Mr. Unavailable #69: Where You Goin’ With That Gun in Your Hand?

This is a Mr. Unavailable flashback circa 1992 through 1996, England and Chicago.

Vital Stats: 5’8”, 19 (in 1992) through 23 (in 1996). Aesthetic: 1992 hippy (detailed description below). Demeanor: A fast-talking, heavy-accented, quick-witted Brit.

Background: Eager to escape American university life at an extremely pre-professional school, I spent my junior year abroad in England, on the campus of the University of Sussex just outside Brighton, the pot-smoking, light-class-load antithesis of pre-professional.

First Impression: I probably met #69 at one of the three pubs or nightclub on campus. I don’t remember when it might have been, but I have a pretty good idea of what my first impression was. Brighton was a hippy town and the students were neo-hippies, including #69. Well, especially #69. He had patchy facial stubble and a full head of dirty, shaggy, dirty blonde hair. He wore oversized jumpers with ethnic vests and baggy, patched-up jeans. He also wore a bunch of medallions and other jangling items around his neck and carried coins and things in his pockets, so you could hear him coming from meters away.

I knew he liked me for months. When we would run into each other in the café, he’d pretend to be my therapist to get me to talk about myself and then he’d say, “You know, a lot of times, patients fall in love with their therapists. Just a friendly reminder.”

One post-pub night in a pot-filled dorm room, he confessed his crush on me. I said I had a crush on someone else. Drama ensued. After giving #69 the bad news, I went back to my dorm room to call the object of my crush under the pretext that I was worried about #69. My crush came over and told me that #69 had wandered off into the cow fields, dejected and even more drunk. Then I confessed my crush to him (#68). He replied by saying he had a crush on someone else. Almost everyone went home crushed that night.

It was too bad. #69 was sweet, charming and incredibly funny, but I couldn’t take him seriously until…

…he returned after spring break shaven, with a hair cut and without all the extra layers and adornment. You could actually see his face, and it was cute.

One night at the pub, I stayed and stayed and stayed. He knew what that meant. For the next three years and across two continents, I put the guy through trial after trial. I waffled over whether or not I wanted to be with him, broke up with him, got back together with him, and the whole time, he stayed firm on what he wanted: me. He’d write me poems, sculpt figurines out of wood for me, make me jewelry, draw me pictures, buy me little things. He even got a work visa and moved to Chicago to live with me while I was in grad school.

Sometimes I felt like I loved him, or was in love with him, but not often. Mostly, I couldn't accept him because I couldn’t figure out why he loved me. Sometimes, I’d ask him. He’d tell me, but I never truly believed all the nice things he said about me.

During the good times, we’d troop down to the local bar, The Keg, and talk about the future and how we were going to venture around the world as travel journalists. During the bad times, we’d fight. I wasn’t afraid to fight with him because I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He was just as to blame for the fighting as I was, but he was never quite as cruel as I was: I’d threaten to break up with him or tell him he was free to date other people—even though we were living together.

When he went back to England in March 1996, I was sure to ask him where the laundry room was before he left because I knew it was over. He had loved me so thoroughly that he gave me just enough self-esteem to dump him.

We kept in touch, though, and a year later, after my failed attempt with #70, I flew to England. We thought there was still something there. The moment I saw him at the airport, I knew there wasn’t. Instead of telling him that, I fortified myself with bottles and bottles of wine and, over the next ten days, pretended. I only told him I didn’t want to do it anymore after I got home, when I was thousands of miles away, just like #70 had done to me.

Signs of Hope: There were moments when I felt like I was in love with him.

Red Flags: Most of the above. I was also rarely affectionate with him. He was so deprived of affection that the few times I’d hold his hand or rest my head on his shoulder, he’d practically swoon.

Turning Point: When I went to see him in England. I had changed so much that there really was no going back.

Diagnosis: For him: He was the most available person I was ever with. He’s now married with a child in London.
For me: I was the one who was completely unavailable. I was so unable to love myself that I couldn’t accept his love. I spent the next 15 years thinking that the opposite of what he was, was what I really needed. I was wrong.