Galaxy and Other Bad Influences

What’s your problem today? You’re putting tequila in the coffee and it’s only 8 a.m.

It was Galaxy. Female version. That snarky bitch that lives in my head—the judgmental part of me that thinks it’s clever just because it gets better lines.

“I’m going to see a therapist,” I muttered.

Oh? Finally outsourcing your bad decisions?

“He gave me a questionnaire. Fifty pages of deeply personal questions. I'm not writing all that crap down—I’m paying him by the hour. He can take the notes.”

You don’t even believe in therapy. You’ve said it a hundred times—psychologists are just people who got tired of taking their own advice.

“Well, I needed someone to talk to besides you. You’ve been giving me crap advice for years.”

I gave you choices. You picked the wrong ones. That’s not the same.

“I don’t trust you. You’re biased. You live in my head and always lean toward rules and guilt and society’s stupid expectations. It’s like you want everyone equally miserable so no one notices how hollow everything actually is.”

Oh good. You’re already spiraling. Don’t forget your keys.

I squeezed into tight jeans and a sweatshirt. I saw no point in dressing up for a man who was going to tell me things I already knew. Starting therapy cynical wasn’t ideal, but at least it was honest.

His office smelled like cigarettes and leather—surprisingly masculine, possibly intentional. He looked around 42, maybe 45. Tall, graying, with a lean build and a way-too-fitted sweater that hugged his chest and emphasized his arms. He dressed in shades of gray, like a fog bank with opinions. I followed him to a wide leather chair and sank into it, trying to look naive and harmless. Men prefer that—at least at first.

The room was textbook therapist: neutral tones, bookshelves, a faint humming from the recorder. There were no strong colors. You're not supposed to feel in there. You're supposed to unload feelings.

He asked for the basics: name, age, address.

“What do you do for work?” he said.

“I run a PR agency for tech companies,” I said. “Most of my day is spent telling people what they want to hear and writing copy about products nobody needs. Then I mark things on a calendar to make it feel like I’m in control, and I hide out in the break room listening to the legal team agonize over things like the number of flagstone steps leading to their new patio.

"You don't like to chat with them?" he said.

“I try,” I said. “But people are boring. The world is on fire and they're out here debating mistletoe on their Christmas napkins. I want to scream, ‘It doesn’t matter, Carol! No one at the table will care except maybe Aunt Sylvia—and she’s 102.’”

He smiled. Noted something down. “So... do you like where you live?”

“I live in San Francisco now, but I grew up in a crowded, low-income part of LA. The kind of place that teaches you survival, not subtlety. I like San Francisco—it’s weird, it’s expensive, and no one knows how to dress for fog, but it makes sense to me. I eat a lot of Chinese food. Sometimes I go to the vibration museum. Or raves. Or sound sculptures. I ride trollies when I’m bored.”

He looked up. “So, you do have fun.”

“Only when I’m eating cookies while binge-watching The Here Channel. I’m just trying to replace the kind of fun I used to have.”

She means sex, Galaxy said. She’s saying “fun,” but she means “a well-placed orgasm.”

“I’ve had fun. Real fun. But a lot of it revolved around men and sex and frankly, that’s hard to maintain when you’re aging in place.”

He nodded. “You don’t think you can still enjoy sex and dating?”

“Not in the same way. Not when my type hasn’t evolved with me. I still prefer the men I liked when I was 28.”

Young ones, Galaxy added, like a disapproving aunt at a brunch.

“You repeat a lot of what I say,” I told the therapist.

“Just reaffirming. So—you don’t want sex unless it’s with younger men?”

“Not exactly, but… yes. Younger than me. Kind of. No offense.”

I sighed. “I want someone who’s smart. Curious. Energetic. Not just someone who wants to sit and talk about their blood pressure medication. But also—not someone who has to ask permission to drive their roommate’s car.”

The therapist paused. “So, you want someone who still has edge—but has done their taxes.”

“Exactly.”

You want Louis Tomlinson with a Roth IRA, Galaxy chimed in.

I laughed. “That’s disturbingly accurate.”

The therapist wrote that down.

"So," he said, checking his watch. "Same time next week?"

"You want to see me again? After all that?"

"You paid for an hour. We used fifty-three minutes. Do we have more to discuss?"

He's just being polite, Galaxy whispered. You probably scared him. But as I walked to the door, he handed me his card.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you're not as broken as you think you are. Just... selective."

I looked at the card. Dr. Marcus Chen, 39, according to the tiny print. Younger than me. Oh, for fuck's sake, Galaxy groaned.

"Same time next week," I said.