Mr. Unavailable #111: A Boy in Man's Clothing

See Could it Be?, It's Not Him, It's Me, The Recovery, We're Just Not That Into Each Other, The Continuation, The Curse is Broken, Unfortunately, The Make-Up Date, The Phone Call, The Negotiation, Dates 9 Through 12, Dates 13 Through 15, The Public Sex Talk, Bridging the Chasm, The Shut Down, All Kinds of Good, Meeting the Friends, Part 2, Hamptons Getaway, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Happy Birthday to Me, The Drunken Text, Jeckyl and Hyde, The Layoff and One-Man Show for the background on this one.

The day after our last date, I couldn't think. I was miserable. I started making lists of things I was unhappy about and decided I needed to talk to him. I never wanted to be "that girl" in a relationship--who always needed to talk--but enough was enough. I knew he was downtown for his volunteer job, so I texted him around 4 p.m. asking him if he could come see me when he was done. I felt oddly empowered after sending the text, which meant it was the right thing to do.

I met Heidi at Pinkberry and waited. As the hours ticked on, I got more and more angry: "What a fucking coward," I said. Finally, around 7, there was a voicemail message from him that I'd somehow just missed. He gave some excuse about why he didn't respond up until now and said he'd hang around downtown for a little while. I felt a tiny spring of hope. He was appearing to be accommodating. I called him and he said he'd meet me at my place in twenty minutes. When he came upstairs, I didn't even bother looking for a kiss. He came in and sat down and I said, "I really like you and I want to work on this relationship but I am not sure where you are at."

"I don't want to take this relationship any further," he said.

I was stunned. Then he said, "I was going to break up with you but then you got fired, so..."

Asshole. I got laid off, not fired. And he had made a unilateral decision with no discussion, no nothing. I asked him why. He started saying it was the little things, like how I didn't immediately offer him gum the day before. He also said that I wasn't a good listener and when he would tell me things I would say, "Poor you" or not listen. He said he didn't feel very deeply about the relationship. The weird thing was, the whole time he was saying all that, he was incredibly angry. I asked him why he didn't tell me he thought those things. "I apologize for that," he said. Never say anything about the things that aren't making you happy and instead just end it? It wasn't making any sense.

"Intimacy is being able to ask for what you need and being able to communicate and being able to tell someone how you feel," I said. He insisted intimacy was the little things--like immediately offering someone gum. I was angry. Many things began to click into place. I could never figure out how he could stay in a relationship for four years where the woman wasn't capable of intimacy and now I knew--he wasn't capable of it either. "I feel really sorry for you," I said. "Now I know how you could be in a relationship for four and half years where there was no intimacy."

That made him angrier. "If you want to discuss things like that, we can talk about that another time." Clearly, he didn't know how to handle what I'd said.

And then suddenly he said, "I was a complete fucking gentleman for three months!"
Again, stunned, I said, "I never said you weren't."

He said again how he needed to be be with someone who understood that the little things he mentioned were important. And I said, "Well, I need to be with someone who can communicate and tell me what they need and not expect me to read their mind or one minute tell me I can doze in bed and then the very next ask me why I didn't make coffee."

"Well, I apologize for that," he said. And then he left.

I was floored. I had no idea who I was just dating. Did the real #111 just walk out the door?

I met Heidi out and told her what happened. She told me that, clearly, he had no intention of breaking up with me before I got laid off--he would have been happy coasting along doing less and less--but when I got laid off, he realized he was going to have to show up for me and there was no way that was going to happen. I was angry.

"He wants to be alone, just look at how he lives," she said. "He's 44 years old and he chooses to live with a roommate in Harlem. There's no space in his life for anyone else. He's an isolationist."

She was right. I didn't want to be alone and Heidi offered me her sofa. In the cab on the way to DUMBO, I repeated some of the idiotic things he said. Like how we could talk about his lame four and a half year relationship some other time. "When exactly does he think we're going to talk about it? In Break-Up, Part 2?" And "When exactly was he going to break up with me? He said yes to everything I invited him to."

I felt relieved on some level--I no longer had to worry about where I stood or guess what his intentions were. But I knew the anger and relief wouldn't last. It never does.

Diagnosis: For him: When he said he was a "complete fucking gentleman for three months," he was basically telling me that he came with an expiration date, that his acting like a gentleman was indeed an act that he could only keep up for a little while.

This whole thing shined new light on things he told me about his past relationships. He always said how he and his workaholic ex from his 4.5-year thing never fought. Most likely, it was because he was chasing her for four and half years, which kept him interested. Maybe he didn't want anyone he could actually have. He probably didn't have to do too much, either. He'd moved into her apartment, she probably had plenty of money, he probably had very little to worry about. I bet it was an easy, intimacy-free existence.

"It's like playing house," Nora said. "He was no different in that relationship. His ex just probably didn't care enough to notice or do anything about it, especially if she was working all the time."

He sometimes talked about another four-month relationship where he claimed she said she started wanting him to change. Maybe what really happened was that he started to pull away, to do less and less (the "gentleman" went away) and expect more from her, just like he did with me, and she probably didn't like it either. She probably didn't want him to change, she probably wanted him to be the guy he initially presented himself as--a guy he never truly was.

For me: I really need to disregard everything he said about me. The things he said about me bothered me. I have never, ever in my entire life been called a bad listener or selfish, like he was claiming, so I knew on some level it was all bullshit. I knew from what he'd told me in the past that those were old issues of his--that he felt like people weren't listening to him, so it was probably one of the first--and easiest--cards to play. Most likely, he didn't even know why he was breaking up with me. Most likely, it was because we were getting closer--too close. But, like I said, I need to disregard it because it was all bullshit. Maybe I was threatening his isolationism and, instead of looking at it, he attacked the threat to it: me. That's why he was so angry.

The plot thickens: For more than two weeks, I've been experiencing what I thought was massive PMS. So, on the day of the break-up, I took a pregnancy test. Oddly, it came back positive. But those things can be wrong. Right?