Beautiful artwork I stumbled into by Valorrous @ DeviantArt

Sex isn't creepy. Loneliness is creepy.

This was a quote I read out of Penn Jillette's new book, "God, No!". It sounds weird out of context. Let me explain. He knew the guy who was "the masked magician" on that show where they "show all of a magician's secrets", and he encountered him at a strip club one night. The man was surrounded in women whose job it was to surround anyone who had the money, which he did, yet he pretended he was on a date. That the money in his pocket and him being at a strip club had nothing to do with why he was getting the attention. Penn thought he ought to be asking for lapdances and, you know, doing normal I'm-in-a-strip-club stuff.

Then he said the quote above, and I thought of Erik. Not just "Erik", but Erik-Erik. No, not because this guy was "the masked magician", but because I understood what Penn meant.

Everybody is wired to want sex, anybody can have sex, it doesn't have to mean anything, and it doesn't have to be hard to find it. For those unaware, the Phantom (as played by Robert Englund) even hired a prostitute in this movie and had lots of people wondering. It was a shocker to a number of viewers that the Phantom would satiate his urges when he's in love with Christine, but, outside the fact that Erik (in canon) is supposed to be so ugly no woman has touched him, I think the behavior sounds awfully predictable for a man in his situation. I bet all Eriks would have sex with a woman if they could, it's just most can't.

But company - real company - real friends - real relationships... they aren't simple or immediate and they don't just depend on how you feel or what you want. Anyone can have sex. But not everyone gets real company - some people are wired in a way that makes it difficult to connect, or for others to understand them or appreciate them, or they too can't seem to hold on to others in the right way.

That type of loneliness Penn described in the man IS creepy. Where you'll do anything for even the illusion of someone wanting you around. Where you want to feel normal but you know you're not. Where you cling to people past your welcome, and you can't help it, and you hope some girl, or some guy, anyone who's somehow turned special, is going to stay and validate you, or fix you.

It's also really pathetic, though. I mean, I've felt that way. Sometimes I relate to people like Erik more than I want to. I feel myself in that dark corner, wishing she could command someone's attention, wanting to cling until they acknowledge me. Does that make me creepy? Is the word really just for a small amount of people, or do we, as humans, sink into creepiness all the time when things aren't okay and we don't know how to make them okay?