The poetics of shared delusion

& feeling creepy at Disneyland Paris

Last month, I took myself to Disneyland, and I’ve never felt like more of a creep.

No, I’m not a Disney Adult, but I think that was part of the problem. Disney Adults come with context; you see them with custom Mickey ears and a lanyard of pins, charging toward an obscure corner of the park to engage in some piece of hidden lore. And you’re like “ok I get it.”

But you see me in my New Balance sneakers, wandering aimlessly with nothing but a plastic water bottle, and you’re like, “Honey, hold Mommy’s hand.” Disney Adults aren’t creepy. Adults at Disney are.

I went to engage in the nostalgia of “family vacations past.” But it turns out that as a single rider, that means crashing “family vacations present.”

I passed one ride just as it opened, so I slipped into line without questioning it. They funneled me into a cart with the only other people in line, a family of four with two toddlers. It turned out we would be taking a jaunt through Snow White’s enchanted forest. Together.

“Oh did your family want to pay a visit to the seven dwarves? Meet the millennial woman who will be accompanying you! And smile for the camera at the end. This stranger will be in the family photo you pass down for centuries!”

“It’s a Small World” with yet another family

This was not my first “creep” offense of the day. I’d started at Super Space Mountain, a souped-up version of the Orlando one that does flips and corkscrews in complete darkness.

I knew if I had too much time to read about it, I wouldn’t ride it. For one, rides with flips make my eyes go black. And two, I’m not a fan of the dark. If I don’t crack my blackout blinds, I sit up at 4 am, panicked I’ve gone blind in my sleep.

Lucky for me, the line moved quickly, so I was strapped in before I realized what was happening. And before I realized there was a steady stream of water trickling down my ass.

As it turned out, the aforementioned plastic water bottle (entirely full) was leaking from my bag. By the time the ride was over, I was sitting in a puddle.

I weighed my options. It felt like my civic duty to try to mop up the seat, but that would draw attention. I could try to explain to the next rider, but “Don’t worry, this mystery liquid is definitely not pee!” seemed unconvincing.

I went for a middle ground and gave it one single swipe, like some deep lore post-ride ritual. Then I ran.

Delusion, party of two

In the end, I had a lovely day, but there was something unnatural about it. I’ve been a lot of places solo—restaurants, museums, the ballet. But aside from the occasional applause or asking for the check, none of them invites you into a kind of role play. There’s no responding to a character or counting down to takeoff on a spaceship ride. In essence, you’re never asked to engage in the delusion.

It feels a bit like baking cookies for Santa. You can do it with kids. You can even do it with another adult in a campy kind of way, to “keep the magic alive.” But baking them by yourself? It’s like, who is she trying to fool? Maybe some delusions need a party of two or more.

The beauty of specificity

It wasn’t just about delusion, though. It was also about the spontaneity and specificity that comes from sharing an experience with someone else.

Think of comedy shows, karaoke bars, escape rooms. Sure, there’s an activity, but the activity itself is secondary to the fact that you’re sharing it with someone; it has to pass through that layer of sharing in order to complete the loop. You don’t go to an escape room solo, so the workers can watch on the security camera as you puzzle your way out of an ancient temple.

And we remember in specifics. I don’t reminisce about going to a karaoke bar in college; I reminisce about when my friend Alex sang “Watch Me (Whip / Nae Nae)” in a deadpan, hands at his sides, without any of the associated dance moves.

That family of four won’t say “remember the time we went to Disneyland?” They’ll say “remember that random woman with the soggy pants?”

Having a coke with you

Frank O’Hara once wrote a poem to his lover that gets at this. It starts, “Having a Coke with You / is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne,” stringing together a host of highly specific references, like “partly because of your love for yoghurt.”

Some people dislike its specificity, saying it feels like a poem meant only for the two of them. But personally, I like that I feel like an outsider when I read it. I find the specificity actually gives it a universality. Sure, if it were written to me, “yoghurt” would be swapped for “pistachios” or “Bayonne” for “Paris.” The details would change, but there would be details. So many details.

This is what my Disney trip was missing most: someone to share, firsthand, in the making of these odd and specific memories.

O’Hara ends the poem by implying that sharing small moments with his lover is more beautiful than art itself—a big claim for an art critic.

He writes, “and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them / when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank?”

Or, I might add, to stand at Space Mountain, as she exited the ride with pants dripping?