REPRINT: My Last Boyfriend

On 22 February, 2002, I met the man of my dreams. Alas, he did not.

We had six pretty good months, most of which is printed indelibly on my soul, and then he decided he wanted something different and that was that. Without bothering to check to see if maybe I wanted some of those things too, he split up with me over the phone on New Year's Eve 2002.

I tried to stay friends with him immediately after we broke up. Friends said this was insane, but I just wanted to be with him. I didn't care how much it hurt. This, I suppose, was the most insane part.

He knew this, and he added to the hurt. He started telling me about all the guys he was having sex with, and I even went with him when he got a dose of gonorrhea and didn't want to go to the Free Clinic alone. He did the usual thing I get: cried on my shoulder over how there are no good men out there, knowing full well I was the best guy he'd ever been with.

First he didn't want to be with me, then he treated me badly, then he tried to deny me closure. Why, you ask, would I want to be with such a person? I guess because I knew the real him, and I felt that whatever it was that made him want to hurt me wasn't the real him. Maybe he was trying to drive me away so I could get over him; I can only guess, because he wasn't an efficient communicator.

The last time I saw him I got my closure; I got him so stoned he couldn't move and I gave him what for. I told him all the things he'd denied me the opportunity to say in the breakup talk; I mean, it's only good manners, when you dump someone, to take like a man whatever abuse they might want to give you for doing so. Since he didn't do so willingly, he forced me to force the issue.

That was over six months ago and I have a feeling it was the last time I'll ever see him. In a way it's a relief, since it means he'll stop hurting me. I can still remember the good times we had and be grateful that I didn't have to finish the romantic portion of my life on the boyfriend before that, who was a horror beyond horrors. But it's clear that, having been alone for nearly five years in the prime of my life, that part of my life is definitely over.

Things would have been different if I'd had another boyfriend in that time, or even a date that didn't end in my being insulted or stood up. After all, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Instead, I try to make do with a Frankenstein monster: I take a little bit from porn, and a little bit from my friends, and a little bit from my cat and as long as I'm careful not to mix them up (!) I can nearly simulate a reasonable facsimile of a life.

Given this kick I've been on lately, maybe I'll come to a moment of perfect clarity about the whole situation and finally start to get over him. Still, it takes more than perspective to change other people's opinions of you, if, in fact, such a thing is possible.

In the meantime I have my blog to divulge my pain to, and I get some insights here from both friends and total strangers, and little by little it feels like the light is returning to my life.