I'm still looking for acceptance and approval

From others, but also from myself

I’m still looking for acceptance and approval

I have a writing crush on a younger man.

To be specific, I’m an

Alex Dobrenko`

fangirl.

If you don’t know who that is, Alex writes

Both Are True

, a newsletter here on Substack that riffs and rants on his life as a young father, comedian and actor. His writing is getting a lot of love and attention from readers and also the Substack higher ups who decide what’s cool.

Because Alex is definitely very cool… and very funny.

I doubt he knows I exist as I’m waaay outside his target audience. Let’s just say that I’m more than twice his age so I could be his mother and maybe, if we timed it right, his grandmother.

Hello Alex, even tho i’m 72, i thought abt writing yu in yr LOWERcase style spellling and grammar be dammed and yesss hello pls note that i’m a PAID subscribberr.

But I’m not sure I can pull it off.

… i confess i was NOtt happpy with your antigraMMaticl style when i strted reeding your nwsltr i’ve gottn ust to it you’re C0Nsistnt about foLLowng your own weerd sYntX as an edtr i admr that

Enough of the mimicry. Where was I?

What do I see inside the head of a 30-something guy that I find so appealing? 

A lot of things, but mostly it’s that I find Alex, whose life is so very different from mine, extremely relatable. 

Foremost are his insecurities, of which there are many, and his ever-present need for approval. That resonates. That’s what’s inside my head too, now at age 72, back when I was in my 30s, and far earlier. 

Actually, it’s been like that for me since I can remember. I was an only child for almost a decade and in those early years, all I wanted was to be accepted, to be liked, to fit in with the kids at school. But that never happened. I always felt like an outsider. In fact, my mother was responsible for my getting teased at school because she made me wear brown lace-up shoes that were NOT COOL. (She’d seen them in England, I think.) The other kids got to wear loafers. With pennies in them.

(Debbie) working on a puzzle, age 3… Am I good enough? Am I doing it RIGHT??

Even in my young married life as a 20-something, I still ached to GET IT RIGHT. I still yearned for approval and acceptance, maybe even accolades. Everyone else seemed to have figured things out… they all seemed popular and successful and well liked. Why not me? I’d graduated from Harvard, I’d married a doctor (although I didn’t really count that as a personal success), I’d gotten a masters degree in journalism and worked part-time for several newspapers. I’d started a family… but I still felt like I was behind. 

Where I find the most overlap with Alex

Here, maybe, is where I find the most overlap with Alex: even after getting accepted to an Ivy League school and graduating, I couldn’t rid myself of the endless internal rat race, couldn't stop myself from perceiving competition where there wasn’t any, and couldn't squelch the insatiable desire to be recognized as “successful.”

And then there is Alex’s desire to be perfect. Not just accepted or successful or cool—perfect. 

I can feel this one in my core. I’m not sure if his family ever did this, but mine (aka my parents) made it clear, without saying it outright, that I wasn’t good enough. I don’t like to cook for and entertain large crowds, something my mother excelled at. I remember once she prepared a lobster dinner for 25 Japanese business associates of my father’s. This was on an island off the coast of Maine, with a rudimentary kitchen. For dessert she baked several of her famous Maine blueberry pies. 

Amazing, right?! But overwhelming for me. How pitiful that I couldn’t do the same. Her judgment was clear: because I didn’t like to cook or create elaborate dinner parties, I was a failure. No chance at perfection there. 

And then there’s Alex’s vulnerability.

Despite all his insecurities and perfectionism, Alex is willing to be vulnerable. He’s willing, in his writing, to tell us the stuff that doesn’t necessarily make him look good or heroic or perfect but that is so honest. (Of course, he’s always very funny, which takes the edge off. I always giggle as I’m reading his essays.)

I have that same impulse, too. I want to be vulnerable, to tell readers about difficult, private things. The things I’m trying to work out in my head, the things that aren’t perfectly polished or resolved yet. If I dare admit it, I also try to be a little bit funny. 

So, if there’s a unifying theme here that explains why I’m an Alex fangirl for life, despite the nearly 40-year age gap, it’s that we’re both trying to come to terms with who we are: our plaguing insecurities, our die-hard perfectionism, our unrelenting need for acceptance. In my case, I should say I’m still trying. If I could tell my writing crush one thing, it’s that I’m actually a bit envious of him. He’s got so many decades ahead of him to figure everything out, whereas I’m almost running out of time. I say that lightly but it’s bittersweet, as I look ahead 10 or 15 or 20 years from now. I may not be wearing those brown lace-up shoes anymore, but I have the same desire to be accepted. 

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And a quick note:

By supporting me as a paid subscriber, you are supporting my ability to keep writing these essays; you are supporting the idea of reflecting deeply on the phases of life, especially moving from midlife to old age; and you will be a member of a small group of readers who actively engage in honest discussion with me about old age, which includes pain and sadness as well as many unexpected rewards.