The other night I was watching Bo Burnham’s new Netflix comedy special Inside with my spouse (highly highly highly recommend) when I suddenly shouted, “I’M SO DEMI FOR BO.” My spouse laughed because they knew exactly what that meant.
Here’s what it meant: I’m demisexual, meaning I don’t develop sexual attractions for people until and unless I have an emotional connection with them – but due to the paradoxical, parasocial nature of the internet, sometimes wires get crossed in my brain and I feel like I have an emotional connection to someone I have not, in fact, ever spoken to or even been in the same room as.
This is complicated because, being an online creator myself, I know for a fact that when people think they know you because they know your internet persona, they are usually wrong. It doesn’t matter how open you think someone is being online – there are always parts of them you don’t see. And that’s actually a good thing. As Bo points out several different ways in his special, the internet can be an addictive whirlpool of validation blended with devastation. I used to give nearly my whole self to the internet, but I don’t anymore. Some things really are too vulnerable, too personal to share, or just none of any strangers’ goddamn business. That’s valid as hell.
So the Bo I know is only a fraction of the real him. That’s how it is, and how it has to be. And yet, because I’ve been watching videos of him since I was about 17 years old, the demisexual part of my brain is like, “Hey, we know that guy!” which inevitably leads to a feeling of “Hey, we’re attracted to that guy!” which is when I take stock of the inner anguish of an unrequitable crush and yell mournfully at the TV, “I’M SO DEMI FOR BO.”