Most people expect to be admired a few times in their lives, by a lover, a friend, a teacher, or even a stranger. A passing compliment. A kind glance. But what happens when admiration doesn’t pass? When it roots into fixation? When someone decides they know you, need you, or worse—own some piece of your being? I’ve spent some amount of time sidestepping shadows like these.
To the outside world, they might look like admirers, or enthusiastic supporters. But I’ve known the difference. The way a glance lingers too long. The way interest skips the getting-to-know-you phase and goes straight to possession. These aren’t friends. They aren’t companions. They’re fanatics, drawn not to me, but to the idea of me. They want something I can never give: permission to remain in orbit.
And so I’ve learned to move quietly and decisively. I never entertain obsession. I never feed it with explanations. There’s no conversation, no closure, no middle ground. I let the obsession burn itself out, because it always does, eventually. There’s a way to disappear without vanishing. Silence and clarity are a kind of shield. I don’t stoke the fire. I let it pass.
Nox was one of them, a little one. Not dangerous, but familiar. The same pattern of reach, control, and veiled entitlement. The charm, the intensity, the story-flavoured texts. It felt more like fiction than friendship. So I’ve taken him to the page.
Because sometimes, the only place to safely explore these encounters is in fiction. And in Quadrant City Noir, I finally let myself ask the questions I never could in real life: What if one of these fixations didn’t go away? What if it escalated? What if the smile hid something far colder?
The noir genre is perfect for this kind of excavation. It’s a world of shadows and split truths, of people who say one thing but mean another. And in that fog-drenched city I’m writing, I’ve given myself a kind of permission. To play out the tension. To let the unease bloom into something visible. To give the detective in the story a chance to do what most women in real life cannot—investigate obsession and name it for what it is.
I think a lot of us are managing these experiences quietly. We delete the messages. Block the number. Change the locks. We call it “being cautious,” but it’s a kind of grief, too. Because obsession masquerades as affection. And for a while, it almost looks like the thing we’ve always wanted: someone paying attention.
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