He wanted to be me!

On my love of soft boys

The cycle goes: a man finds my art attractive, I find the man attractive, I stop making art, he stops finding me attractive, I realize he never wanted me, he wanted to be me, I am heartbroken (!!!), I pour my heart back into the art, my art is better now, a new man finds my better art attractive, I find the man attractive, I stop making art again, he stops finding me attractive, I realize he never wanted me, he wanted to be me, I am heartbroken (!!!), I pour my heart back into the art, and my art is better now.

I can’t stop this from happening. I’m a sucker. I’m a lover. I understand the function of projection. I can tell when I’m the object of someone else’s projection, and I am aware of when I’m projecting just as much. Self-awareness doesn’t kill the fun, though. If anything, it makes it all the more enticing, rich, layered. And don’t we need to fire arrows of projection if we want to move anywhere in life?

Our inner lives are archetypal, structured around complexes that move us. Complexes beg for completion—they send us out into the world on a quest for that completion. Obviously, I have a father complex, and as much as I try to develop a strong inner father for myself, I tend to get swept away in fathers I find out there. The psyche is oriented toward wholeness, and our complexes will have us firing arrows of projections toward anything that helps us act out their (our) yearnings—anything that might bring us closer to psychic wholeness. In comes desire. Do we have any say in our desires? Do we actually want what we think we want? Desire isn’t about getting what you want, I don’t think; it’s about the direction desire moves you.

Did he really want me? Did he want to be me? Did I really want him? Did I want a father? Does it even matter? Can you let me love soft boys in peace?

Soft boys. You know, the artist types. He/they in the bio is enough to clock one. Some might be spotted wearing Mary Jane Dr. Martens, carrying a tote bag. They’re the boys who get all of your music references, type in all lowercase, and look at you with anime eyes. The ones who, for whatever reason, know how to attune to you impressively well. The ones who assumably had close relationships with their mothers, from whom they learned the art of how to treat women with gentleness. The ones who perhaps spent their whole lives pleasing their mothers, were loved and rewarded for it, got incredibly good at it, and now might feel just a little bit lost in the absence of a woman to please. I don’t mind that, though. In fact? It might be precisely what I need.

A sensitive man who knows how to make me feel good? That’s my primary yearning, and using Jungian psychology to pick it apart doesn’t do much to diminish the aching need. My father complex left me in desperate and dire need of tender love from a man. A soft boy works even better! In a typical reversal, because my animus was dominant most of my life and I was historically hostile toward my own tenderness and femininity, my animus—my “inner masculine”, my confidence, courage, willpower, my charismatic and expressive nature, whatever you want to call it—has attracted soft boys to me for most of my adult life.

They love me for my art, my wild self-expression, my ideas, my mind, and even my stunted femininity. They love the way I take the steering wheel, guide the relationship, say “I love you” first. They love my big mouth and the audacity with which I dare to speak freely in a political moment where they cannot. They could, but they might get punished for it—it just so happens that most soft boys exist within a subculture bent towards muzzling men, cancelling men, castrating men, or, you know, turning them into soft boys. Largely, soft boys find themselves immersed in a left-leaning art scene, surrounded by university educated queers and good liberals, collectively committed to adhering to the rules of identity politics. To have the right to exist in these spaces without getting cancelled, men must mind their manners, and be… soft.

It goes far beyond social justice scenes, though—the roots of soft boy censorship should probably be traced back to WASP suburbia. Wherever it happened, these boys had their freedom of speech stamped out of them to some degree, or they surrendered it reluctantly after weighing their options. Love doesn’t come as easily to men who are aggressively outspoken, I guess—not the kind they want, not in these circles. Love comes easier when you’re soft. I don’t know about softness yet, but I know we become experts at packaging ourselves into things that will be loved. And the longing to break free never disappears.

If you can’t live the freedom, you’ll find it outside. The unconscious appears externally until you integrate it. So when the arrow of projection gets fired in my direction, I will become representative of your freedom. This is because I don’t care about following “the rules” so much—I’ll find a way to say the truth, which is attractive to some and reprehensible to others. In my particular position as a blonde white girl with completely disturbing lore, I can mostly dodge punishment for the inflammatory opinions I share. And soft boys? They love that about me—I think, in part, because they want this kind of freedom for themselves. They want back the part of them that was taken.

They want to be me. The next best option? Be inside of me. It’s not one-sided. I want to be them, too. I want back the part of me that was taken. I want to be soft. The next best option? Soft boys.

I’m the man in the relationship—the outspoken, outward facing one, the bold one, the hard one. They’re maternal, nurturing, soft. They hold me while I cry and tremble from all the damn trauma still living in my body; they even find it beautiful, inspiring, raw, real. I graciously let them love and care for me until I inevitably spook them—the grime of violent trauma is (shockingly!) quite unpleasant to be around, and you can only romanticize rawness for so long. I understand. It’s okay. Just kidding, I feel completely crushed every time. But we’re here to learn from each other, right? We’re here to exchange gifts.

I’m willing to be the tortured artist, your personal tour guide of the underworld, bringing complexity into your life, thickening the plot, helping you see and feel everything more vividly—if you’re willing to show me a simple love. I can teach you all that comes with a life history this “raw” and “real” if you can hold me, cuddle me, take me camping, bring me to family dinners, and teach me what a normal life looks like. Let’s make a deal? I would trade my wild expression for your peaceful foundation any day.

I think back to a time years ago when I read a poem about child rape at an open mic night—kind of wild to subject an unsuspecting audience to all that, but that was my style. The truth needed to come out, I reasoned, and douchebags told pedophilia jokes at open mic comedy all the time. If I’m being honest, I felt a little proud my poem made someone cry—my art could make people feel things! Either my art was just that good, or its message was just that sad. When I shared the news with my soft boy boyfriend, who I was hopelessly in love with at the time, he didn’t have much to say, other than:

“You’re lucky that you’ll always have something to make art about.”

Lucky! That was one way to put it.

He wasn’t happy for me. He was jealous of me. He was envious of my self-expression, all the insane elements of my life that lent themselves to me having no choice but to be… like this. He wanted to be me. In his eyes, he had nothing interesting to make art about. He didn't have a tortured poet's sob story of child rape. Raised in a good home, no natural edge like mine, he could only get his edge through osmosis, proximity to girls like me, or through using his techie paycheck for tattoos and a septum ring. My edge was never a costume I could intentionally select; it was inbuilt, apparently impossible to compete with, and impossible to escape—hard earned through a decade of terror. It was real. People really crave something real.

I was lucky. I'd always have something to write about (case in point), so I’d always have an audience, and I’d always have attention. Soft boys want attention, too. He lusted after the kind of admiration I got for my wisdom, my strength, all those inspirational things people saw in me. When you're fed with a silver spoon your whole life, what's there to make art out of? I was lucky to have material! Too much material. He had to buy his own clay. I got to sculpt from the ruins of my life. I was lucky! Art comes from hunger, and I was lucky to be starving. I would’ve traded all of my art supplies for the love of my sweet soft boy—and I tried. I was starved for his love. I didn’t care about the attention; I wanted to pay attention to him. I stopped making art. He stopped wanting my attention.

You see? These soft boys break my heart. They show me a normal life, and I’m happy to squeeze into it. I absorb some of their normal through osmosis (cough, enmeshment) and suddenly I’m not a tortured artist. Finally, I’m normal and loved! My soft boy is evidence. I find stability for the first time; I feel peace as long as I’m with my soft boy. No longer hardened, bold, or inspirational—I’m soft, finally. Beneath it all, I’m soft. I’m just a sensitive lover girl wanting to build a life with someone. Beneath it all, I’ve always been soft. This is a very disappointing discovery for the soft boy. I was supposed to be dangerous, thrilling, edgy. It’s your fault. As soon as you make me feel safe enough, the danger vanishes. My edge is gone. I’m just a girl now, wounded and yearning, and it’s pretty grotesque when you get up close. I’m sorry. This isn’t very hot anymore. I made you hard. You turned me soft. Our deal is over.

Yes, I love soft boys. I project loving father onto them; they project mother onto me right back. They are soft, nurturing father; I am fierce, protective mother. They soothe me; I inspire them. They love my voice; I teach them how to find theirs. They want to be me, yes; I want to be them, too. I want to be soft.

I’m trying to be softer. So, whenever a soft boy appears before me, I cannot help but answer with an enthusiastic “YES!”¹

1. I know this risks scaring all future soft boys away from me, but it’s okay. They like my art, anyway, so the art must come first!