I love you because I have to share you

PalmaWhen you arrive, you change the layout of the room. You generate a centripetal force towards you that makes, in just a short while, all our chairs lean a little towards yours. You have all our attention and we fight for yours. You are a siren song, you enchant us. You are the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Everyone seeks you out, everyone wants to be near you, for you to fill their silence with yourself, with your stories, with your charm, with your passions. Because you generate in others that which you explain. And everyone wants to feel a little like that, like you. Now it is you, and not Britney, who says You want a piece of me.

When we are in a group, you remind me that I am just one more, and the equality of conditions makes me bring out my weapons: I have to strive in dialectics, tone, and gestures. Non-verbal language is important. Rhythm and cadence too. I don't tell you, but sometimes I spice up the stories a little, to leave you with the intrigue, to seem a little more enigmatic to you, cryptic, so that you think I can still surprise you. You turn me into a troubadour, a minstrel. I also dance to the rhythm of your witch dance, I try to reproduce your spell. But I know that charisma is not a matter of magic, but of training and survival. I am sure that the moment you were born you learned to make faces from the cradle, to be the most loved baby in the family, the chosen one, the pampered one.

To honor you, I put all these tricks into practice in front of you, like a peacock, and I watch you out of the corner of my eye, checking the effect they cause. I like that you see that I also know how to do it. They want a piece of me when I am with you nearby. Sometimes, we synchronize and it is as if we were sharing a baton. No one knows why, but you and I conduct this orchestra. We make the trombones quiet and the strings sound more in tune. We establish a tone that everyone commits to maintaining. We take charge of the group, of the conversation: everything goes in crescendo, we do not let the level drop and we jump from one thing to another with a frantic rhythm. We have a mission, which is to keep this spirit alive.

When you come with me, when you accompany me and I share you with my people, you multiply before me: you create a version of yourself exclusively for them. You remake yourself from scratch, to their taste, but with your own seasoning. You choose the best from your pantry. It is as if I could hear you say “Now you’ll see”, just about to become the wittiest person in the group. I like it when you enter survivor mode. You know you will not make a place for yourself at any price and you accept the challenge with the machete between your teeth. You show me your respects, with discretion and complicity, when –from the other side of the room– I see you putting my friends in your pocket one by one. I like to be silent, watch you, and mentally applaud your spectacle. You have everyone with eyes open and mouths shut. They know you are about to say a clever remark again, all the time. You are one of those people with whom it is worth surrendering.

Exclusivity, in reality, is a vulgar thing

You have the talent of Mr. Ripley and you will take us to the bottom of the sea, if you want, or to the night adventure that awaits us at the next street corner. You have the gift of seduction and the generosity to share it with us. You make us believe the fantasy of being courted, for a while. You elevate us at the expense of making a place for yourself. And I think it's fair. We are special because we all have a piece of you, not because we are the only ones who have you. We love you, we adore you, because we have to share you.

You are proof that exclusivity is, truly, a vulgar, boorish thing. That the highest bidder is not the one who takes home the big prize, because a big prize will never be accessible. Doubt and speculation are what unleash greed. And I feel that I have something valuable when everyone has the feeling that they could have it. It is the aspirational nature, the potentiality of acquisition that makes you desirable. I like having you like this, with a point of competition, and seeing you through the eyes of others, polyhedrally. I want to feel that my version of you slips through my hands because you are not just that, you are the kaleidoscopic composition of everyone who has a piece of you. I like discovering you in one of those mirrors, knowing that there are still reflections of you that I haven't seen, that you might never reveal to me, and –even though they aren't for me– falling in love with them. I love having the luck of being able to share you.