I had just gotten my heart microbroken by the most beautiful man who’s ever said “I'm looking for a girlfriend” to me. As it turned out, he was looking for someone with whom to go on a few dates, have a celibate skin-to-skin sleepover with, and then tell them that he wasn’t over his ex from a year ago. I had already felt it coming when he paragraphed me on a Tuesday morning. I half laughed and mostly cried as I read his floundering apology. During my recovery, I was watching a lot of YouTube. Anything really– video essays about the star wars disney cruise ship, cooking videos on how to turn spam into an eight course tasting menu, and Lets Plays of indie horror video games. Charlie was a gamer. A slightly niche but popular streamer slash youtuber in his mid thirties that I developed a strange and uncontrollable fondness for.
It started out innocently enough. I laughed at his jokes and found him generally pleasant for an average looking white man. His videos ran in the background as I folded laundry, did my makeup before work, and fell asleep too late. One day I started getting served fancams of him on tiktok. I thought it was delightful, sweet even. Reading the comments revealed that there were tens of hundreds of women, especially lesbians, who were incredibly attracted to him. It was nice to know that he was beloved and lusted after by people of different orientations and identities, likely due to his non threatening height of five foot six and light Tboy swag.
Eventually, my curiosity made me sloppy. I logged back into my old tumblr account to see if there was fanfiction about him. It felt dirty and sinful, like accidentally seeing your friend’s breasts when changing and then not looking away when you should. I was an old veteran of fanfiction, the “getting sold to one directions” and the “calum hood imagines,” but seeking this out as an adult felt unorthodox. Some of the stories were dumb and PG with author’s notes saying “This is all made up for personal entertainment and I want to be as respectful to him as possible!” And some of it was extremely hard to read. Like, you could tell some of these fans were teenagers, even in the smut. You know the classic fanfic words: warmth, opening, member, shaft, undone, explode, unravel. Just say came. Just say pussy. Just say cock. But the very worst part was my gut reaction to reading it. I found myself rolling my eyes while reading a scene where a self insert character gives him a blowjob. He wouldn’t say that. It doesn't sound like his voice at all, it just sounds like some bullshit someone who's never had sex before would say. These fucking virgins.
My fantasy of him began to bloat, my imagination frothing with a mix of alternate universes and real facts and the sound of his laughter and the sexual persona that nearly every single fanfic writer had collectively agreed upon: gentle and respectful yet dominant and skilled. Between the fancams and my lack of human touch and the fanfiction (that did eventually become captivating and mature), it became harder to see him as the guy on the screen. How amazing was it that I had found a guy who was funny, kind, sexy, secure, made good money at a solid job that he loves, is a cat person, and has the same values as me? And how terrible was it that he had no idea who I was? I had reached a point where I had a routine. I would get into bed, put on some soft and tonally appropriate music, read 15-30 minutes of fanfiction, touch myself to the thought of him, and then roll over and fall asleep, my arm draped across one of my bigger, back-supporting pillows.
One day while scrolling on redacted dating app, I matched with a dude with the smallest inkling of similar swagger. I was extremely late to our date. Pushing 20 minutes. About an hour into the date, I was giggling and twirling my hair as we made snarky jokes back and forth. He told me the details of all his tattoos, and how he came to grow out a bit of a beard. It was his first time doing it, and what did I think because his friends weren’t sure if they liked it. Luckily for me, it made him look about 15% more like Charlie, so I insisted he keep it. Later that evening I learned that his cock wasn’t big enough for me to feel swept up in a fantasy, and when I practically had to beg him to go down on me, I knew he’d have to be fired or recast. Charlie would never have to be persuaded to eat pussy, I thought to myself as my date’s tongue fumbled with the flaps around my clit.
Several months passed and my hyperfixation wavered. I’d begun quietly admitting my behavior to a few trusted friends so I could talk about how bad it was and how I needed to stop. And so I could feel the embarrassment and shame in public around cooler, real people who have never done anything like this. I had sex with people again, an old fling who wanted another run, a beautiful psychology doctorate student, my ex’s best friend. I was fine again, I was normal. I focused on whatever pop discourse was happening and fangirled over a more normal and popular celebrity. I could look back at that time in my life and laugh about how ridiculous and insane I was being.
One night, as I was settling into the New York winter, laptop-in-bed style, I checked my phone. @charrrlie with three R’s is now following you on instagram. My blood ran cold. A wave of guilt washed over me as I remembered my actions and thirsty online behavior. It wasn’t that bad, I thought. The optics aren’t terrible. I only replied to a couple of his stories. But I knew what I had done. I suppose it’s true what they say about celebrities– you build them up in your mind and completely forget that they are real people, but nobody told me that they could somehow find you and follow you on a Tuesday evening while you watch HBO’s The Other Two in bed.
My friends insisted that he must’ve found me attractive and was compelled to follow me based solely on that. “He wants you bad. He’s a fan, girl!” But no, he’s like, married! He must’ve heard from someone that I have great acting skills and impeccable comedic timing and wants to hire me! LA is like, so small right? I couldn’t fathom that I could be an object of his desire or that he would gain anything from simply following me online, and I didn’t want to continue entertaining the idea that this was a highly researched and very elaborate ploy to embarrass me and call me out for my obsession with him.
Every day that passed was agonizing. I’d try to stay off my phone but ultimately get sucked into posting an extra beautiful and tasteful selfie and spend the next 2 to 8 hours scrolling through the viewers to make sure he had seen it. At first, the idea of him finding me attractive was a possibility so miniscule I had first scoffed at it. Now it was all I could think about. Did he follow me because he thinks I’m hot, did he see my story does he like it is my age showing can he see my tattoo in that picture thank god i didn’t post anything for my birthday how old do you think he thinks i am? I had just turned 24.
Soon after, he called to me again. I was no longer reading made-up stories and I wasn't watching videos of him with slow-mo shots and Yeat’s ILUV playing in the background. I was just lying in the dark, my hand resting lightly on the inside of my right thigh. I wanted him. No amount of shame or embarrassment or guilt or anxiety could quiet my deepest desire- I wanted him. I wanted to watch him laugh with his friends from across a bar. I wanted to go up to him and make some flirtatious comment about his family guy tattoo. I wanted to watch him watch me talk about whatever I wanted. I wanted to kiss him on a sidewalk during a crisp spring night in Echo Park, California. I wanted to sit on his bed and watch his soft belly bounce slightly as he peeled his boxy t-shirt over his head. I wanted to feel him. Inside me and on top of me and underneath me, his beard tickling my face and then between my thighs and then my collarbone. I wanted to say his name softly and loudly and breathy and guttural. I wanted to say his name like I had so many times before in my bed in the darkness by myself. I wanted to say his name like he could hear me. Like his name was a learned prayer. So I did.
My wants became opaque and colorized in my mind, strong enough to last several orgasms and convincing enough to not let my mind water over to the last tangible man I had feelings for. I hadn’t received any story likes or instagram DMs and I certainly hadn’t received any email notifications offering me a role in any of his upcoming passion projects. But I knew he was watching. And I didn’t know how much longer he’d be watching. So I touched myself.
