Random Rubber Bands

Saturday, December 30, 2006

The other shoe drops

When things have been going well for such a long time with the boyfriend, there are times when the stars seem to fall out of the sky. Early this afternoon, after walking around the Marais and then going to a movie, we both headed back to the apartment because the weather was miserable and walking around outside was just too much work. I forget how close people get to each other in the cities. I was bumped into over and over again as I walked through the street with my boyfriend and many a person snagged themselves on my umbrella, which I find amazing because I held it so close to me. It wasn't like I was swinging it around recklessly, but still, person after person managed to bump into it and me in the simple process of walking by. Even when we moved to the street to walk to avoid the narrow sidewalks, people still managed to bump.

I honestly don't get it.

I finally grabbed my boyfriend's hand, regardless of the safety (and thankfully the Marais is relatively safe for a gay couple in Paris) and the fact that the two of us together became a larger organism helped a little bit. Suddenly people weren't trying to walk between us, but my outside shoulder continued to be subject to quite the beating. For some reason, my boyfriend, who is significantly taller at his 6'1" didn't seem to have that problem. I finally became pretty cavalier about the whole thing, I stopped feeling bad when the other pedestrians snagged their jackets, shoulders and hair on my umbrella. Served them right if they were careless enough to walk that close, especially since I was expending so much energy trying to pay attention.

We made it home, and both of us decided to take a nap. It had been a short night for him, and although it had been a longer night for me as I had slept through the night to slough off the jetlag, I was still experiencing a bit of jetlag anyway. A nap would do me good. I woke up to my boyfriend being amorous, and while surprised, I was delighted. I try really hard not to expect too much, especially since it generally turns out badly when he tries. When I say generally, I mean always, and when he tries, I mean the 4-5 times in the past three years. I don't know why I thought that this would turn out any differently. Because it didn't.

He had climbed on top of me and started kissing me. I kissed back. He fondled me and pulled my legs up so that I was straddling him even though I was the one on my back. I complied because it felt nice and I pressed my face into his shoulders, inhaling him as I tasted his skin. Suddenly he stopped kissing me and pulled away. I let out a big sigh and that cued me to realized that he was done. I turned over, realized that it was truly over again, and immediately curled into a fetal position. He turned over too and faced the wall.

I retreated into the blankets, humiliated that I had let this go so far, especially when I knew better, but my hopes had spurred me on. I really was less humiliated, and more frustrated, but those two emotions as well as consternation, anger, resignation, all those things washed over me. He turned around, he wanted to talk. Sure. Why not. What is there to lose?

"I don't know why you have to be so intense. Couldn't you be softer?" he asked. "You were biting me," he said, and continued with several more admonitions that I had apparently transgressed. "And I started thinking about the lube, and do we need a condom, and..."

And there, the wave of sadness just passed through me. This is again a trust issue. He assigns blame, doesn't trust, and I was just frustrated enough to take it. "Fine," I said. "I understand. This is my fault. I get it. I was too rough, I was too fast, I was too intense, and you fear that I have something." I started crying, inconsolably.

"No, it's not that," he said. "Well, yes it is. But I'm not blaming you. Can't you see this is me and not you? Why do you always have to make this about you?"

"You are blaming me. It's my fault, you say, because I'm rough, fast, and intense. If it weren't for those things, everything would be fine - right?"

"No." He jockeyed, "This is my problem."

"Yes," I interrupted, "but you're saying that what I was doing was the cause for you to stop, because you were uncomfortable by it and the implications. Therefore you were blaming me for being noncompliant to your needs and desires."

"No, I'm not doing that."

"Well, then if I hadn't engaged in those things, would you have stopped?"

"No."

"So, because I did, you stopped. Right?"

"Yes."

"Then my behavior is obviously the target reason for your change of behavior. Logically, you're reasoning, if I didn't do these things that made you uncomfortable (things that normal people engage in when they're being intimate), then you would have continued, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's blame." I said frantically, "Your attributing reasons for your discomfort and decision to discontinue to my behavior. That's blame."

"Maybe," he said. "But I don't see why you take it so personally."

"How can I not!" I cried. "This is about you and me. There is nobody else in this room. It's just us. The issue here lies with either you, or me, or with both of us. And you just so happen to drop the reasons for your lack of sexual interest in me on my behavior and how I interact with you."

"I'm not doing that," said, completely offended. "I know that these are my problems."

"Well take responsibility! Don't just point fingers at me and say because 'you were doing this' and 'you were doing that' that I'm not interested in you anymore. Stop overanalyzing everything." I poked him on his forehead. "Shut this off. Stop letting this get in the way. Start trusting me. Start feeling. Stop building that wall. Stop using all these thoughts of 'what will I get from him' as a shield. You don't let me in. You don't let me know what you're feeling. You don't let me past the protective shield that is the part of you that is human. You don't let me help you."

"I do let you help me. I just can't stop thinking about what might happen." He was specifically referring to his fear of HIV. "And this is my mother's fault, I'm so afraid of offending her, and now I'm transferring that to you, and I stop myself from engaging with you because I'm afraid of how you will react." We then had a long segue about how his mother had caused him the grief and the uncertainty that he has in general, and how it has made him second guess everything in his life.

"Your mother is not in this room." I said, in all seriousness. "It's you and me. Nobody else. Just us."

"I want this to be right, but I'm afraid of what you will think and afraid that you'll think that this isn't right. This has always been difficult for me, and you know that. I don't understand why you think that this would be perfect the first time after two years." He took a breath, and looked at me like a dejected puppy. "I want this to work so that we have a future and but I just can't seem to let anything go."

"Sex is not a commodity," I said. He asked me what I meant. "Sex is about the moment. It's about the present. It's about two people who love each other and want to share something with each other. It's not a commodity to be traded or sold. It's not to be used as something that can be bartered for something in the future, goods, affection, love or otherwise. Nor is it something that should be used to atone for the past. You have to be in the moment, otherwise it becomes a good. It becomes a commodity. We live in a world that is filled with future and past, but sex is the one thing that can be experienced in the present. In the here and now. It makes us alive, it makes us feel alive. If you weigh it down with all that other baggage, it no longer has any real meaning. It gets stuck in your head. That's what it's doing now with you. You've attributed value to it that has become bigger than the thing itself, and it stops you from actually engaging in it. You've given it a crutch, and now you don't even now what it is or how to feel it. I know I sound all postmodern about this, but we do live in a postmodern world."

"I want you to do something." I said, "It's going to be further burden on you."

"What," he asked.

"We need to compromise. I can't keep doing this. I love you, but I cannot stay with someone who cannot be intimate with me. I want you to see a doctor or a counselor. I want you to fix this. If you do that, I will be there with you to help you."

"You just want me to change?" he implored, "You know I can't change. This is too hard. I've tried for so very long. Do you expect me to just suddenly be perfect and be able to be sexual with you?"

"No. But I have high hopes. I know it. I've been patient and loving and supportive for three years. I stopped last year because we just stopped talking about it and basically started ignoring it. I can do that for you. I can continue to be loving and supportive and help you through this. I just want you to try. I don't want you to ignore this anymore. I don't expect you to be perfect, but I do expect and demand that you try. If you don't then there will be consequences. That consequence is that I will leave you. I cannot do this forever. I love you. More than you give me credit for, but I cannot grow old living as if I were your brother. We are not brothers. You've made me out to be the brother you never had, but I am your partner, not your brother. I need more than what we have now. It is not asking too much. It is asking for everything. I know that."

"Yeah," he sobbed. "You might be right."

"Maybe, maybe not. But we have to try. We can't ignore this any longer. That's why I've always been honest with you about what I'm doing. I have to be a sexual person, I can not not be. I almost died when I was trying to be celibate with you. I never want to got there again. I will not let myself get so wrapped up in you or in anybody else that I'm willing to hurt myself over it. I can't afford to do that, and I will not allow myself to be so co-dependent again."

"You know," he said, "I got online while in my apartment by myself for that week, and while I did I had three guys come over. I didn't touch any of them and I didn't let any of them touch me, but this one guy, he leaked a lot and I completely freaked out. I made him wash his hands even though he didn't touch me and I didn't want to touch the sink because I was afraid I might get some precum on my hands..." He further elucidated is other experiences.

"And you freak out about me. I know. This is why I want you to see a counselor. Honestly, this has also been somewhat good for me. I'm becoming more confident with men than I ever have been before. It's been educational."

"Really?" He sounded suspicious and saddened.

"Yes. On the way here, I did something I've never done before. I met a guy while at the Dallas airport."

"Where? How?"

"In the Admiral's Club. A guy hit on me. I reciprocated."

"Where did you do that?"

"In the bathroom."

"How old was he?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well, the guys I met were in their 30's"

"He seemed like he was in his early 30's and he was from London."

"What did you do?"

"That's none of your business."

"Why?" He was offended.

"Because you only want to know so that you can feel better about yourself and also figure out whether I was in your safety zone."

"Did you have oral sex?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I just do."

"Fine, we had oral sex."

"Did he come in your mouth?"

"That too is none of your business."

"You should tell me."

"Why? If I told you he did not, then you would be fearful because I sucked him and he sucked me. If I told you he did, then you would be fearful about that too. There is no difference. HIV is difficult to spread through oral sex. It should make no difference."

"It just does."

"I'm not going to tell you. You aren't ready for either answer."
"Besides," I said, changing the subject, "you lied to me."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did. I asked you several times, over the phone and once while here already, are you exploring. You said no.

"You asked if I was sucking or fucking, and I didn't do either of those things, so I answered honestly."

"No, I asked you if you were exploring. And besides the point, even if I hadn't asked you that specific question (and I did), you still said no. And in the gist of the question, you knew the answer. Don't play semantics with me. You were exploring. I'm not mad at you. I just want you to be honest with me. I'm honest with you, I talk to you openly, unless you're trying to hurt yourself with the question (and even then I am honest about how I'm answering the question with you). I don't omit, unless I tell you I'm doing so. You don't trust me, and how can I trust you if you do these things without being honest about them? Especially when you know that I'm happy for you... which is besides the point."

"You're right. I'm sorry. And I'm tired. I want to go to bed."

And that's where the conversation ended. I started writing here, and he's sleeping. It's 4 in the morning, and I've been typing for the past two or more hours. I don't really know. I'm not sure how we're going to move forward, but we're going to have to do so. Somehow. If this is going to work, we're going to have to figure it out relatively soon. Not right now, and not right away, but soon. We haven't figured it out yet, so I'm not sure about this hope for a miracle, but I hold out some hope anyway.

Achievement ideology.... if you try hard enough....

I know that it's a false and misleading schema, but I hold out some glimmer, some hope. The second shoe has dropped, and all we have left is the floor bottom. If that falls out too, then we've got nothing. So there's nothing to lose. I've found out that I can live alone and be perfectly capable, if saddened by his absence. I'm not clinging to him from that fear anymore. I want to make this work for the two of us, but I am no longer beholden. We will have to see where this goes. But this is going to happen on a two way street, this is not just a oneway anymore.

1 Comments:

At 9:38 PM, mile high said...: I don't wish this conversation on anyone, however, I am glad you had it. As you acknowleged, things have gone on too long under status quo and it's affecting your long term future. There are no quick fixes or easy solutions, but I think it's healthy you've devoted to making progress. Although not easy, ultimately, you will be happier, no matter what happens in the end.