He said he couldn’t be my boyfriend because he needed to focus on his manuscript, but when I pointed out that I was also working on a book and that we might offer one another encouragement, he didn’t seem convinced.

“I just don’t think I can give you the time and attention you’re looking for,” were his exact words.

“I really don’t need much time or attention,” I told him, “just some nights and weekends. You won’t even notice me.” Though I had meant it as a joke, he didn’t laugh, and then it occurred to me how desperate my response had been, and how grim this sort of situation was, and how common.

The country we lived in was responsible for the deaths of many people in an occupied nation bordering the Mediterranean Sea. We read about it in the news or on our phones. When we went to bars and drank or took drugs, we talked about it with grave concern. The book he was writing was about this atrocity. My project, a novel, was about my inability to form reciprocal loving relationships with men. I suppose it was also about my wanting and failing to be a serious artist.