In defense of parasocial relationships.

Hello all. This will mark my first blog entry. I hope you come to me feeling ripe and ready to suck out the marrow of life, and all that. But, the topic I wish to talk about today is a bit like sticking your head in the ground and thinking that counts as peaceful rest.

Today I wish to talk about parasocial relationships.

So, a little about me. I am someone who commits fully to whatever it is I consume. I am not a sampler of life. I buy food from the same 5 restaurants, and I always order the same thing. I watch sitcoms over and over again. Sometimes I return to a show's immediately after its last episode. All this is to explain that I also watch the same content creators over and over again, for a duration of time most people would probably be weary of.

I've been watching this Irish Youtuber since I was probably 12 or 13. I've been a fan of Dan and Phil since I was a KID! I've also been watching Jerma for several years. I seldom expand my horizons. I do, however, every now and again, attempt to watch someone in the periphery of the creators I already watch. This is how I discovered Poke, Ster, and Vinny, who are all streamers who frequently collaborate with Jerma. They call themselves the Four Horsemen, which is cute I guess, because they're like 40 years old.

Now I find it important to say that I'm quite comfortable with maintaining a rigid distance between myself and these content creators. I am a consumer of their content, and they produce, edit, and monetize their work for hundreds of thousands of people like me. I am well aware of this fact. and I don't wish for anything more.

I will admit that this comfortable distance was disrupted when I discovered the content creator that I became obsessed with. God, I was so enamored with him. I'm over it now, which is why I feel comfortable talking about it, but at the height of my parasociality I was reaching uncomfortable levels of emotional attachment.

This content creator, which I will not name just in case, is a twitch streamer who usually plays those fuck ass games that came out in 1980 or something. He is 40 years old, which, in itself, was very shocking to me as he notoriously looks no older than 30. Now that I've typed it out, is not that quite big of a deal to look a little bit younger than you are. Hehe, it really gives you a sense of how crazy you are when you're infatuated with someone.

What I enjoyed about him was that he was... normal. "Normal" was something I seldom enjoyed in my content because, well obviously, why not consume something batshit crazy instead? And although he was weird and funny, and had PLENTY of character quirks that have now grown to be icks for me, he presented himself as a mostly normal, charismatic, kind dude. He was always considerate and polite to others, and he had the aura of someone who would stop and wait for you while you tie your shoelaces.

All that, and he was a rockstar, and he was handsome. Dear God, I thought he was so handsome. I don't as much anymore (you used to have a face straight out of a magazine-- now you just look like anyone). Not only that, but he seldom showed his face!! I was shocked. What kind of content creator doesn't take advantage of their good looks to get more views and money?

As I learned more about him, the more I imagined in my head how similar we were in terms of our background, our opinions, our personality, and even our religion. I thought so much about him. He brought back my daydreaming coping mechanism to the point that it was hard for me to focus. I kept pictures of him on my phone, and showed him to my friends. Being sick of all this futile sentimentality, I kept track of how much I thought about him, partly so I could scold myself; I thought of him almost 30 times a day. All this, I write, to make you feel better about yourself. If you've been feeling like a loser, don't worry. At a certain point in time there was a bigger loser than you are, and that was me.

Now, however, that the "honeymoon phase" of this crush is over, I can confidently say that we are two completely different people and I probably wouldn't like him if we met in real life.

Throughout the whole phase though, I was dreadfully aware of some things. First, that what I was going through was extremely parasocial. I knew of our differences and the distance between us, and I never once dreamed of something actually happening. Nevertheless, whatever I was experiencing was extremely overboard compared to how I usually feel with the content creators I watch.

And second, that all of these feelings were just a result of deep unmet need that I had in my life. I could go deep into Jungian psychology about this, I could delve into the anima and the animus, but I do unfortunately have something due tonight and I have a lot of work to do ;). Maybe later though, I'd love to add a psychological component to this blog post.

The gist, which I was painfully aware of, was that he represented something that I lacked and craved so deeply in my life. Not even the affection or the romance. That I could get anywhere if I really wanted to. But what I lacked was the ABILITY TO BE WEIRD!

He was weird. Very weird, and yet thousands of people watched him regularly. Hundreds of thousands love him as he is. If he could be loved as he was, then perhaps I could be, too. In the end, it wasn't even really about being with him, but learning the lessons that allow me to move through the world like him-- shameless, authentic, and adorably weird.

It made me realize how uptight I've been presenting myself. I never let myself be weird! And thus, people couldn't love me for being weird. It was such a simple lesson that hit me hard. Looking back, it's painfully obvious and cliche. Be yourself, everyone says. I never realized they meant it.

I will say, my heightened feelings of parasociality also catapulted me into discovering new music, books, movies, and games that I wouldn't have ventured into, all because I found this weird guy online.

That being said, I don't truly believe all sorts of parasocial feelings are bad. While I may have written my story with a negative twinge to it, it's only because I look back on that time with humiliation and embarrassment. But, what I went through was dreadfully needed.

Of course, it has its negatives, mostly when the person experiencing them has little to no forms of self-reflection. There is this girl I follow on Tumblr (yes Tumblr is alive and well) who is obsessed with him as I was. She's pretty, talented, Italian, and 29 years old. She posts almost everyday about him, about wanting to be physically and emotionally affectionate with him. She writes about the stuff they could do together, the music she could recommend to him. All this made me look into the mirror and confront that I, too, had this level of attachment. And it was sad. God, it's sad. She would post pictures of herself wearing a jacket that would maybe appeal to the content creator she likes, and I thought she was so pretty. I felt she could surely find a boyfriend with similar interests if she stopped dedicating her heart to this guy overseas who knew nothing about her.

It's also important to note that these instances of limerence are really not voluntary acts. They happen suddenly and without your executive approval, as it did with me. At one point, I was even questioning if what I was going through was limerence or a hyperfixation. Anyway, now I feel like I need to divulge how I got over this mess. It's simple. Find someone who is better. Realize that that other guy was not perfect. Realize no one is perfect. Learn things about yourself and keep loving anyway. And repeat.

- Therese


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