vinylgirl's Diaryland Diary

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Trust your gut

Trust your gut.

It was the Friday night before he was to fly out to New York on vacation. We'd been texting back and forth that afternoon, but I had no indication that he was going to stop off at my place to say goodbye, as he'd said he might when he was here on Tuesday.

On the subway ride home, I daydreamed that he would be waiting outside my apartment. "Surprise!" he'd say, "I just wanted to make sure I got to say a proper goodbye." Silly girl, I shook my head as I exited the station. He's going to New York tomorrow -- he's packing and getting excited. He got his fill on Tuesday night. Out of force of habit, I pressed the home button my phone to check for texts. There it was: "You @ home. I can pop by for a bit before I do some last minute toiletry shopping." Hope spurted unevenly from the spigot of my heart and began coursing through my veins again.

Shortly thereafter, I heard him knock at my door. When I answered, he was chatting with someone on the phone. One minute he indicated to me. I finally took off my shoes. Once off the phone, we sat on my couch and he recounted the trials and tribulations of arranging his vacation. I sat and dutifully listened waiting for the romance to kick in. Waiting for him to stop, mid sentence, grab me by the waist and ravish me with kisses. Instead, he asked what I wanted to do.

So I pulled out the plan I had been trying to execute for a week: Operation Grilled Cheese. See, he'd never had a grilled cheese sandwich before. I wanted to be the anthropologist: introducing the new and exotic foodstuff and then meticulously documenting the experience. And, off we went.

I'd be remiss if I didn't say this date felt different from the ones that preceded it. There was no kiss hello. He didn't try to grab my hand. He seemed more interested in the girls in bikinis performing an interpretive dance with hula hoops, than in me. Although, who could blame him? I felt disheartened. I expected to hear "Well, I hate to do this, but I should really get home and keep packing."

But, soon we were back at my place, intertwined and kissing on my sofa. He looked over my shoulder at my wall of photos and seemed very far away.

"You're not going to get married when I'm gone, right?" he asked.

"No!" I laughed. We kissed some more. My fingers massaging the back of his head, now freshly trimmed.

"Two weeks," he sighed, "What am I going to do for two weeks?"

"You booked this vacation," I said.

"I know," he said, "But that was back when you were just a screen name."

These words served as a sort of magic elixir. Once I was but a screen name to him, but now, he can't imagine going two weeks without me. I am someone to him. My heart grew one and a half sizes.

As usual, we made our way to my bed. I straddled him as we kissed some more. He was eager to get my blouse and bra off. Soon we were laying together our bare chests pressed against each other. We couldn't have sex as I had my period. I joked with him (well, half joked)

"This will be the real test of whether you like me or you're just using me for sex."

"Come on," he said, "After all we've been through?!" I thought, what have we been through? Seven or eight dates?

For the second time, since Tuesday, he said "You can see other people if you want to, when I am away."

"Is that what you want?" I asked.

"If I had more time," he started.

I interjected "Don't say if you had more time. Tell me if that is what you want and be honest. If you do, it's fine."

"No," he said, "I just don't want you to feel tied down. In the past, girls have told me they felt tied down."

"I do what I want to do," I said, "I didn't have to be here. I could have done something else."

"I didn't give you much of a chance," he said referring to the timing of his text and arrival.

"I just wouldn't want you to miss your chance to meet 'The One,'" he said.

"Stop," I said, kissing his stubbled chin. "This is not what I want to be talking about right now."

Maybe I should have talked about it. Ah, hindsight. So clear, now. My gut told me, who offers the "See Other People," token up selflessly? No one. It is offered as a back-handed way of saying, "I want to see other people, but I don't want to come right out and say that, so I'll make it seem like I don't want you to be caged in, when I really mean, don't cage me in." It's a nudge. A wink. A hint. I'm raising the spectre of seeing other people because that is what I plan to do.

"Be quiet, gut," I said. I am more than just a screen name to him, now -- as if this extremely modest promotion meant something. He's going to be faithful. We talked about it. That's not what he wants. He was just feeling insecure about things.

But, then I logged onto the dating website where we met. There is a handy feature on the site where you can favourite someone -- save their profile -- and this allows you to see when they are online. A neat, but cruel trick. Knowledge is the path to pain. Each time I've logged on to see him online, my heart shrivels a little. And yet, he can also see I am online. I wonder if his heart shrivels? Anyway, there he was online from New York, while on vacation. Why, I thought, would you want to be on a dating website when you're in New York? The city of cities. Where there is so much more you could be doing. Then I looked at his profile and there it was: "New York, New York." He had changed his home city to New York and surely, he had but one purpose in mind: to meet girls in New York.

My heart shriveled up like a raisin. How could I have been so naive as to think that I was special to him? Why didn't I trust my gut instinct about what his invocation of the "See Other People," demon meant?

Of course, it's because I wanted to believe he was different than the other boys. That he was romantic and sweet. The Nice One. The one I could trust. And now he's just as bad as the rest of them. Always with one hand on your hip and one eye on the sidewalk where the girls stroll by in barely-there summer dresses. One eye out for the "The One." And this means, I am trapped somewhere between a screen name and the One on the love continuum. Trying to figure out if I met him for a reason or for a season.

Now, I find strength in Mayer Hawthorne's "The Walk," where my favourite lines are:

Baby, what you're doing now
You're pissing me off.

Anyway you slice it
You're doing me wrong.

From the moment I met you, I thought you were fine, So fine;
But your shitty fucking attitude has got me changing my mind.

Everybody tells me I need to let go, I know

12:28 p.m. - 09/04/2011

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