John Elizabeth, I adore you.

There’s nothing more admirable to me than someone who has the courage to be a public admirer.

I’m not speaking of romance here, I don’t give a flying ham about romance—you can be as secret or as open when it comes to romance so long as you don’t say I suggested you do one or the other. Don’t get me involved—I’m not into three-ways. Instead I’m speaking in the general sense of admiration, what Google defines as: respect and warm approval, and adds as synonyms: wonder, adoration, and delight.

Delight is a delightful word.

There’s a way in which confessing your admiration makes you (read: me, and only perhaps you) feel incredibly vulnerable. It doesn’t feel very good. Inside it feels like praising someone else is somehow cheapening you, that it is stripping away any pretence of kinship, placing you in the valley of the fan. When I tell someone that I adore or admire what they do I can do nothing but imagine that everyone’s simply thinking: Look at this guy, this guy’s suckin’ _______’s phallus. Even when you aren’t being public, there’s a sense that just opening yourself up like that really, being honest, really doesn’t feel good.

You’ve got to be damned brave to do it, as silly as it sounds.

JOHN ELIZABETH STINTZI Against Secret Admiration