“Why don’t you start with the broad explanation and work your way up to whatever the actual feeling is?” Ari suggests, dart firmly in the bull’s-eye now.
For most adults, when you don’t talk about your feelings a lot, the vocabulary for it atrophies. When we’re kids, we’re taught to identify our emotions. We use color charts or characters or affirmations to help us go from useless blobs to fully formed people. We learn how to say“I feelblankwhen youblank. I wantblank.” We work on expressing ourselves without throwing tantrums. But then as adults we get better at camouflage. We learn how to redirect so we don’t have to always feel so deeply. We comport ourselves so we can live in a world of adult feelings and expectations.
As a therapist, I’m used to coaxing emotions out of others. It’s my job to be able to identify the holes we’ve allowed to grow inside ourselves.
So I think I understand better than most how much of a crutch I’ve let J become. But there’s something different about saying it out loud to Ari.
It’s time to say it out loud, though.
“So you know the anonymous column I write?” I ask, starting small.
“Of course,” Ari confirms, with a small snort, as though I should expect better than to even question whether she knows these basic parts of my life. “I read it every week. I love seeing how good you are at your job, even if no one else knows it’s you.”
“Well, that’s not real therapy,” I deflect. “An advice column hardly scratches the surface of being able to help someone.”
“Nonsense,” she says with a wave of her hand. “We all need impartiality. And sometimes we need anonymity too. You give people an answer in a way you couldn’t if they actually knew who you were. We can sometimes, counterintuitively, be more personal as therapists when we don’t have a real relationship. So I think it’s a nice counterbalance to your regular work.”
I can’t pretend it doesn’t warm me a bit to hear Ari’s approval. My column for London’sSunday Tribunestarted out as a favor for my friend Celia, their features editor. I went to college in the UK, so we’ve known each other forever. Ask Eleonora was an idea she had after realizing that most British advice columns were much more acerbic than ours. She said she wanted one with “the earnestness that only an American could provide.” I started it when I was right out of grad school and didn’treally have enough patients of my own. I didn’t expect it to become so popular that I’d still be doing it seven years later.
“Thank you,” I reply sincerely. “So ...,” I continue slowly, not sure I really want to keep talking. “I write it every week.”
“Yes, I think that part is obvious.” She gives me a mischievous smile and drums her fingers on her large wooden chair’s armrest. She’s not impatient, but she’s certainly encouraging me to get to the point. I look up at the ceiling because I don’t think I can say this out loud while she’s looking at me with so much knowing.
“Okay, so I’ve had the same copyeditor all these years,” I say. “And we don’t actually know each other in real life. I mean, I don’t even have his email because we do everything in the cloud—Google Docs in Google Drive, so everyone has access to the same files always. He just shows up as ‘J.W.’ But because we’re always sort of writing to each other about my relationship advice, we’ve kind of become ... friends.”
I sneak a look back and see that the expression on her face is still as placid as a lake in winter. What I would’ve considered shocking information hasn’t fazed her a bit.
“Why are you expecting me to have a reaction to that?” She verbalizes my own bubbling question for me.
“Isn’t that weird?” I ask.
“Why would it be weird to have a friend?” she volleys back.
“It’s not weird to have a friend. It’s weird to have a virtual friend.”
“Lots of people have virtual friends,” she calmly points out. “My son is in his fifties, and I swear some of his closest friends are the men he goes on raids with.”
“What?”
“Video games. Groups you do stuff with in multiplayer games. I have no idea what the appeal is. But he’s always loved it.” She shrugs, and the lack of judgment is so evident it’s almost as simple as breathing. I’ve gotten pretty good at that myself with clients—after all, we see more than most people, so very little shocks therapists—but I don’t always have the same energy for myself and my family.
“Okay, well ... it’s not a video game,” I reply lamely.
“I was merely saying that friendship comes in many forms.”
She pauses again, waiting for me to speak, even though I’m desperate for her to keep going.
“Right,” I finally say, even though I’m not sure I actually agree.
“Why would you be against having a virtual friend?” she continues. “It seems to me like you might be able to express yourself better to someone you don’t actually have to see or feel obligation to.”
I cringe at how obvious I must be to her. Her point is one I think about a lot when it comes to J. I’ve never been able to decide whether it’s a positive aspect or just another indication that I’m incapable of having fully honest relationships in real life.
“I’m not against it,” I reply truthfully. “But it wasn’t something I sought. It started from commentary on the columns, really. He would make his edits, but he’d also always leave a note at the end. It started with your average editor sort of stuff—a summation of what was missing, or encouragement if he thought everything was working really well. Eventually he started leaving his thoughts on the pieces too. Little things like agreeing with the difficulties of living with a partner, or expanding on his own story of a mortifying relationship event. I would always reply, because usually we would go back and forth at least once or twice anyway to answer questions in the edit. It felt like ... it became a sort of ongoing conversation.”
Ari takes that in, careful not to speak too quickly like she normally does. Ari understands I’m a bit skittish when I bring up a topic I’m nervous to talk about. I can sense her need to not spook me into waving off this subject like I do with so much else.
“So why are you telling me now, after seven years?” she pinpoints. “What made it suddenly relevant to your day-to-day life?”
