07 June 2008

P and D

The guy I lived with in London is back in the picture. He emailed me earlier this week. God, I really do love him. He’s in Japan right now and will be for the next two years. Somehow it never quite works out for us, and I think it mostly has to do with me. He visited me maybe three years ago and I was unwilling to take it any further, but some time has passed and I feel differently now. I think. Or do I just feel differently because he’s so far away and so much time has passed?

All that aside, we cannot seem to stay away from each other. It’s been 10 years since London – wait, no 11 – and I know he still loves me. There is definitely a connection there that I have felt with very few men. I can actually think of only one other man I have this connection with, and he lives in Denmark and that is most definitely over. But I have an update on him in a minute.

Anyway, back to this guy and Japan. I’ll call him P for short. So P and I have this inexplicable connection and maybe it’s because I’m getting so old, but I find myself thinking about what a life with him would be like. He completely accepts me as I am – he’s seen me fat, sick, on meds, off meds, drunk, high, sober, buying hash from that dealer off Oxford Street, getting pick-pocketed in the middle of Amsterdam, whatev, and he just doesn’t care. I’m always the same person to him. He is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and is completely down to earth about everything. We once had an email exchange about buying cereal at Walmart. What? But he can also talk about game theory, the history of war, and economic theory like nobody’s business. So anyway, he has that going for him.

The thing is that I always felt a little stifled around him. I know it was probably my own insecurity and my own fear of intimacy that was the problem, but he can also be a bit overwhelming. At times he was so into me that no one else in the room mattered. Which is great, for the most part. So why is that an issue for me? Does it come from a deep seated insecurity or feeling that I’m not worth something so extraordinary? I don’t know.

I do know that I really, really want to try to make it work with him now if he’ll still have me. Yeah, yeah, he’s in Japan and all that nonsense, but that’s why they make planes. And sure, I have no time off of work right now and money runs through my hands like water, but I think I’m going to try to make a September or October visit work. That way it won’t be so hot, and I’ll have some time to lose some weight and get my financial act together. We’ll just have to text and email and have an occasional phone conversation in the meantime. There has to be a reason he keeps contacting me, right? He wouldn’t have contacted me again after six months if he thought there was no chance of us ever working, would he?

The update on D, the Danish guy is nothing great. Jeff called him out of the blue. He’s working at his university again and acted like nothing happened on his last visit here. I talked to Jeff and Kris about it last weekend and Kris is still really hurt by his actions when he was last here. I don’t know how I feel about that. I guess resentful. I resent the fact that they think I’m some sort of outsider in this circle. I didn’t love him too? I wasn’t at least as – but truthfully way, way more – emotionally involved with him? They had a friendship with him. I wanted to marry him. At one point I really thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. So yeah, I resent the fact that they talk as if I am merely an acquaintance of his.

But on the other hand, holy fuck, please, please don’t let me get dragged down into this whole mess again. I cannot afford to even talk to him again, much less see him or care about his health and whereabouts. I know that sounds strange and selfish, but the truth is that if I let him in even a little bit, I will get sucked into this vortex of semi-unrequited love. I have let him go, I am over him. I will not allow him back in.