It takes courage to enjoy it...
So I have a boyfriend. It's been a very, very long time since I uttered those words...the last person I called my boyfriend was Jack Young, back in 2006. And that lasted about a month. I am 31, and the longest official relationship I ever has was about 6 months long, and we only behaved as boyfriend and girlfriend for about a month of that. I am so so used to being by myself, doing for myself. I've had a lot of lovers...a lot of wonderful nights, a lot of dramatic scenes. But an actual relationship that does not implode within a few weeks, that is something foreign to me. Of course, this one may follow suit. We'll see. Right now he is swearing that he's not going anywhere, that I could be "that girl," that he's "not fucking this up for nothing." And honestly, I believe him. But he could change his mind at any time. And as for me...I'm having some issues. They are probably not insurmountable ones. And I've had them before, I can recognize what they are. But whether I can work through them, I'm not sure.
This whole thing happened insanely quickly. For the last two years I have been in an anti-relationship with Cliff. I was in love. Truly in love, according to what I know of love. He was always afraid. He withheld. He got scared away for months at a time whenever we started to really get close. And after two years, I got tired of it. I was willing to wait for him, if he had asked. But he couldn't even bring himself to do that, so I started to assume that I was waiting on a ship that had already sailed.
Back in May, I signed up for OK Cupid. I got a ton of messages. I corresponded with several guys, but with most of them, one or the other of us eventually stopped responding (usually me). One of them was David. He got my attention right away by telling me that a) his mom was from Detroit and he'd been there and thought it was a beautiful city and b) he had been told that he looked like Huey Freeman when his hair was fro'd out. Also we like a lot of the same hip hop. The thing with him was, his messages were always short and causal. Corresponding with him was not tedious. He did not ever say anything that annoyed me. I lost interest in OK Cupid after a couple weeks. During my time in Detroit, I had pretty much decided I wanted to wait longer for Clifford. I even let a couple of messages from David drop. But he would always write again. Nothing psycho, just "I haven't heard from you in awhile, how are you doing?" So, I returned to New York thinking that I might or might not want to meet up with him. I told myself that I'd let Cliff know I was back, and that if he asked me to hang out within the first couple days I was back I wouldn't meet David, but that if he didn't, I would. He didn't (I talked to Cliff about this a couple days ago, and he says that it must have been fate because he was going to ask me the first night I was back, but that he ended up having to stay with his mom). David and I made a date for Monday night.
On Monday, I did my normal vacillating. Went back and forth between being excited, wanting to cancel, and hoping he would cancel. But for whatever reason, I didn't cancel. I went to some trouble with my appearance, figuring that if anyone was going to be disappointed that night, I wanted to be the disappointee rather than the dissapointer, lol. I bought this black polka dot dress in Detroit that is probably the most flattering dress I've ever owned. I almost didn't wear it, thinking that I didn't want to give this my best, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I had told him to meet me at Grand Army Plaza in front of the library, so I walked up there to look for him, a short dude with dreds in a tan Nissan Maxima. When I walked up, he was waiting outside the car. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I think I knew I was in for something with that hug. It was an incredibly confident, strong, warm hug, of the kind that I'm not accustomed to getting from strangers. There was an openness in the hug that was never present in Cliff's hugs. I got in his car, which might have been stupid, but I felt comfortable with him right away. Plus, a date with a dude who has a car!
We drove to Red Hook and walked out to the dock behind the Fairway. The sun was setting. We just stood there and talked for about an hour. The conversation flowed really easily, and I could tell he was feeling me. I hadn't decided whether I was feeling him yet, but he wasn't annoying me and I wasn't anxious to go, which is more than I can say for most first dates I've been on. The sun was bright orange. The moon was beginning to come out. There were boats on the river. There was a breeze. I let him kiss me. And I could tell, right away, that something about him felt right.
Later we drove to the Williamsburg bridge. We walked partway across, and then stood, just kissing, talking, holding each other, looking out at the river and the city. It was amazing. We stayed there until 2am or so, and he drove me home.
The next morning I woke up, and was struck by the fact that I thought about David first, and Clifford second. He called me shortly after I woke up, and said that he wanted to come take me out again that night, and that he was going to call off of work. The last time a guy wanted to see me immediately the next day after our first date, I freaked out and never saw him again. But I found myself actually excited at the prospect of seeing Dave again. He came and picked me up, and we went to dinner, and then drove out to Long Beach and sat on the beach under the moonlight watching the waves, talking, kissing...at that moment, I seriously felt like I was falling in love. Leaning back in his arms watching the ocean I felt more at peace than I have in a very long time. After the beach closed at 11, we drove to Astoria Park. We spent the whole night in the park, sitting by the river, and in the car listening to old school R&B...I remember "If This World Were Mine" by Luther Vandross coming on, and "Ask Of You" by Raphael Saadiq...that night was euphoric. We both felt like teenagers. It was seriously amazing. He asked me to be his girlfriend that night. I told him I needed some time to think about it, and later came completely clean: I needed closure with Cliff. I needed to have a conversation. I had gotten a text from him that must have come right while Dave and I were on the beach. I was having a good enough time that night that I never responded, but still he was in my mind.
Dave took me to breakfast in the morning, and when I got home I responded to Cliff, telling him that I'd been on a date, that he he had asked me to be his girlfriend, and that I was probably gonna say yes. Cliff told me to go for it. Ironically, we talked more openly about our own relationship than ever before. It's almost like we both needed a buffer, needed it to be past tense, needed the pressure off, in order to be completely honest. I cried a lot (though we were texting so he didn't know). I told Cliff that my feelings for him were the thing that was holding me back from saying yes. At that point he told me to go for it, to give it my best shot, but that if it didn't work out and if he was still single and had worked through some stuff by the end of the winter, he would give things a shot with me. I was very satisfied with that arrangement, and honestly excited about exploring things with Dave while being honest with Cliff and not having that door completely closed.
I told Dave that I'd had the conversation and the we could go ahead and make things official. We did, and we've seen each other every day since then. We talk on the phone, too. He comes over when he says he's coming, calls when he says he's calling. I haven't been to his house yet, because I'm dogsitting, and then my sisters and brother-in-law (or not law, as the case may be) are coming to town. So he's had to come to me every day, and he has.
Cliff messaged me again a couple days after the first conversation. He told me he is probably gonna start dating this 19 year old. I swear it seems like he feels like he needs to get a girlfriend because I have a boyfriend (and, come to find out, so do the two girls he was with before me). Also, my competition is a 19 year old? She could almost be my daughter. I don't know. The second conversation revealed so many near misses between us, so many times where lack of communication is what screwed things up. He says that "trusting someone enough to date them is an experiment," and he's rather it be with someone new rather than someone he's been close to for so long. I guess I kind of know what he means. There is much less riding on things with Dave than there would be if Cliff and I had gotten together. Maybe it's best that since this might be my first real long term thing, there's less pressure on it. I don't know what Cliff and I are supposed to be to each other or what the future holds for us. But I guess if we're supposed to be in each others lives, we'll just figure it out, like Hans and I have.
So for now, there is Dave. And I'm glad he's here. He is affectionate, and funny. We are close in height, and we fit together perfectly. He has an incredible, tight, muscular little body, a head full of dreds, and the most beautiful eyes...his whole face is gorgeous. I look at him and honestly feel a thrill that he's mine. And he feels that way about me, and tells me over and over. He makes me laugh. We're already really comfortable with each other. And our physical chemistry is like nothing I've had with anybody before.
But something in me is holding back, feeling detached. The euphoria of those first three days has faded, and I feel like something shut down in me a little. I lay next to him amazed at him, but thinking of Cliff too...and I'm already afraid of losing my autonomy. I remember feeling like this with Jack. I freaked out at the girlfriend thing. I used his craziness as an excuse, but this feeling may have been just as responsible for my dumping him after two weeks as his craziness was. Then, of course, he worked to win me back, and it worked, and then he withheld. I don't want any of that bullshit this time. I don't want to fuck this up. I obviously like Dave a lot. He is the first person in three years other than Cliff that I've liked enough to let into my life. So I am just going to wait through this detached feeling and see if it goes away. We're not seeing each other today, and that might help. We may have OD'd on each other a little in the first week. But also there are some things that could be problematic. He is a fiscal conservative, which means that some of our values are pretty different. And he has had three beers in his whole life, and never smoked anything. I told him that I drink, and that I have smoked in the past, and he said its not a big deal, but he didn't seem thrilled by it either. I don't ever want to smoke a cigarette again, so that shouldn't be an issue. But I can't say I'll never smoke pot again. And I like my booze. I don't get drunk very often anymore, but I still worry that if he finds out how often I drink it will be a problem.
I have no idea what's going to happen. But I know that I don't want to repeat my same old patterns. When I told him how most of relationships end within a month, he said "let's try to make this one longer." So, that's the first goal I guess. If we make it past a month that'll be something new, and we'll go from there.
This whole thing happened insanely quickly. For the last two years I have been in an anti-relationship with Cliff. I was in love. Truly in love, according to what I know of love. He was always afraid. He withheld. He got scared away for months at a time whenever we started to really get close. And after two years, I got tired of it. I was willing to wait for him, if he had asked. But he couldn't even bring himself to do that, so I started to assume that I was waiting on a ship that had already sailed.
Back in May, I signed up for OK Cupid. I got a ton of messages. I corresponded with several guys, but with most of them, one or the other of us eventually stopped responding (usually me). One of them was David. He got my attention right away by telling me that a) his mom was from Detroit and he'd been there and thought it was a beautiful city and b) he had been told that he looked like Huey Freeman when his hair was fro'd out. Also we like a lot of the same hip hop. The thing with him was, his messages were always short and causal. Corresponding with him was not tedious. He did not ever say anything that annoyed me. I lost interest in OK Cupid after a couple weeks. During my time in Detroit, I had pretty much decided I wanted to wait longer for Clifford. I even let a couple of messages from David drop. But he would always write again. Nothing psycho, just "I haven't heard from you in awhile, how are you doing?" So, I returned to New York thinking that I might or might not want to meet up with him. I told myself that I'd let Cliff know I was back, and that if he asked me to hang out within the first couple days I was back I wouldn't meet David, but that if he didn't, I would. He didn't (I talked to Cliff about this a couple days ago, and he says that it must have been fate because he was going to ask me the first night I was back, but that he ended up having to stay with his mom). David and I made a date for Monday night.
On Monday, I did my normal vacillating. Went back and forth between being excited, wanting to cancel, and hoping he would cancel. But for whatever reason, I didn't cancel. I went to some trouble with my appearance, figuring that if anyone was going to be disappointed that night, I wanted to be the disappointee rather than the dissapointer, lol. I bought this black polka dot dress in Detroit that is probably the most flattering dress I've ever owned. I almost didn't wear it, thinking that I didn't want to give this my best, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I had told him to meet me at Grand Army Plaza in front of the library, so I walked up there to look for him, a short dude with dreds in a tan Nissan Maxima. When I walked up, he was waiting outside the car. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I think I knew I was in for something with that hug. It was an incredibly confident, strong, warm hug, of the kind that I'm not accustomed to getting from strangers. There was an openness in the hug that was never present in Cliff's hugs. I got in his car, which might have been stupid, but I felt comfortable with him right away. Plus, a date with a dude who has a car!
We drove to Red Hook and walked out to the dock behind the Fairway. The sun was setting. We just stood there and talked for about an hour. The conversation flowed really easily, and I could tell he was feeling me. I hadn't decided whether I was feeling him yet, but he wasn't annoying me and I wasn't anxious to go, which is more than I can say for most first dates I've been on. The sun was bright orange. The moon was beginning to come out. There were boats on the river. There was a breeze. I let him kiss me. And I could tell, right away, that something about him felt right.
Later we drove to the Williamsburg bridge. We walked partway across, and then stood, just kissing, talking, holding each other, looking out at the river and the city. It was amazing. We stayed there until 2am or so, and he drove me home.
The next morning I woke up, and was struck by the fact that I thought about David first, and Clifford second. He called me shortly after I woke up, and said that he wanted to come take me out again that night, and that he was going to call off of work. The last time a guy wanted to see me immediately the next day after our first date, I freaked out and never saw him again. But I found myself actually excited at the prospect of seeing Dave again. He came and picked me up, and we went to dinner, and then drove out to Long Beach and sat on the beach under the moonlight watching the waves, talking, kissing...at that moment, I seriously felt like I was falling in love. Leaning back in his arms watching the ocean I felt more at peace than I have in a very long time. After the beach closed at 11, we drove to Astoria Park. We spent the whole night in the park, sitting by the river, and in the car listening to old school R&B...I remember "If This World Were Mine" by Luther Vandross coming on, and "Ask Of You" by Raphael Saadiq...that night was euphoric. We both felt like teenagers. It was seriously amazing. He asked me to be his girlfriend that night. I told him I needed some time to think about it, and later came completely clean: I needed closure with Cliff. I needed to have a conversation. I had gotten a text from him that must have come right while Dave and I were on the beach. I was having a good enough time that night that I never responded, but still he was in my mind.
Dave took me to breakfast in the morning, and when I got home I responded to Cliff, telling him that I'd been on a date, that he he had asked me to be his girlfriend, and that I was probably gonna say yes. Cliff told me to go for it. Ironically, we talked more openly about our own relationship than ever before. It's almost like we both needed a buffer, needed it to be past tense, needed the pressure off, in order to be completely honest. I cried a lot (though we were texting so he didn't know). I told Cliff that my feelings for him were the thing that was holding me back from saying yes. At that point he told me to go for it, to give it my best shot, but that if it didn't work out and if he was still single and had worked through some stuff by the end of the winter, he would give things a shot with me. I was very satisfied with that arrangement, and honestly excited about exploring things with Dave while being honest with Cliff and not having that door completely closed.
I told Dave that I'd had the conversation and the we could go ahead and make things official. We did, and we've seen each other every day since then. We talk on the phone, too. He comes over when he says he's coming, calls when he says he's calling. I haven't been to his house yet, because I'm dogsitting, and then my sisters and brother-in-law (or not law, as the case may be) are coming to town. So he's had to come to me every day, and he has.
Cliff messaged me again a couple days after the first conversation. He told me he is probably gonna start dating this 19 year old. I swear it seems like he feels like he needs to get a girlfriend because I have a boyfriend (and, come to find out, so do the two girls he was with before me). Also, my competition is a 19 year old? She could almost be my daughter. I don't know. The second conversation revealed so many near misses between us, so many times where lack of communication is what screwed things up. He says that "trusting someone enough to date them is an experiment," and he's rather it be with someone new rather than someone he's been close to for so long. I guess I kind of know what he means. There is much less riding on things with Dave than there would be if Cliff and I had gotten together. Maybe it's best that since this might be my first real long term thing, there's less pressure on it. I don't know what Cliff and I are supposed to be to each other or what the future holds for us. But I guess if we're supposed to be in each others lives, we'll just figure it out, like Hans and I have.
So for now, there is Dave. And I'm glad he's here. He is affectionate, and funny. We are close in height, and we fit together perfectly. He has an incredible, tight, muscular little body, a head full of dreds, and the most beautiful eyes...his whole face is gorgeous. I look at him and honestly feel a thrill that he's mine. And he feels that way about me, and tells me over and over. He makes me laugh. We're already really comfortable with each other. And our physical chemistry is like nothing I've had with anybody before.
But something in me is holding back, feeling detached. The euphoria of those first three days has faded, and I feel like something shut down in me a little. I lay next to him amazed at him, but thinking of Cliff too...and I'm already afraid of losing my autonomy. I remember feeling like this with Jack. I freaked out at the girlfriend thing. I used his craziness as an excuse, but this feeling may have been just as responsible for my dumping him after two weeks as his craziness was. Then, of course, he worked to win me back, and it worked, and then he withheld. I don't want any of that bullshit this time. I don't want to fuck this up. I obviously like Dave a lot. He is the first person in three years other than Cliff that I've liked enough to let into my life. So I am just going to wait through this detached feeling and see if it goes away. We're not seeing each other today, and that might help. We may have OD'd on each other a little in the first week. But also there are some things that could be problematic. He is a fiscal conservative, which means that some of our values are pretty different. And he has had three beers in his whole life, and never smoked anything. I told him that I drink, and that I have smoked in the past, and he said its not a big deal, but he didn't seem thrilled by it either. I don't ever want to smoke a cigarette again, so that shouldn't be an issue. But I can't say I'll never smoke pot again. And I like my booze. I don't get drunk very often anymore, but I still worry that if he finds out how often I drink it will be a problem.
I have no idea what's going to happen. But I know that I don't want to repeat my same old patterns. When I told him how most of relationships end within a month, he said "let's try to make this one longer." So, that's the first goal I guess. If we make it past a month that'll be something new, and we'll go from there.