Saturday, August 17th, 2013 (Part 3)

Meredith and I finished our lunch and decided we’d walk over to Milk Bar and get dessert. I’d never had it before, so I was excited to try. They have this cereal milk ice cream that’s supposed to be amazing. (And for the record, that’s the first ice cream I’ve had since you broke up with me. I made it an entire day. That takes strength.)

As we walked across town, Meredith and I continued talking. I think we’d actually managed to find a topic not related to my break-up. And then we walked by Think Coffee, and it all came back to me.

That’s where we had our first date.

I was super nervous meeting you for the first time that day. It was actually the second time, but we had only said like two things to each other the night before at the bar when we’d actually met.

“You’re cute.”

“So are you.”

“Can I have your number?”

And you’d given me your number. We’d texted back and forth at 4AM that morning and set up a date for that afternoon. I was excited. I hadn’t been on a proper date in forever it seemed. We decided to meet at Think Coffee, the one just off Union Square. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and you were in Spanish Harlem. We were kind of meeting in the middle. And I had an Oscars party to get to later that night in the area. So it worked out doubly for me.

I got there first. I’m a perpetually early person, as you know. I ordered a coffee and found a table. I hoped that you’d recognize me from the night before. It had been so dark then.

It was February 26th, 2012 that day. Cold out. I had worn a sweater that afternoon, and was beginning to regret my decision as I waited for you to get there. It was so damn cozy in that coffee shop. I was starting to overheat.

Then you arrived. And you looked even better than you had the night before. Your hair was all done up and you were wearing this super cute pair of khaki pants that you’d cuffed at the bottom. They made your ass look really good, too. And you had on these super cute brown boots. Like the casual kind, not too bulky and not too dressy. You looked comfortable and warm, like the kind of guy I’d want to know. And you sat down across from me and I just knew there was going to be something between us.

My biggest fear was that you were going to say you were an actor. That seems to be my type. Poor, out-of-work actors, struggling to get by, waiting for that big break that never comes. I think it’s because I like pretty boys. They all think they can be actors.

But refreshingly, you weren’t. You worked in advertising. (Praise the Lord!) A man with a real job. A professional who I could count on to pay for dinner and drinks every now and then. You have no idea what a relief that was for me. Not that I don’t like struggling actors or wouldn’t have dated you if you had been one. It’s just not who I prefer to date. They’re good for a drink or two, a blow job or a couple of rounds of sex. But that’s about it in my experience.

So our first date started out well. The conversation was flowing; we were laughing and really enjoying ourselves. You were a swimmer just like me, though you were definitely faster. I had qualified for State a few times in high school, but you had swum in the finals. Way better than my twentieth-place finishes.

I love first dates. I love knowing absolutely nothing about a person and then slowly finding everything out. I always liken it to collecting stories, only I like to collect people and their experiences. That day, you were my latest find.

We talked for what had to be hours. Long enough that our coffee cups had been empty for quite some time, long enough for the sun to start its descent back to the horizon. It was time to go. The date was over. But it wasn’t. We walked out of Think Coffee and decided to grab a quick bite to eat.

We wandered up to Union Square. I used to work in that area, so I hoped that I could find us a restaurant. But I couldn’t. At least not anything that wasn’t chain-y. We ended up going to a little vegan place. It was Sunday so I guess a lot of things were closed because both of us love eating meat. I don’t even remember what we ordered. Something with beans. Maybe it was some kind of lentil soup? The food was all kind of blah and overcooked. Mushy. It’s what I associate vegan food with now. (Like that horrible place Tina Fey goes to in Baby Mama, a movie we watched together.)

That didn’t matter, though. At least not to me. I only cared about spending more time with you. Clearly we were hitting it off. If we hadn’t been, we wouldn’t be sitting together managing to stomach vegan food four hours after our coffee date started.

You excited me. You were a real quality guy. Attractive, confident, polite, professional, funny, kind, warm. There are so many wonderful adjectives to describe you with. And you were on a date with me…I felt so lucky.

I had to head out when we finished the vegan food. I was already half an hour late for my Oscars party. I’d felt my pocket vibrating a few times during our impromptu dinner. My friends wondering where I was. Wondering how my date had gone. “Wonderful!” I wanted to tell them.“This guy’s a keeper.” (And you were. Apparently it was me who wasn’t worth keeping.)

We walked back towards the subway together. And there in Union Square, on that cold February evening, we had our first kiss.

I can only describe it as magical. Everything you can possibly want in a first kiss. We didn’t discuss it happening. (Before the date even started I had planned not to kiss you. I didn’t want to seem too forward.) It just happened. Intuitively, we knew what the other wanted. Standing outside the Northwest subway entrance in Union Square we both leaned in and kissed. I put my hand firmly on the small of your back and held you there, you put your hand on my arm and squeezed affectionately.

Later you’d tell me that my hand on your back had sealed the deal for you. Maybe you thought it spoke to my confidence, my manliness, that I could hold you firmly and still kiss you so tenderly. I’m not really sure why my hand went there. I wasn’t thinking, not in that moment. I was acting, letting my subconscious lead me. I guess it knew exactly what you wanted. And I’m glad it did. Or maybe we wouldn’t have had our year-and-a-half together. Maybe our first kiss wouldn’t have been so spectacular. When our lips touched I felt immediate sparks. It was romantic and beautiful. Electrifying and crisp. What potential we had.

But then I guess every relationship starts with potential. What I wouldn’t give to go back and relive that day now. We had so many firsts that night. Our first date, our first coffee, our first dinner, our first kiss, our first goodbye. And isn’t there something magnificent about firsts? Something you only get to experience once. Because the next time becomes your second and then your third and fourth and eventually it loses all of its power and wonder.

Firsts and, I guess, lasts. Those are the important ones to hold on to.

What’s sad is I remember our first kiss so poignantly, but I can’t remember our last. Did we kiss before we ate dinner the night you broke up with me? After? I don’t know.

Meredith and I finally got to Milk Bar and I had my ice cream. It was as delicious as I’d heard. Then we found a bench on 7th Street or somewhere near there and we sat and talked some more.

I was supposed to meet Scott that night. We had plans to go out. I’d brought along that bottle of Irish whiskey you’d given me to pre-game with. Meredith and I decided to break it open early, though. We sat there on 7th Street and took turns taking swigs. Meredith even asked the random guy next to us (he was dressed like a hipster straight out of Williamsburg) if he was an undercover cop. Just to be sure. He wasn’t.

Saturday, August 17th, 2013 (Part 2)

I had plans to meet my good friend Meredith this afternoon. You’ve met her at least once. I know her through this post-graduate program I did at NYU the first summer I lived in New York. Then she interned at my company for a while and got a job at one of our competitors. So we’re industry friends. She didn’t know that you had broken up with me. Not until I met her and told her in person. She immediately gave me a hug and we walked through Union Square holding hands. (I take back that good friend moniker. She’s a great friend.)

We found a quiet little burger shop to have lunch in and she let me spill. I’ve never met a better listener, or a better advice-giver. She’s been with her boyfriend for seven years. And despite that, she still has so much relationship experience it’s unbelievable. She’s had like eight different boyfriends. I don’t think she’s been single since she turned sixteen.

The first thing we talked about? When you called our relationship an “adventure.”

An adventure? That’s what you considered a year and a half spent together? I wanted to write off your poor word choice as something in the moment that you didn’t really mean. You were nervous, grasping at what to say and how to say it. So you said what popped into your mind first.

Except, isn’t that a psychology test they do? Word association or something? The moderator says a word and you say whatever pops into your head first. Aren’t those word choices supposed to mean something, to say something about you and how your mind puts things together? Wasn’t that exactly what you had done? I flashed the word “relationship” at you and you thought“adventure.”

Adventure…the word still rings in my ears. Like we were some kind of weekend lovers. We met serendipitously in an airport while we both were laying over and ended up fucking in the bathroom. That’s what I consider an adventure. What we had – a year and a half together – that’s a commitment.

Meredith agreed with me. But she had a theory of her own. One that I’d also harbored, though I didn’t want to think about it.

She wondered if maybe you’d met someone else. And that’s why you ended things so suddenly without an explanation. Because what explanation can you give for cheating on someone? How do you soften that blow? How do you come out as a good guy?

It seemed farfetched. Totally unlike you. We were in love. You’d never cheat on me. But then I remembered my second boyfriend. I may not have told the whole truth about how we broke up.

Like I said earlier, my second boyfriend and I were in a long-distance relationship. We hardly ever talked and we didn’t have plans on seeing each other. I was super unhappy and wanted to end things. But ending things is a lot harder than you might think. (Or perhaps you know that now.)

I had planned on breaking up with him two weekends before I actually pulled the trigger. I had gotten on the phone and called him and talked to him for thirty minutes each time. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He’d have had a hard and exhausting day on the set. Or he had to drive from one location to another carrying props or cast members or whatever it is PAs do. He always seemed stressed on the phone. And so I didn’t break up with him those first two times.

Then I met someone. I had been unhappy for a couple of months at that point. In my entire first year in New York, I had been to a gay bar once. How sad is that? You could never live that way. I was a hermit, chained to my boyfriend off in L.A. And then my college friend had a very attractive gay friend visiting from out of town. He was tall (taller than me) and lean and muscular. He liked sports and had sung in an a cappella group in college. Pretty much a dream guy for me.

I ended up going to dinner with my friend and his gay friend. I hit it off really well with the gay friend. I didn’t do anything that night, though I wanted to. I controlled my impulses. He even knew that I had a boyfriend, albeit a long-distance one who I was unhappy with. I might have even told the guy that I was planning on breaking up with my boyfriend. My memory fails me on the specifics.

But later that week we ended up going out together again. He actually told my friend to invite me. One thing led to another and I ended up spending my Thursday night in a hotel room just off Times Square.

And it was great! It’s what I needed to get me out of my rut. That next night I called up my boyfriend and broke up with him. I didn’t tell him that I had cheated because I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I already had. Talk about rubbing salt in a wound. The guy I cheated with went back to Chicago or wherever he was from and that was that. Sure, I liked him, but he was just a fun hook-up. After a year and a half in a relationship, I was more than ready to be single.

I tell you this story to say that if you did cheat on me with someone else, I understand. I’ve been there. You were probably unhappy for a while and didn’t know how to tell me. You had just taken a couple of beach trips the month before you broke up with me. The first was to Fire Island with a bunch of your friends. I don’t think anything happened there, but it is the gay beach to go to. Then the weekend before you broke up with me you went out to the Hamptons. This is what worried me.

You were at the Hamptons for a weekend with one of your work friends. You guys had a big house with lots of beds. You even told me that you’d lucked out and gotten a room to yourself. Listening to Meredith’s suspicion, maybe you had met someone. Maybe the chef you’d talked so highly of when you came back. The one who made ten thousand dollars to cook four meals over the weekend for the house. Had you slept with him? Again, I don’t think you’re the kind of guy who would do that. But I also didn’t think you would walk out on a relationship – I mean“adventure” – with two sentences and no explanation.

Saturday, August 17th, 2013 (Part 1)

I cried for the first time this morning. When I called my mom to tell her you’d broken up with me.

Friday, August 16th, 2013 (Part 3)

By this point I had arrived at Scott and Amber’s. He came down to get me in the lobby because his buzzer wasn’t working. And right when I saw him I broke the news. He was just as shocked as me. He said that when I’d called out of the blue asking to come over he’d thought something terrible might have happened.

He was right. Something terrible had happened. The end of a year-and-a-half relationship. The loss of my best friend at the time. A bleak void stretched out before me. I had spent so many of my weekends and hours with you that I didn’t know how I’d fill all my time now.

Scott took me up to his apartment. Amber was there. I broke the news to her while Scott made me a drink. Bourbon and Coke, one of my favorites. And then we hashed it out.

I relived the whole evening with them, beginning with dinner and going all the way up to the break-up. They ooo-ed and ah-ed at all the right spots, feeling sorry for me, not understanding along with me.

I was never mad at you. I want to make that clear right now. Only confused. Disappointed. Sad. We weren’t a blow-up couple. I don’t think we fought once. I certainly never raised my voice at you and I don’t think you ever did to me.

A lot of people might think that odd. I don’t know if you’ve had different experiences in previous relationships, but for me, I’ve never had fights. I guess it’s because I’m a roll with the punches kind of guy. It’s easy for me to brush things off my shoulders.

When I get upset it’s usually about stupid things. I keep it inside and after a day or so stewing, I’m over it. For example, that time your work gave you a free dinner for staying way late for a whole week. You could take anyone you wanted to and go to any restaurant. Naturally, I thought you’d pick me. But you didn’t. You picked your roommate, Tyler. You said that he’d been having a really hard time lately and you wanted to treat him. How could I be mad at that? You were being an amazing friend.

And I wouldn’t have been mad if that’s what you ended up doing. But instead, you took Tyler and your other best friend, Erica, when she was in town visiting. You sat on this free dinner for weeks. (Maybe a month or two. I can’t remember exactly how long.) And then Erica came into town and you decided that you could take her and Tyler both. It was just a dollar cap they’d given you, not a head count. And so you three went to some awesome tapas place without me and I sat and stewed alone in my apartment all night.

I know, it sounds petty when I write it down like this. And that’s what I realized the morning after. That’s why I never said anything to you. I get over shit.

But this, I don’t think I can get over.

You broke up with me out of the blue. You broke my heart. Sure, I might not be able to feel it yet; I’m still numb. But when I wake up in the morning there’s going to be a crack there and it’s going to fucking hurt.

Friday, August 16th, 2013 (Part 2)

And I meant it. Because you do know me. You know that I’m a rational person. I wasn’t about to go get wasted beyond belief. I wasn’t going to go gorge myself on a tub of ice cream. I needed to think, to process everything, and to talk. So I called up Scott, one of my good friends. Luckily he and his roommate Amber (I actually introduced them, so extra points for me in the roommate finding department) were home. They live close-ish to Madison Square Park. It was a good walk for me to clear my head. And a nice night out.

As I walked, our short break-up conversation played on a loop through my head. I still couldn’t believe it. I was in shock, feeling detached from my body. My steps didn’t feel solid beneath my feet, my head was light and airy, like the first-stage buzz of a wine drunkenness. The lights of passing cars and crosswalks didn’t register at all. I was walking on auto-pilot, thankfully going in the right direction.

Then I thought about whether this was the last time I was going to see you. Is this going to be the last image I have of you in the flesh? You were wearing shorts and a t-shirt and some sneakers. You’d been to the gym after work, before our dinner. The hair dryer was broken in the locker room, though, so you’d bought a hat on your way to dinner. A backwards, black baseball cap. So unlike you.

Was this really the last mental picture I was going to have of you? You in a hat? Your coifed hair is your defining feature. Buzzed short on the sides and in the back, then long on top, blown dry and styled in an upward and back swoop. What a great head of blonde hair you have. So very attractive. You broke up with me and I didn’t even get to see it.

Really, you should always look your best when you break up with someone. It makes them miss you even more, makes them feel even worse, and by contrast, you even better. No more staring at this beautiful body. No more having sex with it, either.

Out of my three boyfriends, I’ve only broken up with one of them. And that was over the phone. He was living in L.A. at the time. We’d been dating for a year and a half (the same length as you and me) and doing long-distance for a year of it. It wasn’t working. We only talked like once a week, and we had no trips planned to see each other. I was working at a dead end job at the time, making something pathetic like $10/hour. I couldn’t afford a trip out there. And he was working like a madman as a production assistant for, of all shows, Dance Moms. (That was when it was just getting big. I think he worked on the first season. I remember I used to get excited when any of my friends mentioned watching it.)

Anyways, things weren’t working out and I knew it. So one night I called him and broke up with him. It wasn’t easy to do. I’d been planning it for three weeks. But it needed to be done. I wish I could have done it in person, though. I would have put on my Freakum dress and done it up. Because at the end of the day, I didn’t like having to break up with him, but I knew by comparison, I would feel a lot better than he did.

And I hope you felt better than I did. Though numb is a pretty neutral feeling. The sadness hadn’t kicked in yet. So maybe you weren’t feeling better, unless you were feeling finally free.

Friday, August 16th, 2013 (Part 1)

You broke up with me tonight.

I still can’t believe it. Out of the blue. No communication. No previous “I’m not happy.” Absolutely nothing. We hung out for THREE hours before you did it. A nice Italian dinner in the Flat Iron District, a trip to Eataly for dessert. You even paid for the pastries. Mine was chocolate three ways. Yours had coffee in it. Both were delicious. And then we sat and ate them in Madison Square Park in the middle of the night, the line for Shake Shack snaking back almost up to where we sat. We were going to get shakes at first, but the line was too long. We finished up and talked for ten more minutes. And then you broke up with me.

You didn’t even have a reason. You “weren’t as happy now as you were in the beginning.” You“wished it was something specific, but it wasn’t.”

What was I supposed to say?

What was I supposed to do?

I was blindsided. I felt like an idiot, a fool. At dinner I’d yammered on about the Fantasy Football draft party we were supposed to have tomorrow. Everyone was going to Aaron and Ben’s. I outlined a complicated plan to drop my stuff at your place before heading down to theirs and then to have you take my computer back up to your place with you after because I was supposed to meet up with my friends later that night downtown. And then I was going to circle back to your place, drunk, at the end of the night and we were going to have sex. There are so many bus and train rides in that plan that it’s almost a relief I don’t have to execute it.

I even called you out when you said that you and your best friend Tyler would probably live together in a year because I (incorrectly, it would seem) thought that we were going to live together in a year. That’s what couples do after a year and a half together. They plan to get a place the next time their leases are up. We had talked about it. You had even picked out a bed frame for us – a nice wooden one with bookshelves built in on the ground, perfect for me.

I guess we weren’t meant for that bed after all.

I couldn’t say anything at the time. I had no words. I hadn’t even thought about what I would say, which with most other guys I would have. I have a runaway imagination when it comes to fabricated conversations. I keep a constant dialogue going in my head where I talk through every possible scenario my life could possibly take. It helps pass the time. Don’t get me started on all the variations my coming-out speech to my parents took. Tears. Laughter. Hugs. Fists. Screams. Happiness. Acceptance.

But with you, I had never thought about an end. I hadn’t had those pretend conversations in my head. I was speechless (which you know is a condition that never afflicts me).

Then you said “I know we have things to untangle, but we can start with this.” You handed me the copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay I had loaned you.

(That’s one of the reasons I loved you so much, just so you know. You read. And took all of my recommendations to heart and actually finished them. Remember The Art of Fielding? Cloud Atlas? The Mysteries of Pittsburgh? Wonder Boys? A Thousand Acres? You read all of them. And liked most of them. Almost as much as I did. You were the first boy that ever read for me. And it meant the world to me.)

“Things to untangle” meant the stuff that I still had at your apartment. The stuff I had left there when my apartment flooded during Hurricane Sandy and you so kindly put me up for five weeks while they repaired it. I felt terrible, mooching off of you and your roommates for five months. It was only supposed to be a couple of weeks. But you know how management companies lie. I even offered to crash on other friends’ couches if you were getting tired of me. But you weren’t. And so I brought over some stuff. Mixing bowls, a hand-mixer, cake pans, running shoes. (Domestic stuff, mostly, because you know how much I love to bake.) I also had left behind some gifts you brought me from your vacations. An empty chocolates tin from Germany that I kept old recipes in, a shot glass you brought me back from Germany, another empty chocolate box you picked up for me in Amsterdam. So many great gifts. Luckily, I’d already taken the Irish whiskey home with me. I plan on drinking it all tomorrow night.

And then that was it. Our break-up was over. It took just ten minutes for you to get it out. And me, speechless, took up even less of your time. You headed home and I headed – I didn’t quite know where. In the opposite direction. You said to me “don’t do anything reckless.” And I replied“You know me. I won’t.”