“What kind of success is this? To make people feel for you when you can’t or won’t reciprocate. The paradox is how vehemently I’ll claim that I am my real self with these men, then think 'he doesn’t even know me' once they start feeling more. And sometimes it makes me angry. Sometimes it ruins whatever beautiful residue I was basking in. Our connection was real and perfect, and now you’re destroying it because you can’t accept what it is. Suddenly I’m in a position of diminishing what happened between us, degrading it in an effort to erase that intensity.”