I Am Not Robert Pattinson

Should your presence here be accidental, an errant index finger poised upon a mouse and ravenous for other Roberts—glamorous Roberts: Robert Downy Jr., Redford, or De Niro kinds of Roberts, I beg you, do not go just yet. I have gone to bother; I showered and shaved my face. Tidied my nails, smoothing all the rough edges. Fresh socks and undershirt. Good smelling and on the ready to write for you. So, linger. Allow me this opportunity to woo you.

If you were prowling for those better Roberts, I understand your apprehension with staying. Perhaps you might feel greater at ease if I establish from the upstart that I am a gentle and sensitive and earnest sort of Robert.

Should you find honesty irresistible, then know this: my intentions here are selfish ones, ploys to beguile you into adoring me. To leave you breathless and desperate and coming back here for more of me. To tantalize you into purchasing my sensational, debut novel, The Cicada Tree (available January 21, 2022).

No, don’t go! Do not abandon me just yet. Perhaps my confession has left you feeling betrayed. Maybe you feel my attentiveness is a mere matter of commerce. But this is not the case. Ours can be a venture of symbiosis, each of us contributing to the other. I promise to peck out peculiar but fascinating ramblings, and you just might feel compelled on occasion to read them.

I know. I know. I am not Robert Pattinson, but allow me to share something of myself, a complimentary token for your time. I have not always been a shameless make of Robert, a relentless creature of self-promotion, peddler of my own literary wares.

But a thing I confess to having always been: a storyteller. From the beginning, I scrawled stories in the playground sand of my childhood imagination, surviving those early, sprouting years in Cairo Georgia by constructing a play-pretend self. A world within which I possessed extraordinary talents—gifts I couldn’t share with others. Fantasies assuaging the one truth I felt I must conceal with urgency beyond all others. That I was and am gay, a fact I celebrate today—a glorious circumstance shaping my world view and my voice as a writer.

Ahh, just now, I detect a catch in your breath. Have I managed to capture your attention with this talk of childhood and lonesomeness? Perhaps we share things in common. I suspect you are an avid reader, just as I am—a commonality which wields power to kindle friendships, build civilizations, and end wars. See, already we have united for common good, an admirable endeavor, I think.

So here we are, smack dab in the middle of our beginning, and I worry that I might make mistakes. You are forgiving, I think, because you are still reading. There still might be a chance for us just yet.  

I am hopeful you will return again, next time with intention—a deliberate glide and click of finger across the internet amidst a universe of distraction, across a star-smattered celestial plain passing by all other Roberts.

In your heart, you will pity me just a smidge. He is not Robert Pattinson, you will think to yourself. And I will harbor no resentment, because he, that other Robert, lead you here to me.