I Gird My Loins and State My Case

The minute I left Dean’s apartment I placed a phone call to my sainted therapist: “Caroline?” I bleated to her voice mail. “This is Lily. I’ve precipitated a crisis with Dean. Can you call me back as soon as you get this?”

Then I went to work in the (mild) November rain, where I did what I always do when faced with romantic confusion: I emailed Jefferson. I had confided my crush on Dean to him some months ago, and he had been unfailingly kind in allowing me to blather on about it. Jefferson has also been the patient recipient of my more inane ramblings, like my astonishment at coming across a reference to Lesa Aldridge in an old Smithsonian magazine (kind of obscure: Aldridge is the onetime girlfriend of Alex Chilton -- he of the super-awesome Big Star, The Box Tops, and that Replacements song) as well as my disgruntlement at my sister’s choice of name for my newborn nephew (she named the baby after our grandfather. But that name was earmarked for my as-yet-unborn son!) Best of all, Jefferson always responds to my emails, and in a timely manner. Truly, yea, he is a paragon. And then, after some cathartic whining, I composed an email to Dean.

It was a very nice email, but it said that I was dumping him on the grounds that I didn’t think he wanted to be my boyfriend, and the casual nature of our relationship was turning me into a nervous wreck. I waited for Caroline to call me back before I sent it, since I never do anything without her approval. When she phoned I recounted my conversation with Dean. She suggested that perhaps instead of dumping him as a preemptive strike, I should instead ask Dean if he wanted to date me seriously.

“I don’t want to do that,” I whined. “That gives him the chance to reject me.” Also, it would make my email an ultimatum, which meant I was the kind of woman who gave ultimatiums: manipulative, scheming ... female. I preferred to see myself in a more flattering light.

But Caroline prevailed, since she is the therapist and I am the neurotic. I thanked her and then I sent the following email:

Dear Dean,

Hi. I cannot tell you how much I regret our conversation last night. I revealed information I suspected you did not want to hear and painted myself into a corner. But I learned my lesson, and that lesson is Lay off the pinot grigio. I'm still hungover. Jesus.

But the corner. As I said, I want to date you seriously, exclusively, whatever. But you said you weren’t sure you were capable of being in a relationship, which, alas, didn’t sound like a yes to me.

I think that the more I see you, the more I will want that kind of intimacy. So there are two options. One is I stop seeing you. Frankly, my nerves are shot and if we continue to date casually, there is a strong likelihood of a repeat of last night’s theatrics. I’m not up for that. The other option is you give some thought to us dating exclusively. And then you say, ‘OK, sounds good.’ That means we take our personals profiles down and you think of me as your girlfriend and when we get together we make dumb jokes and have sex.

…

Anyway. I’m sorry I haven’t got the nerve to talk to you about this in person. I will be disappointed if you don’t want to give it a go, but I will understand. (This part was not really true: I would have a hard time understanding. For once I was the victim of high self-esteem; I thought he ought to want to date me). I will miss you. I like you tremendously and think you’re lovely and, if this is it, I really hope everything turns out well for you. Take care. Many kisses.

Lily

I sent it and decided I would not check my email until the following morning. To facilitate this, I went home and went to bed. It was not yet 7:00 pm, but I’d had a trying 24 hours.

The following morning there was an email in my inbox from Dean. He too apologized for the conversation, said he liked me very much, and needed to discuss my proposition with his therapist. See? I thought, We have so much in common!

So then I settled down to wait for his answer. I didn’t cry, though. I’m done with that. At least I hope I am.

I Have an Honest Walk

After a bout of illness and cancellations on both our parts, I at last had another date with Evan. The plan was we would go out to dinner, and then rent a movie and canoodle on the couch, like a couple of long-standing. I didn’t feel like part of a couple of long standing with Evan, but of all my recent dates, I had decided he was Most Likely to be Boyfriend Material. And Caroline said she thought I wanted a boyfriend; maybe I did.

I had some qualms about Evan: as I noted on our first and then second dates, he struck me as depressive. He lived with two older women, which made me wonder if he had many friends his own age. And then there was something else, which I will get to later.

We were to meet near the place we’d had drinks on our last, surprisingly successful date. As I walked down the street I saw a man in a coat loitering. I squinted: Was this Evan? I have a strange terror of not recognizing people I’ve met. Mostly it applies to men I’m involved with. I tried to determine if it was Evan while continuing mt stride. The man in the coat lifted an eyebrow at me: Oh. It was him.

“Hi!” I was so relieved I hadn’t walked past him. I kissed him.

It was cold. We started to walk and talk. “Evan,” I interrupted, suddenly, taking in his bare head, “Do you have a hat?”

“Yes.”

“Put it on, OK?”

He obeyed, smiling. I liked this! Was that boyfriend behavior? Or perhaps he liked being bossed around by a –

My musing were interruppted by Evan, who started to ask me about my day.

We ended up at a diner, not a New York City-type Greek diner, but more of a small town diner, without twenty page leatherette bound menus. With gimmicks: there were cartons of old Trivial Pursuit cards on the table, and we amused ourselves by reading out the questions. I knew a good number of the answers. My parents bought had this very edition (Genus) – I’d been playing it since 1985.

Other things about Evan I’d noticed: in his room he had a book titled How to Shit in the Woods, which was about just that, as well as one called The Single Vegan, which struck me as depressingly austere. On his wall had been a sticky note which read: Go without hate, not without rage, which, upon reflection, I liked. As I answered the Trivial Pursuit questions I wondered, how much rage does Evan have? After he ordered his veggie burger and I my hamburger (ordering meat in front of male vegetarians and vegans – I’ve dated a few – always makes me feel frivolous), it occurred to me that Evan did nothing by halves. “I’m so glad to see you,” he was saying, and he reached across the formica table to grab my hands.

“I’m glad to see you, too.”

After dinner we walked to a video rental shop, and again, I felt pretty frivolous when Evan suggested Running With Scissors, since I'd been hoping for one of those movies that star former members of the cast of Saturday Night Live. Running with Scissors didn’t really strike me as the feel good date movie of the year. But what the hell. So he rented it and we walked back to his apartment arm in arm.

His place was empty – I was relieved. I was curious but not that eager to meet his fortysomething psychotherapist roommates. He made us both cups of tea and spent a while on the phone with one of his roommate’s boyfriends. Then, promising me he wasn’t going to check his email, he disappeared for a moment while I waited for my tea to cool down.

“I just lied to you,” Evan admitted when he returned. I was startled, because he didn’t have that rueful grimace, just a sorrowful look. What?

Oh, he’d checked his work email. “You can check it if you want,” I said. “Really, I don’t mind.”

At last he turned on the movie. We sat next to one another on the sofa, and I moved close to him. Our thighs touched, and he put an arm around me. Better, I thought.

We cuddled up closer as the movie went by, and at one point he paused the film and whispered to me, “You’ll stay with me tonight, even if I don’t put out?”

This is girl behavior, I thought. Which I was then ashamed of. “That was my plan,” I whispered back. “You don’t have to put out.”

**

The movie ended after midnight and we went into his bedroom, off the kitchen. I was pretty tired. I was ready to start fooling around, but Evan had other ideas: “Don’t you think I’m weird?” he said to me.

“What?” He repeated himself. I was flummoxed. How could I answer this? Because yes, I thought he was pretty weird. “Like how?” I asked cautiously.

“I don’t know, don’t you just think … I’m weird?” he asked again. “That I live with two older women, for example?”

“Well,” I said, because I had given this some thought: “I mean, they’re your colleagues, and with the cost of living in New York being what it is, real estate makes strange bedfellows…”

“Louise and Annie are good friends of mine. They’re not just housemates; they’re very important to me,” he said rather stiffly.

“OK.” Were we done?

“I mean,” and he went back to his previous theme, “Don’t you think I’m weird?”

“Well, OK,” I said, goaded. “Yes, I do think you’re weird. I saw a lot of very disturbing information about Group X on the Internet and it freaked me out and I really don’t want to have this discussion with you yet. I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Oh,” said Evan. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

**

What is Group X? Well, I can’t be too explicit about this, but basically Evan had mentioned a project that he’s heavily involved with, which I will term Group X. I looked it up online, and was horrified to discover that a number of people consider it a cult. It is affiliated with various left wing causes (I can’t disapprove of that) and programs for disadvantaged youth (ditto). Group X is headed by the movement’s founder, whom I will call John Smith. And John Smith, according to the articles I’d read on the Internet, is a cultist with some unsavory characteristics, which again, for purposes of anonymity, I will not elaborate on.

Mostly the cult accusations have come from, naturally, former members. There were complaints about how much time members were expected to put into Group X, the way they were treated, etc. There was no talk of being locked in underground bunkers or denied access to loved ones, but still.

“I really don’t want to discuss this with you yet,” I said again, and my voice held the tang of panic. Because it was clear to me that Group X was a big, big part of Evan’s life and, although I am an alarmist, I don’t actually believe everything I read on the Internet. I wanted to know more about him before I decided that Evan was, in fact, the sort of person who was drawn to cults. Or if indeed a politically radical New York non-profit organization that funds summer programs for poor kids could actually be termed a cult.

I sat on the edge of his bed. I was close to tears. I’d gone and accused someone I barely knew of being in a cult. I sighed and stared at my shoes.

After a moment, Evan said, “Lily, I am Group X, and Group X is me.” This disturbed, but did not surprise me. “And John Smith is very important to me. I was at his house just the other night.” I nodded. “And tonight’s discussion might end things between you and me, but I’m not unkind. We can talk about this.”

I relaxed because of course he wasn’t unkind, was he? We could discuss this, couldn’t we? “OK,” I said. “Tell me about Group X.”

We talked – or mostly Evan talked – for several hours. He told me about how, as a child, he’d always been political, always aware of and angered by injustice and poverty. As an eleven year old, he’d volunteered at a local political campaign, taking the bus into the center of the city everyday by himself. He talked about how he’d gotten involved with Group X while at grad school, and how impressed he was by the work they did. He talked about several significant figures in the movement, who were admired by him and notorious to me.

After a long time I said, “Most of the criticism I’ve seen of Group X has been of John Smith rather than the work of the group itself. I don’t know very much about it, which is why I didn’t really want to talk about it with you yet; I wanted to know you better before we talked about it.” I went on, “I know it’s easy to be misled. I hope that while I’m skeptical, I’m not cynical; I don’t believe everything I read on the Internet.”

It was 4:00 am by this time. Even if we were finished, I was not going anywhere.

But we weren’t finished, because eventually our bodies moved closer and closer together. I didn’t reach out to touch him, but I moved my whole body so that our limbs were next to one another. We smiled at one another, and then we kissed.

When we were naked and the lights were out he said to me, “When you were walking towards me earlier I didn’t call out to you, I just wanted to watch you walk. You have an honest walk.”

I slipped my arms around him and ran my fingers along his spine. “That’s a lovely thing to say,” I whispered back. We kissed, and stretched against one another.

“You know I’m not monogamous,” I went on, anxiously. If he thought I was honest, I felt obliged to be. After the plea that I stay the night earlier, it hit me that it wasn’t that Evan was weird that worried me; it was his intensity. He was drawn to extremes. His passion made me think he had boyfriend potential, but I wasn't sure if I wanted him to be my boyfriend. Or if my passion could meet his own -- of late all my passion had been spent on unrequited longing for Jeremy.

Evan straddled me; his skin was smooth. “That’s OK,” he said, “I don’t need that from you now.”

“OK.”

We kissed and kissed again, lying facing one another. My skin seemed to hum. “I want to live up to your idea of me,” I said, because Evan’s admiration seemed so unsentimental and pure.

Then we fucked, and by the time we fell asleep I convinced myself that the sky was starting to pale.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: Anxiety-Inducing and Dull

[Warning: this entry consists of obsessive romantic ruminations and is probably of interest to me only.]

I am having serious angst over Jeremy. I have not heard from him in almost two weeks. Not surprised, but still. I’ve been thinking about exactly what to say to him for several days now, to indicate that a) I like him a lot b) I’d like to see him more frequently c) does, he uh, think about me like that, as if we might date seriously, or at least more seriously? Because if not, then d) we’re through, since I don’t want to get attached to someone who isn’t that interested in me.

This is the exact same thing that happened with Daniel! I am such a drama queen. When I calmed down about Daniel and accepted our affectionate but no future relationship, things became much better, and now I’m pretty confident of him. But then Jeremy crept into my brain and I can’t stop thinking about him. On Friday I thought, rather melodramatically, He’s bewitched me, ‘cause I can’t think about anything else. Then I realized that I was being obsessive because for the past two weeks I’ve been really lax about taking my meds. Obsessive thoughts (hmm, that makes me sound completely unhinged, like a crazy lady wandering around midtown in a nightgown and fuzzy pink slippers) – mostly along the lines of, Why doesn’t he like me? And running all the way to Oh God, maybe he likes me so much that he’s afraid he’ll get hurt! fill my head, making it difficult for me to refrain from checking my email every 25 minutes, that kind of thing. So I’m being more vigilant about my antidepressants, and maybe that will help.

Here’s the crux of the matter: the last time I saw Jeremy, I said, feebly, “Next time, you get in touch with me.” That was one week and four days ago. If he was interested in me on a more serious level, I should have heard from him by now. I’m not surprised, because ever since Christmas I’ve had to do the contacting and suggesting we get together. He’s never turned me down, but still. Would you turn down an easy shag? Which is what I am, certainly. Among other things.

Ever since he said he was ready to settle down (My friend Dinah says that the fact he said this to me means he wants to settle down with someone else), I’ve been entertaining these bourgeois and very tempting domestic fantasies of me and Jeremy in a Pottery Barn interior, with dim lighting and cozy, slow sex and conversations about vacations in Spain. I don’t think I’m ready to settle down, but… can’t. stop. thinking. about. Jeremy. Maybe it’s because since Christmas he has shown less interest in me, and now I want him all the more?

I never thought I was one of those people who only desires what she can’t have, a girl who perversely likes mean boys and the like. I don’t like mean boys, actually. Although a boy who is crap about getting in touch and doesn’t take my hand at the movie theater isn’t all that nice, I s’pose. Daniel is by far the nicer. For instance, last night I couldn’t sleep and, figuring Daniel would be up, went online. When I saw that he wasn’t on IM I emailed him, saying I’d missed him (I am making a concerted effort to be a little more forthcoming about my feelings, though not THAT forthcoming, like revealing this blog or how when we’re fucking my brain sings IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou... ahem) and a few minutes later Daniel IMed me. See, he’s lovely. That being said, during our 40 minute IM session he did comment about the possibility of a booty call with one of my friends, who lives in his apartment building, ‘til I scotched that idea by explaining that she’s gay…. Anyway, there’s Daniel, who signs in to IM to talk to me moments after I email him and tells me how gorgeous I am and grips my hand during the scary parts of movies (I was right about that – the day after I saw The Children of Men with Jeremy I saw Pan’s Labyrinth with Daniel. As soon as things started to get scary and gross, Daniel clutched my hand). Also Daniel says, awkwardly and sincerely, “You’re very dear to me,” and then there’s Jeremy, who lightly brushed my knee once during the movie and doesn’t email or call or tell me I’m pretty, and it’s Jeremy that’s on my mind. On the other hand, I’ve (I hope) come to terms with the fact that Daniel and I have no future together and can’t really think about it anymore, while the promise of domestic bliss with a solvent architect who is probably smarter than me or at least always a good conversationalist has been gathering great appeal. Anyway, Jeremy, it seems, is either not as nice as Daniel or not as interested in me. This is what’s driving my current angst, that knowledge. Because, if he really did like me and want to see me, he wouldn’t wait at least a week and a half before contacting me.

I’ve been practicing all sorts of speeches to Jeremy. Most run along the lines of, “Look, I like you a lot, but I don’t think you feel the same way about me, so I’d better break this off,” – a preemptive strike and an echo of my planned break-up speech to Daniel. Then at last it occurred to me that I could simply say, “Hey, I really like you and would like to see your more frequently – maybe once or twice a week. How do you feel about that?” Apparently this is not melodramatic enough for me. But really the problem is that if I ask Jeremy whether he would like to get together more frequently, or be more serious, he has the option to say no. Whereas if I say, “I think I’d better end this,” he can object, or he can acquiesce without a murmur, but he can’t actually reject me. Luckily I have an appointment with Caroline tomorrow to get her opinion, since Marc, whom I often turn to as Boy Expert, is worse than useless, even if he is a Boy (his advice: “Play it cool.” If only.) I have a feeling she’ll plump for the straightforward option, and suggest I just tell him I want to see him more. I mean, therapy’s all about honesty and not playing games, unfortunately. But then what if Jeremy says, “OK, let’s get serious, but I want you to stop seeing other people,”? He would have a point, but I don’t want to stop sleeping with Daniel or Jefferson and I want to attend Jefferson’s orgies (purely as an observer, like a UN official at elections in newly democratic countries). Gah!