While I took Richard Selig’s delicate disengagement (“I am not that way, but I appreciate your love and love you too, in my own way”) without feeling rebuffed or brokenhearted, Mel’s almost disgusted rejection affected me deeply, depriving me (so I felt) of all hope of a real love life, driving me inwards and downwards to seek whatever satisfactions I could find with drug-fueled fantasy and pleasure.