Older Man

You are the only considerably older man who is legitimately attracted to me. In a pretty sure you’d take me in the back and fuck me kind of way.
At first I thought you had taken a sort of fatherly interest in me and my life and my potential future accomplishments.
Then I got a little older and you took a maybe exaggerated interest.
I have the feeling you were always the sort of man who got what you wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, flirting with you is fine, if you think that the friendly chatting and laughing we occasionally do is flirting.
And if I was a different person I just might take you in the back and fuck you.
But here is the thing. Even though he’s married, I would still much rather fuck your son. Even though he’s married, I’m pretty sure he would be absolutely heartbroken, disgusted, horrified, devastated if I did fuck you.
I don’t actually want to fuck you, so it’s not a problem. I don’t get off on the idea of doing an older man. I’m not particularly attracted to you. I’m not particularly unattracted to you either. Someone might argue this is one of those life experiences you are supposed to go for.
You did call me a vixen that one time.
Is that supposed to make me feel good? Or feel guilty that I somehow made you think I was being flirtatious with a man who is old enough to be my father. Who’s son I have a thing for.
Shudder.

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Lost Forever.

I lost the only love note you ever gave me. It was the best love note I ever got. Most emotional. Most intense. Most real. Most true. I put it in the blue cup on my windowsill. At some point, I must have gotten worried it would fade in the sun, so I moved it to my box of notes. Under the bed. That must be what happened because the only other terrifying possibility is that my mom found it. Read it. And threw it away?

I had a confidence in our love that I have never been able to replicate. I was so sure that it was forever that I wasn’t jealous when you told me about girls you had crushes on. I wasn’t jealous when you went away to college and were surrounded by other women. Older women. More experienced women. I wasn’t jealous when you dated other women. Women you really liked a whole lot and had a lot of feelings for. It didn’t matter to me, because I knew we would ultimately be together. We had to be.

I almost feel like I wasn’t even jealous when you married her. I still didn’t think it was real.

Now I’m not sure if it was the best love note ever because I can’t reread it repeatedly. We didn’t have electronic archives of every emotion back then. We only had rereading the note until the corners were bent and the creases started permanently fading the ink. Maybe it was a horrible love note and you weren’t even that into me. It’s lost forever though now, so I’ll just never know. I guess getting jealous wouldn’t have helped, but perhaps it was foolish of me to not see. I sometimes feel more mournful about the lost note than the lost love. However brief, that emotion was real and spoken. Not lost forever.

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Never Forgot

You transferred to my school halfway through the year and as soon as you sat down I said hello. You were different, you were pierced you were beautiful. It wasn’t until we were at the movies that you said you had a boyfriend, that hurt. At grad you took my breath away.

Now we are married to different people and basically don’t talk but here is the thing I NEVER forgot you. I was just not ready to be who I could be. Now I am becoming a better man and wish I could fly there and just kiss you.

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First Emails.

I stumbled upon the first set of emails I ever wrote you. Looking back at that old inbox, it seems like the only reason I created an email address when my college one expired was to email you. I was so nervous and excited and not yet forward at all. I wonder if they came across as desperate or weird or fawning or what. You must have thought I was a child. I would suggest that we see each other, which is a kind of strange thing to do since we barely knew each other. I offered that my friends and I would randomly be in the same state as you, and that probably meant we should all meet up.

Partly, it was before everyone had gmail and emailed each other constantly. You would say “I don’t really use this email thing much.” Partly it was just weird I was in touch with you. You would email me back months later and say “Great to hear from you!” and ignore my subtle and not subtle suggestions to actually see each other. I would talk about the snow and you would tell me about where you were living. They were more formal, in a way. Like how you would write a letter in the past, not an email today.

Now your curly brown hair is starting to turn grey. Now I know it’s understood we would never hang out except explicitly on your terms. Now I freely email you short, one sentence “what the fuck I love you” emails. You occasionally text me and it still makes my heart fall out of my chest, but now that so many years have gone by we have an understanding about what’s between us. All of your “what-ifs” would be very easily answered by a glance through my old emails to you. You probably thought I was nuts then, and maybe rightfully so. It didn’t happen because you didn’t want it then and it took you years to realize your love for me.

The email that you tell me you are moving in with your girlfriend is probably the most hilarious. You never had told me you had a girlfriend before, but I had already heard rumor of her. You say her name, which you never did to my face. My extra casual response is dripping with hidden terror. Like I knew that meant it was over. I would never have a chance to run and leap into your open arms. Never grab your greying hair as I kissed you without a childish nervousness. Never be able to say all the things I pretended to not be saying to you when I asked how the weather was treating you.

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Wiser

I should have known better that all those beautiful things happening so fast to us 2 years ago weren’t okay. They seemed so wonderful – much too wonderful to be true. I was starting a new life full of hope, determination and optimism (and healed wounds also) and you just seemed what I was looking for. (Now I know I projected those things and you are actually just a big kid.) First, we got engaged, and then moved together. A few suspicious things, warning sings: I ignored/swallowed them. And they grew into crisis, accusation, almost-cheating, spying, therapy.

However, we got back on the track. I still had hopes for us. Sure you also had hopes because you used to call me Mrs. D. again. Otherwise, I don’t know what happened inside you because you hardly ever talked about yourself during this almost 2 years. You’ve always kept privacy too big for me about your past, about what you do during the day or when you’re staying up at night but especially about your feelings and inner world. You didn’t only hold back things, you lied. White lies, I know, but straight to my eyes and meanwhile claiming you’re always honest to me. You never really opened up yourself to me yet you wanted to marry me.

Summa summarum, I have grown tired. I should have known better that the harder I try, the more you close yourself.
Next time, I’ll be wiser.

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love letters from james joyce

So this is off topic.
Off format.
Totally inappropriate use of this blog.

But I CANNOT HELP but post a link to these amazingly filthy letters from James Joyce to his wife, circa 1909.

Somehow it’s dirtier when it’s old and he’s seemingly proper.

Brilliant.

xox

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bled.

Remember when I smashed the back of my head and bled all over your $400 sheets? I forget about it until I run my fingers over the scar it left, a year later. Bad things always happened to me when I was with you. But they were always little bad things that ended up not mattering, and we always had so much fun. They could have mattered, I suppose. I could have died from my blunt trauma, but I didn’t, and we fucked all night instead. I could have had way more important things in my wallet when it was stolen, I could have gotten some sort of STD from you. I’m glad you found the love of your life – we could never have been anything to each other and that’s fine. We were just both filler. Fun placeholders. Which is why you didn’t need to block me on facebook. that was petty and i don’t understand it and it just irks me a little. I hope you just did it to make everything with your girl perfect. I can get behind that. Treat your girl right. I think you could be a really great husband, but I’m glad you’re not mine.

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Exactly What I Needed

Wow, you are totally married now. That’s weird.

I heard about you for years and years before I ever met you. You were a close friend of one of my best friends, and she had endless affectionate anecdotes about you from college. It always seemed strange to me that we’d never met since we’d all gone to college together and been in very close social proximity.

When we finally did meet, I remember being totally entertained that my friend was hooking up with you, her legendary college buddy. You had a girlfriend and apparently some kind of “understanding.” But you two only hooked up a couple times. Maybe your “understanding” was nullified? It was never totally clear to me. I was in a serious monog’ thing then, and I couldn’t help but act extremely aloof around dudes I found attractive.

I saw you again when I was back on the sexual upswing. I had just gone on a really fantastic first date a few days before and was feeling totally foxy, even though I wasn’t really on the prowl. But I saw you and went full tilt flirt. You still had that same girlfriend, but I’d never met her, so she didn’t really exist. The bike ride back to your house is still so vivid: me sitting on the seat, holding onto you for dear life, squealing as you pedaled down the street. We reached our destination, and I was still squealing. You grabbed me and suddenly we were making out on the hood of a car.

Every time you would reappear, you were exactly what I needed. After I’d been dumped by a dude who I was really starting to like, you invited yourself over to my house to make me an epic steak dinner. That was when I found out that you’d dropped out of college to become a chef for a while, before pursuing the zillion advanced math degrees you have now. Because you totally needed to be a sexier human being.

There was the time that you invited me to your “office hours” on the top floor of the math building on my old college campus. I bragged to probably too many people that I’d gotten to fuck a math professor. You seemed a little disappointed that it wasn’t the first time I’d fucked on campus.

But you always had this mysterious girlfriend character who lived like a million miles away. I remember saying to you that I really enjoyed messing around with you, because you had a girlfriend so it completely didn’t matter whether you liked me or not. It took the pressure off, so we could have fun with any of the where-is-this-going bullshit. You said, “But I do like you.” I replied, “That’s awesome! But it totally doesn’t matter. I like that.”

So I found out recently that you married her. And apparently you’re living on the other side of the country again. You’re like some kind of ephemeral creature. Even though you’re ostensibly monogamous, I’d probably totally still fuck you if you reappeared. Somehow, you’d probably still be exactly what I needed.

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Single.

My ears prick up like an animal on nervous alert every time you announce how you will always be single.

Exhibit A.
You tell me this story. You are 40 and so are your friends. All have wives and kids. They wonder about you. You tell me you explained to them you aren’t married because
1. Latina women are devoted but not intellectually stimulating.
2. Black women are the hottest with the hottest bodies but you can’t relate to their loudness and their manners.
3. White women are most compatible with your personality and lifestyle but you could never fully trust a white woman to be faithful and loyal because of their independence, which you claim to love.
Wow. Way to excuse yourself from a commitment with racist stereotypes.

Exhibit B.
Your friend gifts you with a prize, expensive bottle of wine. “For a special occasion. Tu boda (your wedding).” You laugh, “I’ll never drink it then. I will never get married.” I am in the room. Everyone in the room knows we are romantically involved. Everyone in the room is a traditional Latino. Everyone looks at me for my reaction. Lovely.

Exhibit C.
Several events we attend together you must network for the young entrepreneurial business you have built over two years. You explain the women (many with money) must think you are single. They must believe they have a chance to get their hands on you. Big muscles. Nice teeth. Handsome face. “It’s sad I know. But it is the best thing for the image.”
Do you have any idea how much of a fucking asshole and fucktarded whore this statement makes you sound?

I could go on. Writing these disgusted me enough.

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Despite Everything.

As these things do it all started out innocently enough – you were literally the boy next door. You moved in with your mom and sisters one day in junior high. I was riding my bike and I met you. You were cute and polite…you know, just like a boy next door. You were younger than me, by just enough.

Soon we rode bikes together and listened to music. You befriended my brother so it was always the three of us. You liked me and I knew it. I liked you too. My brother knew it and ignored it. My friends thought you were cute but we all agreed you were a baby, too young for us. I was coming out of this unfortunate ugly duckling phase and other boys were starting to get it. I liked that too – I’ve always liked attention. You didn’t like it. You started talking about how you loved me, to everyone but me. My brother told you to cut the shit. But you didn’t, because you’ve always liked attention too.

I started dating other boys – one boy in particular that put a bee in your bonnet. Your family kind of sucked so you were always around my house, sleeping over, hanging with my brother, making sandwiches, borrowing my CDs, joking with my mom. You were kind of like Eli Cash in The Royal Tenenbaums. You always asked me to be your girlfriend but I just laughed and said you were too young. But everyone knew I loved you too. Despite these other age-appropriate boys. Despite everything. We would lie around and listen to new bands, and sometimes kind of brush hands and arms and look at each other and everyone knew. We would fake fight and hug and kiss and make a ruckus. My brother wanted to murder us both sometimes.

I ended up dating this boy your age senior year. That added significantly to the bees in your bonnet. You confronted me with lots of ‘what the fucks?’ and ‘how could yous?’. You hated me. We danced at the prom because you came with some other girl. You still hated me. I graduated. Went to college. Broke up with that boy because he was expendable, a summer fling, nothing like you. You still hated me. But it wasn’t about anyone’s age. It was about me loving you and being too scared to fuck it up and make you go away for good. You still hated me. Probably because I never told you any of that.

We ended up working together those first few summers during college. We hated each other (surprise!). One close friend we shared was our messenger of harsh sentiments. But things changed during the second summer. I had a bad break up before coming home. I cut off my hair and smoked and drank a lot. You were at your angriest towards me for a million reasons. I dated a boy we worked with just to make you jealous. It fucking worked. We were both in a tizzy. My parents went away and I had a party. We drank too much and made out in your car. I was numb that night but the next morning when we were making out in my bed numbness warmed up into love. It was too perfect. Something mutual had jangled loose in both our brains. That was the last good day for a while.

Once you had my heart for real you proceeded to try and make me jealous. So I did the same. It got toxic. I thought about the past too much, hated our progression. I was sad – the whole thing was a dirty trick. We were both so broken. On our last date to a rock show I gave my number to a boy to make you mad and he’s my husband now. We didn’t talk forever. Later you popped in and out of my life to various damaging degrees. Tried to sleep with my roommate. Said you loved me one winter night when I drew a dinosaur on your windshield and we hadn’t talked in ages. Wrote mean songs about me and hid them at the end of a mix tape you sent me. Passed out in the bushes on my wedding night after my family made me invite you.

You have gone through a lot of shit that has nothing to do with me, but are happy now making music and you have an awesome lady. I’m happy too. We’ve finally come around to each other again. We’re friends. Just like we somehow always were, somewhere in all the mess. Every time I tell anyone how I met my husband, I silently apologize to you. Not because I wish I was with you now, but because I willfully hurt you more than anyone ever. And guess what I still love you. But for a change I don’t hate you.

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