Let’s all eat naked!
The Erotic Adventures of the Invisible Man (2003)
Can anyone see me?
Okay, maybe that’s not the clearest of questions. You’re reading my blog so you probably can’t actually physically see me. Yes, there’s an avatar of me at the top of the page, but even that’s not me. In the more figurative sense, can anyone see me?
I ask because, for the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling fairly transparent. I don’t get mentioned, or talked to (or, I am assuming, talked about) by anyone (outside of my immediate circle, but even then, it’s a safe assumption that I don’t). Yes, I have gone through moments in my life when I have felt unimportant, or hopeless, or unlovable. This isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a new feeling.
And I don’t make any pretence towards being particularly important. I am entirely unremarkable in my civilian life and, despite the occasional titter of laughter, not particularly successful as a comedian either.
But what about ILB?
The other week I had a performance review with my boss at work. Fairly positive though it was (although less glowing than mine was last year, when I had a much younger and smilier boss), one thing came out that I wasn’t even aware I knew until I said it.
“The thing is,” I heard myself say, “because I have very low self-esteem, if you don’t tell me that what I’m doing is any good, I’m going to assume it isn’t.”
“But what you’re doing is good!”
“But you’re not telling me that! If you don’t say it, I’m going to think I’m not doing well!”
“But you’ve been doing this for ten years!”
“And I still need validation! At the very least you could make a note that I’ve told you this!”
I don’t ask for much. In my younger years I would have… well, not exactly delusions of grandeur, but I did like to paint myself as something of a savant, or more central to a concept (or a group) than I actually was. I still needed validation, of course, but I could kid myself into thinking that I was being seen. The fact that I could write “wheeeeeeeee! I’m a pop sensation!” in my diary after a gig almost made up for the years of abuse I’d endured in the brass band I’d been in prior to taking up rock.
More than a decade later and I’m less sure. With less and less people telling me I’m awesome I am becoming more and more convinced that I am not, in fact, awesome. As ILB I feel more invisible than ever before, what with the gradual decline of the sex blog as a viable medium (and I don’t do audio porn or have a Patreon or an OnlyFans, so I’m lacking that USP as well!) and the fact that I genuinely feel extraneous anyway, sometimes this makes me wonder if I am anything of a presence at all.
Last time I went to Eroticon I had, on my way there, the curious feeling that people would have forgotten I existed until I actually turned up. I was even preparing for my translucent nature by attempting to reconcile the fact that nobody knew who I was with a joke. That Nick managed to find my lanyard without me having to remind him of my online handle was nothing short of a miracle, so sure was I that people were looking through me like glass.
Is this temporary?
Who cares knows? I go through moments like this; I know I do, even if nobody else is reading me enough to get that impression. I don’t even know what, in particular, brought this on, when the rest of the sex blogging community (or what remains of it…) is having a relatively self-congratulatory, mutually appreciative moment, I am feeling completely auxiliary.
What would happen, I wonder, if I disappeared? Would anyone care, or worse, would anyone actually notice?
Just something I think about, I suppose. You don’t need to do anything, gentle reader. But, if you could find it in your heart to notice me every once in a while, I’d very much appreciate that.
