“Whenever I’m interested in something, I know the timing’s off, because I’m always interested in the right thing at the wrong time. I should just be getting interested after I’m not interested any more.” –Andy Warhol 

We assume Andy is referencing the art process, but this insight rings true in all categories  of adult relationships; Friendships, partnerships, frenemies, friend-with-benefit-ships, late-night-text-ships, marriage ships and all the other ships that sail this sea.   We all want the wrong thing at the wrong time.  At least, it feels that way until we get the right thing at the right time.  I wouldn’t know because I have a poor concept of time.

We always want what seems unattainable to us.  I call it “The Studio 54 Defect,” clearly named after the late 1970s nightclub that was impossible to get into.   Andy Warhol was a popular member of New York’s it crowd at the time, so naturally a “regular” at the Studio 54.  Andy made himself cool by projecting a persona of carelessness to the public.  He didn’t care about people, or what they thought or his art…and people were fascinated by him. Though he visited Studio 54 constantly, he was just there and there could have been anywhere for Andy;  He simply didn’t care.  Not the way the people waiting in line outside cared for it or those who were rejected.  These people cared enough to come back each night and wait, knowing the night would probably end the same way it started.  Alone and on the outside.  The people that got rejected from the club cared so much about getting in that they climbed the walls and broke windows just to get a taste of what they wanted but couldn’t experience.  They became desperate, infatuated and obsessed with Studio 54, because Studio 54 did not want them.  

I guess we tend to hurt the things, the people, that love us, don’t we?

It is a defect in our human and dating nature.  A bad habit, one that doesn’t break, until we break it…or breakdown.  If you want to be wanted by someone, I suggest taking the careless approach, or “Andy’s way.”   If you can handle not caring at all, then do it, but in that case, you wouldn’t want them anymore, would you?  They would begin to want you, but you would have already started to become unwanted by someone else.

We continue to wait in line with hopes to get inside;  to be loved, to be accepted, to do some party drugs and get inappropriate on the dance floor with some really beautiful person that probably just wants to sleep with you.   You want them, then you don’t want them anymore.  So, they want you and now you don’t care.  The pendulum swings back and forth.  It nearly knocks you out.  You can’t comprehend why they don’t want you.  What happened?

I don’t understand it either.  I can’t heed my own advice, or process the phrase, “make yourself unavailable,” or “If you build it, they will come.”  I wish I could build an attitude of apathy like Andy.  I wish I could “fake it till I make it.”  Instead, I make things easy for men and hard on me.  I give, give, give… and give some more.  I give until I lose myself.  I give because I want what I can’t have.  I give because I think if I give enough, give it all, then someday I’ll have the love that I always wanted.

I am afraid.  What if I get it, then what happens after…?  Will I even want it anymore?

-Lou