Better Man

An excerpt from the new psychedelic travel memoir Higher Love by Anne Kiehl Friedman

Anne Kiehl Friedman, author of psychedel travel memoir Higher Love

Washington, DC

March 2011

Substances ingested: strawberry mimosas and a toke or two

Society sets up getting married and having kids as the two most important things a woman can do with her life, and I wanted them at least as much as I was told I should. Nearing thirty, having had boyfriends but never really being in love, going to friends’ weddings practically every weekend, constantly alone, dodging calls because I didn’t want to hear another pregnancy announcement… I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Why everyone else seemed to slide so easily into a loving union and I was forced to learn to sunscreen my own back.

If I were good enough, I thought that would put me beyond criticism, keep me safe and get me loved. Not consciously, but intractably. Consciously, I knew “perfect” was a capitalistic, patriarchal lie to keep women spending billions of dollars to prop up the global economy on women’s insecurity. But even seeing behind the rhetorical veil, I still wanted nothing more than the insulation, security, and self-worth I thought came with being chosen. Because little girls are taught to want to be chosen. I hadn’t been chosen yet, so I needed to work on being more perfect.

Walking down Connecticut Avenue on one of those rare, perfect spring days in DC, when all the crocuses are blooming before summer’s humidity hits, I knew this would be my last date for a while. Not because David2828 looked especially promising on his profile or that he’d wowed me in the chats we exchanged trying to set up this brunch, but because I was thoroughly burnt out from the searing mediocrity—and occasional horrors—of online dating. I was only going out with David because I’d already agreed to it and didn’t want to flake. My ambivalence slowed my departure and I was running twenty minutes late. I’d apologized via text but still felt bad about it when I opened the door to Kramer’s, a bookstore and restaurant in Dupont Circle that was my go-to for first dates.

Flinging the door open, I heard “David, your table is ready,” announced as I almost collided with a man perusing books at the entrance. He was my height, or a little shorter, but solid like a brick wall, wearing jeans and a loose flannel. Our eyes met momentarily—his blue and even more intensely so set against his tan. To my automatic question on first impressions of first dates, Can I see myself ever wanting to have sex with him? I thought, Yeah, maybe.

“Oh, are you David?” I asked as we both moved toward the hostess stand.

“Yeah, Anne?” He asked, pronouncing my name the way it’s spelled.

“Yeah, but it’s actually pronounced ‘Annie.’”

“I like that,” he said, but the way he smiled made me think he liked more than my name. I hadn’t worn any makeup because I wasn’t expecting much from this date, and it was 11:23 a.m. on a Sunday, the most unsexy time ever that can still, acceptably, be suggested for a date. I was wearing a button-down shirt dress I bought at Goodwill and my favorite pair of Steve Madden boots, legs shaved below the knee. I felt myself flush under his gaze, self-conscious that I hadn’t tried harder, and tentatively excited that he didn’t seem to want more.

“What did you pick out?” I asked after we were seated, gesturing at the bag in his hand.

“Another copy of a favorite. Have you read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss?”

“No, is it good?” I asked out of habit, liking the cover and him for choosing a book by a woman author.

“Here, I guess it was for you.” He said, sliding his recently purchased copy across the table. “I only shop at independent bookstores and I try to buy something every time I come in.” I was smitten before the bread basket arrived.

He took me to his immaculately decorated, three-bedroom rental home in the Maryland suburb, Bethesda. Painted white, sandwiched between equally charming houses that had kids’ toys forgotten in the yard, his had a screened-in porch and a dining room table for six.

The other dudes I’d dated had roommates, mattresses on the floor, and the haunting scent of mildew on their sheets.

David was different. He struck me as a man. He knew what he wanted and went after it, built things with his hands, drove a stick shift like he was born knowing how. He opened doors and reached for the check. He had all the symbols society taught me to look for and want. Sipping a glass of wine, sitting in one of his matching dining chairs watching him chop shallots for the trout cassoulet he was preparing, made me feel grown-up. I wasn’t an aimless 27-year-old doing my best impression of adulthood anymore. He treated me like I was special, and I felt special because chose me.

Over the evening, I learned his family was Jewish and historically prominent. His grandfather was a builder who made a lot of money in real estate (enough to buy an NFL team) but lost the bulk to a combination of betrayal, lousy luck, and generous giving. He would be honored with the Humanitarian Award by some nonprofit next month, and without hesitation, David invited me to be his date.

Coming from money was usually something I tried to hide because I saw it as a personal moral failing, but David’s background made me feel comfortable sharing.

My dad’s side of the family was Jewish and historically prominent, too, because Levi Strauss was an ancestor far back and off to the side of my dad’s family tree. He’d lived generations upon generations ago, but that legacy meant I was born with a lot of privilege and even more guilt.

Perversely, being born with a trust fund (small by comparison with the 1% or anyone who flies private, but massive by comparison with the billions who suffer food insecurity and worse) had always made me feel horrible about myself. I grew up in a very politically active household. Discussions of how the tax code is rigged against poor people and how laws against abortion only apply to those who can’t afford a plane ticket to Japan were commonplace dinnertime conversations. My parents saw it as their responsibility to make me aware of injustice, so I would grow up to do something about it.

From as early as I can remember, I knew I didn’t do anything to deserve having more than I needed when others didn’t have enough. I thought if I were really a good person, I would give it all away. But I didn’t. I remember crying the night before my 12^th birthday because I was getting so old and hadn’t done anything meaningful to end homelessness. Money became a source of shame for me. It was proof that I was a bad person, that I hadn’t worked for what I had, that if the world were fair, I wouldn’t even exist. Anything I achieved, I drew a straight line back to the lucky accident of the zip code of my birth.

Love would be the only exception. Soulmates don’t choose each other based on a résumé. If someone loved me, it wouldn’t be because I had fancy people signing my recommendation letters. If someone—someone good with lots of options—chose me as his life partner, finally, I’d know I was valuable and worth loving. Someone wanting to marry and make babies with me was the one thing I thought would justify my existence.

Quickly after we started dating, I was spending every night with David. He asked me to move in with him on our fifth date, which sounds more dramatic than it was because all I needed to do was transfer two suitcases from the guest bedroom of my friend’s house to the empty dresser in David’s extra bedroom. The first morning after he and I had sex, I woke up bleary-eyed and disheveled, self-conscious of my morning breath, and worried that he wouldn’t want me now that he’d had me.

“Good morning, little bear,” he said as he nuzzled into my neck, giving me sweet kisses all over my face. He rolled three things I hated about myself—my hairiness, my irritability, and my intimidating size—into an endearment that made me feel cute instead. I fell in love with him and the nickname at the same time.

We’d been dating for just shy of two months when he flew out to join me in Hawaii for a vacation I’d scheduled before we met. On our third day, we went for a swim in the ocean to a private cove. Small waves crashed into smooth black stones as I lay with my eyes closed, soaking up the sun, David next to me. The rocks shifted as he turned onto his side, facing me, and I opened my eyes when he started talking because he didn’t usually sound so earnest. He said, “I know you’ve worried about being perfect enough to be loved. I want this ring to be a symbol—proof—that you are, and that I will love you forever.” There were rainbows on his face and scattered across his chest. I looked down to find the source of the refraction, expecting to find a broken sunglass lens or bottle top, but he was holding a ring. A diamond ring. A big diamond ring. I thought he’d found it on the beach and started scanning the ground for other pieces of expensive lost jewelry.

“Anytime you get insecure, I want you to be able to look down at your left hand and know that you are perfect.”

The ring was for me. He was proposing to me.

Fixating on that sparkling solitaire that symbolized so much, I didn’t think about the fact that he’d been married and divorced before. I didn’t think about what he must have said to her when he’d proposed and that it probably wasn’t that different from what he had just said to me. I did not think about how any relationship predicated upon someone’s perfection was fundamentally doomed. I didn’t even think about the fact that I barely knew him. I just ate up his declarations of love and perfection like I was starved for them. Because I was.

With his proposal, David told me that I had achieved the impossible. His proposal meant that I had been wrong every time I had felt unlovable for myriad reasons: too fat, too ugly, too stupid, too smart, too tall, too hairy, too messy, too demanding, too needy, too pedantic, too prone to list-making. David wanted me on his arm, for life, because he thought it—I—made him look good. He chose me, and therefore I was worthwhile. I could mold myself around him, filling the gaps, taking up the space around his preferences and idiosyncrasies. It wasn’t the feminist, agentic, multifaceted existence I’d fight for anyone else to have, but seeing myself as one-half of a pair of soul mates made me feel like I’d finally found my place.

David was very clear about who he wanted me to be and I gravitated toward that certainty. With him, I didn’t need to worry about figuring out my future because he would. I didn’t need to worry that I’d die old and alone, undesired, undesirable, unloved, unlovable. The intensity of feelings I couldn’t name and had never felt before overwhelmed me and I sobbed. He held me and I kissed him desperately, gratefully. I extended my left hand; he slipped the ring on my finger. We made love on the rocks, our feet in the waves. It was the “happily ever after” of fairytales. When we swam back to the beach, I kept my left hand clenched in the tightest fist I’d ever made, terrified of letting go.

Reprinted with permission from Higher Love: A Psychedelic Travel Memoir of Heartbreak and Healing.

Anne Kiehl Friedman is a multifaceted scholar, author, and entrepreneur. Graduating with honors from Stanford University, she obtained her MBA from ESADE University in Spain, and was ordained as a Reverend and Interfaith Minister after attending seminary at the Berkeley Chaplaincy Institute.

Anne's professional journey started as a speechwriter/ghostwriter for political personalities, evolved into general communications guidance for non-profits, and has been marked by advocacy throughout.

In 2022, Anne co-founded the Psychedelic Communications Hub, a pioneering initiative aimed at educating the public about the therapeutic potential and risks associated with psychedelic use. Her commitment to fostering understanding and empathy shines through in her work, making her a trusted voice in both academic and public spheres. Higher Love is her first book.