I am not like you

Sometimes, I try to see it from her point of view. She came into our family suddenly, she was different, we were different, and the chasm of differences between us were impassable. She was young then, she wore bad clothes and bad hair, her face was a fat blank and her eyes were wide. She learned us quickly. That we didn't talk much, say much, do much. We were quiet. We were simple. We didn't need much to enjoy each other. In just about every way we could be, we were different.

At first, she couldn't do much but stare. Year after year, she took it in, she brought babies to us and we loved them, but with her there was always something in the way, our differences, maybe, and it was hard. In some ways, what made it hard was her constant questioning, her expectations and her pointing out the differences. I feel badly that he had to bear the brunt of her assaults, that her insecurities made her such an intolerable person and it was all our fault. We didn't ever do the right thing, say the right thing, give the right things.

After a while, it turned. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, rolling whenever something displeased her, a tsk at the ready, a mean retort swallowed. I saw her agonize over and over about us, how could we, how dare we, why did we. So many things and yet she never said a word. She gave him every word like a lash, whipping him with the hatred of us, and soon he began to say the words she wouldn't.

Instead of being understanding, accepting, appreciative, she took our differences and turned them into a problem, a reason to be mean and spiteful, a campaign to wage against him, and the problem is, none of what she points out is wrong, but to be mad at someone for something they did not do, that they did not promise to do, that you expected and didn't get is wrong.

For a long time I defended her, having been in her exact state of mind over similar situations, knowing that what made me so angry wasn't them but the things they represented, the things I was not, the things I didn't have or know how to get. I have been different, a stranger, misunderstood, so I tried to explain her side. I made impassioned speeches on her behalf, I tried to reason with my family, I could see where she was coming from.

And now, now that she has attacked me, made me the scapegoat, asked me the questions, made me defend myself and my family, and given me nothing in return, no compassion, no efforts, even worse, she has made things more difficult for no good reason, she and I, we are done.

the gall/incomprehensibilities

It began with a gut feeling. After years of serving the general public, seeing countless personalities flash themselves at me in an instant, using those experiences to accurately gauge the beginning, middle and end of many relationships, I knew within five minutes that she was not for me.

I can tell you it was a number of things she did that left a pungent distaste in my mouth. Things that perhaps no one else would see for weeks, months, years, I could see just like that.

She is internally distracted, as if gnats were flying in a cloud in front of her eyes, her eyes held nothing and looked nowhere until she was spoken to. Her body is a long lean skeleton with some skin and clothes attached. Her skin was the gray of sun-hazed, overripe peaches, except it had nothing to do with the sun. Her hand came to shake mine in a limp dainty gesture that had no form and no urgency; she let me shake it and then slowly reeled it back.

And then, from this strange creature, came insincere greetings that floated away like a long dead pile of Fall leaves. They meant nothing, they had no substance and responding to them, trying to corral them into understanding was a useless endeavor.

It wouldn't be the first time I'd found a soul that was hollow. Her vacancy was not surprising or alarming except that she belonged to my good friend and it seemed out of place that my friend had allowed her to live there with another of our good friends.

And then, the idea that I should live there arose. At first it was a great joyous thing, but then I thought of her and that was my only concern. They assured me that she was just fine. Alright, yes, she was a little odd, perhaps, but mostly just sweet and nice. So I relented.

The day I moved in, she was on the phone and brusquely tabled my cheerful hello. Right then I knew I had made a mistake. I moved in all my things and set them down and went for a ride filled with foreboding thoughts I tried to shake off.

As the days progressed, I saw more of it. There was no room for anyone, she'd filled every available surface with her crap. She had piles everywhere. Her room was disgusting. She was disgusting. She belched, she stomped, she chewed, she clanged, she sang, she cried, I saw a year of emotions overtake her in a week's time. I had never lived with someone so physically and mentally intolerable. She had not a single consideration for anyone other than herself, and she often disguised kind gestures that ultimately benefitted herself.

Her actions were bizarrely incongruent: upon entering the house she would call out a hello from another room, but moments later ignore me as I passed, she would wake up earlier than everyone in the house, eat breakfast, do whatever for an hour and then take a shower when the rest of us were rising, she seemed very into growing her own herbs and plants yet she rarely used them and hardly watered them, she would watch television with rapt absorption but often chat during anything that we attempted to watch, driving me into the confines of my room.

As the weight of this sank into my days, I felt some relief in the other who lived with us. We two were inseparable and that only made her worse. Somehow, us two being friends, good great friends managed to push that buried button inside her that turned her into a sniveling version of her high school self, insecure and unpopular and misunderstood.

And I kept wanting to scream at her, if you want to be liked, you have to be likeable.

She was the furthest thing from it. I would often wipe her slate clean, forgive the errant belching (which seemed more a way to garner attention than to relieve her full stomach), ignore the strange mood swings, look past the promises made and not kept, try to see the human being in that walking deadness and every time I let things go, she'd add another intolerable element into my days, hair on the shower wall, battering others for things she was often guilty of, being a big giant bitch, getting a dog and not cleaning up after him or attempting to learn how to properly discipline him as she promised.

The arrival of the dog changed things from mostly unpleasant to dismal. He was noisy, so the level of noise she forced us to suffer through was added to; she traveled a lot and often requested we take care of the dog; he shed a lot of hair which meant the living room was full of dog hair and not really a place you wanted to spend any time in and she didn't bother to sweep his hair ever, not once, in almost a year. His presence underlined the fact that she is a disgusting person with disgusting personal habits and she didn't care at all how it affected anyone else.

I tried various actions over the course of year to alert her to these transgressions and each was met with a puzzled look (sometimes with tears and a litany of excuses), a gloss of understanding and a promise to correct the behavior, which ultimately never got corrected.

And so, it was with great pleasure and much relief that I departed that place, and now I hope to never cross paths with her again.

As the misery I submitted to begins to fade, the small stretches of delight in not having to wake up to her noise, not having to share anything with her, not having to see that glum face every morning animate itself to speak with me, I find that I have learned the lesson to trust my instincts, to know that what I feel is true, to honor that deep down place of mysterious but certain intuition.

Had I trusted myself, I could have spared us both, for I am sure it was a misery to live with me, as we were as opposite in as many ways as we could be. To constantly attempt to make her understand how unpleasant she was left me extremely frustrated and unhappy. In my heart, I do not want to hate; though my mind finds many ways to loathe, my heart was heavy in its sadness for the situation.

the magnet and the mess

He's still here. It wouldn't bother me so much except there's still the mess he made that no one has forgotten. I've managed to evade him and the mess by declining over a year's worth of invitations and great nights in which I knew he'd be in attendance. I had to stop visiting with his sister, who'd been my friend for a while before his arrival, because it seemed everywhere she was, there he would be, him, standing five feet behind her, laughing that big monstrous laugh. Every encounter was weighted with that strange tension that followed his dismissal of me (a heady mix of guilt, shame and regret) and it was so unbearable I couldn't enjoy myself knowing he was in the room.

And then, the ship sank, the days passed, things carried on. And time did what it does.

The sting of the mess, the rage I felt over it, the unnecessary bullshit and drama, after that much time, it seemed like something not worth caring about any longer. When he appeared that day and he greeted me with open arms, I fell into them and we hugged, it felt like a relief, like it was all over and that mess was gone, especially with all we had to deal with that day.

And maybe I was too grief stricken to give him anything else, not even a glance, not even words, not even including him in our hasty plans (and why should I have to be the one to encourage him?). Or maybe I was scared because it had been so long and there was still that magnetic pull between us. Still. I was so disappointed in myself, but there it was, those spinning, stomach churning, blushing feelings I had felt so long ago.

A few days later we all found ourselves together again and in my nervousness from being late and having nothing proper and decent to wear to a funeral and knowing he would be there, I slighted him, sweeping past him to find solace in the people I felt comfortable with. I ignored his laughter on the ride to the service, I ignored his owlish eyes that I felt searching for mine, I sensed there was a question there that I did not want to answer again, it needed to rest.

Except then, there was booze to soothe us all. With every drink he became more wild-eyed, more angry, more and more of a reminder of why I was grateful nothing ever happened between us, he reminded me of the burnham, he had that same moody glare for me and it made me hide. So I spent the rest of the night avoiding him and wishing he would pass out on the bar.

Instead, I watched with horror as he flirted with a friend's girlfriend, danced with everyone, sidled up into conversations just to stare at me with a curiosity that burned so hard it made me cringe. What does it matter? I wanted to scream. Of course I still care about you. If I didn't, would I even have a hard time talking to you? I can talk to anyone, I'm an expert at talking to people, but with him I had no words and nothing to say.

Eventually, finally, I saw his gaping mouth being held up by his splayed hand, the palm holding his chin, the glasses crooked, the stubble abhorrent, the bar holding him upright, dozing off. They tried to slap him awake and he resumed his disgusting pose. And I stood there wondering how it had happened. Was it because he was so taken with me when we met? Or was it that he seemed so promising when there was nothing? Sometimes, I think it was because back then, he felt different and familiar.

We decided to go to 907. It was a crazy scheme that brought several of us stumbling toward that place we'd known Peter for. There were a lot of us. I didn't realize he was coming, figuring he'd go home after falling asleep on the bar, but then someone said, hey get the door, and there he was, the magnet. I saw that glare and pushed the door open for him, just enough so he could grab it, and I ran away from him. And he knew it. He spoke in disgust about me. He hated me for it. After all the shit he did, all the shit he put me through, he wanted more than anything not to be the bad guy, except he was.

He sauntered up and stood right next to me. I sensed he felt the need to bully me, and I did not back down, but inside I was trembling, I did not want to let the bitterness explode, not that day after all the days I had held it in, and so I let the anger pass, and then I let myself behave the way he wanted me to, I pretended like nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened, that he wasn't a giant fucking asshole who everyone loathed, I showed concern and interest, I let myself love him again.

And when he entered that room and collapsed across the bed and fell asleep, then I was free. The tension that had been on me all night was gone. And that will be the last time I ever see him.

It may mean giving up those friends and that life that connected us, but they never belonged to me anyhow.

the welt

it sits on me like a burn, sometimes I poke at the strange hull that is my skin's way of throwing up a tent over a hole in the ground to protect it from infection.

I know I shouldn't look anymore, and I look. I look for so many reasons. Sometimes it is, I wonder if he doing well? then it might be, I wonder if his photo has changed, next I might say, I want to see the man and the woman that fucked me up emotionally for too long and face them and say to their likeness, you didn't win. Sometimes I am scared that if she is gone from the picture he might come back to me.

I looked today and it was the first time I really spoke aloud, screamed at the screen, said mean, terrible, horrible things that no one would say unless provoked or angry, because sometimes I think it's bad to be angry. I am always trying to be nice that when I am mean, on purpose, intentionally nasty, it seems so harsh.

I hate that he still has that effect on me, that he can still incite my passion and rage and yet it has been over a year. I hate that I can't stop thinking about that image. For some reason the other one didn't enrage me, because he looked different, not the same, some face I had never seen before. This one, the newer one, she was ignoring him, he was holding a drink and the only one looking at the camera and he had those same beady eyes of terror, the tragic yoke of "I was dragged here by the woman I'm standing next to against my own desire to sit at home and get high and watch tv on the couch the way I do night after night."

This one is so familiar to me, the sight of him that way, that it was like I instantly relived all those moments of his behaving that way, like a fucking petulant child; I screamed out loud at the image. And I know this sounds fucked up, but in a way I was kind of mad at him for doing that again with some other girl he left me (not just any me, but me!) for. Because if he left me, it had better been worth it, and that face told me it wasn't worth it for him anymore. He was now doing to her what he did to me. And he pretended it was all my inducing, causing in him, that I forced him to be that way.

I had hoped that he was right and that by leaving me, he could be free and find what he really needed. That face showed me the discovery that he is the commonality and maybe I was right and in the right about so many things we argued over. But it is no victory if he is miserable.

this not about love, 'cause I am not in love III

The thing is, I couldn't have planned it any better. And that's always the thing with him, the thing that makes the sheer frustration of his presence so unbearable, that there is no way I could plan the interactions we have and have them actually end up so well, with us landing in each other's proximity.

And so, I broke my word again, because there were more people than him I wanted to see, rather than him I didn't want to see, and really, this time I resolved even if he was there I was going to ignore him completely and hold myself erect and proud and unawares of his eyes and his laugh and his body and his presence.

So I staked out a chair and wandered away and said hello to my friends. He was standing nearby and I could feel his eyes on me but I refused to meet them, didn't look up, stayed loyal to my friends. Out of my peripheral I noticed him coming toward me and even then it was nervousness that held me rigid more than resolve. He squeezed my shoulder like it was for life, like he was drowning and I was there to pull him out and I looked at him, with the nervousness and rigidness solid in my throat, as if I was going to vomit and I tried to smile, but I don't think I did and no words would come out. His eyes met mine and in them was also that same nervousness and panic and concern.

And then I realized I am hopelessly in love (or whatever it is you could call this) with him.

And I hate myself for it.

As if that wasn't enough, when I turned from my friends to my seat, I saw that he was sitting right next to my seat and had been sitting there before I even got there. So without meaning to, without even knowing, I picked the one seat in the entire bar right next to the magnetic disc. Of course.

I was horrified. I spent as much time as I could outside with the smokers (even smoking a few cigarettes out of sheer terror) and pretended to engage in meaningful conversation except all the while my brain was operating at ten thousand times its usual overworked capacity and all it was saying to me was What the fuck are we going to do now?! We're fucked!

And then, it was inevitable, I had to go in, I had to sit there, squished up next to him, his thigh jutting out toward mine, his work shirt on the bar in front of me, his hand on his beer, his fingernails, his hair, his face, everything just up closer than it has been in months.

He sat for a while talking to someone on the other side of him and because he was on the corner of the bar, he had to sit away from me, and maybe it was on purpose, for he held his hand up to his chin and blocked me from his vision the same way I have done many times in the past. I tried to ignore him as well, for some reason up close he was not so loud, so obnoxiously obvious everywhere and his eyes were trained away from me. I could almost pretend he wasn't there.

It was awkward, until it got worse and someone showed up, someone who the magnetic disc was angry that I got along so well with, and suddenly, I was between the two of them and I was so uncomfortable that it was almost laughable, that I was perched at this place I hated with two terrible prospects between me and a cloak of awkwardness smothering me.

Finally, he turned in our direction, the magnetic disc and things between us got slightly less awkward until I asked him the question that has been plaguing me for months: When are you leaving?

It was then that I found out that he will be here another year. And not just that, but he said nothing more about us, about me, about her, about what was to come. It was then that I knew that whatever the reason for his nervousness it was not from love, because he is not in love with me. I don't know what he feels for me, maybe some sense of regret, maybe some frustration, maybe some confusion, but it is not love (or infatuation or lust or wanting or interest or anything).

I fell into a tailspin then; I have been going through the motions and totally disinterested in life at large. I've spent the last two days since busy with work and let myself get swept up in the wave of my roommate's pleasurable company and tonight with another friend and I try to go to sleep with round eyes and dreams of falling and landing in my bed. Even now, I should be sleeping, but I can't stop feeling that moment, that slam of the door, that rush of understanding, that empty, that hollow ache, now there is nothing and no one who wants me.

That is what it's really been all about, that even though I knew I'd dodged a bullet with him and the universe saved me from complete and utter disarray in my life, I had some solace in the idea that maybe he was in love with me, and maybe someday I could turn to that love and find something worth feeling, at least for a little while.

I left knowing that I can never walk into that place again, at the very least, not for another year; and I am truly, completely alone.

the good news

He prefaced it with, you're not gonna like what I have to tell you. And then he said the words I didn't know I'd been waiting to hear, that I knew without knowing were going to come, and for some reason, it was like a burden lifted from me, and it just made me feel happier.

the burnham is moving to new york to live with his new girlfriend.

And I say good for him. I am glad for him. I truly am.

There is always going to be a part of me that loves him, for who he was for me, for the times we had, but I am really done with that relationship. I will probably never speak to him again. Sometimes I think about the good times, and I miss the good times, but the bad times haven't worn off yet, the immense abyss of things we lacked as a couple is still there, pulsing under the strained surface of those good memories.

And really, it has been almost nine months and my life feels like it is just reborn. I look back on last year with confusion and surprise, that I was seduced into complacency by someone who had already fooled me once before.

this not about love, 'cause I am not in love II

He hovers in the middle of the bar, and his owlish eyes meet mine at every glance. They are on me when my eyes are trying to hide, I can feel them burrowing into my flesh, every movement watched, every laugh counted, every nod measured. And yet, he stands next to what is certainly his latest prey, she, small and coquettish, glancing up at his face with her heart in her throat, and he stares at me instead.

He pretends not to want to capture her, standing at a calculated distance, holding himself still, watching.

She follows his line of sight and her face fills my peripheral view like a full moon, she is pale and clean and wide.

At one point, when I passed him, a jostle from someone else forced our skin to touch, our arms met behind us, his head turned at the touch, he already knew I was there, and he was hoping I had touched him on purpose, I think, so I shrank behind my friends and tried my very best to ignore what I could not.

I want to pull him aside and tell him all I know, tell him that he is not for me, tell him that it's useless to pretend.

And yet, I know that the moment I am in his scope, I will have a hard time honoring our pact and keeping myself from being magnetized. So I will try again, not in vain this time, to stay away...

the audience

When no one is looking, is the difference. I spent the evening in his presence again, thinking after the last time that finally the pain might have been quelled, that he realizes I've moved on, because I walked away from him. I didn't hang on his every word and most importantly, I pulled away from his magnetism.

This time everyone was aware and watching which made me aware and nervous, and him awkward and strange and it was so uncomfortable that I had to leave. I was so mad at him for pretending I didn't exist (is it because he's trying to show everyone that he's over me too? Why can't I stop caring? When is he going to leave?).

I also took to pretending he didn't exist, using my hair as a curtain, hiding him from my view. I sat and tried to listen to the people near me, but his laughter as usual broke my concentration and made my head instantly swivel.

He knew I was there before he even saw me, and it was obvious that he had bolstered himself to speak to me in front of everyone, just to say hello. After that, he was reclusive, keeping his back to me, hiding himself in the center of his group of coworkers on the other side.

When I was leaving, he was coming back in. When I was coming back in, he was leaving.

I said, "See you later, guys," during the last of these frustrating passings and he, hearing me, even after just pretending not to see me, listening for me, said good night to me. None of his friends was around to witness this. I received a hello and a goodbye and that was all he coud spare for me, in the midst of his shaking unsteadiness, I got a bookend of greetings and that was all. And I learned that I can't let it go...

the hair factor

It came as a shock, that memory, and as I pulled it out of its sepia toned solution, bathed in nostalgia, I saw that connected to that memory were two more that were similar, my brain had filed those moments away together and they came rushing at me, the sappy sentimental moments that I'd forgotten.

The first one was just recently, as I was obsessing over every detail between the singer and me, every moment that I should have known it was all too good to be true, except there weren't any and then I remembered, like a shockwave, when he turned and smiled down at me and took the hair covering my face between his fingers and swooped it away.

As if that weren't enough the magnetic disc quickly followed and I recalled the moment when I was turned toward him and the rush of our breaths precluded the exchange of words and our eyes locked and the tip of his finger stumbled through the air like an engorged bumblebee and he drew a line across my forehead, watching my bangs fall back into place before he whispered, "I like your fringe."

Almost like a gush of oil came the next one, which was buried deep down, the memories of the burnham I've been trying to forget, but it couldn't be contained and I was right back there on that couch, in that quiet apartment, in that territory of discomfort and hesitation and he was looking at me and I was looking at him and then he pushed a lock of my hair out of my face that had fallen there when I had laughed off one of his many compliments and looked down in shame and he pushed it away and told me I was beautiful.

Now all I can see is the ridiculousness of my supposed thresholds; how easily I was snake charmed.

when the south pole is around:

he loves me, he loves me not, I want to not care, I want to forget, I want to pretend that he doesn't exist, but he's always around and lately, he's been hovering, pulled in, even in the presence of others, my eyes are the eyes he meets, the eyes he's smiling at, the eyes he wants to see staring back at him.

I want to not be there, not be staring, but I can't help it, he's hard to ignore, even if his eyes weren't seeking out mine, his laugh, a big huge boisterous thing that can be heard everywhere, completely undoes me, I can't even have a conversation with anyone, because I want to see who it is that is delighting him. It is never me. When we talk, he is a nervous, twitchy mess, trying so hard to figure out what I might be thinking or maybe trying to convince me he's really cooler than he thinks he is. I don't know, I want not to care.

I know when he leaves it will all be all right and a year from now I will laugh about this whole thing and it's sweeping ridiculous hold on me.

because of his ineptitude, he won't be leaving soon as promised, and now the resolve I had is fading and the only solution is his quick departure. There is enough knowledge of his character for me to stay away, but in the moment, when he shines, when he is magnetic and wonderful, I find it hard to resist.

So maybe I will have to leave, to find excuses not to go there, to avoid him as long as necessary, because really the distance is what makes it all palatable, and when we are in close proximity to each other, it is obvious and sad and painful. I want him and he wants me and it can never happen.

the dodged bullets:

One by one those failed attempts at relationships have wandered into my scope in ways small and large and my perspective is so different and this has happened before, that I realize with some amusement that it was never going to be and I feel some slight embarrassment for the girl I was (and still am to a less dramatic, obsessive degree):

[the man of the year] At a party, a friend of a friend told me what really happened that night, that new year's eve when I balked at his attentions being placed elsewhere (some blonde older woman). He apparently got her number, tried to date her, unsuccessfully, and it turned out he was not a good guy to date after all. Then with a delicious smile, I was informed that he has become fat and ugly.

[the drunken ambusher] Walked by the bar, not noticed by me, pointed out to me, I looked up at his disappearing figure and cackled; laughed the kind of big fat laugh that makes people turn around, but he didn't. Everyone else did. He is such a fucking coward. And then, I forgot about him completely, instantly, poof. An hour later, coincidence prevailed in a way that planning and timing would never have contrived to have us meet on the street and I realized that even though he smiles and cajoles, he is a panicky mess constantly and I never noticed before because I never saw him objectively.

[the city] I found him. I have decided to forget the past, the pain of him choosing her over me, the further pain of forgetting me completely, and I saw that he has gotten pulled into the first woman who he spent any time with, so good for them, that they are cut from the same cloth and can be geeky about what they love, but I noted with some slight pleasure that she is a strange looking one.

[the triple alliterative] I haven't written about him here, because there's not much to say, he doesn't have many impressive qualities and I can't really tell what direction things were going in, but I've decided no one gets to date me via loopholes and arrangements that are like dates but aren't dates and make me wonder too much. He is like one of those people who you never notice until a lot of time goes by, whose presence makes no difference, whose personality is stuck in a vault and no one knows the right combination.

[the singer] he randomly called and I randomly answered and there were good times, but now that the time is stretching out between us I am starting to lose my faith. He made some attempt today to maintain my interest, but it was so half hearted and so poorly managed that all I could do was laugh and escape as quickly as possible. And I hardly ever push the eject button that early. Oh well.

[the magnetic disc] this one is most painful, the most intriguing, because we both mutually stepped away from each other out of some code of decency; him to a love he couldn't forget, me to the knowledge that I was trying to board a sinking ship and sensing the futility and imminent frustration I would bear, I swam away. The distance from my absence has created confusion for him, he speaks of me when drunk, he blathers on and on about the nothing that didn't happen between us, he projects his pining, awkward behavior and unrequited mess onto my good name, and all I feel for him is sadness, mixed with pity. I know what he is going through, because I do still have an immense attraction to him, but I would never never never promenade it out in public to his friends.

I want to relish in the poor choices these men have made, but more than that, I'm so glad they didn't choose me.

no thanks

He languished in his decision, and looking back I realized I already knew. Adept at reading the signs, deciphering body language, too keenly aware of every fucking thing, I already knew.

It's not the lack of interest that makes me derisive, or angry, or in a mood to delete everything, all the words, all the waste. It was the lack of response to my understanding and kind words; he simply didn't care. He'd already moved on, and I knew that already.

As I wipe away that experience, I don't understand what the point of making a connection is anymore. It always seems so easy for them to step away from, to wander away from, and I am left with my jaw hitting the floor, wondering how I gave myself away again even though I keep trying not to.

I guess I can't help giving myself away.

the disappointment

Funny how all the elements are the same, all the stationary objects are familiar, known, but then the variables are what throw me, the people change and all of a sudden I'm a wreck, unable to relax, pulled back half my life ago to high school inadequacies, certain that they were all talking about me every time there was a "her" spoken.

And to him, what must I be now? At first I was exciting and new and now I am something to be avoided, something to worry about, something to ignore. Ignored, left to wither in his shadow, hearing his laughter for someone else, I had to leave, I was itching to go, I couldn't get comfortable.

They all know what happened between us or what couldn't happen and I wonder if they think I'm languishing in that, pining for him, just because I am there. Never mind that it's my bar, it's my place, it's where I came plenty before he ever arrived. And yet, it's the kind of place where I am never seen for who I really am and that's the worst kind of misunderstanding. I can't defend myself enough, I can't talk myself out of the quicksand, I can't say the best, coolest, funniest thing all the time.

When it gets like this, where I'm frustrated with the lot of them, those variables, those people, I promise myself I will never go back in there, that it's not for me, that I can't take another night of their eyes crawling over me, evaluating me, checking me for cracks and pulling out the sledgehammer in preparation for my demise.

And him, rather than be the good man I'd thought he was, he allowed them their scrutiny, even hid from the front lines to avoid being pelted with the shards of my self-esteem shattering and spraying across them, and I was sad that even he could not muster up the affection for me that he claimed to have, to interact with me despite the imminent and likely goading he would suffer.

Before I was sad that he would leave eventually, now I long for the days when he will be gone for good.

breach of contract

It's been a baffling experience of the sort that I'm just beginning to mentally untangle. I don't want to think about it at all, but it still bothers me.

At first when it happened, nothing was wrong. As time passes, it becomes a widening chasm of wrong-doing, a lengthy discourse on fucking things up when everything was just fine the way it was. And as more time passes, I begin to get angrier and angrier.

Contextually, it doesn't make sense. Given all that has happened between us, the years, the awkward attempts at friendship, the eventual acceptance on my part that we weren't so bad at being friends, that one thing could destroy all of it seems unfair. I suppose in the scheme of the world, it makes perfect sense that it happened, that it was bound to happen, that it is just the nature of having friendships with someone of the opposite sex. People seem to be in hearty agreement that if a guy and a girl happen to be in the same vicinity they should be together. They just can't admit it. Or something.

I must admit, for a long time I held this belief. I found it difficult to be friends with guys and not want a sexual relationship, an intimate relationship, but after some time (in which I grew up), I realized that I was perfectly capable of being friends with men as long as they were happy to be my friend and not kiss me. The tom-boy in me was happy that I could be friends with boys again, and I was enriched by the perspectives of the men in my life.

I counted him among that group. And I never never never wanted anything more from him. In fact, I could barely fathom why we were even friends to begin with. I sometimes found talking with him a chore, he was perpetually gloomy, and his idea of a good time was seeing a movie, any movie (which led to the hilarious event of my actually seeing "The Break Up" in the theater). Every so often we would actually have a good time and talk like normal people. I appreciated knowing someone who had also miserably failed at the social circle that emerged from the fiction department. He often listened to my lengthy treatises on men and boys and whoever was causing me the most trouble at the moment. We got into the habit of meeting for lunch at the Thai Spoon after school ended and because I missed the Thai Spoon with its flock of spinach rangoons, quickly crafted plates of excellent noodles and the best thai iced coffee I've ever had, I began to associate our time with delicious food.

He was in a long relationship with someone I knew but didn't know from the fiction department. I was in and out of a lengthy relationship with Eric. There were no issues with us being friends. No one cared. I didn't care. It was a reason for me to eat at the Thai Spoon once a month or so. And that was that.

And then--

His girlfriend of common law marriage length began the tedious break-up process with him, which I coaxed him through several weekly appointments to let her go. If she wanted out there was no reason to struggle against her. He began to unfurl, losing his foundation, understandably, and I was his only outlet of support. And even though I was disgruntled about my role in all of that, I felt obliged to his listening of me when I had my break-ups. So I decided to take on being a good friend to someone I had peripherally been friends with out of indifference and habit for six years.

Our weekly hanging out at my apartment (because we were both broke and I was doing the lemonade diet and couldn't really eat out anywhere) was on week three when he suggested he wanted to get high for his birthday. So I went through the rigors of securing some pot and we hung out on the eve prior to his birthday and got high.

He claimed it was the first time for him. He managed to get fairly high, running the gamut of "I don't think this is working" to irrational giggling. We were sitting in my apartment, the sun was rising, the conversation was beginning to reach that stilted moment I find with some people where I just don't know what to say anymore. He kept awkwardly checking up on my emotional status, trying to unearth something which I wasn't feeling and I later discerned was proof to concur with his belief that I was in love with him.

Ironically enough, I was lamenting about the guys in my life, the brit, the drunken ambusher, etc. There was never any indication on my part that I even liked him as a person. I was very conscious of even being close to him and we played a lengthy subconscious game of musical chairs around my apartment. I worried about the prospect of his attempting to kiss me like a disturbing alarm that only I could hear and I chalked it up to paranoia from smoking pot.

And finally, after I'd convinced him that sleeping on my floor was not an option, he was standing at my door, I stood behind him in the hallway ready to accept the doorknob and lock him out of my life, he wouldn't leave. I knew then what it was, but I still played dumb because I thought, well I don't want him to think that I'm looking for that at all. And I didn't want to have any more awkward conversations. I was tired, it was eight in the morning and we'd been hanging out since a little before midnight. I just wanted him to get out.

Thankfully he did not attempt to breach the physical barrier of my walls, for I was so disinterested in the prospect of him kissing me, he was forced to merely stand next to them and shout out at me his desire to kiss me. And I winced. I literally, in front of him, winced. And I said, "I don't think that's a good idea."

After some awkward fumbling attempt at apologizing he was finally gone. I feared he would return, he would knock on my door, try to explain things, try to mend things, but he didn't and I fell asleep with a deep sense of bafflement and exhaustion.

Very few people in my life have been able to appreciate the depth of this terror. That it was unsolicited. That it happened in my apartment. That I was already uncomfortable. That he used the premise of being high to kiss me (his lackluster explanation). Ugh. The whole thing makes me hate him. I loathe him. I will never speak to him again. Most people cry out that I am being harsh, unfair and unkind to someone who needs my friendship at this crucial point in his life.

My only defense is that if I were a guy this would have never happened. He would not have attempted to manipulate a guy friend into a kiss even if he was high. I have no idea what he was thinking, but I know that much. The funny thing is, as much as the idea disgusts me, if he had said, hey I've always liked you, we're both single now, whaddya say? I'd have a lot more respect for him and I might be able to continue being his friend.

I'm not sure why this event has created such a stark sense of devastation in my world. Part of it is that I felt helpless, unsure of what was happening, manipulated, duped, and then the next day and the next, like the aggressor and not the victim. Even he treated me like the bad guy, assumed I was mad and seemed happy to let me be angry without attempting to take responsibility for what he did. Mostly I think what it did was remind me that sometimes, I give myself away too easily, to the wrong people, for no reason other than to be received. I felt taken advantage of, and now I feel like retreating into myself, to hide that part of me.

flourescence

It was bound to happen. After a month of being in such close proximity to his apartment I've had to resist the urge to become a stalker, stop scanning every face on the block, and try to pretend I'd imagined the whole thing, I bumped into The Drunken Ambusher at the grocery store.

By some coincidence, we were both headed to the same place at the same time. I was with my friend Val whose food prediclictons are too powerful to ignore and she wanted ice cream. I headed to get some salad. If I'd ignored that urge I wouldn't have seen him at all.

I said hello and he turned. He offered his arms in a wide embrace which I fell into with great relief. It was awkward after that somehow, because my brain would not work. I stammered and muttered and drifted away. He did not detain me.

My brain was distracted by his obvious oldness in the glare of the flourescent lighting. Most of what's left of his hair is gray. His skin seemed pallid and wrinkled heavily. His posture was stooped and the weight he claimed to have put on seemed more evident. I was struck by the sheen of my thoughts this past month was not only not true, it was just the fantasy, the booze, the lie I wanted to believe.

Suddenly, my urgency to capture his heart has dwindled and I'm not fretting about his abscences from my world. I'm embarassed that once again I've let myself get swindled; by myself.

mercurial

Every day yields a different direction. Some days we're up. Some days we're down.

I don't know what's going on and that makes all the difference. There's no tangible ground for me to stand on.

When he needs me, I'm there, telling him what he wants to hear. When I need him, he's absent, a mystery, a figure of my imagination. Everyone has a different opinion, everyone thinks they know what's best. I'm glad for that, because I have no idea what to think.

To her, the seat stealer, he is clearly interested in me. In fact, the only communication they've supposedly had was about me.

To my best girl friend, he is a member of the String Along Gang. He simply likes the attention of my attraction, of knowing there's someone out there pining for him, but he has no intentions of actually making us an "us."

To my best guy friend, I'm the problem, not patient enough, not relaxed enough, too pushy.

All I know is that when it's good, it's like electricity is running through me, I smile for no apparent reason, and I feel alive.

It's been nearly a month since he ambushed me and it looks like that may have just been a random thing that will never happen again. So once again I've leaned on a seemingly fantastic guy who is just a cardboard cutout and I've fallen.

good riddance

Their voices carried across the street and up to my windows, where I sat staring out at the sky, smoking a cigarette. The words were meaningless, it was the tone I recognized, the fervent, angry yelling was what I heard. And it was the first time since we were done that I felt a sense of relief. I'll never have to take part in another screaming match again.

As I've been unpacking, I've found things from the first time we were together that I held on to, for some reason, but now no longer feel the urge to keep. It felt good to get rid of the letters, notes and pictures that marked the time we shared.

At first, I wasn't angry. I think I was more shocked than anything. Once that wore off, once reality began to sink in, one unpacked box at a time, as the days became weeks and the weeks became a month, I was really just sad. I was just disappointed. I hadn't gotten angry yet.

The first strike was the phone call. His voice was terse and angry. I hadn't heard it in a month. Among the things he'd decided we needed to discuss were the phone bill, some leftover mail, and the few things I couldn't move. He set a limit on the phone til December 4th, which I was grateful for.

The second strike was his ultimatum that if I wasn't able to move them by a certain date, he would give them away. I've done nothing but make this easy on him. I left immediately. I got a new apartment within two weeks. I hadn't called him at all. I moved my stuff in three trips in my boss' car. I couldn't take a couple things and just figured I would get them eventually. The idea that he would demand something else out of me was just too much.

Lastly, of course, was money. I'd given him almost five hundred dollars in one month to cover the expenses from the half of the month I was there, the phone bill for November and what I was sure was coming, overages in my minutes. I gave him fifty bucks for that. It turned out that my overages cost $170 and he wanted me to pay as soon as possible and get off his phone plan as soon as possible. Well that was just too much. I had to borrow $1400 to get into an apartment and he wanted me to happily cut him a check for $120?

All of this has made me realize that even though I was disappointed, I still imagined that we might be able to be friends at some point, but now I don't see that even being possible. I've always thought the phrase He's dead to me was a little ridiculously dramatic, but I finally feel the urge to say it.

The things that tied us together were so easy to cut. I got my stuff, the post office knows my new address, my phone number is back to being mine. Six weeks and it's like we never knew each other and never will again.