Before last weekend vanishes into the haze of memory and gets lost in dozens upon dozens of encounters with the male kind, let me state, for the record, that my favorite part of time with Crazy Chinatown Man was when we were both sober.
Throughout the night and into the late morning we held each other, alternating the roles of Big Spoon and Little Spoon until he ended up inside of me all over the apartment I'd rented. On the bed, the couch, the kitchen chair, and up against the window, we had the kind of sex I crave- sex where I'm present in the moment, thinking about the person I'm with and not imagining he's someone else. With him, unlike others, I felt comfortable making eye contact.
I liked him in public, too. We did normal, boring things with our Saturday, like walk and eat and look in a bookstore. Nothing about the activities stood out, but the day as a whole did. He put his hand on the back of my neck and played with my curls, and I felt exactly the way I'm supposed to feel. I wish I knew the secret to connection, why sometimes the stars align and without knowing someone that well, having no understanding of their life's traumas and joys that brought them to the present moment, you feel, when walking down the street, that their fingers belong in your hair, that putting their hand anywhere else in the world would be a complete violation of natural order. I don't know what it was about this man, but the entire day was easy.
Our time together ended as it does with nearly all men I've cared about in life, with me crying outside a mode of transportation. I've shed tears into men's shoulders in the Oakland airport, the Antigua, Guatemala bus station, Grand Central Terminal, the Atlanta JetBlue ticket counter, and the side of a dusty desert highway in the Columbia Gorge while waiting for a Craigslist rideshare pickup. This time it was outside my car parked on a street in Portland, Oregon. "You're not good with goodbyes, are you?" he said. It was more of a statement than a question. "No," I responded, thinking in my head that I might be better at them if I hadn't lost every meaningful relationship I've had with a man because we lived too far apart.
"I want you to know," he said, "that I'm not saying a lot because the way I deal with things is I just go off and process it on my own." He paused and reiterated, "I wanted you to know that."
I offered to give him a ride, but he said he preferred to "disappear into the ether," and he did. I sat in my car for a few minutes collecting myself, feeling stupid and embarrassed for crying in front of a man I hardly know, then feeling really happy because I CRIED, which means I felt something, which is always nice. I used to hate crying over men because it happened all the time, like a reflex. Now, crying reassures me that I'm feeling what I should be, which is feeling anything at all.
We're either never going to see each other again, or we're going to have children together. It's the closure I needed.
Throughout the night and into the late morning we held each other, alternating the roles of Big Spoon and Little Spoon until he ended up inside of me all over the apartment I'd rented. On the bed, the couch, the kitchen chair, and up against the window, we had the kind of sex I crave- sex where I'm present in the moment, thinking about the person I'm with and not imagining he's someone else. With him, unlike others, I felt comfortable making eye contact.
I liked him in public, too. We did normal, boring things with our Saturday, like walk and eat and look in a bookstore. Nothing about the activities stood out, but the day as a whole did. He put his hand on the back of my neck and played with my curls, and I felt exactly the way I'm supposed to feel. I wish I knew the secret to connection, why sometimes the stars align and without knowing someone that well, having no understanding of their life's traumas and joys that brought them to the present moment, you feel, when walking down the street, that their fingers belong in your hair, that putting their hand anywhere else in the world would be a complete violation of natural order. I don't know what it was about this man, but the entire day was easy.
Our time together ended as it does with nearly all men I've cared about in life, with me crying outside a mode of transportation. I've shed tears into men's shoulders in the Oakland airport, the Antigua, Guatemala bus station, Grand Central Terminal, the Atlanta JetBlue ticket counter, and the side of a dusty desert highway in the Columbia Gorge while waiting for a Craigslist rideshare pickup. This time it was outside my car parked on a street in Portland, Oregon. "You're not good with goodbyes, are you?" he said. It was more of a statement than a question. "No," I responded, thinking in my head that I might be better at them if I hadn't lost every meaningful relationship I've had with a man because we lived too far apart.
"I want you to know," he said, "that I'm not saying a lot because the way I deal with things is I just go off and process it on my own." He paused and reiterated, "I wanted you to know that."
I offered to give him a ride, but he said he preferred to "disappear into the ether," and he did. I sat in my car for a few minutes collecting myself, feeling stupid and embarrassed for crying in front of a man I hardly know, then feeling really happy because I CRIED, which means I felt something, which is always nice. I used to hate crying over men because it happened all the time, like a reflex. Now, crying reassures me that I'm feeling what I should be, which is feeling anything at all.
We're either never going to see each other again, or we're going to have children together. It's the closure I needed.
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