i'm doing this for attention

pure, patient, unwavering, loving attention, injected straight into my veins

“Oh, that’s easy. You just ask if he thinks you’re pretty.”

“Yeah, I literally just did it with Dylan this morning. I said, ‘Do you think I look pretty today?’ and then he complimented me a bunch.”

I look at Kayla, then at Charlie, then back at Kayla. If my stunned silence could speak I’m pretty sure it would say, “How come nobody told me we could fucking do that?”

Kayla and Charlie are the very enigmatic, very sensual, very charming twins I go to high school with. They have big boobs and soft, squishy little bellies they show off proudly, naturally blonde hair, cute little teeth and smirk-y smiles, hooded eyes, and long noses. They are well-liked but not popular, smart but not nerdy, and full of middle-aged maternal instincts—calling everyone honey, buying snacks for the whole table during lunch, and giving back scratches with their long nails when you’re having a bad day. Just the other week, our health teacher asked everyone to write a list of things we didn’t like about our physical appearance. Before I could write a single word, Charlie stretched a long, graceful arm in the air and said, I shit you not, “What if there’s nothing I don’t like about my physical appearance?”

I know. If you’re stunned now, just imagine being 17 with these girls. They didn’t just have boys eating out of their palms, they were other-worldly. Goddesses among pimpled, lubberly peers.

So when I approached them to ask for their sage advice on how to get my boyfriend to start complimenting me, I wasn’t sure there was anything they could do for me. Not because I didn’t trust them implicitly—I did—but because I assumed they’d shake their pretty heads and tell me, gently, while scratching my back, that there is nothing a girl like me, with my underbite, pimples, and general caginess, could do to receive the kind of attention I wanted.

Twelve years later and I’m with a new boyfriend in a rental house in the woods. It’s the middle of the night and we’ve been arguing. A romantic weekend getaway without the romance.

As with all of our conflicts, he’s begun to outright ignore me, turning icy with dissociation, avoidance, and contempt, which triggers me to start pleading, growing frantic and panicky. I’m doing what Charlie and Kayla taught me; I’m asking outright and specifically for the attention I need, except he’s not listening. I feel like at any moment I’ll stop existing, like I’m fucking disappearing. I’m losing my mind. I just need him to look at me, to acknowledge me, to give me an ounce of loving attention.

But he doesn’t, so I try to get a hold of myself. I know this cycle intimately (the thread of irony through this whole relationship is that I’ve been so thoroughly therapized that I’m actually perfectly aware of how fucked up we are, yet I still don’t have the self-respect to get out) and I know the only thing to do now is to grieve what he can’t give.

I quiet down, swallowing my triggered inner child back into my throat until my tongue aches in that familiar, on-fire way. Once I think he’s fallen asleep, I slip out of bed, down the hall, and into the bathroom, where I sink to the floor and cry. I dig my nails into my arms, little punishments for needing so much, for choosing the wrong guy (again), for wanting to be found as much as I want to be hidden, for everything.

A few moments later, the door opens and the big light flicks on. He comes in, looks down at me, and sighs. “Erin, come on. Get up.” He sounds disgusted. I keep my head down and don’t so much as breathe, frozen with embarrassment at my pitiful state.

“Get up,” he says again, “I know you’re just doing this for attention.”

Five years later, I’ll defend myself to someone new and much more healed, who will accuse me of nothing, just to make clear how little time, energy, and attention I need [pause for eye rolls at my chill girl behavior]. I’ll tell him about growing up with severely stressed, distractible, and aloof parents who were always multitasking, always rushing, always late picking me up from school, a friend’s house, dance classes, the barn. How sometimes they’d forget about me entirely and I’d have to borrow the phone of some very grumpy person, tasked with staying late to watch me, so I could call and ask for them to please come get me, now.

I’ll tell the story of my first time shaving my legs, how my mom sat me on the edge of the tub with a razor and shaving cream while I trembled with giddy excitement. I was about to become a grown-up (I didn’t even know what a period was), beginning a sacred ritual that I’d do for the rest of my life (lol), just like my mother and her mother before her (not her mother before her, but I didn’t know that yet). I’ll describe how after the first couple strokes and taps of the razor, my mom said “be right back” and left, how my excitement quickly curdled into lonely resignation, how what I’d wanted more than shaved legs was my mom’s undivided attention.

I was always good at being on my own, I’ll explain, reading my little books, writing my little poems.

Fuck if that isn’t still true. I love being alone with my little books and my little poems. I relish being able to bleed into the background of my life, forgetting myself and remembering myself at once.

Annoyingly, if a lack of attention starts as a relief—more time with (and without) myself, more time to get lost in my thoughts, more time to “unmask”—it always ends with an old feeling of disappearing, blurring beyond the very bounds of existence, and tinged with an old fear: did they forget me?

I don’t want to be forgotten, and not in a “don’t forget me when I’m gone” way. I don’t want to be forgotten now, while I’m very much still here.

You know what I do want? Attention.

I want pure, patient, unwavering, loving attention, injected straight into my veins.

I want attention whether I ask for it gracefully or clumsily.

I want attention and I want men to stop calling us attention whores.

I want attention and I want to stop being accused of doing something for attention. As though it’s some big fucking condemnation. As though we all didn’t come into this world crying out for attention.

I want attention and I want it in the form of back scratches and snacks and compliments and when I’m found on a bathroom floor in a puddle of my own self-loathing I want someone to gently loose the fingernails from my skin and I want to get picked up on time and I want someone to stick around beyond the first few minutes and I want unhurried acts of affection and I want it all slow and simmering and I want all my wanting to stop getting pathologized and feminized and criticized.

Yes, it’s the patriarchy. Yes, it’s capitalism. Yes, it’s my mother wound. Yes, it’s our phones. Yes, it’s doom scrolling and numbing out and the rise of the attention economy.

But attention is also sacred. Essential. Foundational. Attention is a birthright. Attention is life-giving, soul-nourishing. Attention is a prayer, a meditation, a spell, a manifestation. Attention is a gesture, a gift. Attention is for radical world-building, for profound healing, for real change, for ultimate liberation.

Attention is you making it all the way here, to the end. Hello, friend. I did it just for this.

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil

“Attention is the most basic form of love.” — Tara Brach

🖤 A BRIEF REINTRODUCTION

…for the new folks here who have some spare attention

I'm a marketing consultant (less yuck than it sounds), “Substack whisperer” (as dubbed by

Alex Dobrenko`

), creative collaborator, and editor.

You might know me as a…

• Substack Strategist + Producer, with an emphasis on sustainable readership growth, creative content strategy, and authentic brand building.

• Editor for creative nonfiction, poetry, and opinion writers.

• Potty-mouthed writer and crier, exploring human feeling and human numbness here at Frequent Criers Club.

🧡 To read about my ~methods~ and how I started working with Substackers, read this interview.

📊 If you’re looking for sound strategy advice but you’re overwhelmed by all the “2025 growth hack” listicles, read my latest piece in The Author Stack.

🦄 If you need newsletter, writing, or strategy help that’s highly practical and a little magical, peep the services on my new website.

CRIERS TO THE COMMENTS 👇🏻

what is your favorite way to receive loving attention, both from other people and from yourself?