Was it machoism, insecurity from high-school, childhood trauma or our pathetic human need to see the good in people?
Why was going back to someone who treated us so disposably, so delicious?
There we were, like some toxic mating ritual, waiting for our coffees and staring at each other. Then, noticing and blaming the other for staring first before one of us would initiate intimacy only for the the other to reject it.
As I sipped my coffee before we said goodbye, I wondered if fighting for the mist, the chemistry, was really worth it or were we just fighting each other?
The night before, I was feeling pretty apprehensive as the Uber pulled up to the house of someone I had felt a lot for, only a few months ago.
Terror gripped my chest, as this was the crime scene of where things all blossomed and then fell apart.
But one thing was for sure; there was something there. I could feel it from the way he stared at me, sometimes like I was speaking Spanish and other times like he was trying to take a mental picture of me with his eyes.
However, things had shifted.
We were still full of banter, but our jokes were meaner than before. Like we didn’t trust the other anymore.
“You look like a hobo,” I said.
“Umm… have you seen yourself?”
“…I can take out your hair extensions-“
“No, don’t!”
“Why?”
“Um, I like them? Do you not?”
…
And after a few hours, it became startlingly clear that all he wanted was sex. Or perhaps he could only connect with me via sex… And knowing that hurt, so of course I was not going to give that up.
I was really there as I was hoping for a reappearance of the person who I first met. The one who was open, accessible and asked me about my dad and where I wanted to be in the future. Not this person who was pulling at my top….
And so, with everyone more upset than before, we went to bed on opposite sides of the mattress, with our backs turned.
I laid awake that night wondered whether I should stay when it was pretty clear we needed to talk about things… but I also knew that probably wouldn’t happen if he had to be in the conversation.
Feelings were not his strong point, which was as ironic as it comes when you’re a 30-year-old man studying psychology…
Here I was laying next to the person I had felt the most for in years, who also doubled as the person whom treating me the worst in years….
His whole stop, start, energy left me feeling super anxious and reactive and what had started out as so healthy, quickly snowballed into the ugliest, vegan, all organic, sugar-free muffin on the market.
That one that not only explodes in your oven but also tastes like burnt socks…
“I don’t need anyone,” he told me, instead of thank you, when I went to take a trio of empty coffee cups out of his car.
Here I was thinking him coming back was because ‘he missed me’ when really, I think he just missed having someone’s body. Or perhaps, just feeling wanted.
Words just like decorative pillows, he throws on and off the bed at night, without a second thought.
Whereas for me, words stuck to my feet in the shower. I liked being honest about what the weather was like internally.
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like he needed to set the pace, with his needs in the centre.
Fuck having two people with their own minds, desires and wants existing in a relationship- no, his life didn’t have room for you. You were either a passive bystander in a relationship with him or not there at all.
This situation served as a great reminder to everyone going through the dating worm-hole, about the ironic truth about relationships and the people in them.
Which is that you don’t have to be the most beautiful, the smartest or the funniest person in the room to be in one. It is just about timing and needs.
Healthy and honest communication may be the water to hydrate and grow relationships but even starved, the relationship can still exist.
It shouldn’t, as just like a succulent it wont be as beautiful. But humans are excellent at adapting, even to those we share a bed with.
“ Can I borrow a jumper?”
He replied in the most romantic way possible, “Nope.”
Despite his lack of interest in me as a person, for some dumb reason I still hoped we could iron out the creases. Because in my head, when someone comes back, it means they are willing to try.
However, in his head, no sex meant I was a NO. And once again everyone was right, and he left me on read for 4 days until I finally blocked him.
And thus, today’s Cinderella went on an eat, prey, love adventure abroad and ended up being dragged into a bush by a European Ted Bundy.
Or alternatively, a Christian Grey older-man, scooped her up, and now they share an amazing relationship of a black Amex card and a red leather playroom, where he beats her up every second night, and calls it ‘forplay.’
And of course,her Prince Charming, is enjoying this 20’s in the back-room of a strip club. With cocaine dusted tables and tinder gold in his back-pocket, to whom he treats women as free sex-workers.
And that, chicken, is today’s modern fairytale.
“No mummy, I want a different ending,” I imagine my future daughter telling me.
“Cancer it is then – atleast with that exit you get a free trip to Disneyland.”
“ OOOOoooo I can’t wait…”
“Me neither dumpling, now I’m going to bed. Wake me up when it’s over.”
Beyond-curious 