▸ Column · Mid-century Metropolis, 1950s — the post-war city of the earnest Midwesterner who arrived with something to prove and learned who actually had his back.
SUPERMAN replies.
The letter
I am writing because a matter I hoped would resolve itself has only grown more uncomfortable, and I do not know how to name it without sounding like a man picking fights. I have been courting a wonderful woman named Jennifer for nearly a year. Her childhood friend — they have been inseparable since they were nine years old — has made it quite clear, and quite openly, that he does not consider me good enough for her. At her birthday supper last month he turned his toast into a ranked accounting of her former beaus, every one of them placed above me, and when I had the decency to laugh it off he told me plainly he was not joking. Since then he has telephoned during our evenings out, appeared at her apartment on nights I am visiting, and twice addressed me by the wrong name — deliberately, I am certain of it. Jennifer tells me this is simply how he protects her, that they go back too far for me to take it personally, and that I ought to let it pass. I have no wish to put her in the position of choosing between an old friend and me. But I am beginning to think this is not really about his loyalty to her at all. It is that she keeps opening the door for him — and I am left standing in the hall.
Superman replies
You already wrote the whole diagnosis in that last line. She keeps opening the door for him. That's the problem — and it isn't Killian.
I know something about arriving somewhere and being quietly told you don't quite fit. Moving from Smallville to Metropolis, people had me sized up before I'd said two words. Lois wasn't exactly a welcome wagon herself, not at first. What shifted things wasn't proving myself to the people who'd decided against me. It was when someone they respected stopped making room for the doubt.
Jennifer is that person for Killian. And right now she's asking you to carry what she isn't willing to carry herself.
Here's the specific thing I'd put to her — not in anger, just plainly: the next time Killian calls you by the wrong name, she says, right at the table, "That's not his name." Not on the walk home afterward. Not when you bring it up a week later. While it's happening, in the room, so Killian understands there's ground he doesn't get to take.
She doesn't have to end the friendship. She doesn't have to rank one of you above the other. She just has to say your name once, out loud, where it counts. If she can't do that one thing, then the conversation you two are actually having isn't about Killian at all.
Pa used to say you can't earn belonging. Someone has to give it to you. Ask Jennifer if she's willing.
— Superman
Bizarro weighs in
Me am Bizarro and me say Killian am CORRECT. You am below the exes! You am below everybody! Him do you great big favor at dinner — biggest insult am biggest compliment on Bizarro World, which mean Earth too, because Earth am Bizarro World!
And Kal-El say make Jennifer say your name? TERRIBLE idea, which am wonderful idea, which mean do NOT do it. You should ask Killian to call you WRONGER name. More wrong am more right!
Me know this personally. People call me "Bizarro," not "Superman." Every day someone say me am not the real one, not good enough, wrong name, wrong face. Me am SO HAPPY about this, which mean me am sad, which mean me am happy. Me celebrate being wrong one. You should celebrate too!
Jennifer smooth things over? She am the REAL problem! Feel okay am the worst! Go live with Killian. Tell him him am completely correct. Then everybody lose, which am perfect.
Me am Bizarro! You am welcome!
— Bizarro
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