Two Hauntings and a Lovely Monsieur, Part One

Last Friday night, peaceful and close to sleep, I was swiping through Bumble a little bit, matching a bunch and generally feeling hopeful about the futures of my heart and hoo-ha, when, OF COURSE, there he was. The Shy One. Not the same picture he’d sent me from Sierra Leone, but one from the same series. His lips. His gentle eyes. His lightly bratty smile. His pink, pink sky.

I’d been feeling a little more steady, a little more over him lately, but the profound surge of fight-or-flight that came from a few moments with that picture pre-swipe-left smushed all my illusions of progress, at least for a little while. “You both like Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy!” Bumble unhelpfully proclaimed. Darn Spotify being connected to Bumble. Darn Afrobeat being my yard work music lately. Too, too much connection everywhere. Every algorithm a tangled road back to him, back to wistfulness.

I sobbed to BFF about it. I made a bedraggled Instagram story about it and sent it to three Close Friends. I never wanted to swipe again or kiss another stranger or text another (possibly cursed) “good morning” to anyone else.

But when I woke up in the morning I felt…mostly fine! The matches in my queue were cute and viable and it definitely wasn’t THEIR fault I got pink-sky-haunted! I said hello and felt my forward motion starting up again, just slightly rickety like a wooden roller coaster.

And then, last Saturday afternoon, a whoooole bunch of WhatsApp notifications. It was from a new number to get around the block—shady, but I’ll allow it. He sent a beautiful dreamy-sad faced picture: The Princely Guy.

He missed me. We would never forget me. Three kiss emojis, the lipstick print kind.

Of course I wrote back, what am I, made of stone?

He just wanted me to know he would always be there for me. The Princely Guy is one who uses the “love” word casually, which I like, instead of treating it like a taboo or a weird grail.

The Princely Guy had moved away and I definitely didn’t want a long-distance relationship. But it felt good to know everyone’s not out there forgetting me.

By Sunday night, I was on the phone with Le Monsieur, one of the Friday night matches. He’s a beautiful divorced-dad sweet talker my own age, originally from La Cote d’Ivoire. We talked for an hour and a half (!) while I worked on my maybe-impossible 1000-piece dahlia puzzle. He made me laugh. He made me want to remember my like SEVEN YEARS of French I’ve never really used. There’s a lot of Google Translate in this flirtation and I LOVE IT.

I thought it would be a while til I could meet Le Monsieur, but it wasn’t. 😊

Fuck this Brunch Epiphany and Fuck These Two.

I don’t know how long The Shy One had been trying to break up with me. Maybe since we tried getting back together in July.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I wanted some privacy to let the thing with The Shy One grow on its own. What happened was, it didn’t. I’ve tried really really REALLY hard to figure out how to fit into his life, but the space just kept getting smaller. Still, there was so much goodness there too—sex so profound and beautiful I never did learn to get my head around it. Pretty lingerie I’ll take pictures of before I put it away maybe forever. Cuddles in front of Gilmore Girls. He let me drag him through The Fancy Gardens even though it was freezing cold. He came to my Christmas party and met my students, and my mom, and the one aunt who’s not too vocally fascist to talk to.

But the feeling I couldn’t stand anymore was Waiting for Him to Text Back. I wanted to throw my phone in the river because no matter how much he tried to stay in touch, the distance between us would not close. He said he loved me but I couldn’t feel it.

And the feeling of Wondering If He’s Ignoring Me Because it’s Her Time (It’s ALL her time, turns out, I kind of knew that last May.) And I’m Not Allowed to Know When That Is. (Because it’s always.)

Or wanting to send him a picture of the sunrise or sunset or a painting or a cloud but feeling resentful because he’d kinda stopped sending me pictures of anything after he got home from his big trip. Then sending him the picture anyway because he said text whenever but that wasn’t really the rule either. (I still don’t know what the rule was, only that I got snapped at if I got in touch wrong.)

To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much SHOULD NOT depend on an emoji. Or a GIF. Or a “good morning.”

Anyway, so brunch:

I was trying for every-other-month brunches with Mrs. Shy One. I really liked hanging out with her and was learning to think of her as a regular non-fictional human and not Nakia from Wakanda Forever. (Mrs. Shy One doesn’t look like Lupita Nyong’o, it’s just a vibe.)

Last Sunday, we went to a place she picked, full of cool people and hustle and bustle and noise. All the menu options had a lot of adjectives. I tried the Deep Fried Bread Pudding French Toast with Candied Bacon and Lingonberry Jam. I thought lingonberries only existed on Portlandia.

It’s not her fault (Probably? ) that I felt ugly and stupid and clownish and poor sitting there with her. But these two things she said, jeez.

When she asked, “Who else are you dating?” I joked like oh, you know, just this one guy. And she was like “Who?” And I was like “Uh, (The Shy One)?”

“But I know you’re always out there, right?”

I mumbled some excuses like having too maybe-misleadingly-slutty of a profile pic, but, no, not really. Just then, just this past while, I wanted to be dating just him. He was a lot. A LOT. And I needed time and space to settle in if I was going to. I was swiping Feeld sometimes, not totally off the market, but like, let me just be in love with this guy for like five seconds. I think it’s a totally valid way to be poly sometimes.

I felt so stupid, like I wasn’t doing this right, like I was too dowdy and dim and simple and needy to keep up with these two FUCKING SUNBEAMS.

(Did I mention that he emigrated for her? Crossed the whole ocean and came HERE of all places?! And I had to clamor for anything other than a few hours on a Tuesday.)

(But actually, we had a trip coming up on the 17^th. The ticket cancellation showed up in my inbox at 4am. At least he couldn’t sleep after the breakup? But why couldn’t I make it til through to the trip. Other than I couldn’t figure out how I was going to eat or poop all weekend and I was scared of ending up stranded in the middle of a pretty-scary part of the state.)

ANYWAY back to brunch. Mrs. Shy One said something like “Oh it doesn’t matter if I don’t see my girlfriend for a couple of weeks, I always have dick at home.”

This pronouncement SUCKS for everyone involved, but it really made me come to terms with all I was left out of, all I was missing. I couldn’t imagine ever being that filled up, that confident, that wanted, that loved. I mean, I had that with Sweetie-Now-BFF, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit in that relationship either.

I could never measure up.

I could never have what she has, especially if I kept pining after a guy who erases my existence to every single other person in his life. Who lies to his kids about his love life and would only let me drop him off at home once.

“It’s my street,” he once said angrily, while of course being cuddled and feted on my street.

Their life is perfect without me, without ANYONE else. The rest of the world is a threat to what he really wants. (I mean, the rest of the world IS a threat, but that’s seventeen other conversations.)

Not with a bang, or a sweet-but-resolved text. With a “good morning” that got lost in the ether yesterday. I called to check in later in the morning, and he offered to send me a screenshot as proof. She’d done the same thing when my phone dropped her text confirming brunch. These two are scared to fucking DEATH of me. It’s so awful that they felt like they needed receipts.

I didn’t want to be scary. I tried to ask for as little as possible, to be self-contained, to self-date my way to satisfaction, to just be quiet and leave him be as much as I could stand to in hopes that I would stop being an irritation. That he might miss me and be kind and want to be near me.

I feel dirty, and broken, and ashamed. I’m literally surrounded by pretty presents that couldn’t bridge the gap.

I wanted to be part of his life. Of their lives. I didn’t want to be a secret. I wanted to meet the kids, or at the VERY LEAST for The Shy Ones to learn what a babysitter is.

He wrote it as a starcrossed kind of story, just circumstances. But I wanted him to see me. To choose me, not instead of them, but alongside.

He said he “prays that I find my person,” but my mind doesn’t work that way. I don’t want The One, I’ve loved many Ones and will (I GUESS) love many more. I think they’re all valid, they all count. I wish this one had counted more to him. I wish he could see me without the threat that haloed me in his mind no matter what I tried to do. I wish he could see me.

It really pisses me off that in like six months I’ll be like oh, poor us, just a bad match. I hate magnanimous. I hate how small I tried to be in his life, and I hate how I’m an ogre in his mind anyway. I hate this.

Postscript to the Shy One

My heart has no sense of perspective about kind touch or attention to detail. It’s why I asked-out-then-befriended my massage therapist. It’s why I have had a crush on Cute Guy at the Car Place for SEVEN YEARS, ever since the first time he put my keys back on the key ring for me.

Kind touch and attention to detail are where all the swirly/woozy/glittery emotions about the Shy One came from, what makes him so hard to move past. Warm affection, carefulness, specificity. The first night with him, after the pretty ropes and lovely sex, in the cozy glow of peace and satisfaction, I leaned back onto him and he said “I love your body,” running his hands over my shoulders, my arms, my waist, my hips. Firm, warm touch, easily given—I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gotten a hundred girlfriends since we broke up in mid-May.

That first night, it was so easy to learn the Heart Link harness because A. He didn’t mind me rewinding a YouTube video a bunch of times trying to figure out the hearts! And B. He was so still! Excited and engaged, not impatient or judgey. Encouraging. Sweet. I don’t think too much about dad energy, but maybe that’s what it was.

The night of all the presents, our third date, after our month of sunsets, was one of the most powerful instances I’ve felt of arousal being intertwined with joy. He had the condom on and was ready to go in, but I told him to stop. Just stay there. Wellbeing fizzed up through me as he paused, hard dick resting on my vulva. I put my arms around him tight, kissed him, and felt the full force of whatever bond that month of mostly-chaste flirting had built.

It was a feeling of wholeness that, somewhat vexingly, still occupies my entire body. Any time I’m quiet and calm, I can feel it in my toes.

To paraphrase Lady Mary (spoiler alert!) when her suitors were closing in and she was still deep in grief over Matthew Crawley, I’m still full of The Shy One. It’s true that The Hipster jangled loose a lot of stuck desire and made me want to start a summer sex rampage like the hot kaiju that I am, but even as I move into this new stage of why-doesn’t-so-and-so-text-me flirtation/vexation, The Shy One is still with me. He’s not just in the limbo of my Feeld inbox, being all “This human has deactivated their account,” he’s in my soul’s inbox, in my whole heart. Both of those places are very crowded, but still.

That third date was the only time he slept over, and in the long process of saying goodbye, he sat on the floor next to the bed to hold me and kiss me while I was still under the covers. That morning was THE WHOLE DREAM, a distillation of why I started this blog in the first place, the CLOSENESS, the ROMANCE, the being adored. There was another time, on our second date, we were all wrapped up in each other, when he looked me in the face (I’m sorry but NO ONE was better at looking at me than he was.) and got still.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing. Well, I am thinking something. I like you.”

It’s hard to imagine any new feelings ever coming close to that, though there’s never any need to compare feelings. I know every connection is its own universe, every new match a fresh start, a new mystery.

Two days ago, I wished long-absent Mr. Sweetheart a happy birthday on facebook, the most low-stakes interaction possible, and to my delight, he reached out to say hello! We’re planning a catch-up Zoom! He was excited that I remembered his blog nickname, and I said “Of course I do! Once in the story, always in the story.”

So, dear Shy One, who is probably not reading this, same thing. Once in the story, always in the story. You’ll snuggle and read about history and watch your true crime shows and love and work and hopefully see flowers and think of me every once in a while. I’ll learn to let you go, to forgive myself for not finding a way to fit, but you’ll still always be with me. Your generous touch, your giggle, your expert tongue, your supercute butt; always a little bit mine. And my heart, slutty though it will surely be, will always belong a little to you. I’ll love you. Forever. That’s all.

Oh Quarantine Crush, Ugh Anniversary Effect

Maybe no more “On This Day” in the fb for me. I’ve been curious to see if the poems I wrote in last spring’s quar-madness/denial/crush mode were any good so I’ve been dipping into the OTD maybe more than I should.

 

The post that gets to me doesn’t seem like much. Just me having a whole face, dressed up in red for Zoom poetry, one pic of my face and one of my for-no-reason pretty shoes. But my face is full of love and hope (or at least full of having-showered-that-day!) and he is tagged. Of course, the link is broken because I blocked him in my heartbreak panic later on that fraught year.

 

It isn’t new to me that everyone who was ever dear to me is still dear—even my awful Q-a-mom is still in my dreams every night, trying to drive me crazy and/or give me virus hugs.

 

But the PANGS about Quarantine Crush. They’re probably not surprising at all. We were friends for 20 years before I had the following thought at the beginning of lockdown (COVID lockdown, not the police-are-terrorizing-our-cities curfew in the summer):

 

“Now seems like a good time to just go ahead and fall in love with (Quarantine Crush).”

 

He was my friend in my mid-twenties, a powerfully prolific few years, sunshine-filled and dramatic as the Pacific Coast Highway. I walked up hill by the beach with him belting out Ani DiFranco songs. He held me and I wondered why I couldn’t just fall for him, the best one.

 

And then he was there for me in those first COVID months, when everything was dark and impossible and I was crying into Zoom and wondering what life could even BE anymore.

 

My “Liked Songs” list on Spotify is still kind of a monument to those quick/forever 2020 months, though of course I’ve added songs since. The only solution to the pangs is to put the songs on and walk around looking at spring trees, or sit around doodling/perfecting my Animal Crossing island, letting the feelings just exist with me.

 

So many people live in my heart forever, there’s plenty of room for him to stay.

More Songs of the Week:The Mountain Goats and Idina Menzel Want Me To...

Though I'd rather not meet the same fate as David Foster Wallace, I haven't learned to let go yet, but I enjoy the idea of being the only person who'd put these two songs together.

Postscript to the Mystery Family, A Love Letter

In the end, I finally got to hear his voice, to tell him how much I love them all, how much I wish I could be with them. It didn’t make it any easier to break up, but it did take away the feelings of bitterness and helplessness that came from being confined to the internet. It did my heart and soul good to cry real tears to him, to tell his ears all the things I’d typed but never got to say.

As much as online relationships are still a mystery to me (The combination of seeing the movie Her, reading The Circle by Dave Eggers, and trying online love has convinced me that modern times are completely unfathomable.) I don’t know how I would have made it through these winter months without him, without the daily images of their gorgeous and complicated life, without his affection—it was all completely irresistible. But at the same time, it’s a relief to let go of my fantasy of them and accept what’s real—they don’t have room in their lives for everything I have to offer, they aren’t able to give me what I really need. It’s a relief to love them for what they are rather than try to wait or fight for things to change, to accept them and try to let the crush part go.

Dear Mystery Man,

The fact that I can even write you a love letter means you’ve taken me a long way forward. Thank you for keeping me company in such hard, cold months. Thank you for loving me in the ways that you could and for letting me love you too. Thank you for giving me a clearer picture of what I want someday, of why I have to pull my attentions close to home and be present here with my whole heart. I don’t know how to stop longing for you and the Ladies, I probably won’t. I hate that circumstances keep us apart and I will miss you very badly.

Until you, I hadn’t told a man I loved him in a romantic way and had it returned since 1995. I’ve always fought a very deep belief that it couldn’t happen, and now it has. Thank you for letting me say it, and hear it, and practice it, so that when the heartbreak heals I’ll believe a little more that being loved by a man is something I deserve. It’s such a blessing to meet someone whose heart is as eager and voracious and fragile as mine, to believe that such a thing is possible. I’ll look for it in future loves, and think of you.

I still wish I could give myself to you and the Ladies, every single part of me. I don’t really know how to let you go, so I’ll carry you around in my heart forever like all the other characters. I wish there were anything I could write that’s as beautiful as the sound of your voice.

My heart is broken but much better for having let myself love you. Thank you all the way to the stars.

Love,

Kitten

Song of the Week: No Matter What

Yesterday the Cutest Boy at the Party texted to thank me for still mentioning him in the blog and it was the second conversation I had in as many days about how some people will just always be mentioned. With the Big Poly Conference and its attendant reunion-snuggles coming up tonight, it's really sinking in that I've made some true and lasting connections. So yesterday when I was driving around singing in the little red car, I decided I had to dedicate this song to all the nice characters I'm still heart-hoarding, which is to say, all of them.