Biohacking Lovelessness

In March of 2021, I posted the first of a few entries in a since-abandoned advice column here, completely behind a paywall. Should we bring it back?

For whatever reason, I’ve just revisited, and am now re-posting, if not only for a sense of where we were 5 years ago (and a premonition on my part about GLP-1s), then to revitalize the idea of sending me prompts.

The following is copied from that earlier post (with a few edits, just to make it less rambling). Please take this as encouragement to ask me anything that you’d like “answered” here, either by email-replying or DM-ing.

Q Do you have any advice for being a 23-year-old obsessed with productivity and proving one’s specialness? The daily struggle with these thoughts paralyzes me. I can’t write, can’t form opinions, can’t stop thinking about how I’ve already failed. When I look at you I think you must have confidence in your ability to motivate yourself. I spend hours on Instagram and Twitter, thinking about all the things other people my age are achieving. How do you deal with anxiety? What was it like for you at 23? —Anxiety-disordered

A I think about the word confident and what it has become: younger and younger people getting cosmetic procedures, their parents saying it’s going to do wonders for their confidence. Following this logic, we can say that toddler pageant contestants with spray tans and flippers have a head start, meaning they will likely lead healthy lives in which they do not become hopelessly broken, trafficked, and/or murdered. Maybe there are lately more extreme measures being taken to cure anxiety because the idea of success is fading into the realm of fantasy—meaning it isn’t a possibility for anyone, of any set of privileges, success being itself a sort of failure.

2021 so far feels very leave Britney alone but at the same time not, since we’re hoping for the comeback, so we can return to not leaving her alone. We’re looking for the restored confidence of a formerly tabloid-trashed Kate Moss on a runway, and also looking forward to another fall, like the reopening of Paris Hilton’s childhood wounds while her mother looks on, considering her own turn at reality TV.

A 58-year-old Demi Moore publishes a tell-all about the perils of objectification and then walks (with Kate) for Fendi, captioning the Instagram post “Fulfilling a teenage dream...” New 20/20 specials rehash the late Anna Nicole Smith’s ups and downs for no reason, and go over the list of JonBenét Ramsey’s outstanding murder suspects 25 years after her death.

Antihero origin stories like Cruella (which recasts a villain as conflicted, as per Wicked, Maleficent, Joker, Birds of Prey, etc.) presuppose the eventual demise of a character, demonstrating one fall—from favor, society, sanity—(in the prequel) that explains a later fall (at the hands of a hero). Confidence gets you only so far, is the takeaway, and also: If you enter this spiral, you’ll be in it forever.

To answer your question, I sometimes take a pill for anxiety, which makes me more anxious later, remembering how I may have, with lowered inhibitions, misjudged situations.

At 23, I was riding in the back of a van of strangers with just a few changes of clothes and a flip phone, the happiest I can remember being. I had no ambitions, expectations, or serious relationships, just a “job” selling merch that was paid with hotel stays, and a bet with one of the guys to see who could get laid the most.

I’d passed out in the band’s hotel room, in my hometown, just after meeting them; I woke up desperately hungover and decided I had nothing better to do than join their west coast tour, during which I got mugged on Melrose but also found a refrigerator box of clothes, all in my size, on a sidewalk.

When the tour ended, I slept on friends’ couches in California up until I had to return home for grad school. At least that’s how I remember it; I don’t write much down or take many photos.

Now, I’m constantly questioning myself, but I’ve decided that developing confidence is paradoxical, since it is motivated by the promise of recognition, which invariably leads to more of the kind of work I don’t really want.

Q What’s the point of life? People say it’s love and I agree that being in love makes life easier to live but then, how do you go on when there is no love in sight? —Loveless

A Nothing tastes good to me lately. I eat and eat, but it all tastes bitter or too salty. That’s not a metaphor, it’s true, and I don’t know what it means. I’ve spoken to people who got Covid and lost their sense of taste, which is more disruptive than they’d imagined. Taste is everyone’s favorite sense, once it’s gone.

I’ve spoken to alcoholics who take a medication that makes the taste of booze unbearable. They say it really works as a deterrent, even though the effects of alcohol outlast a rancid flavor. I wonder if the scientists studying the coronavirus have found a way to bottle the part that erases taste so it can be used by nutritionists. Making food unappetizing seems safer than getting lap band surgery, right? The question is: would anyone opt for a life without flavor? I think so, actually.

Love is in fact unhealthy if you consider all the risks and that they must equal a net loss, seeing as the payoff of each bet can only replace any previous payoffs, while the losses are cumulative. Is anyone biohacking lovelessness? Without the distraction of the romance industrial complex, one might spend less money on artifice, quit doing drugs and having unprotected sex, focus on the innovations that will save our planet or help us escape it, spend more time with friends and family. At what cost to quality of life? Impossible to say, for now.

It is dubious, isn’t it, that we’re told it’s so important to seek love, to be open to it, to recalibrate expectations, when each story of romance and loss is completely unique and therefore cannot possibly inform another?

Looking forward to the mess that will be the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That, I’m happy to hear that Mr. Big won’t be back, only because his and Carrie’s relationship wasn’t love, it was a conquest, which is great for a narrative arc that started in Episode 1. She secured herself a wedding, but I never believed she secured herself a man (only a city, as of yet unclaimed by an object-sexual self-identifier, to my knowledge). Isn’t it more fun when she’s single, anyway, and doesn’t the same go for people you know?

Candace Bushnell, by the way, didn’t marry Big. Instead, she married a ballet dancer, divorced him a decade later, and continued to write about her life. (The cover of her latest book, Is There Still Sex in the City? features a photo of her flanked by two standard poodles.)

The plot of one Bushnell novel sees a “renowned writer whose novels about a young woman making her way in Manhattan have spawned a series of blockbuster films” try to “kill off” her alter-ego. In these blockbusters, this alter-ego is played by a “bitchy actress” named “Sondra-Beth Schnowzer.”

Sarah Jessica Parker, since SATC ended, has started a Manolo-like shoe line, insisted that her own marriage is a fairytale, and finally gotten this sequel series off the ground, becoming more Carrie as Carrie became her. Bushnell, on the other hand—who has nothing to do with AJLT—recently said in an interview that “We’re all Mirandas.”

Q Do you listen to music when you write? Do you seek out new music? —Sasha

A Rumor has it that people don’t like music anymore, that pop is simply parody and politic, that songs are going the way of music videos: cheaply made afterthoughts of multivalent careers.

Remember when it was considered embarrassing to wear the T-shirt of a band if you couldn’t name one of their albums? Remember bands? Now, I’ve noticed, it is considered pretentious to not include chart toppers when making a playlist, which to me says: there are only so many minutes to live; don’t waste any of your own time rejecting music that is popular for a reason. Personally, I probably listen to my first ever ringtone track more than any other, to this day (“Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star).

Q Within the NYC art world, there are dealers, collectors, gallerists, curators, program directors, talent managers... and things get murky: gallerists are often collectors, dealers are sometimes curators—but artists are, well, artists. How does this food chain actually work? Who’s who when anyone can be anything? Does this world need more clarity, or do the blurred lines enhance its mystique? —Christian

A In the midst of the r/WallStreetBets reckoning, former artist and podcaster Daniel Keller tweeted, “it’s almost spooky to imagine that there is still an art world going on somewhere for some reason.” And maybe art does feel like a dated form of value production at this point, obsessed with purity and therefore not as open to multi-hyphenates—which is difficult to defend when everyone needs more hustles.

My mother was an artist and she also painted houses to make them look more rustic, scenery for local ballet performances, portraits of pets, paisley-shaped pillows, and window displays for department stores: art for hire, in Arizona. In New York, things are different, and this would be considered messy, or brave, or self-sabotage, or something. I know an artist that’s also a gallery owner and a writer that’s also a publisher, which is maybe a little like a realtor becoming a politician, but hey, that’s business, right?

The other day, someone at a dinner asked where I was coming from, and I replied, “An opening.” He took this as an opportunity to air a grievance: “You know, there are people—boring people—who limit their art experiences to friends’ shows. Imagine only ever going to a gallery because you personally know the artist!”

I didn’t admit in the moment that the opening I’d just left was a friend’s, and really, I’m that boring person he described. I treat galleries like stores, and openings like parties. I generally don’t go into a store unless I can shop there and I generally don’t attend a party unless I like the host.

Everyone I know who is living off their art now tells me that if you want to become successful, you have to make paintings. From there, the floodgates may open to fashion collaborations, Patreon posts, consulting for corporations—breaking boundaries, un-blurring lines. The difference between us and them is who’s paying, but it’s always been this way. Art is, like it or not, potential currency, with extremely elastic value. I must assume that where there is money to manipulated, all bets are off.