Always-Available Woman Changes Her Life to Invitation-Only

I've given the world too much access to me. That ends now.

Recently, a hawk tried to kill me. His wingspan was six feet if it were an inch. He sailed smooth and swift up my street, his eagle eye trained upon me, his speed no less than thirty miles per hour. I busted into a sprint, screaming.

This hawk repeated his attempt upon my life twice more before I made it home.

I am not a superstitious person. I do, however, receive harbingers and signs from animals—hawks, in particular. Hawks have regularly appeared at times in which I needed professional guidance, usually delivering messages such as have a long vision and search patiently for the reward hidden in the woods below.

But when this motherfucker flew straight at my head up my own damn street, I had to wonder:

Is my profession…attacking me?

This is not a sight you ever want to see.

Circumstances of the weeks that would follow, which I will not here enumerate but could be summarized as “crushing blows to my confidence delivered by exactly those whom I tried the hardest to please,” proved my hawk-encounter interpretation correct. I sank deeper into an already-deep depression. Considered yet again my pursuit of a career in the smoked meats department of Buc-ee’s.

People are used to getting exactly what they want, exactly when they want it, and anything less than absolute perfection equates to absolute failure in a world where we can access any person, any fact, and any thing at any time. We should have it all, and we should have it all right now. And yet—we are unsatisfied, even admidst this embarrassment of riches. As

Catherine Shannon

says in her eminently-quotable essay “Your phone is why you don't feel sexy,”

“Instantaneous access to everything obviously comes at a cost. The cost being that we all behave like demented Roman emperors, at once bored and deranged, summoning whatever we want at any time."

I am an artist by profession. I am a writer, dancer, and producer of women’s retreats. I was able to create this career due to my early success on social media. I acquired a large following in the golden years of the evil empire, a following based upon my audience’s appreciation of my art. My writing moved them. People tattooed lines from my poetry on their arms. My dance instruction gave them confidence. I put women on stages. My retreats provided women with friends, and community, and adventure. I carefully curated these experiences and the guest lists. People applied for the opportunity to be invited to these events.

Welp, that’s coming back. The applications. The invitations. The reinstatement of me as the captain of the ship of my own life.

I am a woman running a business for women. I am a woman posting on the internet for women. I am a woman composing literary works to which any human could relate, yet because I am a woman, my readers remain mainly women, because a woman’s life seems to be regarded as a niche interest by men. I have been nice and available because that’s what women expect from other women. An eternal yes. Whatever you say, whatever you want: I’m here for you. No matter the time, no matter how I’m feeling: I’m here.

When I was a stripper, I had a devoted regular who paid weekly to slap me in the face. I reasoned that the money was worth it.

I have allowed both my personal and professional life to shift from one in which I confidently create art and experiences, guided by my own North Star, bothered only rarely by the opinion of critics because critics did not have constant access to me—

(I’m referring here to the old days, before Instagram, before email, before constant availability was the expectation)—

to a dynamic in which anyone and everyone has access to me through any number of avenues, and everybody’s got an opinion, and their opinions direct my life.

On the internet, I am not a real person. I am an avatar on Instagram, a character of a thousand faces, each of those faces created in the minds of the individuals observing me. The only “me” they know is the one they have imagined, formed around the shapes of their own perspectives, superimposed upon a photograph.

Recently, I opened a DM from a stranger. She is not a client, nor a friend. Yet in that DM, she informed me that she did not like my branding, and would be actively disengaging from my content.

Um…okay?

Recently, I foolishly commented on a popular public page. My comment was a thoughtful addition to the conversation at hand. Yet anyone who clicks on my avatar will quickly discover that I was once (and still am?) a stripper. Predictably, a flood of non-sequitur responses followed, deriding me for any number of crimes and incapabilities. Among these was an accusation that my pussy smells like hot-dog water, from a young man on another continent.

I gave that person access to me.

I made a comment on a popular account, knowing full well that the internet is seething with chronically-online assholes, and thus opened the door for people to abuse me.

I posted a photo of me and my baby on my IG page once, and someone commented that it would be better if we were both naked. I wish I were lying.

I gave that person access to me.

I posted a photo of my father who died young, and some blue-haired “activist” with a million acronyms in her/their bio commented, “It’s always good when the patriarchy dies young!”

I gave that complete and utter jabroni access to me, and what’s worse, I wept with rage at the opinion of this stranger.

Along with these insults, I have received more than my fair share of compliments and praise on the internet. I don’t think all that ego-boosting main-character shit was good for me, either. “I love you’s” from strangers mean nothing, but they sure feel like something. That love, however, is an illusion. Real, deep, honest love comes only from a human being who truly knows me. While I have met wonderful people online with whom I have formed real connections, merely watching my Instagram stories does not equal knowing me.

I wanted people to want me. I needed them to want me, because I am the face of my business, and I am paying a mortgage on a house that is the home for three other human beings and a dog. I thought the way to make people want me was to give myself away. Be available. Open. Warm. A soft place. An encouraging friend to even the most hateful bitch. My incorrect belief that availability equals love explains why I was promiscuous as a younger woman. It’s why I let criminals and convicts fuck me on bare mattresses and truck beds. It’s why I didn’t want to “be mean” by ending a friendship with someone who was actively sabotaging my life and my business. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings even though she hurt my whole life. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, shut any doors, because I wanted people to want me; I needed them to want me.

However, as Catherine Ellison writes,

“Today, everyone and everything is always available, and there’s nothing less sexy than that. There’s no chase.”

Desire is the presence of an absence. We cannot want that which we have already, always, at the touch of a button.

Were we ever meant for this many people, with these many opinions, with a nonstop consumer mindset, to have access to us? And is that access really giving us the love we want?

I made myself a commodity to consume on the internet. I made myself a good woman by being eternally open, a forever yes. I entertained strangers on Instagram with extemporaneous and vanity-serving monologues instead of hunkering down and doing the harder, longer work of thoughtfully composing something worth saying. I bent over backwards to please people, and the more I bent, the more they hated me. I yessed my way out of the respect of others, and out of respect for myself.

Here’s a no. How bout that.

I’m not available. You cannot contact me at any time. I am a person who must be experienced in real life, in person, by those whom I invite into my life.

I will not publicize every moment of this precious and fleeting life for tiny hearts on a screen.

I’m not available to commentary from strangers. I’m not available for unsolicited critiques. You’ve got problems with me? I’ve got problems with you. I’ll go first.

I’m not available as an emotional whore, nor a punching bag. I’m not available to those who clearly hate me, and remain in proximity for the pleasure of hating me. Go away. I see through you. I have always seen through you, I just wasn’t brave enough to say it before. I am now.

I had a self-esteem problem which made me think that despite my PhD, my multiple successful careers, my whole-ass book I wrote plus two narrative podcasts, that I was “no better” than some jack-off in England who thinks pussies smell like hot-dog water.

My pussy smells like a pussy, but he won’t have the pleasure of finding that out.

I am no longer open for public consumption, and no amount of money you can pay me is worth a slap in the face.

—L.B., December 2024