See The Imprinter, Business or Pleasure?, Spellbound, No Picnic in the Park, Squatter Love, Who Falls First? and Trouble for the background on this one.
After I had the walk-around with #126, I confessed to Zoe that I was in trouble.
“I knew you’d get attached,” she said.
“Yes, you told me so. If I don’t hear from him for a few days, then I’ll be fine. I’ll get over it.”
Zoe was having an online tryst with a gambler from Connecticut. Zoe being Zoe, she'd asked him how big his willy was and he'd sent her photos, which she'd then shared with me and just about anyone she'd met more than once. "I do love a bit of girth," she said, "but this is major." He was the equivalent of two stacked cans of soda. I know because I saw all of the angles.
"And he's not even hard in these photos," she said.
After two days of scrutinizing his willy, it suddenly occurred to me to put a question to her. "What does his face look like?" I asked.
It turned out he was pretty cute.
"I know I'm going to get shagged senseless with this one," she said. "I just know it."
Distracted by the adventures of Zoe, I was feeling a little more over #126. Three days after the walk-around, I’d just gotten home from work and was feeling irritable when he called asking if I wanted to hang out with him and his best friend, who I knew, too, though more tangentially. I told him I was grumpy.
“What might make you feel better, sweetie?”
"The gym," I said. "I have to go."
“Why don’t you call me after,” he said.
After the gym, I was still grumpy—probably because the whole time I was at the gym, I was trying to talk myself out of hanging out with him. I'd talked myself into a state of neutrality and, when I got home, called him. He wasn’t with his friend anymore, so I asked how his visit was. He said it was good and then added, “Matt thinks you’re fantastic. And that was unsolicited. He really does. He thinks you’re a total babe.”
“He must think you’re a pretty lucky guy then.”
“I haven’t told him anything…I haven’t told anyone a thing.”
That was good. I think.
He asked me how my mood was.
“I’m still grumpy,” I said.
“What can I do to make you feel better, sweetie?”
“You can take me for frozen yogurt.”
“OK, let’s go get some frozen yogurt.”
He swung by my apartment and picked me up. Walking down the street, he asked what was getting at me. I vented about this and that, circling the truth.
He said that he was feeling a little sad, too, that he was meeting all these people—me?—but that he knew he wasn’t staying, so he was kind of just here waiting for his real life to start.
At least I knew where I stood. I was part of the stalled part of his life—the staging ground, the opening band, the commercial segment, the temporary shelter, the purgatory, the waiting room.
“It would help if I had a bed,” he said. “Would you want to split a bed with me? Then I can use it for the next couple of months and it could be yours in the apartment.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
When we got to the register at 16 Handles, again, he didn’t make a move for his wallet. At the park nearby, I finished my yogurt, leaned forward on the bench and, on the verge of tears, put my head in my hands.
“You seem sad,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
What was wrong was that I was growing attached to someone who only wanted me to help him kill time and couldn’t even spring for a frozen yogurt after offering to.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just grumpy. It will pass.”
He walked me home and we hugged outside my building. “I would hang out longer, but I’m just too grumpy,” I said.
Signs of Hope: When the best friend loves you, it always works to make them love you—even if just a tiny bit. And at least he offered to do something to make me feel better.
Red Flags: Even though he offered to do something to make me feel better, he didn't do it. There was that and, now, I knew I we were just hanging out temporarily in purgatory. His real life was waiting for him on the other side of the River Styx.
Turning Point: There was none. The whole thing was very confusing: He offered to take me for frozen yogurt but then didn’t; he said he was building new friendships and would miss people (me?) but then said he was unsettled and wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Diagnosis: For him: He has good intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell.
For me: If I could separate what I want from him from what I want in general, I’d be fine. But I can’t.
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