Mr. Unavailable #88: The Runner

This is a Mr. Unavailable flashback circa 2005.

Vital Stats: 33, 5'8". Underemployed as a stock boy at a children's bookstore uptown. Hyperthyroidically thin, complete with bulging eyeballs and flimsy forearms.

First Impression: I'd seen him around for years and thought he looked crazy. A friend of mine had a crush on him and we were encouraging her to flirt with him. I thought nothing of him until one night at a group diner outing, he stopped to talk to me when I was on my way back from the bathroom and I thought, "He likes me." And then I realized, "Holy shit, I like him." It was as instant as that.

First Date: From the day of the diner encounter, it took him about a month to actually ask me out. It was the Spring of 2005 and we had Saturday night plans for dinner. On Saturday, I was waiting for a call from him to outline the plans. Finally, around 6 p.m., he said he was on his way over. I said I still needed to get ready. He seemed to realize his mistake and said he'd dawdle a bit on his way over. He picked me up at my apartment around 7 p.m. and we walked to a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. And then went for ice cream.

Signs of Hope: He brought flowers on our second or third date. Kissed me on maybe our fifth--at Belvedere Castle in Central Park, an outing for which I took the day off. Things were going well and then one day he said he wanted to take things slow. It seemed an odd announcement especially because we were taking things slow (Hello? First kiss on the fifth date). We hadn't even slept together yet.

A few months into it, things were great. He said he wanted to be someone I could count on. He officially asked me to be his girlfriend. He said he loved me. When I expressed fear that he might bolt, he made all kinds of promises about not running off.

Red Flags: There were a few red flags along the way. He got weird and distant after our second or third date but seemed to recover until...I had a story reading a few months later at a cafe and he, strangely, couldn't make it (though he said he was sad about it) but things seemed to recover until...our last few dates. He started to more actively freak out. When we were together, he didn't want to leave me and when we were apart, he would completely come apart.

And then it was the day before I was about to leave for a 10-day trip to Istanbul for a wedding. He was completely distant but unwilling to tell me what was wrong. I repeatedly asked him what was wrong, even leaving him a message before I left asking if I'd done something, but he told me nothing. I spent the next 10 days in Istanbul trying to be a good tourist and wedding guest (I thought I could hide amidst the gaggle of other guests but realized on the plane ride over that there was only one other guest). In the late afternoons after sightseeing, I'd go back to the hotel, take a shower and lie in bed listening to the chanting from the mosques and watching the BBC to try to not think about him. Annoyingly, the coverage was predominantly about home--specifically, Hurricane Katrina.

I sent him occasional emails to try to get a read on what was happening--not with Katrina but with him (Katrina was devastating, but the storm in my personal life felt a million times worse). He replied even more occasionally, saying little, which I knew was bad.

Turning Point: He had told me he'd meet me at the airport, so when I got to the airport, I called his cell phone. He didn't answer. And then he appeared by the cab line where we were. I knew instantly that he hadn't answered because he wasn't sure if he wanted me to know he was there. We got a cab to my place, sharing with the bride, groom and other guest (again, hiding=impossible), and dropped my stuff off in my apartment. He said he wanted to go to the corner coffee shop to talk. Walking down the stairs of my apartment building, I knew what was about to happen and, having been dumped at that coffee shop before, I made him stop and talk on my front stoop.

He told me it was over and then blamed me for having to end it. He told me I wasn't ready for a relationship, blah, blah, blah. Nothing of what he said made any sense. Gratifyingly, his jeans zipper was broken and his fly was open the whole time he was breaking up with me. And he had an hour subway ride ahead of him through Harlem to Inwood.

Diagnosis: For him: He totally freaked out. He was a runner. It would have happened sooner or later. He inspired the run loser run T-shirt. As my shrink said, he didn't think he was good enough for me, and so he wasn't. I'm also pretty sure that, for the next two years, he was the person who would call my phone and hang up right after I answered.
For me: Even if there was a remote chance that he was right about what he said (i.e., that I wasn't ready for a relationship), it didn't matter because I wasn't the one who ran away. The emotional aftermath I experienced when this relationship ended was, well, horrible. A true doozy. For a good eight months afterward it was incredibly difficult to function. I was unable to date for more than a year and I didn't have a serious relationship for five years--until, for better or worse, #111.