thoughts before comic-con

What scares you, really scares you?

Oh, I'm not talking about spiders, dentists, Phil Collins or showering in prison. These are things that *frighten* you. But these are things that you can say out loud. As crap as I feel about being frightened by spiders, I could sit in a pub and tell you about my fear and in many ways it wouldn't be-little me. You'd listen, nod your head and then tell me how you are frightened every time you get out of the car, look down and see a drain. You have this irrational fear of dropping your keys down a drain (or is that just me). We'd laugh, have another drink, maybe tell each other about other *scary* things but we'd never tell each other the things that really scare us. Not the Room 101 stuff (and I mean the real Room 101 from 1984 not the trite television programme) the things that are secrets know only to us.

Ever read a comic?

When Maria and I started this we decided to be honest - I know, totally the opposite of what you can do on the Internet. We started with our faults. We would sit for hours listing why one shouldn't love the other. Inside us all there is a moment when we don't like ourselves, don't like something about us. The key to success is how you avoid noticing the things that are unlikeable. Successful people are all "me, me, me - look at me", the downtrodden people are all "don't look at me because I'm a bit crap". Successful people don't care how you perceive them, they don't see anything about themselves that are faults. We wanted this relationship to be successful and so we listed our faults to the other.

I like comics.

By the time I moved to Mexico, Maria knew everything about me. When I felt bad about myself because of [I'm not telling you what I'm scared off] she would tell me that she loved me because of that - not in spite of but because of. We had no secrets. Oh, there was the stuff I joke about (but it hurts me). How I feel short, fat, old, how I don't think I'm good looking. But this is stuff that I know (deep in my heart) isn't really me. I'm not really short, I'm not really fat, I am only physically old and no-one has actually looked at me and puked (well, there was this one time but she was very, very drunk and it might not have been the looking at me so much as the opening of her eyes). There are things about me that I really worry about - and, again, I'm not going to tell you.

She knew about the comics.

We met in London. It was the most frightening moment in my life. She would see me, she would be with me, she would discover all those little faults I have and it would end. There would be no point us continuing this, destroying everything we had unless we really, really knew each other. We wanted no surprises, nothing that would pop up in the first couple of months and force us to go "well, I never knew that and it changes everything". We knew everything.

And she knew about the comics.

You've seen Maria, you know of her, you know about her. I cannot tell you how fantastic she makes me feel, feel about myself. There are times when she walks away from me and I see other men (sometimes women) look at her and I think "wow! she chose me". Do you know how good that makes me feel about myself? There must be something about me. She chose me before all the others in her world. She found me 5500 miles away, a different continent, a different culture, a different life. She found me and she chose me. I must be something special.

She didn't really know about the comics.

In the past eight months I have become a changed person. I am more confident. I suffer less from stress. I am not as angry at the world. I am more relaxed. I am happy. I am slowly coming to terms, to peace with myself. Her love of me has helped me to appreciate what I am, who I am. And it is fantastic because it is self-perpetuating. The better I feel about myself, the more I am myself, the more she loves me for who I am, the better I feel about myself.

But there is the comic thing.

She knew I read comics. She knew I liked comics. She knew that. But there is something about comics that is a bit *wrong*? A grown man liking comics. We all know that the world sees people who read comics as comic-book-guy from The Simpsons. I like to tell people: I know people like that - lots of them. But I rarely finish the sentence: they are friends of mine. They aren't just my friends, they are my contemporaries, they are my peers, fuck - they are just like me. And that's what scares me.

I didn't want to go to Comic-Con.

Before we went to Comic-Con we would joke that she was going to be bored, going to be the only woman there in a room full of fat, sweaty geeks. She was going to go just to because she wanted me to go, she wanted to take me to Comic-Con but there was nothing for her. What did she want to go to Comic-Con for? She had lived here for eight years and never been. It was not her thing. Inside I was scared. She would look around the room and see a bunch of people that were worthy only of ridicule and then she would see me in the room - with my peers.

She would see me through different eyes and she wouldn't like what she saw.

Comments

[maria]

But... but... I did, and I do, and I love what I see in you, and I love what I learn from you because I learn about me. You make me want to know more about me, about life, about everything. You are wonderful and I adore you. Everything, always.