Lifting the veil of hibernation has led to some eye opening perspective about the men in my life last year. The fire has remained on my periphery for whatever reason (he needs bodies to fill spaces sometimes and he knows how to ply me into a yes, I suspect is all it is) and this week I realized it has been a year, a whole entire year since I was first aware that there was some attraction between us. Whatever that attraction was based on (my surprising nature, a good hair day, a beautiful Spring afternoon) has long since expired, but for some reason we are bound to each other. Sometimes I wonder if it is to prove that our initial responses to each were genuine and not just a desire to be with someone.
Seeing him again, last week, last month, three months ago, four months ago, etc, there has been no residual wonder or hope for him; I had been so fully crushed in his wake, I could not resurrect my earnest affections. Imagine my horror then, when my good friend and often drunken truth teller, Walter, joined me for one of the fire's many events requiring bodies and began informing everyone around us and harassing me that the only reason I was there was because I still wanted him.
And it's odd, but I haven't questioned the fire and the light interactions we have, the sense of obligation I feel to filling up the open space in his events, or wondered about it all. I decided at some point that he had not been unkind to me during that awkward phase between men and women when they are first getting to know each other and wonder what might be. I also enjoyed his cheerful serenity, his hobbies and habits and his general sense of appreciation of me and the other bodies I brought with me over this past year. I am understanding that it is rare to meet people I actually like and admire, so I found it odd to discard him and his invitations simply from the spite of being overlooked.
I noticed, in addition to introducing me to people, that at one point early on after I arrived, he was raising eyebrows with some guy and looking at me (which I assume is guy code for are you seeing this girl?), he also seemed to be pushing this agenda he's pushed before with giving his friend information about me (while in the bathroom of all places) to get a conversation started between us, because his friend is interested in me. It gave me some small sense of pleasure that even though he is girlfriended, he finds me charming enough to get something going with his friends. It also made me realize that perhaps I was there for the wrong reason and I need to admit it's not my scene.
So eventually, that night, I had to admit that Walter's drunken assessment wasn't completely wrong. Except, for the first time in my adult life, I wasn't going to sit around and be mopey about not having what I want, because I know nothing is going to happen between us and I accept that. I wasn't allowing that attraction to govern me.
The same could not be said for the magnetic disc. I did nothing but torture myself about him, hating the torturing, but unable to stop it and this week I couldn't help myself, I opened up that wound and poured lye into it. I can't quite tell yet, but I think it helped. Now I have an idea what he was doing and saying to the people around him. And now I understand that it wasn't just me who wouldn't let go.
She was getting to that drunken point where her speech was slurring and I asked her about him. I could tell she had been bracing herself for it. Hell, I think they've all been bracing themselves for it, and interestingly enough, every time I ask them, the elephant in the room disappears in smoke and we are able to fully enjoy each other's company. That's part of what he did to me. He created an entire scenario that disrupted my friendships with people and convinced them of something that put distance and awkwardness in the space between us.
I knew something had happened, I could feel it, it was so frustrating, people coddling me, people acting like I was obsessed or stalking him, people watching me to see what I would do. I felt the hush of the bar every time I came in and he happened to already be there. It was maddening to me that people who had previously been so jovial treated me like it was a chore to speak to me.
I tried to stay away. The more that time passed between what happened and Fall made things better but I could still sense the tension of it, not as much as before, where sometimes, no matter how much I drank I could not get drunk or shake the feeling that I was experiencing a dramarama of high school lunchroom levels, complete with racing heartbeats, nervous and guilty behaviors and awkward eye contact and monologues on unfairness.
I was guilty, but not of much. I mean, on the surface, not much actually happened between us to cause the sort of scandal it seemed I was facing each time I walked in there. We kissed a couple times. We hung out once. Big fucking deal.
According to the sloshed informant, little did I know that he lied to me out of distress because he didn't want to date me, so he made up a story about being in love with his girlfriend back home and proceeded to insist we be friends and that he hoped it wouldn't be weird for me to continue to go to the bar--to which I replied, not at all and took my hands, dirty and grimy from the handling of men, excavating the good ones from deep mines only to find them flawed and not for me and I let it go.
So why then did this man (who recently turned 30) proceed to whisper in the ears of anyone who would listen that I was chasing him still? Because I texted him a couple times after? Because I still went to my bar, the place I'd been frequenting on a weekly to bi-weekly basis three years before his arrival? Because I didn't ignore him every time he passed me? Because I still obviously really liked him?
I did all of those things with the same logic I applied to the fire. I realized it was rare that I liked someone and if he was willing to remain on friendly terms with me (in fact, he was the one who proposed so and insisted on it) then why wouldn't I continue to enjoy his company? It would be so much easier if being romantically attracted to someone was as easy to turn off as a light switch. I am getting better at dismantling those feelings than I used to be. It requires the passing of time, which slowly erodes the beaches of my memory of things that I associate with them, each discarded shell removed.
I didn't have the luxury of time in this case. The other thing I didn't have was a clear idea of whether or not he was not interested in me. He may have informed all of his buddies that I was chasing him, but he certainly never ran away, sometimes he initiated conversations with me, and once, when he was so drunk that he doesn't remember seeing me, he tried to kiss me on the lips. So even though half the times I encountered him he could be a real dick, the other times he exhibited a sparkling kindness that I wanted to believe meant something and I believed that lie for a while, until I realized I was getting carried away and then I wouldn't go back there for a while until I felt strong enough to ignore him again, but he always managed to not be ignored. He didn't want to be ignored. He may have pretended to everyone that I was always staring at him, but to see my eyes, he had to be looking for them.
Once I knew he had a girlfriend--a fact I suspected long before I got confirmation of it, because everyone was tiptoeing around me like I was going to fly off the handle if I knew he had a girlfriend; which I never did--I let that possibility go, that there was something between us drawing us to each other, that he felt it too. Maybe he felt nothing but my clamoring, but my sense and intuition tell me that he had some interest in me, even when he was feigning that he did not.
Even asking her, this girl, the sloshed, slurring friend of his, acquaintance of mine, I knew I was going to be filling the role I surmised he'd scripted for me. I had to know. Hopefully one day I can get by without knowing, I can get along without wondering, I can just trust that what I feel is true and none of it really matters anyway. But for now, it is good to know that I wasn't completely crazy, and he was an immature idiot. And truly, this is just another example of why I am glad nothing actually happened between us.
