Dancing In The Dark

I assume this post will never see the light of day - always doomed to be relegated to the dark and dusty annals of my "drafts" file. This fate is based not on the fact that I don't believe it will be completed, but that I don't think I can post it. Well, I could. But I am not really sure anyone wants to see it.

So what is the big deal, the peanut gallery wonders...

It involves a Boy labeled "bad for me" - not bad generally (well, at least most don't seem to think so, though there are a few glaring exceptions), but just "bad for me."

Do I agree?

I am not entirely certain. When faced with trying to explain to other neutral parties who do not know him, and only know me in a limited context, exactly why he is "bad for me," I found myself at a loss.

Is it because time has worn away the painful edge of experience and left only soft, rosy recollection in its wake?

Perhaps.

Is it because I have an unavoidable tendency of being too readily forgiving of those who are least deserving of grace?

It could be.

Is it because, after all of this, it isn't in fact true?

One never knows.

And so it goes with the descriptors of this human connection: It is one of these things; It is all of these things; It is none of them. But one truth, improbably, impossibly remains: It is.

The fact that it is, at all, at this point is a marvel and travesty. Above all, it is a secret. Or it is a fact shrouded in secrecy.

Whatever it may be - infrequent, inchoate, indescribable - it is.

It is a connection. It burns - in white hot heat, in simmering expectation, in the brightness of personal engagement.

Sometimes it hurts. Mostly it intrigues.

Where do I think the "bad for me" comes from? Interesting question: I think it comes from the fact that he was the first one to show me that I wasn't broken, physically, and so I will always be attached to him as my "first." It comes from friends who know him in other contexts that I did not, who are sincere and wise, and very protective. It comes from an expectation of mine in the beginning of "no expectations" that was more than any enumerated expectation could be. It comes from the secrecy with which it is cloaked, upon which he, and I, seem to have come to rely. It comes from my internalized belief that he was as confident as I am not, and being left out of his golden gaze made me cry. It comes from reputation, rumor, truth, innuendo and all of the stupid shit you do when you are drunk.

All that being said, what is left? Any redemption, any spark of light, and sentence that does not being with a resolute sigh as it launches into a litany of excuses?

Ordinarily, the answer, in my lifetime of experience of dealing with "bad for me" boys, the answer is resoundingly yes. I have made a high art of excusing not-quite enough behavior and making it seem like emotion-abundant. I have conducted relationships - primarily with myself - in this way for years even. But here, the answer is different. Or maybe, it is that now, I am different.

What this connection has had is time. And while not so unusual a factor in and of itself, it is when the beginning spark of connection took place in the form of what was to be a one-night stand, ended up being a 3-week dalliance, was punctuated by a tardy attempt at date followed by a clumsy attempt at being blase. And the chapter was closed by distance and circumstance. 3000 miles, 3000 reasons.

But another chapter began anew. A mass e-mail. A personal missive. A summer visit to the same geographical area. A startling lunch at which those not privy to the secret world were all in attendance. All very terse and so formal. So painful. So odd. Midnight - a phone call: "So what is your address again? Why? Because I need to tell the cab where to drop me off. *A moment's hesitation. Address profferred.* What are you doing now? I am hailing a cab. Why - I thought you were already in a cab? I am confident, but I am not that confident." Laughter. An evening alone. Colored, to be honest, with my doubt. My mind therefore not allowing me full presence as I would have liked. And in the morning, the next chapter closed. At my doorstep.

But the novel was not yet written: Over the following months, numerous late night phone calls (sometimes separated by a few days, other times by a few weeks and a few months; usually late, late at night, time differences be damned; usually with one or both parties rather intoxicated; often with voicemail picking up; but when the connection was actually made with a lengthy conversation). And it is actually this behavior, it's childishness, it's groping nature, which leads if nothing else to more question. For why does one call one's convenient booty-call partner, when, though the hour and the temperment are right, there is clearly no hope of physical reciprocation as they are a continent-span away? Phone sex is not the answer. At least not here. There is none of that to be had in this novel. It plays itself out, instead, in a series of phone messages indicating a comfortable familiarity and latent intrigue. Would the other call back and when? Sometimes immediately, sometimes weeks later. Both sides both hurried and tarried. But when we finally connected, there were always those conversations. Conversations like none I have ever known. If only because he should make me crazy, an absolute jangle of nerves and anxiety, of self-dispossession and fear. And yet, when we talk in these ways, just a conversation - no pressure of more or of less - I feel supremely comfortable. I am not trying to be my best self; I simply feel my best self. I just am. An hour and more, gone. With repartee, discussion, storytelling, reclamations, teasing and speculating all thrown in. It was in this fashion that he was my New Year's Date this year - at a time and place where I was a lone single amongst a sea of marrieds, I don't think I could have been happier than I was sitting there on the kitchen floor chatting away with the Boy.

This is not all to say that he doesn't make me crazy.

The stories of cat-and-mouse phone games and an incident infamously known as the "commuti-call" to be addressed another day, are part and parcel of the crazy.

But here I sit, nearly a year and half since this story began, and I wonder.

Recently he called. Not a well worn hour past midnight when intentions are singular. Not in any state of intoxication. He called on a weekday evening, sane and sober. Reached me the same, at least sober, if not quite sane. And we talked as we always talk, about this that and the other, for over an hour. And the same feelings came rushing back.

Some choice moments:

Re. why men buy nice cars - the explanation given that it gives them something to talk about/a starting point (and it helps them get ass). And my response that "So the toast at the wedding can be that they met due to a shared love of german engineering?" And his lingering statement in reply, "Who is to say why people meet and how they come to be together. Could you and I ever explain it?"

Statements punctuated with "I thought you would get a kick out of this..." And being in the same time zone promising to "set off a flurry of new calls."

It is all very intriguing. It is supremely intoxicating.

But my love of cocktails - physical, metaphysical and otherwise aside - I, unfortunately, know better.

Do I think he loves me? No.
Do I think he cares for me? No.
Do I think he is simply using me? No.
Do I think he is connected to me in some way, that neither of us can explain, nothing more nor less? Yes.
Can I say anything more than that, one way or the other? No.

What I realize here, at this far-flug outspost, so distant from where we started, is this: He is just like me. Different in his presentation, but the same at his core. Insecure, with something to prove, seeking approval, looking for structure, afraid of his feelings. Unsure of what any emotion across his internal register means. Affinity could be chemistry or it could be more, or it could be nothing. Best idea is to keep one's options open.

And so the volley of phone calls, messages and replies continues.

Till someone decides. That they - he or me - wants something more. In his case - from me. In my case - from myself...

We shall see...