175. hellion

Going into Monday after a hectic weekend is never a great way to start the week.

This Saturday I was the best man in my friends Beckie and Mike’s wedding. Overall, it was one of the more low-key affairs I’ve attended and been a part of. It was maybe ten minutes long. The bride wore blue (almost TARDIS blue!), her brother officiated, and the wedding processionals were both songs by Christina Aguilera that I arranged for two violins.

The reception was also low-key and started about an hour after the wedding, with an open bar and beautiful weather for sitting outside while we waited. Per tradition, I delivered the opening toast, which ended up being a two-and-a-half page essay that included mentions of the United Nations, evolutionary biology, and an excerpt from The Little Prince (which I’ve quoted on this blog once before). Surprisingly, it was relatively well-received, and the bride has even titled her Facebook photo album from the wedding “The United Nations of Mike and Beckie’s Wedding”!

It was also an emotionally difficult weekend for me to get through, partly because it came barely a month after Jason and I broke up (the bachelor party happened the week of the breakup), and almost everyone was there with their spouses or significant others. Aside from me and the maid of honor, everyone there in the wedding party was coupled. Even the one bridesman was there with his boyfriend Roy, who took all of the wedding photos. So I was constantly being reminded there of how single I am, and of how incompatible I am with most gay men my age, so I came away feeling less confident that I’ll ever find a guy to marry.

Eager to get away to get some emotional room (and so that the middle-aged women wouldn’t keep trying to make me dance with single girls—apparently they didn’t understand what “gay” means), I left the reception early to visit a friend of mine. He’d texted me earlier that evening that only eight people had come to his birthday party, and his husband was out of town, and I needed some cheering up too so it was rather perfectly timed for both of us. I ended up feeling much better for the visit, and we had a great conversation that got me thinking about the qualities I want in a future husband, which I’ll write more about later.

Another element that made the wedding weekend difficult was running into the last person I was expecting or wanting to see—Seth, the guy who broke my heart on my birthday in 2011. Last Wednesday I was attending an LGBT networking event at a local restaurant where Seth is apparently a bartender there—a fact that nobody thought to mention to me. I arrived at the place, and was saying my hellos and ordering a drink when I heard someone say my name. I turned around, and there he was, looking sheepish and slightly surprised himself. I’m not sure what the hell possessed him to speak to me when I’ve made it clear that I want nothing to do with him. Probably the same thoughtlessness that allowed him to intentionally ignore the fact that he knew I was in love with him so that he could keep having sex with me. (Very convenient for him. Not so much for me.)

It was an inevitable moment that I’d been dreading. For its size, the Twin Cities is a relatively small place; and for the gay community, it’s an even smaller world. So that he and I would run into each other, or even possibly date some of the same people, was bound to happen.

My reaction to seeing Seth there was to respond with a curt, “Ah,” quickly turn away, and pretend I’d barely noticed him. It was the same tone I’d used when seeing him a few weeks after my birthday in 2011, when I’d snarled “What the fuck are you doing here?” at him.

I spent the evening ignoring him, which was difficult as he was behind the bar for most of it, often chatting with some of the cuter guys at the event. I found myself wondering how many of their numbers he’d managed to get, and how many of them he’d be fucking soon. Part of me found my jealousy after over two years ridiculous and hilarious, but his presence there made it difficult to concentrate or even think.

When the event started to wind up, I closed my tab and left as quickly as possible. I was about halfway home and at Starbucks when I realized that in my haste I’d left my card. Fortunately, I had my tablet with my Wallet app on it, so I was able to pay for my beverage; but it did mean I’d have to go back. When I got there Seth was on the phone. I walked past him to find someone to ask about my card and was waiting for about a minute to talk to another bartender when Seth walked up with my card and handed it back to me, saying quietly, “Here you go, David.” I had the twin impulses to say something snide and cruel in response, but also to get as far away from him as possible. So I hissed a “thank you,” and virtually ran back to my car.

So that was the Wednesday before the wedding, when I was already feeling lonely and undesirable, and there was Seth, looking handsome and charming as ever.

The theme of my romantic life is that I can never fall in love with anyone who is able to love me in return, and vice versa. And seeing him last week when I was feeling single, miserable and pathetic was another cruel irony of coincidence.

All that loving must’ve been lacking something
if I got bored trying to figure you out.
You let me down. I don’t even like you anymore at all.
– Fiona Apple

 

174. flashforward

So it’s been a rather eventful last couple of weeks for me personally since last I wrote regularly.

My creative nonfiction class is over, and my writing project is slowly starting to emerge from the star nursery of invention. I’m gradually starting to put bits and pieces of my history together as more memories emerge from my childhood and young adult years that I forgot about. So it’s been a useful process.

Many of those memories I buried because they were too unpleasant and turbulent to think about, but it’s good to revisit them now as an adult, with a broader and more knowing perspective. The ultimate goal is to develop about fourteen essays on the themes of survival, acceptance, all around the dual journeys of coming out gay and atheist. From various reactions so far it sounds like a marketable story, but who knows.

Hell, who knows if I’m even good enough of a writer to tackle it…

The other big piece of news is that, as of a month ago today, I’m a single man again. This last relationship lasted for just about eight months. I’m feeling good about the split overall. It was the right decision and call to make, but it was still hard, and I’ve still felt like shit over it.

There were a couple of challenges to the relationship to begin with. One, he lives about an hour north of the Twin Cities, and for most of our relationship he didn’t have a car so every weekend I drove up to see him. He did get a car a few months before we broke up, but there was something wrong with the brakes or something and he didn’t feel safe driving it.

Another challenge was fibromyalgia. In case you’re not familiar, fibromyalgia is widespread chronic pain that’s usually accompanied by fatigue, trouble sleeping, and joint stiffness. During the summer when he was able to spend time outside he was mostly fine, but when any kind of weather shift happened he’d be knocked out flat. So once winter came along he was in a rough state.

As Esther Perel says in the TED Talk below, “There is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is . . . a powerful anti-aphrodisiac. I have yet to see somebody who is so turned on by somebody who needs them. Wanting them is one thing. Needing them is a shutdown.”

I enjoy how she summarized responses she got from people talking about their lovers: “I am most drawn to my partner when I see him in the studio; when she is onstage; when he is in his element; when she’s doing something she’s passionate about; when I see him at a party and other people are really drawn to him; when I see her hold court. Basically, when I look at my partner radiant and confident, [it’s] probably the biggest turn-on across the board.”

With Jay, I so rarely got to see him in his element, or see him passionate about anything. When he was passionate, it was about sustainability or something that had to do with the outdoors or systems thinking. Which is great, but not something that got me excited.

Once we started getting serious, he started talking about marriage and moving in together. (Mind you, this is after about four months. Big red flag.) I was on the fence about whether or not I was ready to commit, but given my attachment issues, I wanted to give our relationship a chance and see if the feelings followed. (They didn’t.) My mistake was not being more honest about that.

When we talked about where we wanted to live, the primary factor he was considering was staying out of the urban circle of the Cities – as close to rural as possible. Since he was the one with fibromyalgia, his needs apparently outweighed mine. His argument was that since I plan to be a writer, I could work from anywhere.

A couple months later he was talking about moving to a dryer, warmer climate. I said that I wasn’t too keen on moving to the middle of nowhere, as it’s in the middle of nowhere and far from culture and resources. He dismissed that, saying that I need to be less reliant on stores and start growing my own food, and that I don’t need culture as much as I think I do.

Aheh.

So I was initially attracted to Jay because of his passion for the environment and the fact that he’s an unabashed nerd and a Whovian, like I am. And he’s an attractive guy. But the more our relationship progressed, the less we really seemed to have in common. There was also the fact that he never really wanted to do anything with my friends, or meet the people in my life who are important to me, even though I’d met most of his friends and family.

My biggest regret is letting it go on for as long as it did, and not listening to myself that it wasn’t the right relationship for either of us. Truth be told, I was afraid of being single again, because this time I’d be single, gay, and thirty. And I didn’t want to be alone.

What it comes down to for me is less about age, and more about the fact that I don’t feel desirable. I feel awkward, crippled by my fundamentalist Christian upbringing, mangled by my inability to flirt with guys I like, and hugely undermined by my brain, which usually makes me feel old and weird around the guys I’ve dated. In reality, they’re probably just not very interesting and consequently not right for me.

I also feel like a failure for still being single at my age. Most of my friends are paired off, and have been with their partners for years. So I wonder what’s wrong with me that I haven’t found someone.

Truth is, I’m just not good with uncertainty. Or being alone with myself.

57. invidiousness part i

… and why I hate Valentine’s Day so much.

Truth be told, it’s because I’ve never been able to take part in it. Or rather, had a positive experience that would refute the notion that it’s anything more than a tawdry, vulgar pseudo-holiday dreamed up by the Marquis de Sade to torment those who are miserably single [he said with a permanent scowl etched into his craggy, careworn face].

It’s a day when happy, coupled people blissfully buy into the spurious notion that there’s one day in the year when we should all be extra attracted to each other, and men go out and make grand, sweeping gestures to their girlfriends (or boyfriends) to make up for the fact of how neglectful they are towards their significant other the rest of the year.

Or maybe that’s just me and that damned speck of mirror-glass in my eye.

Yes, I’m one of those peevish, vituperative, curmudgeonly people who begrudge the fact that others are happy and having a wonderful time today, and wish they would all just collectively go fuck themselves and remember that there are those who aren’t blissfully happy; who (full disclosure) desperately wish that there were someone to brainlessly buy into this farce of a “holiday” with, and maybe for a few, fleeting hours forget how cheap, bloody and cruel life is the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year—or, on a more positive note, spend an evening with that “special someone,” maybe have a nice dinner and feel part of the universal experience of romantic love.

And, naturally, fuck each other silly at the end of the night.

Another reason that I begrudge Valentine’s Day so deeply and with such contempt is that a year ago today I woke up with the guy I spent the majority of this past year pining, crying and agonizing over. Let’s call him Seth. (No, really, that’s his name.) He was the first man I have ever been in love with, exacerbated by the fact that I knew he didn’t feel the same way about me. Shortly after our first sexual encounter, he basically told me that flat out, breaking my heart the first time. Before that, I found the idea of unrequited love silly and self-abasing. “Get over it!” you’d hear me say, doling out advice to inconsolable, anguished friends whose predicament I now find myself in. “He/She is not worth the pain you’re putting yourself through!” The funny thing about it though is that you can’t stop caring, or wishing, or hoping. It’s wholly irrational, but you hold out for the slim chance that maybe, just maybe, the veil will be drawn from their eyes and they will suddenly see you for the loving, caring, perfectly compatible person that you are.

And so Seth and I became what is affectionately referred to as fuck buddies. He was more or less using me for sex, apparently under the misguided notion that we were just having fun. Or some shit like that. And every time I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I’d get through to him; that he’d see that we could be more than friends; that, even beyond the whole sexual compatibility element, we got each others jokes, wanted the same things, had a similar approach to life and faith and intellect.

As Bobby Fisher might say, “No dice.”

This Valentine’s story concludes a few weeks ago, on my 28th birthday, with me drunk and sobbing in a friend’s apartment. Everyone had left Seth’s apartment (where the birthday party was being held), and I was too drunk to drive. Two other friends of mine live in the same building, but have a cat, and I am extremely allergic to cats, so normally this would end with us in his bed, having sex and me spending the night. It was not to end thus this time.

Seth had been on a blind date a week previous with another guy, and wasn’t sure how it was going to go, or even if it would go anywhere. My heart sank when he talked about this, but again I held out for the hope that it wouldn’t work, that it would just be another dalliance and that if I hung around long enough that he’d fall for me as I had for him. On that February 2nd though, he said that he was starting to like the guy more, and things were getting more serious between them. I was trying desperately to put a brave face on it and not let it bother me.

Flash back to earlier in the summer. I had just ended a relationship with my second serious boyfriend (let’s call him Nick) and was starting to date a new guy (we’ll call him Jack), and the night that I’d told everyone about Jack, as we were leaving, Seth asked if he could kiss me before things got too serious. And so, still being madly in love with him, we made out in the stairwell of the apartment.

Back to the night of my 28th birthday, eventually it got late and everyone decided it was time to call it an evening. It was obvious I wasn’t going anywhere, and he said I could crash there, but that I would need to sleep on the couch since he was starting a relationship with a new guy. And that’s when it began.

For weeks prior to this, I’d been agonizing over whether to confess my feelings to Seth or not. Some good friends who knew about the whole fuck buddy situation said that there was no way he couldn’t feel the same way, at least on some level, because nobody could do those things and be totally detached. Right? And I was determined not to let him be the biggest regret of my life.

So there in his apartment, drunk and enraged, I spewed everything at him that had been building over the weeks and months—how stupid I’d been to have let him play with my heart that way, how he’s not worthy of me, how I deserve better than some guy who can fuck me whenever it’s convenient for him to get his goddamn rocks off but then toss me to the curb once something “real” comes along, as if I were that cheap and disposable. On top of it all, he’s slated to be the pastor of a fucking GLBT-friendly church. I told him he’d do this again to someone else, that he’d play with some vulnerable guy’s affections who’s desperate to find a good Christian gay man, take advantage of him, and break his heart too. I called him a monster, a user, and a whole host of other awful things. No sense in being a writer if you can’t use them as a scalpel.

That night I also told him I no longer believe in God; that the church is a sham, and that he’s living, walking proof that none of it rings true. He listened quietly, tried to explain himself (which I’d have none of), and then left the room. Upon which I called my friend who lives upstairs, asked if I could crash there, and then spent the next hour sobbing on her couch. I’d hated myself for what I’d done, and hated him at the same time that I loved him.

But I also knew that the friendship, the relationship, was over.

Since the 2nd, I made it my resolution to do away with my old sexual morality, because chances are I’m never going to find a soulmate, and impersonal hookups are about as close as I’m probably going to get to the intimacy that I desperately crave. In the last few weeks I’ve had more sex than I have in my entire life, but it hasn’t filled the void, and I knew going in it wouldn’t satisfy. Maybe I’m just trying to get Seth out of my system.

So you’ll forgive me if I don’t jump on the Valentine’s Day bandwagon and celebrate the triumph of romantic love with the rest of the callow world. Last night, a guy that I’d been seeing and talking to for a few weeks decided to call things off. It was a mutual decision; I’d been sensing that we weren’t any more than just friends, but it still came as a bit of a crushing disappointment, especially considering that, even if it wasn’t going anywhere, that perhaps for once I could temporarily shut my eyes, not be alone on Valentine’s Day and believe that maybe, just maybe, love and romance really are possible. But, as usual, he turned out like all the others. This man too “disappoint me.”

I’m still waiting for someone to prove me wrong.

56. invidiousness part ii

Because this sums up my mood today so perfectly, I shall let Fiona do the talking:

Those boon times went bust
My feet of clay, they dried to dust
The red isn’t the red we painted
It’s just rust
And the signature thing
That used to bring a following
I have trouble now
Even remembering
So why did I kiss him so hard
Late last Friday night
And keep on letting him change all my plans
I’m either so sick in the head
I need to be bled dry, to quit
Or i just really used to love him
I sure hope that’s it

I knew that to keep in touch
Would do me deep in dutch
‘Cause it isn’t the rush of remembering
It’s just mush
And the signature thing
Is only growing harrowing
I should have no trouble now
To keep from following
So why did I kiss him so hard
Late last Friday night
And keep on letting him change all my plans
I’m either so sick in the head
I need to be bled dry, to quit
Or i just really used to love him
I sure hope that’s it

– Fiona Apple. “Tymps (the sick in the head song).” Extraordinary Machine. Mike Elizondo, Brian Kehew, Jon Brion, 2005. CD.

38. creeper

This picture accompanied the last comment from as13579@hotmail.com (this is your reminder to spam the shit out whoever this is).

Thoughts? White Witch porn? Girl unhealthily obsessed with me? Gay man with tiger fetish? Extremely juvenile straight boy who likes to run comments through Google Translator and then back into English in order to protect his identity (kind of like that episode of News Radio where the dude’s book is translated into Japanese: “Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler”)?

• “Mr. James, what did you mean when you wrote bad clown making like super American car racers, I would make them sweat, War War?”
• “Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans… and pants to match.”

Here he/she is!

That’s hot stuff. Mrrrrauw.

~ Muirnin

37. spam 2

Here’s another comment from the “spammer”:

Darling boy,

We are a vast many. Quite the fine eclectic group of poofs, breeders, fairies, dykes and the like. Against such ace you are found witless. We love how fast you posted a reply. It’s made for quite a great number of smiles!

Your profiling skills are quite the sorry rubbish. But then with actual profilers amongst us you haven’t quite got a prayer. We’re no vigilantes and we haven’t hacked a simple thing. Maybe you have friends or enemies that you are not aware of? That said your apparent paranoid was icing on a rather scrumptious cake. Alas it is time to depart as I must go forth and buy the next round! Be a good little nancy boy, belt up and bugger off.

Thank you for entertaining! Ciao bella!

~* Häikäistä Kynttilä *~

P.S. Cortege or cortège (kôr-tzh) – A: a funeral march  B. a funeral procession

I was just informed a little while ago that “Häikäistä Kynttilä” is the name of an art work, and that “Emma Frost” is a comic book character, so whoever this spammer is, they’re also not original. (However, this reinforces the idea that this person is a juvenile male.)

I could be intimidated by these grandiose, faux-foreign jokers, but no. I don’t know what their game is, but I’ve seen things like this before. I’m not wasting another minute of my valuable time on this waste of skin and breath that tried to threaten me.

36. spam

This afternoon a comment was posted on one of my previous entries in which I chronicled how I hurt my ex. I have no idea who this asshole is, but he has officially earned my ire, and if what he says is true, he’s the one who outed me to my parents, which means that he’s also officially road kill. Here what “Abdullah” (a.k.a., Cortége) sent:

Evil men whisper tales of lies. You brought the lies into flesh even after you knew it would go nowhere. Manipulated the flesh of another living being and then sent it roaring into fire. I would scratch your face to scar it but I would worry of the decay I would get under my nails.

One must wonder, how many others you have left spiritual and emotional scar tissue on? Perhaps I shouldn’t have sent an e-mail to try and sort out your parents thoughts with Biblical references. You should have been made to suffer as you made him suffer.

I raise my glass and toast to your karma which certainly will go for the jugular!

From here I can make a few assumptions about this guy:

1. He is either foreign (since the English is terrible—German or Indian?), or he ran the comment through a web translator and then back again to make it sound as though he’s foreign.
2. He either knows my parents, or hacked an email account to get their address,
3. He was able to find my online personals page and send it to my parents, and is probably technologically savvy.
4. He is a vigilante-type individual who thinks he’s doing everyone a favour by outing me (possibly as a punishment—God complex?)—possibly gay himself, and dangerous religious fanatic.
5. He experiences a sense of grand self-importance by involving himself in the personal affairs of others.
6. Mentally unstable, with nothing going for him in his personal life, and possibly abused as a child.

Here’s his email address in case anyone knows how to use it to find a location:

as13579@hotmail.com

At the very least you can spam the bitch if you like.

~ muirnin

030. derivatives

Quick update.

Tonight, Aaron and I had a chat on Messenger that at first was a catastrophic blow-up and nearly ended in us never talking again. Basically, we both felt hurt and were trying to leave the other feeling more hurt.

But then we both softened a little and were able to talk rationally, and we were both able to admit that we missed each other, and that we don’t want to lose contact. So in the end it was a good conversation; he didn’t mean the things he said in the letter; and I didn’t mean any of the nasty things I replied with either.

So while we’re not lovers (eros), we are at least on the track to being friends again (philia).

And his “date” turns out to be this queeny guy who he’s using for dinner and movie tickets because he’s broke. The guy has tried putting the moves on him a couple of times, and Aaron’s just not interested in that.

029. long division

My hand won’t hold you down no more
The path is clear to follow through
I stood too long in the way of the door
And now I’m giving up on you
No, not “baby” anymore – if I need you
I’ll just use your simple name
Only kisses on the cheek from now on
And in a little while, we’ll only have to wave.¹

---

This will most likely be the last post about Aaron.

We started talking again. He emailed a few days ago, and I was glad to hear from him because I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to even contact him. It’s obvious from the tone of our emails that we’re in a very different place now. Apparently he’s “moved on” and is even seeing someone, some guy who was married for fifteen years and finally decided he couldn’t live a lie anymore. Apparently it didn’t take Aaron very long to get over me.

That feels great.

He sent me a letter on Saturday that arrived today. Four pages of angry ranting. Sure, he was angry, and he has a right to feel hurt. I can’t deny him that. But he included lovely passages like, “you really played this well,” or “as far as your virginity goes, I wouldn’t worry too much,” or “you’re just one more notch on my bedpost,” or “I knew better than to put any trust in a Christian who also thinks he can combine [his faith] with his very unbiblical sexuality,” or “Christianity has given me a lifetime of empty promises, and I should expect the same from those who claim to be its followers—including you.”

Again, feels great.

He did email to tell me that he was angry when he wrote that letter, but that doesn’t help at all. In hindsight I should have just thrown the letter away, but I needed some sort of closure. This was it, I guess. My first relationship gone in a cloud of very angry smoke. Everyone told me it probably wouldn’t last, but I didn’t want to believe that—partly the idea that it could be just another statistic, but more that I could be just like everyone else.

There’s a part of me that thinks I’m somehow different from “everyone else,” and in some ways I am—just not an exception apparently, or just not that lucky. My sister found her husband on the first try, and they’re very happy together. My friends Tim and Sarah had never dated prior to getting together, and are also blissfully married now. Nothing ever seems to come easily to me, and just I’m sick of it.

What hurts most was that “one more notch on my bedpost” remark. Sure, it was said in anger and out of hurt, but that was pretty low thing to say, especially considering that I’d never even kissed someone before having sex with him.

You know—he was drunk my first time, and apparently doesn’t even remember it. That’s a great start to my love life. I’m tempted to call it quits right now and follow my original course of becoming successful in my artistic career, but I know I’m more rational than that. I’m angry, and I never make good decisions when angry. At least I’m aware of that.

So what have I learned?

And when the day is done, and I look back
And the fact is I had fun, fumbling around
All the advice I shunned, and I ran
Where they told me not to run, but I sure
Had fun, so
I’m gonna fuck it up again
I’m gonna do another detour
Unpave my path²

From the very beginning, in April, after my first phone call with Aaron, a voice in my head was saying “Wait.” Looking back now, it was probably God but at the very least my common sense that is rarely wrong (which in that case has Divine written all over it); but I stumbled blindly on, determined to get what it was that I wanted, which was a guy to be with, regardless of whether he was the right one or not.

(Did I mention he was stoned the first time he talked to me? Isn’t that nice?)

I was just so afraid of being alone, and he seemed like such a great guy. He is, but by the time I actually got close to him my desideratum disappeared. He’ll be perfect for someone else, but in the meantime am starting to lose hope for myself. My parents were close to thirty when they got married, and I swore I wouldn’t be that old.

Looks like it might be even later.

I never good at being on time.

My standards are pretty high, which worries me. Does a Christian gay man exist who is masculine, isn’t into “the scene,” shares my conservative political and theological (though not fundamentalist) values, is well read, appreciates art and is maybe even musical, and can hold up his end of a conversation? Aren’t unicorns mythical creatures?

Do I wanna do right, of course but
Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to
Answer you, hell no.²

It’s great when music I used to love for entirely different reasons suddenly becomes true and relevant. There are tons of love songs and just as many breakup songs (my current favourite being Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”). I relate so strongly now to what Fiona writes in “Paper Bag”:

I was having a sweet fix of a daydream of a boy
Whose reality I knew, was a hopeless to be had
But then the dove of hope began its downward slope
And I believed for a moment that my chances
Were approaching to be grabbed
But as it came down near, so did a weary tear
– I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag

I’m glad we had this little chat.

~ Muirnin

---

¹ Fiona Apple. “Love Ridden” from “When the Pawn” (1999)
² Fiona Apple. “Mistake” from “When the Pawn”

028. wasted unconditional love

Despite my best intentions, this blog has rather languished due to my hectic schedule, but sometimes I wonder if anyone actually reads this besides a select few. It feels a bit like talking in the middle of the woods to no one in particular.

I’m feeling pretty silly right now, with my glass of wine, listening to Erin McCarley and Regina Spektor, Hem, with some O Fortuna to liven things up.

(God, I love me some mediæval defrocked monk lyrics.)

Saturday morning I got an email from Aaron saying that he had changed his plane ticket in December and wasn’t going to be seeing me. Long story short, we aren’t together anymore. It started so fast, and ended so suddenly that there’s barely time to make sense of what’s really happened. A breakup song is on the way.

Listening now, ironically, to “We Do Not Belong Together” from Sunday in the Park With George. Apparently iTunes thinks it’s screamingly funny tonight, playing me all these sad breakup-themed songs.

Shortly after his second visit it became clear to me that I didn’t have strong enough feelings to stay in a relationship with him, but didn’t know how to break that to him. So I did the thing I typically did, which is to pretend that it wasn’t there. Everyone liked him so much, and it didn’t make sense that I didn’t feel the same way about him. I’d wanted this to work so badly that I’d started believing that I was in love with him—and it was only when the feelings weren’t consistently there that the reality that we probably dind’t belong together came crashing in.

Hmmm. Okkervil River is on now. Love this song…

Breaking the news to him was pretty catastrophic. He understandably freaked out,  and there was a period of a couple of days when things between us were pretty strained. It’s clear that he still has very strong feelings for me, which is awful because I see that and can’t reciprocate, and even more awful because I’m to blame. I let things go on too long, even leading him on a little, and him get more and more attached to me.

It’s no excuse that it wasn’t on purpose, but I did try to do the right thing by letting him know the truth. And I was looking forward to seeing him again; but now that isn’t going to happen, and I’m abruptly and gradually single again.

Ahh, Rufus. The Tower of Learning.

The feelings are a bit conflicted. There is now a piece of myself that I will never get back, and can’t go back to where I used to be. I always thought that I knew better, that I would be smart and careful, and that I wouldn’t do anything that would leave me with regret. Except now I’m not sure which I regret more—that I did this to him, or that I was so careless with myself.

So there it is.

Se’l cielo non ti possa consolare per la reale.

Oh well.