It’s been a while, eh, dear reader(s???)?
It’s been somewhat up and down and back and forth, if you know. For two weeks, I didn’t see him; then I did, and it was very physical for a few days. Then the honeymoon was over, and there were some fights (well, a ‘discussion’ about the fact that we weren’t together, we would never date, and we could not be together, followed by a listing of what each of us did wrong and how we were immature… and then we slept together).
I told myself I couldn’t sleep with him after that; that night, before we went to bed, I told myself I wanted to remember what it was like to sleep there. We talked before going to bed–and even told each other that the other was the best kisser he’d ever known. “Maybe that’s the way you know if that’s who you’re supposed to be with,” he said, which is self-contradictory, coming as it did an hour after he’d said we could not be together, especially (!) when his traveling boyfriend returned. But I still wanted to remember it–to remember what it was about him that draws me to him. And that night I had an upsetting dream; in it, a man was following me, pestering me to do something. He wouldn’t leave me alone, even after I told him to go. And so I flung my fist toward him.
And hit the boy I was sleeping next to.
Of course, it wasn’t too hard–mostly my arm falling on him, as I woke up halfway through my slap. “You hit me!” he said–joking mostly; it hadn’t hurt. But in the second before I did so, I looked over and saw him, curled up there with my arm around his shoulder, he breathing quietly, and it was so goddamned beautiful that it broke my heart. It broke my heart that this beautiful guy was here in my arms and that we both knew it wouldn’t work.
That morning, we woke up late (there was sex for him, and only half for me, if you must know…). We wandered out late. And then, after I told him I never knew the name of the man who hands out flyers near the subway (he did), he told me that that was natural for a Democrat to like groups of people but not care about the individual–to go through life liking people in theory but being mean to them individually.
It was something I’d thought of before, like when he gave a homeless man a cigarette or talked to a crazy-looking woman passing us on the street. I didn’t have a quick-enough mind or sharp-enough tongue to retort that I was the one who volunteered on the weekends–that perhaps voting the right way and volunteering with groups was a better way to go through life, a way to have a more positive impact, than just talking to random people you happen to meet. But because I’m insecure about how I am with people–how I continue to figure that people don’t really want to talk to me, as I used to when I was a kid–I think that jab of his was the most cutting one yet. I walked mostly in silence until we said goodbye. Showering at home, I wept; I had to stop shaving to cry.
Never again! Like always, I told myself. But it was a special day for him soon; I’d already promised to see him twice that weekend. He had big plans–going to sleep, waking up and cooking breakfast, spending as much time as possible together. I ruined them, though; I’d already decided I would not be sleeping over there, even though I was exhausted and, like most, didn’t particularly like sleeping by myself. But I went home; he was upset and gave me a perfunctory hug, even though the whole night he’d been utterly sweet (to the point where it was obvious he was acting), kissing me on the cheek and forehead.
I called. He said he was angry–and that if I was going to mope around, I shouldn’t even come to the party the next day.
I did–go, that is–and I had a good time. Which really annoyed him. He said he didn’t even expect me to come (I hadn’t called first). I was slightly tipsy, so I decided it would be a good decision to follow him outside to meet his friend, the whole five-minute trip of which consisted of him berating me for being annoying. (I blocked most of this out.) Highlights of the night also included making out on his bed when he went to look for a pen; him telling me to leave and find another boy to sleep with like I had a few weeks before (side note: You have a boyfriend. And another fuck buddy. And you’re mad at… me?); and seeing said fuck buddy at his party. At least he didn’t kiss him in front of me (he did, however, kiss me in front of his friends). Oh, and the best part: We had our emphatically stated “last kiss”–it was long and passionate, and in his bedroom; and when it was over he opened the door and said I should leave so I didn’t get there too late.
And yet I saw him the next day, and he got mad at me again for being moody and not having a good time (someone’s not having a good time–> yell at them—> has less of a good time //vicious cycle). And then he said in a message that I was very important to him. And I thought about how I liked him again.
It will basically never end, it seems, until the boy comes back, at which point I hope I get in a fistfight with one or both of them.
And I am seeing him tonight. And he will sleep over, and I will not kiss him. I promise.
