“Obsession is the result of an inability to solve a problem.” -her client

She had a photoshoot this summer and was looking forward to the pictures. Strangely, the photographer disappeared after the shoot. No reply to her emails. Radio silence. This was her 5th photoshoot with him. She was worried about him and found his social media profiles, turns out he was alive and well. Radio silence is unnerving because you just don’t know what the other person is thinking. Why did he cut me off? Was it something I said? Was it because I kept him there an hour longer than planned? Did he feel that I was disrespectful of his time? Why didn’t he say anything? Was he feeling guilty about erotic photography, a genre designed to lure men into temptation? The “why” drove her crazy.

She couldn’t tell her mother, her father, her aunt or her grandmother. She couldn’t tell her friends. She couldn’t tell anyone. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she asked her Chinese tutor a question: so A hires B to rob a bank with him and pays him upfront, but B doesn’t show up for the robbery and disappears. A can’t take B to court, that’s horrible right? “Mute man eat huanglian,” the tutor answered in English haha. The tutor taught her a Chinese proverb that describes this situation: it’s about a guy who eats bitter stuff (not sure if he was duped into eating it or just wanted to try it), it tastes horrible but he can’t tell anyone because he can’t talk, so he suffers in silence. She also found online discussion forums about wedding photographers who disappeared after the wedding, wow. These stories made her feel worse. Nothing helped. The radio silence made her miserable.

Finally, her client said something that snapped her out of it. “You probably don’t realize this: you talk about this every time, all the time. You are obsessed with it and obsession is not attractive. I don’t mind, but you can’t be like this around your other clients. Obsession is the result of an inability to solve a problem. Your photographer was unprofessional. I can’t make him give the pictures to you, I wish I could. I know you are suffering. This is affecting you. I am giving you money for a new photoshoot. See if it makes you feel better.” She asked him to repeat what he said so she could write it down. When she gets anxious or overwhelmed she needs time to think about things. When he was done repeating it and she was done writing it down on the hotel notepad, she thanked him. What if the new photographer disappears too, she asked. No, he said, statistically unlikely.

The new photoshoot did cure her obsession. Her new photographer was super talented. When he took some pictures of her to test the lighting and showed her, she was impressed and asked him to extend the session. When she got the preview, the knot in her gut that had been there for weeks went poof. When she got the pictures, she was feeling like her old self again. It was like a fever that passed. 

Moral of the story? Not sure. There is one thing she is 100% sure about: in the distant future, the day she says “I do,” the day she promises one man to fuck him and him alone for the rest of her days, she will hire TWO wedding photographers to make sure she gets the pictures.