Vertical Gap in Relationships: Height vs Depth

He once worried a post was about him.
That’s usually how you know it is.

The coffee one, maybe. Or the silence one. Or the one about people who build things so large they forget to build themselves. Hard to tell. Mirrors are democratic. They offend everyone equally.

When Someone Asks to Be Written About

Then he asked me to write one for him.

I frowned.
Not dramatically. Just enough to disturb my peace.

It felt like being asked for a Vogue profile by someone still browsing the business section. Or asking him to cook Mangalore fish curry when he’s just learned to chop an onion. Ambitious. Hopeful. Slightly unaware of how heat, patience, and depth actually work.

The first version was written at bedtime. Not out of inspiration. Out of boredom. Mosquito-season boredom. The kind where you either swat, scroll, or start telling the truth. I chose violence. Typed. Sent. Rolled over.

It pinched him.

Naturally. Truth always does when it’s not invited. Especially when it arrives casually, like a bill you forgot you owed. He had thoughts. Opinions. Concerns. All safely expressed from inside his own house, where I’ve always existed as a footnote. A secret. Convenient. Easy to misplace.

That’s when I knew the problem wasn’t the writing.
It was the reflection.

If I were to do it again, I’d do it differently. Not softer. Cleaner. More precise. Less mosquito. More blade.

Harvey Specter once spoke about the gap between where a person is and where they believe they are. Not horizontal. Vertical. The kind you fall from, not cross. That’s the gap that matters. That’s the one no amount of money can flatten.

I’ve known many versions of him. The current one is all empire. Scale. Numbers. Expansion. Growth is his personality. If he could stir his morning tea with enough confidence, it would be a case study by noon.

And to be fair, it’s impressive. Truly. From nothing to something to more-than-enough. The arc is clean. The hustle undeniable. Professionally, he earned every rung.

Emotionally, however, the ladder never arrived.

Emotional Illiteracy Is Very Efficient

Tell him your father threw a chair and he’ll ask what you did wrong. Not because he’s cruel. Because feelings don’t fit his dashboard. There’s no space for mess. No tolerance for pause. Conversations turn into transactions. So I learned to zip it. Once. Twice. A hundred million times.

Money became the warmth he missed as a child. It’s a very efficient blanket. Heavy. Expensive. Reassuring. And when that fails, there’s scaffolding.

Ah yes. The scaffolding.

Family holding the walls.
Culture holding the family.
Patriarchy holding the remote, the money, and the final word.

Remove one beam and the structure starts making those small, nervous noises.
The ones you pretend not to hear.

The gaps.
The pauses where silence does most of the talking.

The need for validation dressed up as legacy, wearing a serious face and expecting applause.

The bald patch clipped over, adjusted, negotiated with. Because some things are easier to manage than admit, especially in daylight.

The belief that identity is what you build, not what you bring.

You wanted to be written about.
I’ve put it on the table.
Salt, lime, and truth.

I wrote.
Now don’t ask why it’s spicy.