To all the Michael J Fox’s:

I love you. I mean, I love you each individually, not as a collective group. I’ve only lumped you in a group because I realized a few short days ago that there is one common attribute relative to my feelings toward you: your euphoric charisma.

I’m a sucker for it, look at me. I’ve fallen for enough of you that not only can I put you in a group, but I can confidently title the group. To be fair, I could be addressing this confession to all the Jason Mraz’s out there, but biologically Michael J Fox came first. To me, he is the original. And the forerunner of charisma must be properly respected.

But now that I’ve got you all together and it’s all out in the open, I find I must confess the issue with my love. You see, I’m not the one for you. Any of you. As much as your charisma sways me, as much as I admire the look on your face when you’re reciting scripted lines, as much as I want to hug you every time you do a back flip or jump onto the kitchen counter, as much as my heart seeps red hot blood through my veins each time you say something singularly to me, I’m not right for you.

And I know you expect me to say “It’s not you, it’s me; I shouldn’t keep barking up the wrong tree,” but that would be a lie. It is you. You ARE the issue. You see, one of the contributing factors to your euphoric charisma is that each of you is a performer. And whether filtered by screen or delivered live directly to my face, you know I’m absorbing you—I’m taking it in like crazy. And you play to it. I’m not right for you because I’m a different performer than you. I don’t analyze my surroundings and react in an appropriate way. I pretend to. But really I invest in my surroundings and place the upmost confidence in my judgment, forgetting there are souls like you that will bend the surroundings.

You do realize you bring this upon yourself, of course. It’s the winking, the leaning in to whisper, the letting your arm linger at my side or holding my hand too long. It’s the singing my name and the secret eye contact and the fact that you just stick around.

As much as I claim to be mature and highly trained, my biology is not willing to shut down when you, the Michael J Fox’s, come around. Maybe if you weren’t so fit and beautiful my hormones could be still long enough for my mind to compute that the thing I love most about you is the very thing that would inevitably keep us apart: your euphoric charisma.