Chapter 4: Damaged Goods, Codependency, and Broken Wings
I met Lee at a youth group church retreat where we both signed up as counselors. She was engaging, bubbly and far less stuffy than the churchgoers I was accustomed to. I must have stood out from the other Korean American college guys in my pink bandana print t-shirt (I can't stress enough the cultural impact of Cam'Ron and Dipset in the early 2000's) and cane that I used due to my knee tendonitis. Lee grew up at that church and hadn't really been back since she left for college; I was the newbie who had only recently started attending.
The thing about "black sheep": in many settings you're the only one there. But when two or more are gathered, be prepared for anything.
We set next to each other on the bus to UC Santa Barbara, where the retreat was to be held. With my portable CD player in tow, I offered her an ear phone while I listened to one of the neo-soul albums I had packed in my CD booklet (for those who raised in the music streaming and even iPod eras of music consumption). Shortly after we arrived at the retreat center and began the opening service, she began crying in the back and I tried my best to comfort her. When she insisted on getting some air, I followed her back to her room. We began chatting some more while I played her songs from D'Angelo's genre defining Brown Sugar album. She shared that she felt like she didn't belong and that she really volunteered to get away from boyfriend issues. Although I shared with her that feelings of unworthiness would make her more relatable to the high school kids, she decided to go home the next morning and tackle what she had been avoiding.
We kept in touch afterwards through AIM and through phone conversations. She was the first person that flirted with me in a sexual manner. She asked me if I was still a virgin, which I was. She asked me which direction my penis curved, a question I had never considered before and had to physically inspect before responding. When she concluded that that I was officially "f*ckable" I prayed that she would invite me over to her apartment and take my virginity. I even shaved my pubic hair and testicles for the first time, anticipating that call. It never came and I was left with uncomfortable razor bumps for the next several days because no one had schooled me on the finer points of manscaping.
Over the next several years we kept in touch with each other as friends but never hooked up. After considering me "f*ckable" in the beginning, I found myself in the all too familiar "friend-zone". She invited to a college party where she ended up getting drunk and hooking up with a random guy she had met. Several years later I mustered up the courage to ask her what had changed. When did I become unf*ckable? After some thought she explained that she thought I would have made a good boyfriend but where she was at in her life, she was looking for someone that was low maintenance. Being completely caught off guard by her comment I asked her to elaborate. Lee said that she sensed a sadness and this "cloud of depression" that she didn't have the emotional capacity to take on. I hadn't even begun dating yet, I was a very late bloomer, so those comments hurt me deeply.
High maintenance. Unf*ckable. They were the messages I had internalized before I had even gone out on my first date. I had zero confidence in my self-worth and date-ability after graduating from college. I share the following not to pass judgement on sex work or demonize sex workers (respect and protect sex workers please!); I lost my virginity to an escort. I tried to date and began online dating in 2007 with eHarmony, but with every failed date and every "you're sweet but I didn't feel a romantic connection", it further triggered all my insecurities. Unf*ckable. Unlovable. So for several times a year, I would see another escort. In fact, before the age of 30, my only sexual experiences were transactional. My experience with sex wasn't about desire, it was loneliness. I was damaged goods. And each sexual experience brought me further and further away from intimacy and connection.
Just like black sheep can recognize other black sheep, damaged people recognize other damaged people. It's a codependent's dream. For those unfamiliar with the term, codependency is a learned behavior, a "relationship addiction" that causes one to form relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive, and abusive. When you believe you are high maintenance, unf*ckable, damaged goods, it may occur for you that codependent relationships are the only relationships you are capable of having or the best you can hope for.
Which led me to Rey, who I met at an adult convention while I was assisting another pornstar. We struck up a pleasant conversation and exchanged numbers. Several months later we met up for lunch at a sushi restaurant in the Valley. Rey shared that she had recently had a child and needed help with managing her household affairs. Seeing someone that I could "save", I offered to assist her on days I wasn't student teaching or in class for my teaching credential program. Due to her pregnancy, she was unable to shoot and money was tight at the moment. So I offered to work for free. From late spring through that summer, I showed up to her house twice a week to work on various tasks: transferring old photoshoot prints and uploading them to her website, driving her to various appointments, taking her clothes to the laundromat, changing her baby's diapers. At times it seemed like I was her only friend and confidant. And though she couldn't pay me for my services, she began sexually flirting with me. While I worked on her photos, she left the door open so I could watch her undress. On one occasion, while her husband was outside working in the yard, she unzipped my pants and gave me head. Receiving any kind of sexual attention was enough for me to stay and ride the emotional ups and downs of her postpartum depression. In the end Rey and I did have sex, but it felt like a payment for my services. There was hardly any affection involved. I completed my final tasks and quietly slipped out of the house while she was napping in the bedroom; I never bothered to say goodbye and we lost touch for years afterwards.
My codependency led me to Pam. She was the first person who showed any sexual interest in me on a dating app. Pam invited me to spend the night after our first date and I had my first sexual experience that wasn't transactional. That was enough to drive right pass every single red flag. Twice married and divorced with 5 children? Zoom! Currently unemployed? Zoom!! Lived an hour away and had her license suspended? Zoom!!! None of those were deterrents for me, because finally a woman found me sexy. I finally had my first girlfriend at the age of 30. When she had her electricity turned off due to unpaid bills, when the police barged into her home and had her sons lay face down on the floor with guns pointed at their heads (all because of a f*cking noise complaint?, #ACAB), when conflicts with her landlord caused her family to move, I stayed. That's what you're supposed to do as a boyfriend right? Stick by someone through the good times and bad. Yes, things are bad now but things will get better once this storm passes, right? I even stayed after she falsely claimed that the contraceptive sponge failed and that she missed her period, suggesting that she had gotten pregnant. We didn't have sex after that, I no longer cared if she thought I was still f*ckable or not. But I still didn't have the strength to break up with her, I needed her to break up with me. Which she mercifully did a month later.
"Sensitive people are angels with broken wings that only fly when loved" - Shannon L. Alder
It's been almost ten years and I'm still working through my issues with worth and deservedness.
It's my sensitivity that led me to befriend Lee, Rey, Pam and others who seemed "broken" and needed someone to care. But it was my codependency that caused me to form unhealthy attachments and take on their issues as my own. Working on healthy boundaries is an ongoing process but my empathy and sensitivity has made me very suited to work in domestic violence, to care and nurture "broken" people but not "save" them.
It was my desire to not come off as high maintenance that caused me to silence my own desires and accept the bare minimum because I didn't want to come across as needy. But that's not being low maintenance, it's being malnourished. It's okay to admit that I require some T.L.C.: tender love & care, not T-Boz, Lefteye, and Chilli. Now that I think about it, please give me T.L.C. along with your best TLC playlist.
It's my loneliness that causes me to take every "I don't feel a romantic connection" as confirmation of being unf*ckable and unlovable. While that remains a trigger for me and continues to give me anxiety on EVERY single date I go on, I'm learning everyday that is VERY different from being lovable. I know I'm supposed to say that feeling lovable has to begin with self-worth, it also comes from a handful of friends in my life who champion my worth and value when I don't believe in it myself. That's good enough for now.
Just because I'm damaged doesn't mean that I'm damaged goods. I can still spread my arms and fly with broken wings.
Portrait by https://www.zacharyleeportrait.com
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