Blue Ribbon Work Crush, Part Two

I had (still have) no chill every time I pass BRWC in the hallway. I always feel compelled to sing out his name or give him a little present.

My department had a whole week of feasting right before Christmas break-- which was wonderful except alllllllll the diet talk that came along with it. If I could wave a wand and make food talk cease to be a small talk topic!!! Anyway, there was an amazing coconut custard pie and I brought him a piece, all wrapped up un foil with a fork and napkin on top. Gave it to one of his teammates to pass along, which in retrospect seems hurtful! Teammate deserved some pie too!

The next day, the last day before break, I looked all over the building trying to give him one of my fancy gingerbread cookies. After that dizzy afternoon, I kept resolving not to chase him! There’s a reminder on my Finch app that says “Do my best about cute people,” because “Don’t fawn all over ___________” seemed too high to aim.

The car got fixed up unfraughtly, and the gentle flirting kept being the icing on the gingerbread cookie of any given day. Sometimes, there was a moment—like when I told him to high five better next time. Like when he told me in a hopeful/bonding tone that his car has lots of stickers on it too.

There was one such moment the day before Easter vacation, a little bit of a blink-and-you’ll-miss it D/s glimmer between us that made me decide that, if the moment came, I was gonna ask him out before the end of the day. There have been several moments like that, that I didn’t end up taking, usually because he was standing around with a bunch of dudes, but sometimes just because I didn’t want to.

Two days later though, a thing happened—he “liked” me on one of the dating apps! OMGGGGGGGGG! Even though he had a “smokes often,” I matched him and said “Hey pal!” and then three big grin emojis.

Seriously, who does this happen to?! I know a “like” is the smallest move possible, but still! He made it! The person I was daydreaming about all this time! The cutest guy at work! Liked me back!

And then my unhelpful brain was like, are you sure? Look at what day it was when he matched: April Fools Day. Several scream emojis!

When he didn’t respond for a few days, I went ahead and asked. “Ohno is this match an April Fool?! If so I will have to schedule some time to be mortified!

(No one I obsessed about this to had ever heard of this as a kind of April Fools prank, so apparently I should have slightly more confidence.)

A few days later, came his three word, no punctuation reply:

“no april fools”

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part Two

 

I think it was Lottie on last week’s Yellowjackets who said it’s hard to form memories when you’re in an ecstatic state. Not like anyone should be going to Lottie for advice, but the idea’s relatable. I can’t always access the sensations and emotions of my lost love, my first real grownup love with a man.

Some nights, close to sleep and looking for a little extra. peace, I say a little prayer inside my head: “Come back to me.” Now that I understand that he wasn’t the right one (one of the right ones) for me, I don’t think it’s entirely a prayer for his miraculous somehow-return. It’s like, let me reclaim the experience. Let me remember and care for the beautiful things that happened between us without the shame of rejection or the grief of loss, or at least alongside them.

Of course, sometimes “come back” is just “come back.” That’s love and heartbreak and I hate it and I love it.

The love part, I handled so badly. Not the part about loving him almost-instantly and thoroughly and eternally, that’s all fine and on-brand. But when the love word crept into his side of the text thread, I think in a GIF of a cartoon bear with a wheelbarrow of hearts saying “Goodnight, my love!” and then didn’t come up again for a while, I freaked.

The thing, the ELUSIVE THING was so close. It might have been there all along, in its own way. He said the love word to my body the first night, easy and unencumbered. But no matter which way he said it, sometimes I just couldn’t hear it. Then, later on, in the highest heights of sex, he would withhold it. But first—

I freaked. He and Mrs. Shy One had fallen in love with the lady who came right before me, and in my worst moments, I wondered why she was easy to love and I was so impossible to love. This comparing, this sense of inherent inferiority, might be one of the things that makes it harder to love me and of course, sometimes I choose the situations that will trigger it the worst.

It’s a lifelong struggle—the thought that I’m missing some secret thing that other women have, like my orientation package was missing a map or some other vital page. In the background of that fear are my millstone words, or I guess my family’s words, probably both/and at this point: Stupid. Empty. Worthless. Here by mistake.

When someone loves me I think: Get out now or I’ll be humiliated. I’m already humiliated. I’m ALWAYS humiliated. Wish it was in the fun way a little more often.

I didn’t tell him the millstone words situation directly, but I did ask: Why is it easier to love (previous girl) than me? What was I missing? Jealousy tumbled out everywhere and he did NOT have the space for it, which made the panic worse. The shame of it is hard to argue with, even as I try to treat myself more kindly.

So when he, a day or so after all the jealousy and tears, texted “I love you” all friendly and sweet, I was overjoyed of course. Peace filled up my heart and spread warmth through the rest of my body, as it did again when I wrote the first draft of this post.

But as things fell apart, I couldn’t stop wondering (and I still wonder) if I’d manipulated him into saying it, it he’d offered that phrase to calm me down and keep me happy-enough.

When I look back at what happened, when I (so rarely, I swear) revisit the vacation WhatsApp thread or read his second-to-last email or putter around the apartment in either of the two robes he gave me, (One silky, one fuzzy) or see his fancy Eid-gift teacup at the back of the dish cabinet, I have to admit that his love was real, and I know I didn’t take good care of it.

What I’m trying to do with these paragraphs is to keep what’s mine, to honor whatever things belong to me so I can truly let him go. It’s hard, it’s sad, but I’ll keep writing.

OMG These Presents.

Please note that this box was sealed with red heart stickers.

The last time I had a boyfriend, (“Fiancé” actually, but that just seems bananas.) I’d just turned twenty-one. That’s twenty-six years ago and even then, it felt unreal. When girls-then-women liked me, that made sense, but I had a deep down understanding that a guy would never like me romantically. In fact, my mom, during my teenage years or maybe early adulthood told me “I guess no one will ever love us.” when I was fretting about some unrequited thing or other. I don’t know why my brain A. Took this pronouncement as irrefutably true and B. Decided she just meant men. Trauma? Abuse? Some warped loyalty to mom? Bi erasure? All of those things?

So it was easy to believe it when my first girlfriend and I got close, and my marriage to BFF-Formerly-Sweetie made all the sense in the world, except when it didn’t. The three young men who various-amounts-of-loved-me in my teen years felt a universe away almost immediately, framed in my mind as important but always destined to be lost. (Two of the three were very not gone, it turned out, until stupid jerk covid took Pagan Boy away last year.)

This persistent disbelief about male attraction wasn’t about fat. I’ve always (well, mostly always) seen myself as beautiful. It just felt like other women knew how to be with men, the secret code words or something. As you know by now, I’ve evolved unrequited affection into one of my most central art mediums, at least as formative to my soul as watercolors or photography.

In eighth grade, the school sold carnations for Valentine’s Day, pink, red, and white. (I am Tina Belcher, hear me roar.) I so much wanted to be a getter-of-flowers, to be seen by a crush or by anybody. I mooned and cried at the lunch table. Then a guy at the next table, an acquaintance’s big brother, gave me one pink carnation, stemless and clearly regifted. I don’t know if it was a kindness or a low-key prank, but either way he never talked to me again.

The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow was incredibly generous. Perfectly 1993 Guy and Pagan Boy sent mixtapes long after we weren’t together. Oh boy the late nights up late with the Stone Roses and that Jane’s Addiction b-side, like, how is this an EX’s mixtape, with all the “I wanna be adored” and “I would for you…”

Before I get derailed looking up more Nineties deep cuts, let me finally get to the point:

Last Monday, The Shy One showed up for our immediately-post-Ramadan date beautiful and a little nervous-seeming and still masked from the Uber-ride. With a gift bag that said “Enjoy every moment!” on it. Flowery lotions and perfume. Bright, perfectly-fruit-scented candles. An electric wine opener I absolutely did not need but will now keep forever. And this cup and spoon:

I can't even.

Seriously, DO YOU SEE THE SPOON?! That’s what I’ve been picturing this week as I gently guide my mind away from Gilead-themed draft opinion panic. That spoon just exists a little more than other objects do, like the Hope Diamond does, like my magenta ropes do.

It’s not just the presents, of course, that inspired me to ask him to be my boyfriend by the end of the night. I’m feeling private for now about all the superhot parts, but maybe I’ll get them down sometime soon. Like the meditation-inspiring spoon, all the gifts felt grounding, somehow both lavishly romantic and straightforwardly attuned to what’s real. Like him. There’s such a solidity to his affection, an uncomplicated generosity, an ease. The Shy One does for my spirit what the ropes do for my body. I don’t really know how to be a boyfriend’s girlfriend, but he makes me feel brave enough to try.