When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at DearShonVogue@gmail.com for your own chance at enlightenment.
Dear Shon,
I had a revelation earlier this year that I don’t feel like the main character in my life.
I am in my early 30s and feel like I have been living on autopilot, spending my energy supporting or worrying about family, falling in love with depressed men I couldn’t fix (duh), and not managing my own mental health especially well. (I am a high-functioning depressed person, and most people don’t have any idea.) I am getting better at setting boundaries in these areas, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. I feel lost and oddly nostalgic for the type of belligerent confidence I had at 17.
I have a successful career working with a friend I adore, but their vision drives the business, and despite my seniority, I am definitely a supporting character. What makes me good at my job is the same set of caring qualities that have defined my personal relationships. I have many great friends but feel lost and alone.
How do I work out what I want and need in order to become the main character in my life?
Best Supporting
Dear Best Supporting,
You use the metaphor of being a supporting character in the story of your own life to describe a cluster of different issues that are conspiring to make you feel both alienated and in stasis. The state of mind you describe, that idea of something missing, is part of a broader cultural malaise. You’re a younger millennial with a successful career, which I imagine means that you—like many of us—were raised to believe that professional success contained a promise of personal fulfillment. In fact, even if we are doing well at work, we find ourselves in the midst of a rampant consumer culture with fewer bonds of community than at any point in history, constantly at work (because we are always accessible on phones) and trying to blot out crisis after crisis in the economy, world, and climate. It is very normal to feel, in such surroundings, that getting up every day, working and paying the bills, seems like living on autopilot. You are not alone.