Letter to A Ghost

Dear Neighbor,

I wanted to take a little time to collect my thoughts and try to share my perspective with you in a way that could be helpful. I hope this email finds you feeling more stable and enjoying your time back at home.

I am uncomfortable with some of the behavior you’ve demonstrated in the short time that I communicated with you. Although I wanted to share this with you at various times, it seemed as though it would be a waste of my energy to try to communicate with you while you were intoxicated. Nonetheless, I wanted to make you aware of some of these things because You probably don’t know how it feels to be on the other side. My impression of your behavior is that it was very self-serving, that you could not potentially consider how it may feel to be:

Asked to “suck your dick“ After meeting you one time and other sexual solicitation.

Asked for drugs.

Dismissed after I did not give you drugs.

Be referred to as a “bitch.“

I understand that you were intoxicated at the time of exhibiting these behaviors. However, that’s not an excuse. It feels predatory, scary, demeaning, disrespectful and objectifying to be asked for sexual favors from a stranger. I wanted to tell you this initially, but the truth of the matter is that I was attracted to you and interested in you as a Potential romantic partner, so I was confused. I could clearly recognize that you were just wanting to get laid but I also wanted to believe that perhaps maybe, it was more than that. Perhaps your intoxicated state made you brave and that you would ask me over for coffee, or to talk or something indicating you were interested in more than just having somebody, anybody with a cute enough body and XX chromosomes satisfy your sexual itch.

As more time went by and you continued on your bender without showing any real interest in getting to know me, I felt confused. I continued to grapple with my attraction to you and impression of what a sweet, warm and friendly man you appeared to be when we met, compared to your brash sexual requests that sometimes even sounded violent. For example, you mentioned at one point that you wanted to “break that ass.” Even though this was cringeworthy to me, I still wanted to believe that underneath it all, you were actually interested in me as a person instead of a temporary drunken challenge.

Not only are there several safety risks with feeling as though a man might be pursuing you in a violent sexual way while he is intoxicated and literally three houses away, but it also just feels pretty shitty. And scary. You scared me.

Maybe it’s funny to say this to me when you’re totally fucked up, but it doesn’t feel very funny on the receiving end after one time. It feels dehumanizing and even patronizing because the entirety of my humanity is being reduced to either a sexual toy, a drug lord or somebody disposable. It feels like a violation.

I also feel sad that your interest in chatting with me seemed to disappear altogether after you figured out I wasn’t going give you drugs or sex. Perhaps I just seemed like another opportunity to get your fix but I was legitimately interested in getting to know you.

I’m a hot piece of cake, but also a lot more… Maybe someday you’ll get to find out.

I want to believe that the guy I met the first day who was warm, sunny, kind is really a big part of you underneath whatever challenges you are dealing with. Maybe someday I’ll get to know him more, too. Although I’m hurt by your behavior, I’m still open to talking with you and I genuinely care about how you’re doing.

I sense you have a story. I would like to hear it, someday. I’ve got one too.

I hope you’re able to break your “cycle,” as you called it, for good. Please let me know if you do. Maybe we could get a do-over.

Briana

P.S. Here’s the thing, neighbor. You’ve touched my heart. This is something I never say and it sounds incredibly cheesy even to my own ears. I’ve spent the majority of my life navigating everything intellectually and this just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why, but I would like to talk to you again. I suppose there’s more to life than what we can understand with our brains…