Here’s the thing about getting railed on the reg for a couple of weeks: even if the underlying wish is antithetical to everything happening in your head, you still miss it when it’s gone. And especially now, still in the middle of this pandemic, I’m totally willing to admit that I was asking, begging, to be straight-up lied to.
Like, I never had to ask for this, it never came to that. But I’m telling you, like, I would have if that were a thing. And hey, I get it: there are a handful of reasons that this is so fucked up. For instance: why not just trot off to find some situ that doesn’t hinge on literal deception? Or just forgo whatever benefit I might gain for some other facet of actual reality?
Why?
In this essay I will
No I’m just kidding.
I’m just saying that while I’m still recovering from everything that’s happened during the pandemic, including the stark isolation I endured for goddamned almost six months. And there are consequences to those months.
It’s just like
okay remember my last giant breakup, and then I participated in a bunch of
indiscretions adventures
down in New Orleans, and then I went to Basel, and added someone to the roster that is literally still on it? That’s what I mean. Like that. We met in 2016, yet to this day, every time he and I have shared a city we basically don’t even bother getting to know each other in lieu of just pretending that we already do.
And like, sometimes I’m fine with that, and right now is one of those times. Right now, I’d prefer that someone just lie to my face, just fucking tell me that we have something because I want all of the benefits of that and have about zero patience to do any of the work.
But what remains troubling after a week free of my recent indiscretions escapades is that I’m not entirely sure that I was in control the entire time, and I worry that I will just let it happen again rather than usher that in again.
You see the distinction, right?
On one hand, I’m not in any position, no pun intended, to be entering into any kind of real, romantic relationship. I’m having a hard enough time navigating my friendships this year: I find myself pining over my friends in far flung cities far too frequently, and I’m having an increasingly hard time even trying to form any new ones out of the fear that I’ll eventually have to say goodbye.
OKAY yes, I should know how to do this by now, but give me a break. It’s been a hard year.
I bring all of this up because it underscores the types of relationships that I’m left: these surface-level romps that, while fun, aren’t r e a l l y
So on the other hand, it’s so much easier to chill with one person for, say, the duration of my stay in whatever the fuck city I’m in. This could be a week or three, or maybe it’s a fucking month of unrequited torture.
Hypothetically.
Actually that one definitely worked out for the best (see the first hand for why.)
But like, this is just easier logistically. It worked fucking perfectly in Skopje, and that’s exactly what I thought I was cultivating here in Tirana. But what if I actually cultivated nothing? What if what I actually did was just take the path of least resistance until I saw an easy route out?
Yeah, I don’t really know, and it’s crazy because I was so sure that I did. But as days pass and I’m more and more certain that the things that I miss aren’t entirely dick-related – although they are certainly dick-adjacent – I’m beginning to question why I was there in the first place. Like, the proverbial there. You feel me.
Was it for the, forgive me, benefits of the situation? Or, and this is seeming increasingly more likely, am I just willing to forgo all the the basics that I should be holding onto – like preferences and respect – just to have someone around to prove to myself that this lonely year wont become even more lonely?
In this essay I will
Okay, again, no.
–M,