My imaginary girlfriend

I have an imaginary girlfriend. Yes, really. It’s not a person with a name and a face, she’s similar to many women that I have a crush on, celebrities, friends, girls I used to know, the loveliness of them all put together. She’s more of a spirit. She lives in my dreams and daydreams, and in solitary moments.

It’s almost something spiritual, a relationship to the sublime. Some people talk with God or the Universe. I talk with my imaginary girlfriend. But most often silently. Sometimes when I encounter her she makes me cry, when I realize how deeply I feel for her. It’s a connection I can’t even explain. And to think that another person’s body, just a human body, can seem like something divine, like poetry. Poetry – it’s just a body - but it’s poetry to touch that body.

I love women but nobody ever told me it is like this. In our society, men are depicted as the ones who love women. The way men love women according to popular culture doesn’t seem to have much to do with a ”sublime connection”. It seems to be more about women being so hot and sexy that men just can’t waaaiiiit to get in their pants.

My imaginary girlfriend has been around for a really long time. Since childhood. I started to long for her. I’ve been waiting to meet her. But nobody ever told me it could be like this. That it’s possible to long for someone you’ve never met, and to imagine a connection so sacred it will somehow live on beyond the grave. ”11 Signs that You are a Hopeless Romantic: This person believes in fairy tales and love. They make love look like an art form. Something like calligraphy or literature that exudes beauty and idealism. Take the quiz!” Is this me, then?

I admire and respect women. Most of my role models and sources of inspiration are female, f ex artists, teachers, musicians, thinkers, writers etc. I love many women because they are intelligent, brilliant. Nobody ever told me it is like this – men (who are depicted in popular culture as the ones loving women) don’t seem to admire or respect women as creatives, philosophers, human beings, and want to be with them for that reason – at least according to popular culture. It seems to be more about women having such incredibly sexy bodies that reaching one’s hand out to grab them is only a question of when.

I want to get to know a woman, see how she lives, her things, her routines, her ideals and ideas, how she likes to dress and why, what kind of food makes her feel good, I want to know how she grew up, what she learned growing up, what she feels she still has to learn, where she’d like to go in life, what are her creative outlets, what are the ways she deals with emotions and challenges, what people does she surround herself with, what’s her relationship to her body. Growing up I was curious about my female friends, I liked visiting a female friends’ house and get to see what her handwriting was like, what music she listened to, what books she owned, how she expressed herself when she spoke. Fascinating.

I don’t see men depicted in popular culture as being immensely fascinated by who a woman is. The core of her being, you know. Or have I missed something? Maybe that fascination is attraction? Maybe… maybe that’s what it is to feel attraction? Fascination with details, details, details? Like magnetism? But noone ever told me.

I watch TV series and films with male gay couples, and it makes me smile. I get it. I get it, it’s that thing – being attracted to sameness. I’m a man, you’re a man. Seeing a man and a woman kiss, I’m sorry, I don’t feel it. Nobody ever told me that this exists. The possibility that one remains unimpressed when seeing a man and a woman together. It’s like my brain doesn’t get it. It’s sitting still.

I wasn’t informed that it’s possible to be attracted to sameness. The sameness is the whole foundation for the attraction. You know? The stereotype in popular culture would be a macho man and a girly girl. He likes cars and beer and wears jeans and can seem quite disrespectful when around his best male friends. She likes to do her nails and make up and gossips a lot with her best female friends. What do they see in each other? Do they have any mutual interests? How do they get along – do they even share any values, or what? What brings them together? Perhaps otherness, according to popular culture. I don’t know. But I understand (and I guess I picked this up so early I can’t even remember) – that girl loves boy, because there’s something so irresistible about boy, it doesn’t even have to be explained. It’s something to do with boy not being girl. Boy is special. Boy is not girl, he is boy, and that’s enough to make her dizzy and giggly. What is it? It’s just that thing. There. Just look and you’ll see. It’s default! It’s always there! Always! Always! Always…

It’s a message that sort of echoes all the time, everywhere.

So. Life with my imaginary girlfriend exists in dreamtime, elsewhere. She’s in another world, beyond the clouds of this one, when the veil is lifted. What happens then? Well… I often cry. I feel like I’m in a trance, and I feel like someone other than myself. I’m totally alone, and at the same time with her. I love her, and I don’t need anything from her, it’s enough to love her for the sake of loving her. I can’t help but love her.

I always kept her secret from everyone. I’ve never talked about her. It’s just been this ”thing that makes me weird”. And that ”doesn’t really mean anything”.

Until recently… because when I began to indulge in my feelings for her I felt like I’d been washed out to sea.

I can’t imagine coming out to anyone I know. But I need to and I will. I just feel very fragile like I can barely stand. Like it’s not possible to accept how I feel, what I am, like it puts a spotlight on me that’s too bright and menacing. Ugh.

Well. I need to accept me first. Whatever I am, whoever I am. I can’t come out to anyone before I’m fully out to myself. As whatever I am, whoever I am.

 

Thanks guys

I do! I've thought about it before. I believe that the only person we can really save in life is ourselves... and that it's really important to understand and accept oneself, to feel whole in oneself.

Actually these days I feel quite whole! I'm not afraid of dying alone or anything like that. But of course I have fears and anxieties, and issues that keep coming up for me, there's confusion and all kinds of things.

"An unexpressed part"... yeah, that describes it well. The writer Steven Pressfield talks about realizing an "unlived you". A self that exists in potential.

I think that there's a lot a partner can't fulfill. That would be expecting the other person to save us or make us complete. No matter their gender

 

Thanks yeehaw
It really feels like I'm on a journey on foot, and here and there I get to stop and record my progress on EC It makes the whole thing real. And it's wonderful to see that others are relating as well. We're not alone!