The Glitter Is Blinding

The glitter is blinding if you don’t know how to squint.

That was the first thing I learned about Troy.

He wasn’t the kind of man you stumbled into casually. He was the kind of man who looked at you the way you always wanted to be looked at—as if you were the most fascinating, most beautiful creature in the room. It was the same quality Nick Carraway noticed when he first described Gatsby’s smile: “It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself…”

That was Troy’s gift.

And it took me a long time to understand the cost of it.

We’d actually known each other for years—flirty, casual gym friends. A smile here, a little banter there. Nothing serious. Nothing that ever seemed like it could become more. For a long time he was just the impossibly handsome man I’d notice across the weight room—the kind of handsome that felt almost unfair, like Rob Lowe in his midlife prime. Eye candy. Atmosphere. Background sparkle.

It wasn’t until Caleb and I opened our marriage that Troy truly entered the frame. And conveniently, it was the same season he had just broken up with Natalia—his beautiful, impossibly glamorous Slavic girlfriend. Suddenly the timing aligned. Suddenly the possibility was there.

By then, I’d had a few flings—contained adventures that scratched curiosity without piercing too deep. Troy was different. He was the first man I truly fell in love with while still being married. My first significant extracurricular relationship. The first one that asked me to hold two emotional realities at once.

When I finally told him I was interested, I framed it in the only way I thought might make sense: I don’t want to get married. I don’t want more kids. I already have a full life of my own. I just want… something else.

Not an escape from my life, but an escape within it. A shimmering side door into indulgence. The chance to be swept up in the sparkle.

And Troy had sparkle in spades. Front-row tickets to the best shows. The kind of restaurant seating you couldn’t normally buy your way into. Flights that were always first class, never coach. He lived in a world where extravagance wasn’t a reward—it was infrastructure. Glitter was his native language. He knew how to create moments that felt cinematic, elevated, chosen.

But glitter isn’t gold.

And on some level, I always knew that.

That was my advantage—or so I thought. I knew how to squint. I could enjoy the shine without confusing it for stability. I understood the difference between intensity and reliability. I told myself I could stay awake inside the fantasy.

Most of the time.

But not always.

There were moments—especially in darker seasons—when I stopped squinting. When I wanted the gestures to mean more than they did. When I let performance masquerade as intimacy. When I mistook attunement in the moment for the capacity to hold truth over time.

That’s the danger of men like Troy.

Not that they lie outright—but that they curate reality.

They love fiercely in the present tense.

They create devotion without responsibility.

They invite women into brilliance, then quietly rely on those women to absorb the fallout.

I didn’t see the system yet.

I only felt the pull.

And when I let myself believe the glitter could carry weight—when I let it feel like salvation—it nearly cost me everything. My marriage. My home. The steady, grounded love I had built with Caleb.

Because glitter has mass.

And when it collapses, someone always gets crushed.

That was the curse of Troy’s gift: he could make you feel singular, extraordinary, chosen—without ever choosing accountability. Without carrying consequence. Without staying when the story required more than charm.

The glitter was blinding.

And even knowing how to squint, sometimes

I looked straight into it anyway.