Don’t worry, Anon, I’m well aware of the fact that it doesn’t make me cool. I’m not in the habit of making things up to make myself look interesting online, but if I were, I’d be smart enough to come up with things that are, you know, actually interesting, rather than with random little anecdotes that do nothing more than show the world just how dorky I am.

Posting about my twenty seconds of randomly spotting Sufjan didn’t make me feel cool - on the contrary, it made me feel awkward and vulnerable and it made me worry I came across as stalkerish for revealing that casually seeing someone I don’t even know for a few brief moments is a memorable thing that actually means something to me. As I explained last year, I’m well aware of all the potential awkwardness involved in being so personally invested in people you don’t know but whose art means so much to you. I’ve been slightly in love with him for a good 9 years now (and I use this expression very loosely rather than in a romantic sense, though obviously I’m immensely drawn to him), but that feeling goes hand in hand with a sane and healthy awareness of the fact that he is in fact a complete stranger on whose privacy I’d never intrude. More importantly, I want nothing whatsoever from him - I hope he’ll continue to make music and that I’ll continue to have the privilege to occasionally watch him, but even that is not a demand. 

So why did I mention it at all, you ask? Because I have ~feelings~, because it did mean something to me, because I know people who feel similar things and sharing it with them makes me smile. I’ve been on the Internet for a good 15 years now, and giving myself permission to talk freely about the things and people I love has proved a great way to connect with others. And also because I’m fannish, and this is not something I ever want to be ashamed of.

Of course, if you decided right away I was making this silly little thing up, there’s probably nothing I can say that will convince you otherwise. But happily for me, in the grand scheme of things I don’t really care. I got a couple of messages along these lines after the Lisbon gig last year (“pictures or it didn’t happen”, etc) and I just completely ignored them. In retrospect that was a far wiser stragegy than giving this more time, energy and words than it deserves. Blame the mental place I’m in right now.