphas, and Status, and MoneyMusclesGame; they’re Hypergamous and respond to Frame and Demonstrated Value and — was this shit for real?

I gave it a try. I got back in shape, studied Game tactics, then put the principles to practice.

And it worked. I attained the sexual validation I craved.

I’ve since realized that Game is just a set of social skills for expressing and perceiving sexual attraction in a way that is sensible, exciting, rewarding, and socially aware, leading to mutually beneficial sexual interactions. Basically, Flirting for Autists.

I also came to my own conclusions about attraction: looks open the door, but personality takes you through it. Women are attracted to strength — physical, mental, and emotional — which manifests sometimes as status/dominance, sometimes as emotional awareness/kindness.

Confidence does not apparate fully formed in the world, but is built slowly through skill development and progressive achievement. Confidence is the psychological manifestation of power.

But once I had it — then, I could ‘just be myself’.

So I became a closeted apostle of Red Pill theory.

When my buddy was brutally dumped by his fiancée of many years, I gave him my copy of The Rational Male (a.k.a. the Red Pill Bible) — a tome outlining the mechanics of female attraction using the analogy of a sexual marketplace. It helped him understand why, though he’d been the ‘perfect partner’, he’d lost her.

The book is admittedly a blend of truth and pseudoscience, more so a labor of love than serious scientific literature. But Rollo Tomassi’s theories stemmed from decades of experience, and — critically — they were effective.

My buddy went on a year-long promiscuous crusade. He broke a few hearts. Then, more confident and experienced, he entered a serious relationship with a better understanding of what he provides as a man. In retrospect, he tells me that Red Pill knowledge is dangerous and should not be disseminated. But he thanks me anyway —

With knowledge of evil, he says, he can teach his nephews to be good.

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For years, I’ve kept these beliefs private, for obvious reasons.

Popular media tends to depict the Red Pill in one of two ways: as fringe extremists, à la Andrew Tate and the Incels1, or as grifters preying on foolish young men, so portrayed in Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary. Neither captures the constellation of disparate communities, beliefs, and worldviews — some misogynist, others not — that comprise the Manosphere.2

And neither explains why millions of normal men find its message so compelling.

The Red Pill targeted a generation of men disillusioned with overarching narratives about masculinity. It sympathized with their problems, validated their grievances. And it provided long-sought masculine community, united against a common enemy: Feminism.

Was there a core of truth? In the hundred plus years since women secured the vote, rapidly changing social contexts have rendered traditional masculine roles of ‘provider’ and ‘protector’ obsolete. Reverse-discriminatory practices, like the ones James Damore criticized, disadvantaged young men in work and education.

Most men I’ve talked to agree: the Manosphere has a point.

But here’s what the Red Pill gets wrong.

Although gender roles have biological foundations, their expression is not immutable. The context has shifted; the cat is out of the bag. Women are firmly entrenched in education and the work force; Zoomettes are out-earning their Zoomer peers. Traditional gender roles are dead, and Masculinity will have to adapt.

Further, it’s become clear that the highest values of the Red Pill movement are not actually truth and self-improvement, but controversy, attention, and self-victimization. Blame and ‘what-about-ism’ pervade the discourse. Amplified through social media echo chambers, the gender wars have become the Oppression Olympics.

And it’s impossible to ignore the hatred, harassment, and calls-to-violence rampant throughout the Manosphere.

Following the 2018 Toronto van killings, Jack Peterson (no relation to Jordan) defended the incel community from accusations of misogyny: they’re just misunderstood! Imagine his surprise when incels clarified, ‘No, we’re not. We hate women.’

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. In high school, I’d occasionally browsed incel forums with Schadenfreude — sure, my life sucked, but at least I wasn’t a total loser virgin.

But since my surgery and two years of sexlessness, I’ve had to wonder:

What if my eyelid were still swollen like a grape? What if it had never healed? What if I hadn’t had a privileged upbringing, extensive education, and deep-rooted athletic habits? What if I’d never received even a crumb of female affection?

Wouldn’t I still be down there too?

We live in a post-Red-Pill world.

The Red Pill has gone mainstream. Anti-egalitarianism is no longer a fringe position. Game, incels, male grievance — these topics have become common knowledge. Societally, the Red Pill has served its purpose.

For me as well, it’s run its course. The Red Pill taught me to question my unexamined beliefs and to distrust popular narratives. But it did not make me a better person or more productive member of society. Contrarianism is not truth, and ideology is a crutch. To further my intellectual and personal growth, I’ll have to move on.

James Damore, by the way, is doing well. He moved to Europe, found a stable job, and learned to avoid the internet. He left the controversy behind and found peace.

It may not be possible for men and women to see eye to eye. Still, there must be a way to reconcile amoral Red Pill truths with pro-social values in a way that neither disempowers women, nor dismisses men’s legitimate grievances. Synthesis, rather than reversal.

But until then — as long as men feel unheard, as long as masculinity is villainized and obvious truths are systemically denied — the Red Pill will continue to flourish.

And we will have to live with it.

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How did it all go so wrong?

When I started music school, I imagined I’d already made it. I was excited to join the ranks of Laufey and John Mayer and other notable Berklee alumni, and felt that it would be smooth sailing from there on out. I could not have been more wrong. While my peers worked hard — writing songs, booking shows, building relationships, I fell back into old habits — slacking off, neglecting assignments, doing the bare minimum.

It’s fitting that my first release was called Neverland. It was about leaving someone you love to chase your dreams. When I showed my songwriting professor the demo, he said my lyrics had the wide-eyed innocence of a child.

“’You’re saying my music is childish?” I asked.

“Not childish- “ he clarified. “Childlike.”

Here’s the difference:

In art, ‘childlike’ is a virtue. A child is raw, direct, and honest. Rick Rubin says that great artists manage to preserve their childlike spontaneity, curiosity and wonder. Picasso said it took him “four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

‘Childish’, however, is a vice: irresponsible, avoidant and impatient. Impulsive, entitled, and emotionally volatile. These are the traits responsible for my current desperate situation: I’m broke and unemployed, yet again, and no closer to achieving my dreams.

My affliction is known by many names: Peter Pan Syndrome. Type 4 Enneagram. Puer Aeternus. Manchild.

Let me paint you a picture.

Carl Jung describes the puer aeternus, the ‘eternal boy’, as one stranded in adolescence. The puer carries a ‘sack of childish illusions,’ living in a ‘passive fantasy’. He believes he is special/exceptional, though he has no product to show for it. He is easily frustrated. He idealizes freedom and avoids commitment. As a result, he lives a sort of ‘provisional life,’ one he feels has ‘not yet truly begun’.

Sound like anyone you know?

The eternal child is particularly incapable of sacrifice. He cannot bear the thought of losing his potential. Unable to commit to a path, he stands frozen as the fruit of Sylvia Plath’s metaphorical fig tree fall and rot around him.1

He is like a stem cell with anxiety — all potential and scared to lose it. But the stem cell that never differentiates remains, at best, useless — or becomes, at worst, cancer.

How does one devolve into such man-child-hood? For me, it was a mix of dispositional and situational factors. A lifetime of coasting through school. Technology that made instant gratification disgustingly easy. And a misguided belief in ‘exploration’ over commitment.

When I was 18, I read The Defining Decade, which suggested maximizing your twenties by following your interests and exploring various career paths. The message: life cannot be prescribed. It must be discovered, moment by moment.2

But what I (mis)heard was: “You can fuck around in your 20s without consequence.”

So I switched from path to path, skimming the surface, never diving deep. I half-assed jobs and bailed when times got tough. Hell, I even threw away a promising medical career because it didn’t feel special enough3. All in the name of ‘exploration’.

And don’t get me wrong — I’m glad to have experimented, and I know it was a privilege. But I wish I’d committed to the work and taken it seriously. I wish I’d built lasting relationships instead of burning bridges. I wish I’d tried harder when I had the chance.

Alright, pull it together man. Enough ruminating. Where do we go from here?

According to Jung, the solution is simple: Lock The Fuck In.

Wait. That’s it? Gee, what a revelation!!

Not exactly.

Harvard psychiatrist Dr. K (@HealthyGamerGG) clarifies the type of ‘work’ Jung prescribes.

It doesn’t mean working when you feel like it, he says. Anyone can do that. Nor is it ‘working’ in order to avoid more important work4. What the puer aeternus needs — what he’s unwilling to accept — is to work when he doesn’t feel like working.

The boring work. The soul crushing grind. The bills. The dishes. The laundry.

Or in Ryan Holiday’s words: sweeping the floor, every minute of the day, then sweeping again.

That’s what it means to grow up. And deep down, I’ve known this. But I’ve resisted the call for so long, partly because I equate ‘maturity’ with the loss of those childlike traits I hold so dear.

But maturity doesn’t mean killing the inner Child, Dr. K asserts. Quite the opposite —only by managing your impulses, sacrificing your ‘potential’, and embracing responsibility, can you create space for the Child to thrive.

Dr. K gives me hope that the door is still open, just a crack. That if I give it my all, right now — if I give up my childish fantasies of leisure, of preserving ‘potential’, of avoiding work — I might still make it to Neverland.

I just pray to God I’m not too late.

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In late summer of 1970, blues legend Eric Clapton and Beatles guitarist George Harrison were in love with the same woman. Her name was Patti Boyd and she was George’s wife. For her, George had written “Something,” which Frank Sinatra considered ‘possibly the greatest love song of all time.’ In response, Eric wrote one of the most powerfully devastating expressions of pure desperation and — dare I say it — yearning. He titled it, “Layla.”

55 years later, a girl named after this song would become the focus of the most infamous love triangle in Substack history. Her suitors: homeless sexual deviant and former white nationalist . Their story would profoundly impact a very, very small corner of the Substack multiverse.

How did I get mixed up in all this?

I first heard the story from WBE, whom I met back in June. He portrayed Walt as both an old loser creep and, contradictorily, a Very Smart Guy whose posts were worth reading.

More recently, however, I’ve been going through a bit of a moral crisis. A couple months ago, I lost my job and NYC art community due to the way I write about women and fled to Florida to escape the cold and the shame. Whilst in exile, I found that Walt’s post on morality made a surprising amount of sense. So I reached out to Walt, who happened to live nearby. I hoped he could provide some moral clarity.

As a disclaimer, I don’t align with Walt’s right-wing political views. In fact, I have a liberal upbringing and consider myself apolitical. But I’m naturally high in openness and disagreeableness so I gravitate towards misfits like Walt and WBE. I believe everyone has a valid perspective of reality1. And I was certain I could learn a thing or two from the man.

So at midnight on New Years, 2026, I kissed my mom and sister on the cheek then spent the next few hours in my room decoding Walt’s deliberately obscure writing style.

The next morning, still groggy, I met Walt Bismarck outside his high-rise apartment in downtown Orlando.

Walt wore a purple Hawaiian shirt over a black tank top, dark blue jeans and brown work boots. Maybe six foot and overweight, with unkempt hair, neckbeard, slight lazy eye, and black rim glasses that kept sliding down his face. On first glance, he would’ve fit right in at a Magic the Gathering tournament.

But Walt’s verbal prowess became obvious the moment he opened his mouth. He spoke quickly, garrulously, ricocheting acrobatically between associations, ideas, and references — difficult to follow at times for my sleep-deprived shape-rotator brain. I did my best to keep up.

At the nearby World of Beer, I ordered a flatbread with steak and arugula and he, a Guinness and chicken salad. While eating, he asked for my impression of him. Realizing my response would set the tone of the interaction, I hesitated, then decided on complete honesty.

“You’re... fatter than I expected,” I said.

Walt laughed. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

He said he used to lift but had gotten lazy. His left boot stayed untied the whole day, laces flopping about, even after I pointed it out. And due to extensive Adderall abuse, he looked much older than his 32 years.2 To be frank, Walt was slovenly — but he was the first to admit it:

“My self concept is of an ugly guy,” he said. “I like to be the Beast.”

Despite that, he claimed to have slept with over 100 women. How the fuck was that possible? A mix of online clout, sugaring, and hyper-verbal dominance.

Walt had found his first girlfriend while creating alt-right/white-nationalist Disney song parodies on YouTube, racking up 50k subscribers before getting taken down. Later on, he used his earnings from actuary work, financial consulting, and ‘job stacking’3 to sugar girls on SeekingArrangement. He liked to sexually dominate local Disney princesses.

He also met girls on Substack.

One of those Substackers was Layla, a 19 year old Catholic girl living in Florida. She was a talented storyteller who wrote compelling, unfiltered journal-style posts. I heard inklings of a beef with , but that was before my time on Substack. By all accounts, she was beautiful. By all accounts, she was troubled.

She and Walt had been messaging for many months before these events transpired. The nature of their conversations was sexual. Pictures were exchanged. Wanting to appear sexually experienced, she told Walt she was 21 years old and had been with 8 men. That was a lie. Layla was a virgin.

After WBE drove his van to Florida to meet first Walt then Layla, she deleted her account (again)4 and disappeared from Substack for good.

It was a beautiful afternoon and we took a stroll around nearby Lake Eola, famous for its swans and swan-shaped boats. Christmas decorations lined the path — green wreaths wrapped around lampposts, red and silver wire candy canes overhead. It was chilly in the shade but warm in the sun. The water was turquoise blue.

“It’s nice to see the sun,” Walt said, half-joking.

He only ever left his apartment for Adderall to fuel his 10-18 hour writing binges, typing in bursts of inspiration straight into the Substack editor. He said he lives primarily in the world of ideas and barely registers the physical world around him. He called his apartment a ‘Wizard’s Tower.’

We stopped by the side to watch the swans. I told Walt about my moral conundrum.

After I’d lost my job and community, I’d decided fuck it — full honesty. So I’d admitted to Substack that I was a fan of WBE’s work… which immediately got me cancelled and labeled a Bad Person. I asked Walt for his take.

“Morality is downstream of status,” he explained, as a swan emptied its bowels onto the concrete.

“Objective morality doesn’t exist. Morals are social constructs, fictional but necessary for a functioning society. They serve the interests of powerful parties — ultimately, winners determine what’s considered Good and Bad.”

A very Niezchean take, which Walt called ‘moral intersubjectivism’. It seemed cynical but agreed with my understanding of self-interest and evolutionary biology.

“Might makes right.” he concluded. “That’s descriptive, not prescriptive.”

Without our noticing, a swan-watching crowd had formed around us.

“Let’s move on,” he said. “We’re scaring the normies.”

We found seats in front of an outdoor amphitheater and watched cute Asian girls take photos by the water.

“An easy way to win your audience back would be to pick a low-status guy and dunk on him,” Walt advised. He’d originally gone viral on Substack by bashing incels.

An evil thought took root in my mind.

“What if I used your own advice against you?” I challenged. “Portrayed you as some low-status chud and ripped you to shreds in my article?”

Walt paused. Then he leaned forward imposingly, glasses slipping down, eyes both good and lazy fixed on mine.

“I’d go to war with you.” he said.

Walt Bismarck is no stranger to online conflict. Substackers are familiar with his longstanding feuds/good-faith debates with , , and, of course, Worst Boyfriend Ever.

Like Eric Clapton and George Harrison, Walt and WBE started as friends. From what I can tell, Walt was impressed with the WBE’s unabashed honesty and runaway popularity (no pun intended). And WBE considered Walt his superior when it came to philosophical thinking. They found each other’s writing mutually entertaining.

They’d met at the same World of Beer back in Spring of 2025. Still under the impression that Layla was a promiscuous girlie, Walt encouraged WBE meet her — he planned to pick up the sloppy seconds afterwards. But the night before she and WBE were to meet, Layla confessed to Walt that she was a virgin. For Walt, that changed everything.

“The purity of virginity must be upheld,” he told me. For some reason, he held this especially strong moral intuition.5

The events that follow are well documented in each of their blogs. Walt begs Layla not to meet WBE. She agrees, but does so anyway. Walt threatens to doxx WBE. Out of fear for his personal safety, WBE doesn’t fuck Layla, and instead nuts in his pants. Allegedly.

Despite that, Walt remains convinced that WBE and Layla had sex. And even if they didn’t, he says, “they might as well have.”

“Guys like him can’t exist in society,” he ranted. “Men need to have a code of Honor. Communities can’t function without a system of mutual trust. He’s a cockroach and needs to be taken care of.”

I didn’t have to ask what he meant.

“One day,” he continued, “when WBE ends up dead or in jail, I’ll be the first to say ‘I told you so.’”

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I shook Walt’s hand outside his apartment and left.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed. In my search for moral clarity, I’d discovered instead that morals are, by nature, unclear. There are no objectively Good or Bad people. There is only opinion.

Walt, WBE, and Layla, from one perspective, are all terrible people - liars, cheaters, bigots (and — worst of all — writers!). Yet in their own stories, they are protagonists, their motivations understood and justified. Walt and WBE each portray the other as a sociopathic villain. Whose perspective is morally ‘correct’? Walt would claim: whoever writes the stronger story.

As writers, this is where our power lies. We tug emotional strings, sway public opinion, and teach moral lessons. We create heroes and villains; we decide Good and Bad. We manipulate morality.

So heading into the New Year, I’m done worrying about others’ moral opinions. It’s all (inter)subjective anyway. Instead, I’m going to keep my head down and focus on my craft. Become the best I can. And keep telling the truth no matter what.

This year, my only resolution is to tell better stories.

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Here’s Walt’s perspective on our meeting, if you’re interested:

The Walt Right

My Lunch With Danny Li

A fortnight back I broke in the new year with an intrepid Zoomer boy looking to pick my brain on matters of public morality and gender dynamics…

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4 months ago · 15 likes · 4 comments · Walt Bismarck

And here are both of their perspectives on the original drama. Layla was unavailable for comment.

Worst Boyfriend Ever

Sparing Layla's Virginity

For the first several months Layla was just an online fan. She’s a writer, too, with a sizable following online because she was a talented fiction writer and also a really hot girl who posted pictures of herself constantly. Luckily for me she really enjoyed Worst Boyfriend Ever…

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a year ago · 157 likes · 52 comments · Worst Boyfriend Ever

The Walt Right

Women Do Have Agency

We were friends. Dear friends…

Read more

a year ago · 64 likes · 40 comments · Walt Bismarck

Boogie2988 was one of the original gaming YouTubers who started back in 2006. Super friendly, super sweet guy, (separate from his rage gamer character/persona), built an audience of 4 million by being extremely honest and open about his struggles with weight loss, depression, and self-esteem. Positive, optimistic, beloved by the community.

But somewhere along the way, something went wrong.

Boogie started making edgy, inappropriate jokes on stream. Real dark shit. Child abuse, genital mutilation, disrespecting the dead type shit. Nazi, rapist, anything for attention type shit. Over the years, his behavior went from ‘struggling’ and ‘relatable’ to self-destructive and problematic. His videos, once vulnerable and inspirational, became pity parties. He lied about having cancer. He spent a fortune on sex workers. And in 2020, he topped it off by firing a gun at another YouTuber and collecting a criminal charge. He unraveled publicly and lost the trust of the people.

I watched the documentary, horrified. I saw myself in Boogie. The ego, the obsession with attention, the infantile inability to handle criticism. He felt like a version of who I could become. And God, I would do fucking anything to avoid it. But I see a lot of my recent, self-destructive behavior reflected in his. And that scares me.

My creator buddy told me to think long and hard about what effect I want my blog to have on the world. A force of good? Helping others feel related, connected, understood? Or a force of chaos — directionless and even harmful? Originally, the blog was about unpacking shame and fear and insecurity, but over the past few weeks it’s become about drama and attention and rage baiting, and you know what? I’m not about it.

Was I wrong to publicly advocate for a blog that glamorizes self-destruction, sexual transgression and unfiltered depravity? I mean… definitely. It was braindead, at the very least. I got so caught up in ‘speaking my truth’ and ‘standing my ground’ that I didn’t consider what I was standing for.

Today, Boogie2988 is considered a clown, a real life villain, an embarrassment to his community. He’s broke, lonely, and pathetic. His former fans think he’s unredeemable. They believe he’s just a Bad Person.

I’ve been a Bad Person too. I’ve been hurtful to the women I date and an asshole on the internet. But I want to believe I’m still redeemable. I don’t know where this blog is headed. And I don’t know who I want to be. I waver a lot. Maybe I’ll change my mind next week. But for now — sorry Tim1. Sorry Priya. Y’all are okay.

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I was living in Los Angeles. I was pursuing a music internship that turned out to be a scam. Me and 10 other hopeful college kids had moved out there only to find out that the ‘studio sessions’ we were supposed to run were nonexistent. We never got work, we never got paid, Fuck you Rob. In hindsight it was obvious — you’re not supposed to pay for training.

Anyways, the internship was supposed to be in Hollywood, and I found an apartment in nearby West Hollywood, not realizing it was basically the Gay Mecca of LA. The place was literally crawling with gay guys. I was baffled (hi priya). I’d never seen anything like it. And they’d never seen anything like me — 20 yo, East Asian, naive as hell and hot as shit. Immediately, I got swarmed.

Dudes were all over me. Buying me drinks, buying me jewelry, making ‘jokes’ about leaving their husbands for me, inviting me out, inviting me over, dropping their pants unsolicited, I had my ass grabbed once, one guy tried to stuff his hands down my pants. I thought this must be what it’s like to be a Hot Girl.

But the dude who fucked me was super cool, super chill. He was 35, ran his own clothing store, funny, friendly, almost straight passing.

I was reading my book up on the roof and he asked me what I was reading (either Dante’s Divine Comedy or Thinking Fast and Slow). And over the next few months we got friendly, and slowly eased into a physical relationship. Once, when he was leaving my apartment, he lingered by the door and said, “I kinda want to kiss you right now.” I shook my head and he left.

We fucked a month later. He ate my ass for like an hour first. It’s an exquisite sensation that fellas, if you haven’t had ur ass ate, u are missing out on the finer things in life. Ask ur girl to do it for u. Most girls will. But anyway I let him fuck me and you know what? It felt good. I liked it. We did it again another time, and I was drunk, and I sucked him off too.

But I’ve never done those with anyone again, I think because I’m incredibly homophobic.

I mean, I grew up as a figure skater. I’ve had kids call me gay my whole life. Of course I’m homophobic. I also grew up without a dad, had no male role models growing up, so I’m obsessed with masculinity. I had female teachers, female coaches, female friends from skating, and a mom and a sister, and so I’ve always been somewhat feminine. And, like I said, homophobic.

I hate it when people think I’m gay. I feel like it’s a weakness. Like shit, you’re not strong enough to just Fuck Women, you’re passive and deviant and psychologically deformed. I don’t like when dudes look at my ass. I’m standoffish with gay guys whom I suspect are into me. I wish I were just normal and straight.

But during the pandemic, when I was schizophrenic and ugly from surgery and getting absolutely no pussy whatsoever… I downloaded Grindr. If you’re not aware, Grindr is the gay equivalent of Tinder and 1000x more promiscuous. You can hit up a complete stranger and have him suck you off less than 10 minutes later. So I had a shit ton of strangers come over and suck me off.

I’d have them come over, eat my ass, suck me off, then leave. I’ve had maybe 20 or 30 guys do this. I never kissed them, I thought that was gross. I never let them fuck me. One or two of them fingered me. I tried fucking one but he shit all over my dick (thank god for condoms) and it smelled so fucking rancid, like I imagine a GI bleed smells, and I nearly threw up on the spot and I’ve never tried to fuck a dude again. Actually traumatic.

So yeah. After that, I stopped experimenting with dudes and went back to fucking a ton of women. That said, I still get homoerotic fantasies, I often picture myself getting fucked by a dude and also fucking a girl at the same time. I watch gay porn sometimes. I watch a lot of transexual porn, it’s more palatable to me. I don’t really watch much porn at all to be honest, but when I do it’s often these genres. I like transexual AI porn where the chick has a fat, fat cock.

Why am I saying all this? If you’ve been following the Substack Drama, you know I’m Extremely Hated on substack right now. So I just want you to know:

If you hate me, you’re small minded, you’re a bigot, you’re homophobic. Get fucked.

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Earlier this week, went after the most notoriously depraved sex blog on Substack, . Like a moron, I defended the blog. Why? Because I like it. Because I speak my mind. Because fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen?

I was not prepared to get absolutely pounded from every corner of this website.

I should be clear: I don’t condone WBE’s actions or language. I don’t fuck with actual non-consent and I think Rape is Bad. I don’t hate women. I’m a pretty normal guy, actually. Here’s my previous post from when I met him in New York.

But yeah I admire his sexual openness and honesty. I aspire to be someone who can speak freely and fearlessly, about sex or otherwise. And I want to sleep with a lot of women. So when Donald posted his negative review of WBE’s blog, I replied with what I thought was obvious:

Bad idea. First, I got demolished on Boat’s page: (The attachments are broken because I muted him. My bad Donald, didn’t mean to squash the beef.)

Then a merry cast of woodland creatures hopped on the hate train:

So now I am public enemy #1 on Substack (or #2 I guess). Was it worth it? Here are the results of the beef:

I’m hemorrhaging subscribers. Got some increased traffic but nothing compared to my viral posts. And the entire website thinks I’m a loser, pervert, idiot, and, worst of all, (since it looks like i deleted all my comments) a coward!

But hey you know what. Watch me cry about it. I’m all of those things and worse besides. I’m cynical, selfish, shallow, distrusting, disgusting, depraved, delusional, disagreeable, undisciplined, braggadocious, and I think I’m smarter than everyone.

So I’ll say it with my chest. I like what I like. Given the chance, I’d do it all again.

I think so, at least. I don’t remember too clearly.

Anyway, that wasn’t the first time he’d gotten into career trouble. My father had, in addition to the language barrier, very low EQ. When he was young, walking home from school one day, he’d picked up a neat looking rock and tossed it into a nearby pond. The rock must have contained significant levels of alkali or alkaline earth metal — the most reactive elemental groups — because the resulting explosion blew out his left eardrum and left him half deaf for life.

It must have impaired his ability to connect. Growing up, my sister and I had to talk into his other ear. And when he couldn’t hear or understand clearly, he wouldn’t even bother asking us to clarify — he would just smile a dumb, oafish smile.

So his bosses probably thought he was daft. So he had trouble holding jobs; so he was always passed over for promotions. The man could not communicate! He stood no chance.

But that one time when I was 9 or 10… he fought for his job. He knew it wasn’t right that he was let go. He fought for it and I think he got it back. I hope so. I don’t remember.

I haven’t talked to him in years. We have a conflicted relationship. But I remember one time he told me I had what he was missing — I could communicate, I could connect. He told me I would go places he never could.

My father — my dad — has his weaknesses. He’s lived with them his whole life. But he fought, hard, for his place in this country, to give his children a life he never had. He taught me that when all the odds are against you… when you feel you’ve been pushed out of your place for all the wrong reasons…

To fight. Fight. Don’t give up. Fight.

Naturally, I was a little freaked out.

Why was I removed from my MCAT class? Was I just a terrible teacher? Probably not — last time a student complained, I’d only been sent to remedial training.

So I asked for clarification.

Ah, shit.

Here’s the writing in question:

First, I wrote about my desire to sleep with as many women as possible. It quickly became my most viewed post! But the reception was… polarized. Many readers (both men and women) related to my experience. Others felt uncomfortable.

Then, I posted a travelogue of my sexual misadventures in Europe — a string of hookups from country to country, ranging from ages 18-38, including one instance of (legal) prostitution.

Yeah, I know — not a great look. I wanted to ruffle some feathers, spark a little controversy.

I did not expect it to blow up my life.

Right away, I was kicked out of my creative co-working community — a place for artists, musicians, and writers to cultivate relationships. The founder of the space pulled me aside and said girls complained of feeling ‘unsafe’. Therefore, he said, I had to leave.

Two days later, I was taken off my MCAT class. My manager cited the same reason for termination.

In one fell swoop, I lost both my community and my job, thanks to the blog.

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So for the past couple weeks I’ve been pretty depressed, getting high every night, oscillating between angry and defeated.

It turns out, the internet is not this imaginary little sandbox where you can say whatever you want. Digital actions have real life consequences. Public perception matters, and the wrong impression can ruin you.

My mom tells me to delete the blog. My friends suggest I anonymize it. But I will do neither. I’ll stand by my work. I’ll keep writing under my real name and face and accept whatever happens. I’ll keep sharing the ugliest parts of me, so long as they’re true.

You wanna know the truth? I’m glad I got fired. I was tired of the job. I love my students, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a weight off my shoulders. And I got a sick headline out of it.

No, what really wrecked me was losing my creative community. It’s not every day you find people who feel like home. I miss you guys, and I wish I’d known better.

But you live and you learn. One day, I’ll find where I belong.

Until then, I’ll keep writing.

R——, you were holding me back. I could never live my life as fully as I desired, not my writing, not my music, nor my sport, nor my work, you kept me from my passions with your incessant pleas for time and attention and affection.

You kept me from becoming more than I was, perhaps, in part, because you knew if I flew too high I would spot lush green fields and soft, running streams of water, I would stop for a sip and become entranced by a field of flowers, their shapes and colors and aromas, the flowers in the field where I’d land, and I would fall under their spell and fall asleep, and when I woke, it would be dark and I would choose to spend the night.

“I’ll fly back to R—— in the morning,” I’d think. But in the morning the light of the sun would glance off forests and mountains in the distance, and the flowers would whisper of deserts and oceans, and I would take just a peek! over the horizon and catch sight of beauties indescribable, they would suck me in and absorb me, and quickly, all too quickly, I would forget I had a sunflower at home, a bright, cheerful, lonely little thing, abandoned forever.

That’s what you thought would happen if I flew. So I clipped my wings for you.

in amsterdam there were two: a girl i kissed but didn’t fuck, and a girl i fucked but didn’t kiss.

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God, I wanted a girlfriend so bad. I wanted to hold her hand, buy her flowers, play with her hair. I wanted to kiss her like Will kissed Lyra in The Golden Compass: Magical. Monumental. Mending the tears in a fractured universe.1

But I was a small, skinny little kid who was too scared to talk to girls. Once, as a dare, I asked out a girl I liked… and literally ran away before she could respond.2 I was a coward.

I used to practice kissing my pillow at night. I’d pretend it was a girl and just go ham on that thing. I also practiced on my hand. I’d heard this piece of kissing advice: say the letter ‘H’ (aytch), and during the ‘chh’ sound, that’s the shape and firmness your mouth should be when you kiss.

But I turned 16, still without my first kiss, and I got a little desperate. So I turned to the internet for help. Here’s the exact Reddit post I found (yes I saved it):

I used the advice on a girl in my class: Lucy, who was pretty, blonde, and way out of my league. We got to talking.

One day, the weather was especially nice, so we had Chemistry outside. The class sat on benches in the courtyard, yapping and pretending to read the textbook. I sat with Lucy. She was playing with her ring and dropped it, so I picked it up.

“Propose to me.” She demanded.

I swallowed my nerves.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” I laughed, feigning confidence.

“Sure,” she laughed, not taking me serious until I’d gone home and changed our Facebook status to ‘In A Relationship’.

But now that we were Facebook Official, she couldn’t back out. And I could finally do all that romantic shit I’d dreamt about: I bought her flowers (orange, her favorite) and held her hand while walking around the mall. We even got caught playing footsie under the table in class. But I still hadn’t kissed her.

We’d been dating for a month, and she was beginning to think it would never happen. Really, I was just nervous. Really, really nervous. A kiss was a Big Deal: it’s the gateway between the Romantic and the Sexual, an unambiguous expression of physical desire. What if that desire wasn’t reciprocated?

But the Reddit post was clear: you have to take the risk.

We were lying on a grassy hill behind the soccer field one night after practice. I worked up all my courage, rolled on top of her, silently mouthed the letter ‘H’ … and leaned in. She turned her face away. (Uh-oh.) I tried again. She turned her face again, the other way.

The third time I tried, she kissed me back.3

We had sex a month later, in my parents’ bed, two days before Christmas. We lit candles and ran a hot bath beforehand. It felt like a fairy tale.

Unfortunately, fairy tales never last. After a year of dating, Lucy asked for an ‘open relationship’ — meaning she wanted to see other people. I was scared to lose her entirely, so I agreed. Two weeks later, she changed her mind and we became exclusive again — but not before she’d made out with some guy she’d met at a party. The relationship never recovered.

The magic was gone.

I’m not saying that Lucy was the source of my sexual insecurities — when it came to girls, I’d always felt too small, too skinny, too shy. She’s also not to blame for what I eventually became. But that first relationship left me hurt and confused and I never, ever wanted to feel that way again.

So I started lifting — I put on about 25 pounds of muscle in two years. I acted more confident, more assertive, adopting a bold, cocky persona that often crossed into arrogance — which, for some reason, girls seemed to like!

I managed to attract a few girlfriends in college — usually girls as insecure as I was. We’d latch tightly onto each other and bond deeply before I’d inevitably decide to see other people. Girls said I had ‘commitment issues’. They called me a ‘fuckboy’.

I didn’t want to be a fuckboy. I wanted to Respect Women, as per my feminist upbringing. But I also felt instinctually that a man’s sexual worth was measured by the number of women he’d slept with. So I was conflicted:

On one hand, I wanted an intimate Romance, a singular love like Jim and Pam. On the other, I wanted to consume women Sexually, to experience their bodies like Jeff Winger in Community. These two desires seemed incompatible.

And then, before I could resolve the confusion, disaster struck.

I’ve written before about the pandemic-induced psychosis that dominated my early-mid 20s: I was isolated, paranoid, and disfigured from surgery. During this time, I slept with exactly zero women. Instead, I bought a Fleshlight in the shape of Emily Willis’s vagina,4 which served as my girlfriend for a year.

Well, eventually, I got sick of fucking a rubber tube… and fell in love with a (real) girl who, unfortunately, could not have cared less about me. Bitter and resentful, I decided on my path: I wanted to sleep with as many women as possible.

So I did what every nerdy internet kid does to get girls:

I hit the books.

I started with the basics:

The Game, by Neil Strauss, exposed me to the world of pick up artistry and convinced me that seduction was a learnable skill.

Models, by Mark Manson, mapped a path to becoming more desirable and communicating sexual interest to women.

The Art of Seduction, by Robert Greene, demonstrated the power dynamics of sexual attraction using tangible examples and precise psychological tactics.

I dove deeper into the theory:

Matt Ridley’s and George Miller's works illuminated the evolutionary foundations of sexual attraction. Robert Sapolsky’s behavioral biology lectures described the interplay between genes, hormones, neurons, and sexual behavior. Rollo Tomassi’s controversial blog introduced me to Red Pill theory, which exposed the fundamental inconsistencies in my feminist mental model of intersexual attraction. It turns out, women aren’t exactly turned on by Respect.5

I submerged myself in the lives of Charles Bukowski, Tucker Max, and Giacomo Casanova. I read erotic literature by the likes of Anaïs Nin and Marquis de Sade. I even perused a couple romance novels (Kathleen Woodiwiss) to better understand female fantasy. I downloaded clips of Craig Ferguson’s famous Late Late Night flirts. I scoured online forums like r/seduction and SoSuave, where thousands of men shared their experiences and tips for attracting women. I studied harder than I ever had in school.

I kept this all, of course, under wraps. One time, a girl found out and called me disgusting, manipulative, immoral, etc… yeah, fair. But I’ve come to believe that wanting to sleep with women and learning how to is perfectly normal. I just maybe went a little overboard.

Anyway, I took my newfound knowledge and hit the apps. I was bold; I was playful; I took risks. And women responded positively!

I learned when to push, when to pull, when to touch, when to tease, when to brag, when to beg, and when to back off. I learned to communicate my intentions clearly but covertly. I learned how to ask a girl to kiss without asking.6

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Then I moved to New York, and the dating got dumb easy. If you’re not aware, there is an insane abundance of college-educated women in NYC; in fact, (no relation), who writes about the statistics of online dating, calls Manhattan “Valhalla for Single Men”.7

So I went a little nuts: I hooked up on Hinge; I canoodled at the club; I brought back the barista from the corner café. Last summer, I tried dating three girls at once, which blew up catastrophically (but gave me a ton of writing material).

Wasn’t this everything I’d ever wanted? I’ve been with dozens of women over the last few years — beautiful, exciting, intelligent women — yet, what do I have to show for it?

Not much. I’m somewhat more confident, sure, but I often still feel like I’m faking it. I still have plenty of sexual insecurities; I still get scared to talk to girls. Part of me is still that small, shy, skinny little kid from high school — the kid who can’t possibly be happy with someone else… until he’s happy with himself.

And that’s something no woman can fix.

When I was younger, I was a competitive figure skater. I was good but not great — I never competed internationally. One year, I won my Regional competition1, which landed me a spot at Junior Nationals, where I skated well in the first round and qualified for finals. Between rounds, a group of skaters was standing around discussing their rankings.

“What place did you get last year?” One asked another.

”Oh, 6th. You?”

“3rd.” They turned towards me.

“We don’t remember you. What place did you get last year?”

I was too embarrassed to tell them that the year before, I’d placed 2nd... to last.

But that year, I redeemed myself. I skated a clean performance in the finals and placed 12th nationally — and this is what I became known for, for a while. Years later, at a bar in college, I ran into a former skater who still remembered me. In my youth, I wore that modest achievement like a badge — it was, perhaps, my only source of pride. It made me worth something. I milked it in my college applications. I wore it long after it wore out.

We all want to be known for something. At least to our friends and community, if not the world. We want to be the cool one, the funny one, or the intelligent one. We want to be known for our quirks, our idiosyncrasies: the guy with the flip phone or the girl with the tattoos. And most of all, we want to be known for our work, our competencies. We all want to be good at something.

In college, I got really good at school. I scored a 3.95 in Economics and would have made the Dean’s List had I not chosen to take my final semester pass/fail2. I wore this badge covertly (it would have been uncool to do so openly), but I took pride in the admiration from friends who ‘inadvertently’ found out. Academic excellence became something I was known for.

We collect pieces of identity like badges throughout the years, some fresh and shiny, others rusted from disuse. We acquire them from different arenas: sports or school or the arts. We display them prominently on our chests or discard them in shame. No one badge can fully represent a man, but we forget this, and we forget that we aren’t even the aggregate of all our badges, but rather, the thing underneath — the thing doing the wearing. Without our badges, we feel naked.

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What are you known for? How do you want to be known? As a writer? A reader? Musician? Scholar? Or, perhaps, a friend, a lover, a member of the tribe? Do you want to impress people or instead, make them laugh? Do you want to give or to take? Love or be loved? Do you want to be? Or do you want to be known?

Being is physical, real, substantial; being known is illusory, imaginary, fiction. There is danger in confusing the two.

After grad school, I applied to medical school because I wanted to be known as a medical student — I didn’t actually care for the work, just the status and the title. I was brutally rejected, and honestly, I’m thankful for it. I would have been miserable. I did not want to be a doctor.

It’s undeniable that much of our self-worth stems from how others regard us. But to focus on image at the cost of substance is to misunderstand the ultimate source of personal power. Being known is but a shallow reflection of being. The moon to the sun. Even during an eclipse, when the moon blocks out the sun, we do not forget that ultimately it is the sun that sustains us, that gives us strength.

Being known is a chest full of badges. Being is the soldier underneath.

Still, I’d like to be known for something, and on a global scale. Perhaps I’m still chasing the recognition I never truly achieved as a figure skater.

To be honest, this is partly why I write — I think my most likely claim to fame is the way I put words together on paper. I’ve tried music and that didn’t really work, and medicine didn’t work either, but writing… I have a good feeling about writing.

To the world, I’d like to be known for my clarity of thought, ease of communication, and sober grasp of the truth.

But to those I love, I’d like to be known as kind, funny, caring, and considerate. Someone with strength of will and openness of heart. Someone who shares his experiences and opinions honestly, without shame, without fear.

In other words, I’d like to be known as exactly who I am — a friend, a lover, and a valued member of the tribe.

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Jayce orchestrated the plan: three days earlier, he’d gone to the Marriott Marquis in Times Square and convinced the front desk lady that he was an ‘avid fan’ of the Marriott hotel chain. He asked only for one simple souvenir: a deactivated room keycard. She suspected nothing. She gave him three.

An hour before the New Year, armed with these keycards, we pushed through an anticipatory crowd toward a police barricade on Broadway. It was a remarkably warm winter night, and the streets were packed. The roads surrounding our objective had been completely blocked off — nobody was getting in. Except, we hoped, us.

We strolled up to the policemen, dressed in our finest attire. There were six of us, including Jayce, Arthur, me… and you.

You were gorgeous, a whirlwind in a glittering green dress. Former valedictorian, gifted kid burnout. Covered in tats and addicted to Xanax, you recorded DJ sets and took Polaroid photos. Over the last few days, I’d learned about your family: how you lived under your sister’s Ivy League shadow. How your dad once pinned you down and hit you until you stopped struggling. How your mom just watched it happen. You were broken, like me. I thought you were beautiful.

But you were Arthur’s girl. Not that he particularly cared for you — he said you two weren’t serious. I hoped that was true.

The first set of cops told us to move along. We tried a different street. Rejected again. But at the third barricade, a policeman noticed the keycards in our hands, saw how we were dressed, heard Jayce loudly proclaim, “We must get to our hotel!” — and let us through. We were in.

Each year, thousands of suckers stand and wait for hours upon hours to watch the ball drop. They shit in diapers and piss in the street, penned in like pigs. Not us. We were young and bold and above the law. We strolled towards the plaza.

But before we could celebrate, we encountered another roadblock — literally. A second, unexpected blockade was just past the hotel, so our keycards were useless. We heard a great, collective cheer from just out of sight. Ten minutes until the New Year. There was no way through. It was over.

Jayce made a quick decision — he pointed at the Marriott Marquis. We flashed our phony keycards at security and made our way to the front desk.

“Is there a bar we can watch the ball drop?” Jayce asked. “A rooftop?”

“Well, there is,” said the front desk lady. “But it’s a private event.”

“Oh, we’ll just head to our rooms then,” Jayce grinned.

We took the elevator straight to the roof. Up top was a VIP dining area, guarded by bouncers, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, a full panorama overlooking the bright billboards and flashing lights of Times Square. The tables were lined with champagne and platters of chilled oysters. Patrons wore their finest attire. We fit right in.

Jayce and I acted without thinking. We puffed up our chests, wore huge smiles… and walked right past the bouncer. Absolute confidence often goes unquestioned. It helps when you look the part.

But you and Arthur (and the others) weren’t so lucky. A moment of hesitation, I guess, and the bouncer stopped you.

“Tickets?” he asked.

I doubled back to the entrance and tried to wave you in.

“They’re with us,” I assured the bouncer. He inspected my arm.

“Where’s your wristband?” he inquired.

Fuck.

Now I was stuck outside of the party too, and I was pissed — I was in the promised land, and I’d screwed it up. Only five minutes until the New Year. My mind raced. Time slowed down.

I walk briskly back towards the elevator, thinking I cannot let the bouncer remember my face. By the elevator, I notice a door, slightly ajar. ‘Club Room’, reads the bronze placard. Nothing to lose. I go in.

Waitstaff are bustling around, carrying food and drink. Paintings adorn the walls, and well-dressed patrons wander about, chatting. Once again, I puff up my chest, wear a big smile, and walk through with confidence.

“Happy New Year!” I proclaim, nodding at other patrons.

“Happy New Year,” they nod back.

At the far end of the room, I push through a door… back into the crowd of buzzing partygoers by those great windows overlooking Times Square.

And with less than a minute to spare. The crowd starts to cheer. I look behind to see you and Arthur and the others spilling out into the party. Jayce runs up to us, and we’re all together again.

The countdown begins. We’re jumping. We’re screaming. The cheers reach a crescendo and confetti falls, bright red and endless, and you and I pass into the New Year enveloped in light and warmth, surrounded by friends, in the most unexpected and magical way.

Later on, you told me I was the best kisser of all my friends.

Here’s how you knew:

Later that night, we took molly at the club. Well, you and I did, and Arthur only pretended to swallow his pill. You sat between the two of us, glowing, and for a moment, everything felt right. Somewhere between the drinks and the molly, the lights and the laughing and the dancing, I fell in love.

We returned to Jayce’s Midtown apartment, where we were all staying, and Arthur passed out in one of the bedrooms — but you wanted to get physical. You tried shaking him awake, to no avail.

“If you don’t get up,” you threatened, “I’m going to make out with your friends.”

“Do it then,” he snapped, and rolled back over.

So you did. You came into the other bedroom, where the boys were hanging out, and announced your intentions. You started with me — my New Year’s kiss. Then you moved on to the others, one by one. You finished with Jayce.

But that wasn’t the end of it. You were still high off the molly and desperate to be touched. “Give me some action,” you begged. “Anyone. Just give me some action.”

“You should fuck Danny,” Jayce laughed. You looked at me. I looked away, disgusted.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d liked you so much. How could you have been such a whore?

No one touched you that night — you were still Arthur’s girl. The next morning, you said you didn’t remember anything.

But the damage was done: Arthur heard what happened, and he was through with you. When we went out drinking the next night, he made that clear by chatting up every pretty Latina in the club.

I’d gotten sick of watching you watch him all night, so I left early and went back to Jayce’s. I lay alone in bed, scrolling my phone in the dark. An hour later, you came back and slipped under the sheets with me.

“Wanna fuck?” You mumbled.

“Well… kinda.” I admitted. “How much did you drink?”

“Not too much,” you said. “But I took two bars.”

I froze. “Are you going to remember this?”

“Probably not.”

I took a moment to process that. You pressed your warm body against me.

“Do you even like me?” I asked, half-hoping.

“Honestly…” you muttered, “Not really.”

Pain and pride defeated desire. I got out of bed and slept on the couch.

Two days later, you fucked Jayce. You stayed in his apartment, and you fucked him after the rest of us had flown out of NYC. You accused him of stealing your panties. You texted me the details.

And that’s how we started talking.

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“Have you ever taught a class before?” the student asked.

I admitted I hadn’t.

“I can tell. I expect a lot more from you.”

Ouch.

I then had a meeting with my training teacher to discuss this student’s (admittedly valid) concerns. I vented about how discouraged and ashamed, how absolutely terrible I felt.

“Hold on,” my trainer said. “Why do you feel so bad? Did you hurt anyone?”

Huh?

“Did you do anything morally or ethically wrong?” he emphasized. “Did you hurt anyone?”

Well… I guess not.

“So don’t feel bad.”

Woah.

His words have been ringing in my head ever since. Because I do. Feel bad about everything, that is.

I feel bad about not being good enough — not productive, successful, or attractive enough. I worry about coming off as awkward or uncool in conversation. I’m afraid to admit my shortcomings, convinced that people wouldn’t like or respect me if they knew.

In other words, I experience shame — deeply and constantly.

But my training teacher suggested that if I first, do no harm, I could rationally dispel my irrational shame. In other words, a cognitive shift could resolve an emotional issue.

Was this really possible?

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To learn more, I dove into the work of leading shame expert Brené Brown.

She asserts that everyone experiences shame. This idea is supported by psychologist Paul Eckman, who, in the 1990s, added shame to his renowned list of universal human emotions.

But is this true? I wasn’t entirely convinced — so I surveyed my friends. And I found that we all experienced shame in similar ways:

That last response made me think. suggests that shame (and resulting perfectionism) helped him achieve great things in his career.

And he has a point: a sense of inadequacy can push you to compensate for your weaknesses. But at what cost?

So is it possible to pursue high standards without a debilitating sense of shame and inadequacy?

Brené Brown believes so.

She acknowledges the contradiction: sometimes, you should feel bad. Negative feelings help us learn from our mistakes.

The issue, she clarifies, is when you tie these feelings of inadequacy to your sense of self-worth. She differentiates between shame and guilt:

Shame is identity-based: you are a bad person.
Guilt is action-based: you’ve done a bad thing.

The latter is adaptive, the former, maladaptive. Guilt inspires change, whereas shame leads to stagnation. Shame perpetuates a feedback loop of avoidance and inadequacy that ultimately stunts your development.

By reframing weakness as a property of what you do rather than who you are, you allow yourself to make mistakes without devaluing your self-worth.

So you don’t have to feel so bad about everything.

It was time to put my new cognitive tools to use.

I reframed the issue. I wasn’t a bad teacher — I was new and still learning. I focused on what actions I could take: prioritize my lesson prep and get better sleep before class.

I followed my training teacher’s advice. Whenever I felt that crushing anxiety, I asked myself: Am I hurting anyone? Then I did my best to just… release the feeling.

I’m not saying these techniques eliminated my shame or anything — I still have a lot to resolve. I’m working on being kinder to myself, giving myself grace. Forgiving myself when I make mistakes. Trying my hardest and letting go of the outcome.

But it’s a long journey and you have to start somewhere, right?

This story has a happy ending.

The next week, I came to class prepared, confident, and well-rested. I knew my material. I executed my lesson plan.

Afterward, that particular student who had complained approached me and said simply,

“That was a great class today.”

It felt pretty good.

It started as whispers. I thought I was hearing neighbors mumble through the apartment walls. Then, I realized they were talking about me! — my every action, my every thought. They delivered scathing commentary on my guitar playing, my social skills, and my sexual habits. They mocked my flaws and inadequacies. They called me the ‘great pretender’. And as irrational as it was, I couldn’t help but listen.

Then, the paranoia set in. I knew people were watching me from the apartments across the street — but I couldn’t prove it. I would peek out the blinds at night, trying to catch them in the act. I became convinced that my neighbors were spreading pictures of my dick around the building. In public, I felt eyes following me from miles away.

I called my therapist beside an empty building by the railroad. (My apartment was no longer a safe place to speak.) He expressed his concern but said we still couldn’t meet — we were, after all, in a worldwide pandemic. I suddenly got the sense that someone had their ear pressed against a nearby wall, so I ended the call. We never spoke again.

The voices grew louder.

They developed three distinct personalities — a man and two women. The man was sharp and incisive, and dissected my insecurities with clinical precision. The first woman was shallow, judgmental, and cruel. She liked to see me hurt. The other was naive and curious but trusted the other two implicitly. They became my constant companions, my ‘neighbors’.

I moved out of that apartment and back into my childhood home. The voices followed.

One evening in a cannabis-induced haze, I experienced a full-blown chorus of spiritual condemnation. He doesn’t believe in God! The ‘neighbors’ whispered to one another, hot with disdain. What? He doesn’t believe? He doesn’t believe in God! Tears ran down my cheeks. My mom wandered by and asked what was wrong. But I was frozen. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t make eye contact. I stared off into space. She shrugged and left me alone.

I moved to Baltimore, where I worked in neurology clinics. The voices followed, yet again. Sometimes, after a long day of working with patients, the illusory insults would subside. And for a brief moment, I hoped that I was free, that I had imagined the whole thing. But they always came back. And each time, I sank deeper into despair.

One night, I dreamt I was suspended in mid-air, surrounded by thousands of unblinking eyes, staring from every angle — above, below, all around. Muffled voices spilled over one another. I woke up, yelling: “我听到你!” I can hear you. Then I caught my breath and was embarrassed. I prayed my roommates hadn’t heard.

I could no longer ignore or shut it out. Formless presences muttered from behind every wall, watched me through every window. My thoughts became scattered, incomplete. I could not remember who I used to be. I vacillated between immobilizing anxiety and desperate rage. Every day for months, I fantasized about killing myself.

Still, I refused to consider medication. I was afraid to consult a doctor. What if he confirmed that my mind was broken beyond repair? That my efforts to fight the psychosis were futile? Or, worse, what if he told me nothing was wrong? What if he didn’t believe me?

So I kept the voices a secret. I fought the battle alone. I festered in my shame.

At my lowest point, I reconnected with an old friend — the first close friendship I’d developed since the pandemic started. Whispering haltingly into the phone, I told him my ‘neighbors’ were always listening. I told him they were watching me through the blinds. I told him I was hearing voices.

He could not relate, but he didn’t have to. It was my confession that mattered, the release of a long-kept secret. It heralded the change. It set me toward recovery.

After an endless winter, blew a wind of spring.

So what changed?

First, I started studying for my medical college entrance exam. That gave me the structure, focus, and purpose I’d been missing. From my studies, I learned about the biological and psychological foundations of schizophrenia. I took action: I quit using drugs. I spent more time with friends. I reframed my psychosis as a treatable condition rather than a source of shame.

Most importantly, I started telling people.

I told my mom while parked in my car, tears running down my face, fist slamming the steering wheel. She was aghast but held my hand tightly. I told my sister and my estranged dad. I told my friends one by one, afraid to be abandoned, but knowing if they loved me, they would stay. And they did stay.

And as the real voices of those I loved filled my physical world, the illusory voices in my mind, those formless presences, began to fade.

I moved to New York City, and this time, the voices did not follow. I was still shattered, but in full possession of my mind. I lived only blocks away from Times Square. Most New Yorkers hate this part of town. But I loved it. I loved the tourists, I loved the crowd. I still do. Each time I sink into that sea of people, I’m confronted with my smallness, my insignificance. I remember I am nothing, and my mind goes quiet.

Today, I turn 27.

Even after the voices left, it took me years to rehabilitate, to feel human again. I lost my early twenties to mental illness and my mid-twenties to recovery. But I’m blessed, lucky, grateful that I wasn’t too far gone. Some never make it back. It was my people, their love, and our connections that saved me.

Now, those years of psychosis feel like nothing more than a bad dream. A nightmare dispersed upon waking, the details of which elude. Some days, it’s hard to believe it really happened. The memories are hard to access. Perhaps that’s for the best.

I’m still plagued by anxieties and traumas, deep-rooted relics from my childhood. Often, I cannot control my fear or my anger. Sometimes it still feels like everything is falling apart. But then I consider where I’ve been. And I remember that even the worst of times… shall pass.

One day, I'll look back on my twenties as a storm I weathered and survived. I'll be surrounded by people I love. I'll have meaningful work that gets me up in the morning. I'll revisit my journals from these troubled times, and I won't identify with them anymore. I will no longer be this scared, lost little boy.

The nightmare will be over.

i showed it to her, proud.
she looked and said,
disgusting.

but i love you, ma.
she shook her head.

you used to be so beautiful.

Read more

A couple weeks ago, my roommate invited some girls over to party on the roof. They were all very pretty and studying various health sciences, and when I mentioned I taught an MCAT class, they asked what I'd scored.

“Like, my actual score?” I clarified. “The number?”

“Yeah.” So I told them.

“Holy shit.” One girl said. “You might be the smartest guy I’ve ever met.”

Actually, I'm a wreck. I'm broke, a month behind on rent, and I suck at my job. I got rejected from medical school, left it all to be an artist, then couldn't keep my band together. I sleep on top of my unfolded laundry. I wake up grinding my teeth. I am afraid of people. I am afraid of the future. I am afraid of everything.

But sure, I did well on the exam.

I'm not trying to brag, I swear. I just don’t understand — why can’t I figure it out? What am I doing wrong?

If I'm so god damn smart, why am I still so unhappy?

First, let’s dispel the myth of the tortured genius.

There’s this cultural notion that exceptional intelligence is both a gift and a curse — that heightened cognition is intrinsically bound to misery and isolation. And I’ll admit, there may be some truth to this.

If you peruse the r/Gifted subreddit (which I don’t recommend doing, ever), you’ll notice that the most common posts follow this pattern:

“I was a gifted kid, extremely high IQ, and now I’m useless, unsuccessful, and unhappy.” With a million upvotes.

Although these Reddit posts come off as self-victimizing and masturbatory, they are somewhat validated by the data: in the upper range of IQ (130+), we see a significant uptick in levels of anxiety and neuroticism.

Yet, along the rest of the IQ spectrum, intelligence is highly correlated with positive life outcomes and slightly negatively correlated with neuroticism. Smarter people are, in general, less worried and more successful.1

What this suggests: smarts and suffering are not inherently linked. You’re miserable, not due to your intelligence, but despite it.

Redditors cite the following grievances: a sense of alienation, an inability to relate to others, and self-sabotaging patterns including avoidance, procrastination and perfectionism.

Notice these are not cognitive issues, but rather, social and emotional ones — areas not typically nurtured in an academic setting.

In other words, you're not a 'tortured genius'. You're smart but emotionally incompetent.

But hey… so am I.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. A whole generation of smart kids was taught to overvalue intellectual ability and neglect emotional and social development. Unbalanced children grew into lopsided adults, unable to cope with the demands of real life.

But that’s in the past. The future doesn’t have to be this way. We’re problem solvers, right? Let’s try and solve for happiness.

We’ll have to look beyond intelligence.

Don’t worry, we won’t abandon intelligence entirely.

We’ll just put it in its proper place.

Simon Blackburn identifies three universal components to well-being: health, happiness, and achievement.

These domains are separate but interrelated: regular exercise (health) facilitates clear thinking, which enhances performance (achievement). A strong sense of contentment (happiness) reduces chronic stress and improves mental health. But how are happiness and achievement related?

Achievement comes at a cost to happiness, you might suggest. Great accomplishments require great sacrifice. And that’s true.

But on the other hand, setting and achieving goals makes you happy.

How can both be true?

We resolve the contradiction by separating ‘happiness’ into its constituents: fulfillment (eudaimonia) and pleasure (hedonia).

Achievement requires discipline — doing the work you don’t want to do. This means, at times, deferring pleasure to accomplish goals, which contribute to fulfillment.

In practice, we don’t revoke pleasure entirely — rather, we alternate between work and rest, pain and pleasure. Cycles, like waves in the ocean. Driving endlessly towards the shore.

Still, this isn’t the full picture of happiness.

Martin Seligman is the founder of positive psychology, a practice centered on resilience and well-being. His PERMA framework breaks happiness down into 5 main components:

In his model, accomplishments (achievement) accounts for only a fraction of personal satisfaction. Other key features, including relationships and positive emotions, contribute to a holistic experience of happiness.

To be happy, he asserts, you need people. You need some pleasure. And you need purpose.

So what does this have to do with intelligence?

Up until now, we’ve only referred to cognitive intelligence (IQ), the ability to solve problems and synthesize information. IQ most directly facilitates academic accomplishment.

But to develop the other factors of the PERMA model, social intelligence (SI) and emotional intelligence (EQ) are required. These represent the skills of happiness:

Smart kids tend to rely on their IQ to try and solve social/emotional problems. This approach is somewhat effective: you can learn social scripts, develop emotional vocabulary and psychoanalyze traumas.

But as we’ve seen already, cognitive ability has its limits.

SI and EQ draw heavily on non-cognitive abilities including behavioral skills, physical memory, and trained intuition — skills that are built through experience. You learn to do by doing.

But here’s the kicker: every social skill, from charisma to humor to public speaking, can be learned. Every emotional skill, from empathy to discipline to managing negative emotions, can also be learned.

In other words, you can learn the skills of happiness — and so can I.

But how?

I’m not… entirely sure.2

I wrote the first draft of this essay after a miserable all-nighter compulsively binging video games. I ruined my sleep schedule, missed a deadline, and starved myself for 15 hours straight. I felt sicker with every game. By the end, I hated myself.

This happens all too often. Obviously the issue is emotional — but I can’t quite seem to kick it.

I’ve read every self-help book on the market. I’ve watched a hundred thousand hours of YouTube productivity advice.3 I’ve tried meditation, affirmation, gratitude and dedication — everything short of medication. And yet, nothing works.

What am I missing?

offers her perspective: maybe you’re not actually trying.

What you’re doing might feel like effort, she says, because you suck at it.4 But if you truly applied yourself emotionally, the same way you do cognitively, wouldn’t you achieve similar success?

Maybe she’s right — after all, I know the solutions to my problems:

I could fix my money problems by monitoring my finances, saving up, and paying my bills on time. My productivity problems, by sitting down to work every day. My social and emotional problems, by finally hiring a god damn therapist.

But I don’t do any of that. I make conscious decisions to NOT do the things that would make me happy. Which is completely backwards.

After all, intelligence is only a tool for making better decisions. You can be the smartest guy in the world, but that’s meaningless if you make all the wrong choices anyway.

I’m realizing I’m unhappy because I overvalue IQ and achievement, and undervalue EQ and the components of happiness — connections, contentment, purpose.

So I guess it’s time make a change.

One last thing — how do I know this time will be different? What will get me to actually try my hardest?

Sometimes, you find purpose in unexpected places.

It's my third week teaching MCAT classes and I'm still finding my groove. It’s a lot harder than I’d anticipated:

Starting over as a beginner has me feeling like a big fat baby. I'm fumbling, stumbling, bumbling clumsily. It's terribly humbling. I'm doing my best here! But my best is painfully mediocre.5

At first, I'd chosen the job out of convenience — decent pay and flexible prep hours.

But since I started teaching, my motivations have changed. I teach not just science content, but also the resilience and self-care skills necessary to sustain months of intense study. My students are counting on me to lead them through this challenge.

I want to do right by them. I want to lead by example. I want to be the best I can.

That means it’s finally time to address the emotional issues that have plagued my twenties. Not just for my sake, but for theirs.

Many of my students are extremely smart, hard on themselves, perfectionists. I see myself in them. When they get discouraged, here’s what I say:

Take it day by day. Don’t concern yourself with the progress of others. And give yourself a little grace. It will all come in time.

Time to start taking my own advice.

Special thanks to Ru, Eddie, Charlie and Surya for helping me figure this one out.

buy me a coffee

I met the Worst Boyfriend Ever in New York City.

He wasn’t at all what I expected.

I don’t remember how I discovered his blog, but it was during my first month on Substack. Probably, people were talking about him on my feed — they always are.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Substack drama, WBE writes about cheating on his girlfriend, blowing up his life, then leaving town in a van to travel the United States while taking the virginities of countless girls who message him online.

His stories are unfiltered, stream of consciousness, confessional. He uses innocent-looking cartoon images to contrast the dark themes of self-loathing and sexual perversion.

The blog is a fever dream. It's explicit, transgressive, and undeniably depraved and yet... it captivated me. For a few weeks, it became my shameful secret and guilty pleasure. I read every post.

To be clear, I’m not here to defend the virtue of the Worst Boyfriend Ever. I don't agree with his worldview or abrasive use of language, and I definitely don't align with his core fanbase.

But something in his writing spoke to me.

What was it? Perhaps the crushing honesty and unapologetic expression of sexual desire, however twisted. Or the self-aware drive towards self-destruction. Or, perhaps, the frustrations of being trapped in a dying relationship and the endless demands of social performance.

I think most of us have fantasized, at some point, about packing up and leaving everything behind. But the madman actually did it! Allegedly.

The stories were entertaining, with strong hooks and great pacing. They occasionally made me laugh — which is rare nowadays.

Were they truth or fiction? Why did thousands of readers, both male and female, find them so compelling? And what was he like in real life? I had to find out.

So when WBE drove the van up to NY, I reached out and offered him a meal. His hungry, homeless ass simply could not refuse.

We met at a café in Midtown, Manhattan.

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My first impression: thin, lanky — almost unhealthily so. I guess living in a van for six months will do that to you. Wearing blue jeans, a black jacket, and a grey scarf. About 6 foot. Good looking but not ‘physically gorgeous’ as he’d described himself.

Immediately, he shared his real name. He said there was no point hiding it due to the regular doxxings. I pointed out that having such dedicated haters actually legitimized the blog. He agreed.

It was his first time in NYC and I offered to show him around. We walked down Broadway towards Times Square.

He told me about the life he’d left behind. He had been a well-known figure in a community of online gamers, even hosting tournaments for his region. But for years, he lived a double life, unable to express his honest, unfiltered self — except in the Notes app. He’d been blogging anonymously for only a few months before getting exposed, shut out of his old life. Now, his old friends pretend he doesn’t exist.

“I’m like Voldemort to them,” he quipped.

Despite that, he was in good spirits. He was excited about book sales, by the attention he was receiving for his work. He wrote every day, read at live events, and stayed in shape by running regularly.

And weirdly, he was sort of… likeable? He came off as mostly normal, albeit slightly autistic, with a surprisingly childlike attitude. The rampant racism and misogyny that pervaded his writing were nowhere to be seen. Was this really the same WBE?

“I have more of a filter in person,” he explained. “I’m not going to drop the hard R or anything.”

Not around me, at least.

What I wanted to know most was: could I tell?

If I hadn’t read the blog, could I tell what was going through his mind? The sickness, the depravity? If we were complete strangers, could I have seen through him?

I had my answer: absolutely not. I never would have suspected. For someone who railed against the social mask, he wore it well. He knew how to act; he knew what he could get away with saying.

Still, I believe he told the truth.

As we turned down a side street, I asked if he considered himself a sociopath.

“No, I don’t,” he said, “I’m aware of the hurt I cause. I’m able to feel it in others. I don’t think a sociopath would feel that.”

He listed those he’d hurt — girls, his ex-girlfriend, his dad. Not boastfully, but with what seemed like remorse.

I took a measured look at him, then responded with something I’ve told myself many times.

“If you don’t want to be a sociopath, you’re probably not — a true sociopath wouldn’t care.”

I think he was reassured by the lie.

We climbed up a ledge overlooking Times Square, and I asked him why girls were so into him/the blog.

“Because other girls are.” He laughed.

I wasn’t satisfied with that answer. Young women hooking up with a homeless stranger in his van, just because other girls did? There had to be more to it.

Sure, his self-proclaimed, Cialis-powered sexual prowess probably sparks some curiosity. And there is something to be said about the aphrodisiac effect of clout.

But more notably, WBE lays bare — in high definition — the intricate folds of his mind. He writes exactly what he thinks, all the time. It’s private. It’s intimate. Girls who reach out feel like they already know him.

His anonymity fuels imagination — they can project whatever physical qualities they want onto him. His transience means no lasting consequences. He’s the perfect stranger — here today, gone tomorrow. He’s a risk, a thrill, a whispered secret.

That’s my best guess, at least.

Despite his claim of ‘transcending genre’, Worst Boyfriend Ever descends from a literary lineage of transgressive male writers including Delicious Tacos, Charles Bukowski, and Henry Miller. These writers explored male sexuality, alienation, and rejection of societal norms in deliberately controversial ways. As they grew in popularity, so did the number of women who reached out. They never ran out of stories to tell.

I asked about his writing process.

“I take Adderall and write first thing in the morning, every day,” he told me. “I record literally everything I can — every detail, every conversation. Then I come back later and look for the parts that make me laugh, and repurpose those into a story.”

“My goal,” he clarified, “is to make people laugh.”

I asked if he was playing a character. He told me there are two types of writers: those who recognize it’s a performance art, and those who haven’t realized yet.

Stephen King says that all writers are readers, but WBE is the exception. He doesn’t read books, and he doesn’t read comments. But he won’t disable comments on his posts — readers find them entertaining.

“Part of the circus show,” he laughed.

He gave me the impression of someone who thought deeply about his work, who knew exactly what he was after.

Someone who would stop at nothing to achieve it.

“I have nothing to hide,” he told me.

So I asked to look through his Substack DMs. He tossed me his phone.

First, I checked his stats. He had way more views than his subscribers would suggest, which made sense. He said he might have the highest lurk to engagement ratio on the platform.

Then I opened his DMs.

Most of the messages were straightforward: Hey I’m a 19yo college student in NYC, how long are u in town for? A few guys glazing. And, surprisingly, a few accounts I recognized from my feed. I read a couple conversations but felt awkward and handed the phone back without digging too deep.

As I did, a text popped up: cute Asian girl.

“That’s my girlfriend,” he said. “Ex-girlfriend.”

The poor girl he’d written for months about cheating on, whom he’d driven away from in the van… was still on his side, texting him, supporting him.

Somehow, it didn’t surprise me at all.

We got bored and found a basketball court nearby.

It’s been forever since I did this, he said. If you’re wondering, he can’t dribble but he can shoot.1

Then he gave me a ride home in the van.

His passenger seat was filled with junk so I sat on the twin bed built into the back, which was a little… uncomfortable. But honestly it wasn’t that bad. He had soft LED lights running around the perimeter which gave it college-dorm vibes, small drawers for clothes, and a pine tree air freshener that was working overtime. A Psyduck hat lay draped over the passenger seat.

WBE had spent the last half year living in this van. Before that, he’d felt like a pretender, a stranger — but instead of accepting it or adjusting, he drove away. He rejected the social contract, and, in turn, was rejected by society. Now, he drifts between parking lots, showers at planet fitness, and, yes, collects bodies. A lonely, tragic, but liberated existence.

I hopped off the van and waved goodbye. He drove off.

Will his countless parking tickets and traffic fines eventually catch up with him? Will he spiral into maniacal despair in an effort to satisfy his growing audience? Or will the Worst Boyfriend Ever one day rediscover hope and redemption?

Only one way to find out: tune into the show.

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I’m not homeless but I am broke so… buy me a coffee

I sit by the water, remembering you.

The first time we came here, it was spring. I had taken you to see a scary movie on 42nd, but then I got too scared and made you leave with me. I can’t believe you didn’t ditch my loser ass right then and there, but you told me I could never give you the ick, so I knew you loved me. Even later on, through all the fights, you loved me. Up until the end.

So we left the movie theater, and you said I know a spot and led me to this pier on the Hudson, a concrete slab where skaters and bikers congregated. We hopped a fence to get right up against the water, and I lay with my head in your lap as we joked around and yapped like kids, the late afternoon sun caressing, enveloping us in a warm glow.

That’s how I like to remember us — the laughing and singing and dancing. Not the yelling and threats and rage that came to define us. Here’s a graph of how these progressed:

This is how my brain works: numbers and lines and logical sequences. Empathy and compassion, while not entirely foreign, take serious effort. This frustrated you. You wanted an emotional support boyfriend who made you feel loved, always. But all too often, especially toward the end, I would reach deep and find that I had no more love to give you.

So I pretended. But a woman can tell when love is unconditional and freely given, and when it’s not. You often dreamt I was cheating on you — residual terrors from an era when you were one of many, before I had chosen you.

Naturally, you hated the other girls in my life. The girls I met at shows and parties, the ones I messaged on the internet.

“Look, I'm not trying to hook up with these girls,” I explained, “they’re artists and creatives and I admire their work.”

“That's how it starts,” you retorted. “But then you get close and you catch feelings, then one day, you'll tell me it just happened. Fuck no. Show me your phone.”

In the beginning, your jealousy was a treasure. It felt good to be wanted, to know I was special. But then, when it got in the way of my work, your jealousy became a burden. And I wanted out, but I was in too deep. You needed me, needed my love, and I felt responsible for you.

So I stayed.

Not to say I didn't love you too — I did. We’d originally connected like 5-year-olds on the playground: playful, natural, organic. But love turned from gift to obligation, and eventually I couldn't pretend anymore.

I started writing letters to girls from my past. I wrote them as you lay sleeping next to me. Then I posted them online.

Why? I told myself it was about artistic expression, a way to resolve my past and share my stories with the world. And I knew it would kill you, but I did it anyway.

So we fought. All night screaming matches that were never resolved, only briefly adjourned upon mutual exhaustion. Nasty, physical, both our phones wrecked. Then, a good day here or there, a brief respite to renew our hope before the next battle. Cycles, repeated, month after month.

You told me what I’d done was worse than cheating. You hated that I thought of other women, romanticized them in my writing. Most of all, you hated that I refused to write about you.

You don't understand, I said, I can only write about them because they're gone. You’re right here, right now. But that didn’t matter. You wanted all of me: past, present, and future. I could only give you the now. It wasn't enough.

Now I'm sitting by this river and writing you this letter and that's because I know this time it's over. Tomorrow I'm flying out of New York City, this city that has your name written all over it, every borough, every block. You were my New York girl and this city will belong to you long after we both leave, long after we both forget.

I'll be gone for a while. Don't know when I'll return.

Your name in your mother tongue meant ‘river in heaven’. Whenever I look up at the clouds and they form ripples and waves in pink and purple and deep navy blue, like they do when the sun sets over the Hudson... I’ll remember you.