Now, Blow.

I bet you think this pile of Kleenex is from me crying my eyes out over Berlin don't you? Well you'd be wrong. I WISH it was from crying. Instead it is from the nasty mucous that has been steadily dripping out of my nose for the last 3 days. I know. Too much information. The current physical misery I feel is a substantial distraction from my heartache, but oh my God, I really can't take it anymore. My nose is raw, my lips are chapped, my skin is breaking out -- I am an absolute mess. Even that bowl of green tea ice cream didn't make me feel better.

Besides, there is nothing worse than being single and sick. I had almost forgotten what it's like. 14 years in a relationship with one man, and I don't even remember what its like to be sick and be all alone. No husband or boyfriend to make you soup? No one to stop off at the store and buy you your favorite Citrus C Monster Odwalla juice smoothie? No one to draw you a hot bath or bring you aspirin, or a cup of honey and lemon tea? I am an independent woman - I don't need a man. Nope. I do not need a man. Except right now, I could really use someone to rub my throbbing temples and tell me (lie to me) that I look sexy in my jammies and unwashed hair.

My husband always did that - took care of me when I was sick. It used to drive me crazy. One of his neuroses is his cumpulsion about doing everything according to instructions, or some other regiented plan of his own device. He believes if the box of nyquil says take every four hours then you should take it exactly every four hours. He used to set his alarm and wake me up in the middle of the night for my next dose. Of course, there is nothing more annoying than being woken up from a sound sleep when you are sick so that you can take medicine to help you sleep - a concept he didn't quite understand. But his dedication - his persistance - to the task of making me well was very loving, and thinking back now it almost makes me cry. It's nice to have someone want to love you and take care of you when you are at your worst.

The Fonz

Meet Alfonso. My new boyfriend.

I know, I know. Your thinking it's too soon, right? That inviting a new man into my life is just a recipe for disaster? Well rest assured, he has his own life. He doesn't live with me - yet. We met for the first time before I even moved in. I was just coming to see the place, when he galloped up the stairs of my apartment and acted like he belonged there. Recently he has decided he likes me quite a lot. He is waiting for me when I get home. Always lurking around my house waiting for the chance to bump into me, hoping I'll invite him up for a cuddle and a bite to eat. His persistence is wearing my down like a man who won't stop calling. A man who shows up looking all sweet, and rubbing you just the right way. Eventually you go out with them, even though you know better, and before you know it they are in your bed and making themselves right at home.

That's sort of what happened with my husband. He showed up in my life rather unexpectedly when I was still pining after a boyfriend who had broken up with me for religion. He was Muslim, I was ... open minded. Too open-minded for him I suppose. After he refused to tell his family about me, we broke up. I was lonely and made out with his best friend fraternity brother, which resulted in some name calling, a fist through a glass-paned door, and an end to any and all hope of reconciliation.

For the record I really liked the best friend, but I had to learn the hard way that best friends are a bad choice for rebound relationships. In fact its best to re-bound for a while with guys you don't really like all that much. If I ever have a daughter with a broken heart I will *not* tell her to wait, and be patient, and heal and all that crap. Nope. I will tell her to go find all the cute guys she pleases, but not the sort she will fall for. I will tell her to have plenty of sex with any or all of them, so long as she uses a condom, and none of them are friends of the true object of her affection. In moments of anger, lashing out at the X by hooking up with his friend seems like the most brilliant act of revenge, but it never works. The friend knows about the X, and thinks you're a slut. The X- finds out about the friend and thinks you're a slut, has a fight with the friend, makes up with the friend and the friend dumps you. Now you are twice dumped and twice as miserable. Better to find a cute random stranger, or befriend a lonesome cat.

My eventual husband was a lot like Alfonso (who as I write this is sleeping soundly on my bed): he was very persistent, sweet, and he rubbed me just the right way - that is to say he rubbed my feet. Yes. The man took of my shoes one night and began massaging my feet. It began completely innocently (I think). I was in college and I had just had my car towed away because of multiple unpaid parking tickets. Those tickets amounted to a paltry sum compared to what it eventually cost me, including the towing and impound fees, and fines. I had to call my mother and ask her for the money- some four hundred dollars- to get the car out of the impound lot. She was understandably pissed, and I started to cry. I was lying on my bed, crying, and he, wanting to comfort me, slipped off my shoes and began massaging my feet. It was the sweetest gesture ...and it worked. I felt better. I stopped crying, and soon he was sliding his hands up my calves and helping me wriggle out of my jeans.

And I guess I adopted him, because before I knew it he was making himself right at home. Too bad he doesn't rub my feet anymore, or maybe I'd keep him.

Breaking up is hard to do

Even after all the things I said it's still hard to let go. I turned on my computer last night and skype opened up automatically. Low and behold there he was. Active. Online.

I stared at the screen for hours. I logged off of skype for a while, but logged back in. I didn't want to contact him again. I had said my piece. But seeing him there - it was almost like he was in the room with me, but ignoring me completely. it was maddening. I was becoming obsessed. It was ridiculous. Finally, I gave into temptation and opened a chat window.

"I feel like I should say something," I wrote. "But nothing seems appropriate."

I waited. A few minutes later he went offline. Message received - loud and clear. He was done with this. He was done with me. I knew what had happened. He had blocked me as a contact, so that from now on, no matter when he was online, I would always see him as offline.

Two can play that game. I considered doing the same. But then what's the point I thought. I needed to end it. I highlighted his name in my skype contact list and hit delete. And just like that - he was gone.

I removed him from my favorites list on my phone. He was at the top of the list. Every time I opened it I saw his name staring back at me. It had to go.

Then I went to my facebook page and looked him up. This one was harder. I update my facebook page a lot. I had a small fantasy that this link meant not only would I be able to see information about him, but that he could continue to see what I was doing - without my actually telling him.

I imagined, that he might look me up - and discover I was dating someone else. Or see some really cute picture of me and feel a twinge of regret. But I needed to be realistic. He had washed his hands of me, and he was not going to be checking me out on facebook. He was not going to be wondering what I was doing and following the updates of my life. That was my pipe dream, and if I was ever going to be free of this, I had to let him go.

I opened up the privacy settings and typed his name into the box that says "block this person"

I read the consequences of what I was about to do.

If you block someone, they will not be able to find you in a Facebook search, see your profile, or interact with you through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts, Poke, etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with a person you block will be broken (for example, friendship connections, Relationship Status, etc.). Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in third-party applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.

That was it. Once I blocked him it would be done. Over. Finito. The magic of technology. It brought us together and now it was going to cut our ties.

Be careful what you wish for .....

I asked him to tell me he didn't love me. I told him I wanted to say it. I meant it. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less. I suppose I wish he could have done it more tenderly. I suppose I wish he could have said something about how he cared a great deal for me, and how he just had to see this thing with Marion through. How maybe if things had been different ....

I think the part that stung was the bluntness of his expectations. " I do not love you. I never expect to love you." He should have put that in the past tense. he never *expected* to love me. It just wasn't part of the plan. EVER. Motherfucker.

The final response was in my inbox the next day.

Writefromtheheart,
In my world there is a lot of ground between meaningless sex and "I love you". Our relationship existed in that grey area, and I thought that you knew that. You don't need to demonize the situation and draw big presumptuous conclusions about me and my psychopathologies, which must surely be plentiful, but then I don't laughably assert that I have ever taken stock of all of them, dissected them and put them neatly away. That is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me, it is in the nature of these hang-ups that they cannot be put neatly away and anyone who thinks they have is deluding themselves.

So, If I must say it, so that you can move on, then I will say that I did not love you and do not expect ever to love you. That is why we met where we did, because I was not emotionally available in that way.

Now you may think that i am a pig or a twisted pathological womanizer, and you are welcome to do so, but my value system (dare I assert that I have values???) allows two adults to have a very nice affair (which is what I think we had) without it having to lead to church aisles and white picket fences. I am sorry that I disappointed you, but I don't think that I ever misled you, and my only error was to not be brutally honest at the first moment that I suspected that you were feeling something outside the parameters of the nice affair I described.

With that, let me say that I bear you no ill-will, i like you quite a lot and hope that we can be more friendly from now on.

Berlin

Yes. That one hurt. Such simplicity. Such resignation. Such apathy. And never misled me? Who the hell was he kidding? I crafted one last response.

Berlin-
This is such a colossal fuck-up I don't even no where to start. You are defensive and angry - justifiably so. I said some things I shouldn't have. The stuff about you being emotionally stunted was below the belt. I do not think you are a pig or a twisted pathological womanizer. I had no right to assume I knew all your psychopathologies.

But try to put yourself in my shoes - You ARE very wrapped up in your own world. And as such, this affair was - well - it was whatever you needed it to be. Casual, uncomplicated, instantly gratifying with no long-term hassle. I don't think you ever gave so much as a thought to me regarding how I was taking the whole thing, my underlying motivations or desires. You offered very little, and figured, if I didn't like like it I could always walk away. It's what I should have done. But I didn't. So I guess I shoulder as much of the blame.

I will give you that there is a large grey area between love and meaningless sex - and that we were in it. But in the same way the lines between love and lust are blurred so is the spectrum of love itself. Love is not all church aisles and white picket fences. I don't want either - from you or from anyone right now. But what I did want was a connection - a real, and genuine connection to another person. A man who I let know me intimately, both physically and emotionally in the way only lovers can. Someone who would let me into his inner world and want to be part of mine. Someone who thinks of me when I'm not around, laughs when he sees something he knows I'd think is funny. Someone who desires my touch, my smell and my smile - and wants to hear me chatter on about my day, or complain about work, or comfort me when I'm having one of those low moments and need a hand finding my center again. Someone who genuinely enjoys my company, and sees me as a lover and a friend.

You see, that's love to me - it's the kind of love I want, and that is what I offered you while you were here. And you took it. And I kept sort of thinking you'd reciprocate. Not by offering some promise of forever - but by simply relishing the fact that we clicked - by offering something deeper of yourself.

I wanted a lover, not an affair. I didn't want church bells and diamond rings and down on bended knee - I wanted someone who was giddy with anticipation about the next time he would see me. I wanted to be the girl who stood out in a crowded room. The one you would surreptitiously brush hands with just to touch, make an excuse to be alone with so you could steel a clandestine moment when no one else was looking, and ravish in the bedroom (or the kitchen or the living room floor) alone at night. But I also wanted to know your heart and your hopes and your fears and for you to want to know mine. I wanted emotional intimacy.

But I guess you can't do that if the person you really desire that intimacy with is someone else. We played the little game for a while, and it was fun, but then it sort of fizzled - the attraction was still there - but instead of naturally progressing there was just sort of this emotional moat between us that you were unwilling to bridge.

Of course you have values. And we were two consenting adults who enjoyed a little bit of each other for a short while. But yes, I am disappointed. Perhaps it is wrong to demonize the whole thing - on the one hand I don't regret it. I can still close my eyes and imagine you touching me and get completely turned on. I can still smell you, and feel you and taste you- and it's nice - even now. But on the other hand, I settled for something less than I deserved.

I too as very upfront when we started this - I wanted someone who wasn't emotionally withdrawn. I wanted someone who had the capacity to let me in and just go with it. I have already had the affair with the married guy- and it was a waste of time. I never wanted to be in that position again, and if I had any real understanding of how serious this relationship was with her, I would not have even met you that night, and I would not have gone home with you most definitely.

And I'm sorry but you *did* mislead me. Yes - you told me about Germany. You told me about Marion. But you left so many crucial details out. Details that I only discovered little by little, that eventually made the picture sooo much clearer. Things like the fact that you two were living together here, that you were going to live with her in Germany, that you would worry about her health, or if a car was safe enough for her to drive. The fact that you talked to her every single day, that she texted you all the time. Little things that reveal what sort of a relationship you had.

And it's not like I didn't try to figure it out. I asked you if you loved her and you said you didn't know. You said you weren't sure if she even wanted you to come to Germany. Even very close to the end you told me you thought it was going to be "awful" and you weren't sure you doing the right thing. What was I supposed to think? That you two were a happy couple? Those remarks made it seem like there was a lot of unanswered questions in your mind about her and about the two of you as a couple, and that there might be room in your life for someone else.

But there was no room in your life for me -- not even for a real affair -- at most you wanted a little companionship and some sexual release. Be honest. Real love affairs involve something akin to love - even if it's not the white-picket-fence sort.

And if I had had all those details early on - or if you had really come clean and been brutally honest when I asked, and said - "listen, our relationship might be screwed up, but I love HER. I really love this woman. I'm going there to make a life and a home with her, SHE'S the one for me. And this - what you and I are doing is temporary - it's nice and it's fun, but it's just not going anywhere." If you had said anything resembling that, I would have bowed out early.

I would have walked away because as nice and pleasant as the sex and the limited companionship was, I wanted more than that. I always wanted more than that. And as many signs as you gave that signaled you were pushing me away, I gave just as many (and I think clearer) that I was looking for something deeper. You just didn't/couldn't/wouldn't look past your own needs, or my well-being wasn't something you put above your own.

But I'll take the blame here anyway and say, I should have asked the tougher questions, and I should have pressed you, and made us have the conversation we are having now 6 weeks ago. Very poor journalism. I didn't get the full story. I was emotionally weak, and craving affection. I looked the other way. I will never let that happen again. EVER. Life lesson learned.

So was this meaningless? No, certainly not for me. But I'm still not sure there can be much meaning ascribed to it on your end. If you never make a true connection with someone, never really bond with them, let yourself be vulnerable and raw and open - then what meaning is there in it? What do you possibly take away? You tell, me - did you feel some sort of connection, ever? A feeling that I was a person you wanted to open up to, and BE truly intimate with - not just physically but emotionally as well? Maybe you did a little bit. I got some glimpses,but really and truly, I don't think you did feel that - or if you did you didn't let yourself give into it. It's too much like falling in love. And if that's the case then we had some nice sex, shared some fun times, and that was about it.

So I have calmed down significantly. I am not angry anymore. I think I just had to let it all out, and I'm sorry that it was so venomous. But I guess I knew that if I never said anything you would just disappear and I would never hear from you again. You would never think of me, or wonder about me, or call, or write, and I would always be left wondering about you. I assume that because - like I said - it always was more about you than me. I was always thinking of you - and you were never thinking of me. I was always reaching out and you were pulling away. And it was just too insulting to let you walk away without so much as a response. The repressed anger, and frustration, and hormones (yes,hormones) just all made me lose it. Completely lose it. So I hope you'll forgive me, and try to understand .

I would like to be friendly - I would like to be friends in fact -though I just don't see that happening. Not real friends anyway. Perhaps I am different than most people. I don't have a lot of people I call friends, but the ones I do have are very close. They are the people I don't hide anything from, the ones I cry in front of, the ones who know all my dark secrets and insecurities, and sadness, and joy. Those are people that are really and truly a deeply intimate part of my life. I was trying to make you one of them all along. Perhaps the whole idea of love scared you off - but I love the people I am close to, and I felt close to you.

I don't really know any other way to be, and honestly, I think any other way is a waste of time. Most people, in my mind, are just a big, frivolous, waste of time. I don't need people in my life who won't invite me in to be a part of theirs. People who don't really want to be a part of mine. Life is just too short and my attention is too valuable and too limited. I have a lot to offer - I want something back.

So you either throw caution to the wind and decide I'm someone worth really knowing, even at a distance, or you say "it was fun, but no thanks. I just don't feel like we have that sort of friendship, or connection." It's your choice. But I don't do the gray area.

Either way, I wish you the best of luck.

-Writefromtheheart

And I sent it off into the internet night.