Conspiracy masqueraded as my deeply supportive friend, but in truth, he was a brutal, confidence-destroying critic. I accepted 90 percent of what he said as true, even when he attacked the one area where I was truly most vulnerable: my incipient acting career.
By the time I reached my senior year at Yale, I knew that I wanted to be an actress more than I wanted anything else in life. But my confidence had already taken a beating.
In freshman and sophomore years, I had appeared in various plays around campus and had gotten a lot of positive feedback regarding my stage presence and level of talent.
But I'd tried and failed to become a beauty queen the summer between sophomore and junior year, my first get-noticed-quick scheme. I'd hoped to use the notoriety and prize money to launch myself in the industry, so I could justify quitting school. It hadn't worked and here I was, still trudging grudgingly through Yale.
The beauty-pageant fiasco had broken my spirit to the point that I didn't do any theater my entire junior year at Yale. Meanwhile, an acquaintance of mine from my brief foray into the pageant world had just been crowned Miss USA, and her face was everywhere. While my invisible one was still bent over textbooks.
My senior year, after the life-changing voice workshop, I went out for theater full force.
My first stop was a community-theater production of Raisin in the Sun. Despite being 21 years old, I wasn't cast as Beneatha, the feisty, ambitious college student. I was cast as 30-something Ruth, the worn out wife and mother who was becoming "a settled woman" before her time. I did my best to apply the lessons I'd learned in my scene-study class, but I had no idea how to approach the character and bring her to life.
Conspiracy took it upon himself to "support" me by attending rehearsal a few days before opening night. The next morning, he proceeded to tell me, while I cried into my bowl of cereal, how completely horrible I was. He went on and on about how emotionless and expressionless I was, how I gave nothing on stage, how I came across as a college student who was focusing on her technique.
He took affront at my tearful, "ungrateful" response. He was being a friend – a friend should tell you how bad you are, not just stroke your ego.
I didn't need a friendly assessment that I was terrible. I knew I was terrible every time I went on stage, hearing the audience fidget and cough as I and my equally inexperienced castmates made a complete mess of one of the most beautiful plays ever written.
And it was into this unhappy, "supportive" vibe that a guy my own age entered the picture, just as my love for Conspiracy was starting to dry up, like a raisin in the sun.
