I wanted to eradicate this terrible shame, this sense of being defective, alien, other, as if perhaps I never should have existed at all. It was why, I now realized, I had included my website in my original email to Ben. It wasn’t only so that he could see that my motives weren’t mercenary. See? I wanted to say. I’m a real person—with a full, rich life, and a family of my own. I wasn’t just the product of some random morning
Similarly, when I was learning about new-to-me cousins, knowing they might be curious, I shared my LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. I was very conscious that I wanted them to see and think about me in a certain way.
