When I heard that Whitney Houston died I felt like I had lost a close friend. Her music and life touched me, and she was unbelievably beautiful. I didn’t even listen to her music that much anymore, but now I have been playing it on repeat! Am I being a crazy person—or just a normal, diva-loving gay man? It’s okay, you can tell me.—David
When Michael Jackson died, one of my best friends was so sad she ruined a should-have-been-fun mid-week lunch date by lamenting his life and talent and whatever. I knew Michael as a creepy curiosity who could dance; she knew him as the first not-white guy to show up on TV and be cool. For her, he felt real and close—just like how you feel about Whitney (along with everyone else who put that vocals-only version of “How Will I Know” on repeat for days. Oh, Whitney!) You’re experiencing actual loss. You are a “normal, diva-loving gay man” and definitely not a crazy person.
It might be more than that, though. Andrew Guthrie, a Toronto-based psychotherapist and my go-to for rational-but-nice mental-health perspectives, says, “If these feelings are unusually intense or long-lasting, something else could be going on…. If you have traumatically lost someone in your past, and if this trauma is unresolved, current losses can be much more painful and difficult to process.” It could be that Whitney Houston’s death, and the very public and collective grief that followed, provoked something else in you.
Or, more likely, it could be that all those songs are giving you the nostalgia-fever. (It gets worse as you get older.) Jon Caramanica, who is a pop music critic at the New York Times, says, “I feel you, David. A few people I spoke with this week were expressing disbelief at the overwhelming response to Whitney’s death, and I found myself getting angrier and angrier. To me, it was as if those people were invalidating what Whitney’s music brought up for me: feelings of untrammelled joy, special childhood moments with my mom, falling in love with music at an age where things stick.” You too, maybe?
It will probably pass soon enough, but in the meantime, consider what the life, work and death of this talented, stunning stranger meant to you. Don’t wallow, though. Says Caramanica, “One thing Whitney never did was wallow.”
I don’t drink. I’m not an alcoholic, I’m not pregnant, I’m not judgmental of people who do drink and I’m not a health freak. I just don’t like drinking and I get bad hangovers when I go for it. My friends think I have a stick up my butt because of it. Help.—Maureen
Not drinking when you’re thirtyish is like not speaking the language. When you don’t drink, it signifies that you don’t want to participate, that you’re not in on the loosening of expectations and behaviours, and that you are a threat to other people’s good time. You’ll notice that this kind of social shaming happens only around alcohol, drugs and food, and never around things like, say, using lip gloss. (If there were a lip-gloss social scene, I’d definitely be the queen bee, y’all.) The shared badness of it—even the very sanctioned after-work badness that comes with a few drinks—is understood as a way to come apart, just a little bit, but together.
Still, every individual’s body, personality and routine has an alchemy that demands certain things, and understanding your own is important. I don’t like the dumber stuff about bars, generally—Why is everything so sticky? Why are bar stools so high that I have to jump?—so I antisocially decline most invitations to “go drinking.” (I will, however, hit a Caesar, glass of wine or tall can anywhere without a kid subjecting me to his failed New Wave playlist.) Making choices about this stuff based on anything other than your own needs is never smart. Alcohol does something to that body, personality and routine of yours; that’s the point of it, and that’s why it’s so good and such a problem. Your refusal to drink irritates your friends in the same way that vegans and juice-cleansers irritate people who are unresolved about their own eating. In a few years, when more people have babies or are in recovery or suddenly understand that other people’s habits are actually boring and none of their concern, it’ll cool off.
Have a question for Kate? Email kate@thegridto.com.
