Robin

There are two Robins.

One Robin is a real-life, flesh-and-blood person who has her own complex feelings, relationships, hopes and dreams. She has a circle of friends who know her intimately and share her passions. They know and love Real Robin, with all her wonderful strengths and flaws.

The other Robin is a fantasy of my own creation, and exists only in my imagination. This Robin is unrealistically perfect. She exists only to serve me. She is one-dimensional and has no other relationship other than with me.

Before I go on, I must tell you that I have never confused the two Robins. I know I cannot turn any unrealistic relationship fantasy into reality. To say it plainly, just because I have a fantasy about what a perfect woman might look like, that doesn’t mean I am tempted to cheat on my wife of 34 years.

I’ve heard of others who have tried to fill an emptiness within themselves by chasing after fantasy relationships. After a short infatuation phase, the real relationship completely ruins the fantasy. Though many try repeatedly in vain to find the “perfect partner,” I do not. I don’t claim any moral superiority here. Nor do I deny having these fantasies. It’s just that I’m well aware that chasing fantasy relationships cannot be satisfying in the end.

Let’s back up a bit to ground which may be familiar to you: The Romance Genre. It’s been around since before some author came up with the phrase “…and they lived happily ever after.” I’m talking about romantic comedies, “chick-flicks,” romance novels, love songs, and so on.

These stories lie to us in fifty different shades. Some poor souls actually believe the lie, and spend their lives chasing their own Endless Love story. Others know it’s a lie but can’t shake the yearning for it to be true. I place myself in the latter group.

Movie crushes are innocent enough, and I suppose most people leave the theater entertained and let go of the fantasy they just saw on the screen. But some of us start to long for a real person out there who exists only to make us happy, just like in the movies.

There’s a reason why they don’t make sequels to most romantic movies. Nobody wants to look behind the curtain at what “happily ever after” really looks like for our romantic heroes and heroines. The love object in a romantic movie, novel, or song has little to no “back-story,” inner life, or human flaws.

A few people have told me about their own stock romance character they yearn for in real life. For example, a female friend told me about her “man on a white horse” who would come and sweep her off her feet.

My particular susceptibility is for a stock character in romantic movies called the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Trying to explain this would take up too much space, so here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry.

Now, my wife Jamie will tell you that I’m not demonstratively very romantic. She would tell you that I don’t believe in soulmates (the mere mention of it makes me gag). She can tell you that falling in love isn’t anything like real love. In-love is about easy infatuation while real love is all about commitment and hard work. After 35 years, we’ve certainly had our share of commitment and hard work. It is grounded, saturated in reality.

No, my fantasy relationships have nothing to do with my actual relationships, and everything to do with an emptiness within myself. I have a chemical imbalance of the brain called depression. It often leaves me in chronic emotional pain.

I respond to this pain by numbing it. It works in the short-term, but there’s a heavy price: We can’t selectively numb negative emotions. So in an effort numb pain, I also numb joy. A fantasy relationship allows me to imagine what it might be like to feel alive. Ironically, the realization that I’m only fantasizing causes more pain and yearning, not less.

But when I was younger, I believed pixies were real.

I met Real Robin in college. As I’ve written before, as an adolescent I had a very poor self-concept, few to no friends, and poor socialization. Even now I feel awkward around people and have social anxiety. It’s not as bad as it used to be.

I thought Robin was the most feminine person I had ever met. She was girlish and energetic. She was precocious and wise. She was kind and gentle. She was generous with her time. I would come by the lobby of her dorm and she usually had time to come out and spend time with me. She listened. She was a confidante.

I still firmly believe that these are qualities of Real Robin.

Around her, I felt alive. I wanted to act on my crush, but I lacked the confidence and didn’t believe I had the social skills. I only dated one other girl up to that point, and it ended almost before it ever began. That first failed relationship fueled my sense of inferiority and unique defectiveness. I was fragile and the thought of being rejected again kept me frozen in fear. (Even today, I marvel at how easily some young men can confidently woo and attract young women.)

So I slipped into the “friend zone” with Robin. My friendship was genuine, and her friendship was genuine. But you know the cliché: It wasn’t enough for me. I needed to be more than friends with her.

She talked to me about a guy she had a crush on. He seemed to have only one foot into his relationship with her. So I was her platonic male friend who listened to her heartache. I even let her borrow my car once so she could go see him. The next time I got into the car, I noticed a single, long blonde hair on the steering wheel—evidence of her presence. The fact that I wasn’t stepping up was more than a little humiliating.

She told me about a guy she had a crush on in the past. She told me about reading Shakespeare to him and letting him rest his head in her lap.

Fantasy Robin was born. I put Robin on a pedestal so I could worship her. Up on the pedestal, she was perfect, like a stone Roman goddess. Her granite arms couldn’t actively reject me. She had no choice but to look at me from her perch with her unblinking eyes and judge me as unworthy. I would never measure up to her, or so I reasoned.

I was aware of Fantasy Robin right away. I knew she was unrealistic and completely fabricated. Even through the pain of feeling undeserving of her, I knew I was being unfair to her. I was objectifying her. I was using her.

Robin, I am sorry. I’m sorry for not seeing you. I’m sorry for trying to fill my empty spots with a perfect image that neither you nor anybody else could ever live up to.

Dear reader, although I’ve told you the relevant part of this story, I suppose you want to hear how it ended. I did finally screw up the courage to ask her out. I invited her to a canoe trip as part of an on-campus group. I don’t know if she realized it was a date until she discovered that she was mostly talking to me. She picked flowers on the bank of the river to bring home with her—so girlish and feminine. She got a tremendous sunburn on the tops of her fair-skinned legs.

She also read Shakespeare to me. She let me lay my head in her lap. She seemed to be desperately trying to conjure up the types of feelings I wanted her to feel for me.

I was determined to go in for a kiss at the end of our date.

But when the time came, her hands were full of flowers and she turned her back to me to allow me to hug her. I believe she knew my intentions, or at least the possibility of my intentions, and headed me off.

I was pretty sure she didn’t want to pursue a relationship, but I also didn’t have a clear and definitive answer. I agonized for almost two weeks before finally arranging to see her again to ask her on a second date. To her credit, she let me down easy. She was gentle and compassionate. She was Real Robin. I was initially relieved because at least I had my answer.

Although Robin was on campus for another year, I didn’t have much interaction with her. I arranged to see her once to thank her for letting me down easy. I told her I was over it or some such utter nonsense. Real Robin was out of my life, and Fantasy Robin was what I had left.

As a grand gesture, I had one more interaction with Robin, one where I would remain anonymous. I sent her a flower along with a poem by e e cummings. The poem was about somebody who was handed a flower by a clown. I left the note unsigned. Like the clown in the poem, the flower could have come from anybody. It was my good-bye to her. I did not expect to see her again.

Fantasy Robin was hard to shake. I can safely say it took years. This is because I had to change the way I saw myself before I could let go of the fantasy. I would dream about her (actual dreams, not daytime fantasies). Eventually I lost the memory of exactly what she looked like in detail, so she would show up in dreams more as the idea or spirit of her.

Which is ultimately what I fell in love with. The idea of her. I call it “chasing ghosts.”

In some ways the fantasy is still with me. My depression sometimes leaves the world black-and-white. I still yearn for someone, or something to color my world. It’s something that nobody can give me, though I can give it to myself on my best days. When I see a person who superficially demonstrates the traits of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, it fires that fantasy again. It feels physically and psychically painful.

Then I remind myself of what I have: a lovely grown-ass woman who calls me her husband and who has been committed to me for most of my life. She tells me that if I died first, she probably wouldn’t remarry. It would be too much of a hassle. How could I ever trade her for pixies, for ghosts?

Robin, Real Robin, I look forward to meeting with you again. It’s been a long, long time. There is healing in seeing your human-ness. I just wish I could spend enough time to get in touch with the real you again. Or maybe it won’t take any time at all.

You are my friend. I want to know about YOUR life: your passions, your hurts, your dreams. After all, that’s what real friends do.