Bootleg Therapy: An Advice Column #6
On living as your authentic self, and avoiding catching feelings
Welcome to Bootleg Therapy: an advice column for wayward hearts. Think of me as your virtual stranger at the bar with a raspy voice and a weird scar on their cheek; the truth is in the worm at the bottom of the mezcal bottle. Submit your questions anonymously on brokebutmoisturized.com for a chance to be featured.
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CAS251193
How do you navigate becoming your own person when it is separate from the person people have known you as/how do you live life true to yourself? I’m in this place where I feel like I’ve begun to develop a personality and beliefs different from many of those around me and from what people expect of me and I want to be able to own who I am, yet I struggle with this sense of allowing people the intimacy of knowing the real me and, of course, being a people pleaser doesn’t help. How can someone learn to own who they are as a person while leaving room to grow and change, and just in general feel like they can still live fully outside of the restraints their life currently offers?
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Dear CAS251193,
First and foremost, I am vibing with you. We’re sharing a spliff at sunset, you and I, and through wine-stained teeth, we declare the concept of a fixed identity anathema. Putrid trash designed to keep us homogenous and unthreatening. We make a pact to honor our multitudes and shake on it via shotgun—your smoke, my mouth. Now we’re making out and I love that thing you do with your tongue.
Sorry, I needed a burst of erotic fiction. My fiancé’s gaming and writing is a lonely craft.
But seriously, I am vibing with you. I’ve been trying to reconcile the differences between my internal self and how I present to the world (or rather, within one context to the next) and sometimes, it’s frustrating. Frustration is almost always a message, though. Let us listen together.
Right now, you’re awakening to a certain severance from the narratives that shaped your world—the beliefs and people who made you feel that because you are X, you must be Y. This is healthy. It demonstrates growth. And growth can be neutral, i.e. I don’t know who you’re becoming, for better or for worse, but it’s clearly in a direction that feels more authentically you. As humans, we’re obsessed with searching for individual purpose when the truth is, our only purpose is shared, and it is to be authentically ourselves to keep the world from becoming totally synthetic. So you’re on the right track!
When I lived in rural central Pennsylvania (so, for 24 of my 31 years alive), my inner urbanite was banging down the door of my soul. She wanted to see and be seen by the world—a city girl with progressive politics, culture, and an eclectic sense of style. Kind of like if Carrie Bradshaw went to high school next to a cornfield. I felt like I had to hide these shifting curiosities from everyone in my life. This made the journey to self somewhat reclusive, driven by determination to meet this ideal self who eats foie gras and takes the subway to work. I became very “grass is greener” during this time, unable to enjoy where I was at, mind always adrift to where I might go, if only I could get out of Dodge.
When I did make my way to a city, I learned it wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Now that I’ve lived here for six years, adopting a paper thin veneer of poshness, I’m amazed at the way I’ve fought to keep the old me alive. Grew-up-in-a-dive-bar me. Rides-around-in-a-truck-bed me. How much I needed her to bolster the new me to become a fully realized spirit. We have to “own who we are while leaving room to grow and change.” Your words, not mine.
Let’s get honest now, CAS. How different is the real you from the you that exists within your relationships? So often when we feel isolated in our interests or viewpoints, it’s because we’ve exaggerated their role within our identity. The novelty of realizing, for example, “wow, I want to devote my life to travel,” can feel so invigorating that it dwarfs even the most familiar parts of ourselves. It can also make everyone in our lives appear as “other.” It can feel as though to live these truths out loud, our loved ones might try to convince us that this isn’t who we actually are. That makes opening up incredibly daunting. I recommend taking stock in the strength of your relationships. True intimacy should free us to be ourselves. You may be feeling so much cognitive dissonance around your identity that you underestimate just how free you are to be yourself with the people you love. But you won’t get anywhere passively thinking about it. Get a journal out and go through each person of concern. Document how they make you feel on a day-to-day basis, the amount of time you spend together, memories of times when they’ve supported you (or left you high and dry), remarks they may have made about other people who’ve changed, etc. This should illuminate whether your fear toward opening up is warranted.
One thing I’ve learned in my life is that different relationships serve different purposes. Sometimes those “purposes” are really just different facets of our identity that need camaraderie to survive. It doesn’t make you fake, or your relationships any less meaningful, if certain parts of you are reserved for certain crowds. For instance, clubbing at Berghain or Bassiani is on my bucket list. It’s more to me than partying; it’s an entire culture and lifestyle centered on music, global connection, and open-mindedness. But I can’t even get my girlfriends to go to the undisclosed location warehouse raves that my friends throw in Philly. This doesn’t mean I let that part of me shrivel up and die. Nor does it mean I drop my friends because of that incompatibility. It means I find people to share it with and/or ways to nurture it individually. Are you open to that, CAS? The energy of new, like-minded people may inspire the confidence to show your full self to those who’ve been in your life forever.
I feel hopeful about your situation because I don’t detect any hostility. It’s easy to grow resentful of our personal bubbles when they seemingly don’t align with our aspirational self. We waste a lot of energy pointing out our differences, rather than doing the harder (and ultimately better) work of finding commonality. When we actively seek and nourish commonality, it forges connections that invite us to show our differences without fear of rejection. What I’m saying is, if you can remember why you love these people and trust that they love you, prioritizing your sameness over your differences, you’ll find it easier to show them your layers.
Entering a new phase of personal evolution can make our former selves appear as lesser. We think, “How could I have been stuck in my ways for so long?” But that attitude is your old self in a new outfit. It’s still a fixed identity, just a different one—one that feels sexier to you in this moment, but might not forever. To evolve realistically, we must accept that a thousand versions of ourselves exist within us at any given moment. If you can acknowledge that you are still that person, just in a different season of life, it won’t be so overwhelming when you inevitably change again. We have to show each version of ourselves equal love. That way, we can reveal them to the people in our lives and give them the chance to love them, too.
Allergic to Feelings
My boyfriend and I broke up in February and I’ve been loving being single. I recently started dating again because I find it fun (and bc I felt like I had to?) but at the same time I don’t want to catch feelings (which I do quite quickly - I’m a Cancer and a hopeless romantic at my core). How do I date without falling for someone? I really cannot find it in me to cope with any feelings right now. Bonus question lol: how do I balance my desire for total independence while also (eventually) finding and incorporating a partner into my life?
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Dear Allergic to Feelings,
I wish we were in person because the second I learn someone’s a fellow Cancer, I cannot resist the urge to shout, “Alas, my platonic soulmate!” as we weep softly into each other’s shoulders. If my advice falls short, surely our cosmic bond will carry you to truth. That or like, chocolate cake, a depression nap, and “Creep” by Radiohead on loop because such is the way of the crab.
Don’t ask me why, but something is compelling me to respond to your submission from back to front. So let me start with the bonus question just to follow my gut.
Do you know why people who desperately want partners struggle to nab one? Other than the fact that we exist in draining cycles of planning drinks and canceling plans and planning drinks and canceling plans, it’s because the majority of folks have absolutely zero interest in compromising their independence for another person. This is good news for you, because you’re the ideal partner for someone who doesn’t really want a partner—or at least one who requires a lot of attention. Independent spirits are like magnets. I know this because I’m a needy bitch and have only experienced polarity in dating people who crave extra autonomy. All you need to do is be forthright and selective about finding someone who values independence the way you do and bada-bing, bada-boom, the easiest love there ever was is born.
Moving right along…
We obviously know that the whole “feeling like you have to date” thing is bullshit. That’s the hopeless romantic within applying the pressure, because lord knows society is in her single era. It has never been cooler to be uncoupled. Hence all the aforementioned people who want nothing to do with serious relationships because they’re busy like, investing in real estate or going through yoga teacher training. So any time you feel like you have to date, just know that the call is coming from inside the house.
I’m a typical Cancer in most ways pertaining to love, but if there’s one thing I’m good at (or was good at before the whole engagement thing), it’s casual sex and dating without feelings. This is because I only feel the desire to be in a full-blown relationship with someone I know I want to marry. Do you want to get married someday, ATF? Or have some form of lifelong partnership? When you move through the world with that end goal so lucid, it reveals all the inadequacies of your flings, which makes it easier to hang out with them no strings attached.
For example, I know stability is a non-negotiable for me. My erratic nature is something I’ve always hated about myself, so I require a partner who’s even-keeled to balance me out. Before I met my fiancé, I was seeing a guy whose emotional volatility made me look like fucking Grandmother Willow. He would show up at my house absolutely manic trying to get me to go to dinner, or have a meltdown if I expressed an opinion he didn’t agree with. One early fall night, we were walking home from sushi and I said I was chilly, to which he bristled, “Are you always like this?” But he had good taste in hip-hop and a nice mustache, so I was still able to casually date him knowing I’d rather plunge off the Ben Franklin Bridge than marry him.
This is all to say we can’t play fast and loose with people who check all of our boxes. They have to be a little busted in ways we find non-negotiable to keep us from falling in love.
Another way to date without catching feelings is to keep a roster. You can’t expect to spend a ton of time with one person and it remain some chill, directionless arrangement; natural law says one, if not both of you will eventually want more. You leave a toothbrush at their place, they find your hair in their clothes, and suddenly, you’re living a John Mayer song, babe. Dating multiple people, however, makes it harder to form deeper relationships. In fact, at some point, you start to forget if Matt’s the doctor or Joe’s the engineer or Tim does triathlons. They all blend into an amorphous blur of blue text bubbles and mediocre dick. But it’s all in good fun*! (*free dinner) Just avoid activities that suggest a certain closeness, like sleepovers, hiking, weekend trips, etc. Keep it light, ice queen (in the gender neutral sense).
You’re in a really good place, ATF. Like, so good that I actually wondered if you wrote in to brag about your independence and your loving being single. I think you’re like me in that we struggle to enjoy where we’re at without questioning why we enjoy it and whether we’re wrong for it. Us Cancers. You know you only want fun, so have fun! Who’s stopping you?
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"True intimacy should free us to be ourselves." — Wow, this is such good advice.
What I have a hard time reconciling is that so much of my internal self, the Me that no one else knows about, is the less elevated expression of me. It is the dark shadow version of me. It is true, it is all me for real—but it is the corrupted version: selfish, isolationist, ungenerous.
And then many of those same traits and qualities, when brushed with some sort of light or hope, gain their true form and color—which is kind and communal and warm.
That better version of me is totally true. I want people to know and experience that version. But I also want people to know my dark side, my weaknesses, fears, my wrongness—because I feel as though I am not fully known until they see those facets of me.