A REPLY FROM THE HEARTTHROB

Dear Hanif

As I said in my message to you yesterday, I really appreciated your piece on my moment as a heartthrob , a moment which was mercifully brief and not terribly good for me in some ways. The ego can be a monstrous thing, and it's best not fed too rich a diet. I'm glad I never achieved the fame I craved in those crazy adolescent years.

I never knew you had a crush on me back then, but I certainly knew Paul and a couple of other boys did, as well as a number of girls. I wasn't always kind. I tried to be, but being made aware of that kind of attention isn't good for anyone. In an emotionally underdeveloped teenager, it's a kind of power that is all too easy to abuse . 

You're absolutely right in saying we use bits of other people in our attempt to assemble a self,  try on different identities looking for one that masks our own insecurities , and pick heroes to follow. We think we could be happy if we were only more like someone else.

I wanted to be famous - for anything, anything at all- but I had no idea what for. None of my heroes or role models were real people. How could I be Byron, Shelley, or Hemmingway? The role of Caravaggio was already taken. I couldn't sing,  so being Rod Stewart or Bowie, was a bit of a long shot. I had a drum kit, but i wasn't Ginger Baker.I just didn't want to be me. Me was a very uninteresting kid in a dull suburb . I had a horror of the ordinary,  but there I was, as ordinary as it was possible to be ,and it made me very unhappy.  This is why I started drinking -and made a crutch of it.

I just wanted to be loved. I wanted Sandy to love me forever , and of course, she didn't, which broke me to pieces. My wretched home life had something to do with this need, and the utter brokenness. Being parcelled around various relatives for  six months when my parents separated when I was seven, left me unable to entirely trust them. My mum attempting suicide when I was 15 , then both of them spending much of the year in mental hospital the year I left school didn't help. 

Discovering in the midst of all this that I was very attractive to both girls and boys, as well as older men and the occassional older woman , was not good for me. It was more confusing than gratifying. The Bowie identity I'd attempted to assume poured gas on the fire. I used this moment of attractiveness, as one would, to be promiscuous and experimental,  but it made me very unhappy. 

As I told you before, I wound up in Umbria, as the hoped for love interest of a much older man, and then the live in lover of a woman ten years older,  and finally a Norwegian girl of about my age.  The whole plot kept fuelled on litres of wine. My older woman clarified things perfectly. I was a confused child who couldn't look after himself at all, and, as she said:   "You can't fuck everybody, you've got to get a life" 

Shortly after this, a deputation of all of them, came to my door to tell me to pack, I was going home. The party was over. And it was. 

27 hours on a train gave me a lot of time to think. Using my attractiveness was not attractive. Being a complete cunt was not endearing. My heartthrob era was over. Be glad you missed it.

I didn't find out who I am until I was 32. A bit late, but better late than never!

Lots of love        David