Alexander Thomas
First of all, you don't exist. I wanted to get that out of the way.
I read this series of books, once, named The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy. They weren't novels, but they were books: the premise was that this man and a woman have never met, but one day Sabine sends a postcard to Griffin. It turns out she can read his mind; but does she have good intentions? Is this amorous? The conceit is that the reader has to open the letters, and read the post cards, and the story is told through their correspondence. Anyway, we come to find out that Sabine was really a figment of Griffin's imagination, just something to stave off loneliness. Except then we come to find that she really wasn't, and then ... it goes on, eventually they meet each other, they fall in love and have a child. It's silly, I agree, and sentimental, but I also found it brilliant (to say nothing of visually stunning), a great way to incorporate different media into a novel while still maintaining familiar elements of setting, mood, theme, etc.
The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy was at one point a key point of my life - and here I must tell you, right away, since we are getting to know each other, that I am the kind of person who can plot his life by the ephemera of pop culture. I have two yearbooks from high school that are pretty meaningless, except that at one point I thought my friend's slogan, "my boogers are the only calcium I get," was completely hilarious and stole it for my end of the year quote. I guess that tells you a little bit about who I am, too. Something else I should tell you is that I have been spending most of my life running from the person I was in high school, which would perhaps be bad if I wasn't also the type of person who runs from the person I am at any given moment.
Such as the thing I am talking about: Griffin and Sabine were pivotal books, talismans if you will, of my life from six years ago. I had ended a brief relationship with someone I had cared about, someone I felt an impossible closeness too without even meeting them. I fell in love with her. Sometimes I think it's possible that I wanted, so desperately, to fall in love with anyone that I made myself fall for her. But when I think back at that time, a lover was the opposite of what I wanted. I was nineteen years old, and was pretty much at the height of my "shaggy dog" days. I had been involved in one night stands with older, more experienced women. I had learned how to master the ex-girlfriend booty call. For a burgeoning cad, I was doing all right. But then she came into my life, and was out of it very shortly after. I've never been the same, in ways I can both point to - I've yet to eat meat since being with her - and ways that are difficult to unravel, in attitudes and taste, in ways that surprise me even today. It was a very brief relationship, but it would take me well over a year to really get over it, to fall in love with someone without wishing I could be with her.
Anyway, it was well after Christmas when I read the books. I have this memory of sitting in Barnes and Noble, having completed the books, and remembering the stupid things that you remember about ex lovers. The way her hair smelled, what her room looked like, etc. And sitting their pondering all of this, on came a Django Reinheardt and Stephane Garapelli song, "I'll See You in My Dreams." It's the same song that appears in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories when Allen's character, Sandy, remembers his old lover. It was an impossibly beautiful moment; it's one of the best memories I have of our relationship, and she had nothing to do with it.
When I did fall in love with someone else - and there is a relationship that I did feel, in all honesty, even as it was current, that I desperately wanted to - it was again one of distance, one where we communicated before we met. And for Christmas, I gave her Griffin and Sabine, the first book. Though I wonder if I was trying to recapture my feelings for the other girl with her - an attempt to shoehorn a genuine memory onto artifice - I'll go with what I felt at the time: it seemed appropriate.
I am not telling all of this to you because I am in love with you, Alexander. I don't see you that way. I am merely saying all of this to highlight the myriad ways people can delude themselves, or anyway I can, and Griffin and maybe his creator, Nick Bantock, can as well. Maybe everyone does in some way. I wouldn't know, I'm not everyone. But I'm not you, either, Alexander. On the contrary, I created you. You are as separate from me as an article of clothing. You are a figment of my imagination, as sure a character as any I've ever written. I don't want to let you down, I don't want to lead you on, and I don't want you to get your hopes up.
I wouldn't be offended; as a non-existent character, there a few advantages to those of us who do. You won't die, because you were never born. Your inner monologue will never drive you crazy. You won't fall in love with anyone who won't love you back. You won't have any of the shortcomings that we all have: you won't lose your temper, you won't cheat on people, you won't connive behind their backs. I won't let you. You can be a world class cook, a flamenco guitarist, a great date. You can fly, if that's what I decide I want you to do.
The only thing you have to do is love me. And you're not going to have a problem with that, because I just said you wouldn't.
It's a win win situation, Alexander (by the way, I hate the name Alex, but I love the name Alexander. It's more regal and sonorous; it's you! Alex is the guy who sells weed in Thompson Square Park cut with terragon and pencil shavings). See, while I was toying with this idea - you were a name before you were a person - I thought first I would use you as a disguise of myself, a pen name or an alter ego. You would be a shield to protect me when I would truly hold nothing back. But this was a ridiculous idea: the only thing I'm good at is talking about how I feel, is being candid. I conceal my feelings about as well as Jessica Simpson's jumpsuit. But a shield, armor, a tank is a good idea; but not from other people, Alexander. The problem is everyone has turned away. That shouldn't be read as they've abandoned me, but as people get older their concerns don't include me. Most of the time I'm cool with it, except when I get in states that I've been finding myself all this week, and then what do I do?
That's where you come in. You are not my alter ego; you are your own person that happens to be what the idealized version of me would look and talk like. I get a friend, I get a willing ear and ready eye any time I need it. You get to be everything I've wanted to be but couldn't, and without any of the messy side effects like mortality, obesity and VD. Your sole problem is dealing with my problems, and that's no problem at all.
Welcome to the world Alexander. I won't let you down if you don't.
All the best,
Christopher