My “Stan” Stigma

I love music, there’s no doubt about it.

I like punk, can’t argue there.

I met a girl, during a time when my life was blown up, as I just graduated University and entered the real world. Trust me, it’s a lot different.

Her name is Emily, she is the lead singer for the feminist punk-band, The Anti-Queens. She had it all, looks, personality, the style, my parents probably didn’t like her, and she made me realize a lot of stuff as I was re-assimilating to humanity.

I was also deeply, deeply, lost. People didn’t treat me well there was a lot off negative emotions running around. It’s like Joaquim Pheonix’s Joker, he says that “people just yell and scream at you”, and to me that is basically what leaving university and coming out to the real world felt like.

I was madly in “love” with her, becausw of who she is, and I desperately tried to fit in with her friends. The truth is I needed her, to save me from this fucked place, from my parents, the world. I wanted her as if she was a my last breathe of freah air.

It was in those moments I was stuck to her tthat I found myself again. Yet my brain, that once had these associations that used to work, and was almost completely stripped of everything that I had learned in University, was left broken and bare. Latching on and re-building to whatever new theories and hypotheses about the world worked.

Yes, I very mechnically rebuilt myself; however, I wouldnt be human if I didn’t include things like emotion, and the arts. Human Emotion, a course that I dropped in University, because it was taught in a way that I just didn’t get, is something I believe to excel at, as well as something that we all need a little more of, yet a lot need far less of.

I followed her band around Toronto, that’s as far as I could go as I tried to manage other things like getting a solid career going. I was also involved in a very traumatic accident that left me missing a lot of key development points in my life, that a lot of people don’t expect (like my parents) to be something of importance, whether it be beccause someone at my age has already been through it, or culturally this forsn’t exist.

I wouldn’t stop talking about her, and her band, to everyone I met. This led people to believe that on the surface, I was a Stan. A term made popular by the song “Stan” by Eminem and Dido’s hit track in the year 2000, means to be someone who is obssesive, Merriam Webster defines the word, after it’s official entry into the dictionary in 2007 and again in 2013 as;


(as a noun)

: an extremely or excessively enthusiastic and devoted fan

(as a verb)

stanned; stanning; stans

: to exhibit fandom to an extreme or excessive degree : to be an extremely devoted and enthusiastic fan of someone or something

A lot of people always made fun of me, and in a way I felt as if maybe I was a Stan. Inside, I felt disgusted in myself, I didn’t feel like I was a Stan, I didn’t write long letters of love or I wasn’t requesting that she meet me or anything. Also, Emily a celebrity, really?

I did ask her for her number once, she gave it to me, I texted her because I was getting a tattoo and I was kinda frightened at the size (the tattoo ending up taking up my entire side of my leg (knee down to ankle)) and if it would be painful. It wasn’t, the artust’s touch was so warm and relaxing. She never texted me back though, and I let it be.

I just always assumes that she was busy trying to make her music work, and that she is, as I put it, swinging off chandaliers. A lot of her friends didn’t like me either, at least that’s the vibe I got. I don’t even know if they were her friends, just guys in the scene. A lot of stufff was said, and a lot of crap went down.

But throughout the years, I was tortured about how my admiration for her was based on her status as a musician. I’m also sure that had some part to do with it, but not enough that it was significant. I met Amy Jo Johnaon, and in the most cleverly disguised way possible, she basically told me to fuck off, you aint’ shit. I just wanted to meet her, god damn I wasn’t expecting that.

This is my explaination, to why I am not a Stan, and why it bothered me a lot, yet now I know better. I am not a Stan, or Forest Gump, or whatevber else you can associate with me, I was just a person looking for a friend.

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