Mugabe Victor
Have you ever been surrounded by family, classmates, colleagues or acquaintances and yet still felt disconnected? There’s a certain beauty to one’s awareness of how alone they are. The constant nag at the back of your mind that grinds at your psyche, the deep silence after your jokes all say one thing… No Body Cares.
At the time of writing Dear Darling, I was facing a conundrum. I used to wake up and send a “good morning” text to an OnlyFans model. We will call her Veronica for the sake of our story. Veronica was a goth pixie girl who claimed to be in search for money to complete her medical school. She loved film, art, and the occasional hip-hop. Veronica was always quick to respond to a text. She was curious about my interests. She lol-ed at my jokes and played along to any absurdity that came up in our conversations.
Did I care that she was probably doing this with 50 other strangers? Not really.
Did I care that she might have been a lonely 50 year old man in a basement looking for some spare change? A little.
Did I care that she posted a video where some huge tattooed, muscled, hairy man railed her? Yes, I did.
What I am trying to say is that I wasn’t really there for the content. I believe I was there for the connection. I told her about my day, sent her funny memes, raged about shitty films and we checked on each other from time to time.
Looking back now, I did not realize how lonely I was.
The strange thing about loneliness is that it doesn’t arrive when you are physically alone. It will sometimes find you in crowded room, busy workplaces or in the middle of your active social life. You can be surrounded by people and yet still fell unseen. You can have thousands of contacts in your phone and still have no one you feel comfortable texting at 7 a.m. just to say hello.
For a while there, my chats with Veronica filled that gap, until, the gods of the Tiktok algorithm pointed me towards a particular celebrity. Pretty girl in her late twenties. In my imaginary canon event, she seemed to have given up on life while clenching at the last straws by the river bed. You know, the type of plastic surgery Instagram model who’s constantly fishing for likes and accolades. Her words, “Men are so lonely. They pay me to tell them that I love them. These men are so horrible and disgusting that everyone in their lives is avoiding them.”
I felt called out at the time. My thought? I, Victor, this beautiful specimen, Adonis and work of art was too pretentious, beautiful and nice, to the extent that no one wanted to be around them. It sucked. Truth is I could not trust anyone to see the real me either.
Thus the origin of Darling. The voice at the back of your head. The one person in this world who knows you. It was ironic at the time. The only person strong enough to stomach the nakedness of your nature was you.
It opened up a whole new perspective of mind.
If people you knew were not drawn to this filtered down version of yourself, FUCK IT. I will just be myself and they can sort themselves out. A sentiment that slowly grew when I found my crowd. Pursuing the arts seriously shifted something in me. Pursuing something I liked led me to meeting people who cared about the same things you cared about. Filmmakers, writers, musicians, poets and dreamers who were broken as I was, wowed and understood why I spent hours obsessing over a story, scene or line of dialogue.
Growing up, I now see that loneliness isn’t something always solved by finding more people. Sometimes it is solved by finding the right people. The people who speak your language, understand your passions, and with whom you do not have to explain why something matters.
Today I think about that period of my life, and I do not feel embarrassed any more. If anything, I feel grateful. It taught me something important about being human. The desire to be loved even in your nakedness. We all want to be known. We all want someone to laugh at that meme we sent. We all want someone who notices when we are missing. And sometimes the search for connection leads us down unusual paths before it leads us home. Looking back, I wonder how much of Dear Darling was me trying to understand loneliness before I had the language for it.
I am grateful to all the people in my life now. I hope to bring you as much joy as you bring me.
BY VICTOR MUGABE
(Writer and Director of Short Film, Dear Darling)
“This article is part of a series exploring the themes behind my upcoming short film, Dear Darling.”
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