Casey here, continuing the story from my last post:
Both J and M apologized profusely after the Sunday dating fiasco, which made me feel good, and made me feel like maybe they were nice guys with kids and bad schedules. Still, I realized that I was really stressing out with seeing multiple guys. Since I’d been wanting to see just M for a while, I thought – just get off the merry-go-round and see M. I could sense that he was really sweet on me, and his slow pace with the physical stuff was refreshing.
M came over on Friday, and we talked and made out, which was seriously delicious. Hello second base! With gusto! Damn, he'd be a good lover... We parted ways when things started getting a little too hot, and decided to get together again Tuesday night. He wanted to make sure that we had time to talk and not just make out, so he wanted us to meet at a coffee shop by his place.
Due to a minor issue with how we'd planned things, some bad directions, and the fact that the coffee shop was closed, I started out the date pretty annoyed. But, we decided to press on and look for another place. Climbing into the seat next to him, seeing that he was truly mortified at how this was all starting out - I just couldn't stay mad. On top of that, he was wearing an argyle sweater vest - how do you stay mad when there's a sweater vest in play? Within a few minutes we were cracking up and joking about how a) that was some sweater vest, and b) this had to be the worst date, ever. After striking out at a couple of other places, we ended up at a book store, just walking around, talking, holding hands, touching one another... so sweet. We talked about all sorts of things, including unrequited love. I tended to be the one loving, and he tended to be the one not loving back.
We talked for a while at his truck, and drove and talked some more - he really had things to say. He talked about wanting to have the kind of love that he sees in movies (not blockbusters, but dorky, awkward indie flicks, with flawed but sweet characters). He wants to know that there's love out there that truly lasts forever, because that's what he wants in his life. After a while though, he talked about how difficult it was for him to remain interested in someone, especially after they’d become intimate, and the woman had developed feelings for him. He even spoke specifically of the moment in bed, when a woman looks into his eyes and says that she’s really crazy about him. Something about that moment loses it for him, and he doesn’t feel anything anymore.
It’s easy to paint him as the asshole here, and from at least one perspective, he is. But the more he talked about it, the more I could see that it really hurt him to not be able to maintain and return those feelings. He’d been with wonderful women, really loved them, and really wanted to continue to love them. But he couldn’t. Once established, the feeling just went away, and from the look in his eyes, I could tell that it haunted him. He explained that he knew this about himself, and that he wanted to be honest with me because he really trying to work it out, which is why he was so keen on holding off on the physical stuff.
I appreciated his honesty – sitting there, talking to him... it explained so much, especially with regards to another man that I'd loved with pretty tragic results. It reminded me of what a good friend once told me – some people are not meant to be in your life forever, you’re just meant to learn something from them and move on. Sitting in his truck, I knew that this was probably M’s reason for being in my life. To explain the confusion and hurt caused by someone that I'd loved, someone that was simply unable to love me back.
At the end of our conversation, I asked M if he was asking me to be his guinea pig, to see if he could overcome his issues with staying in love, and to his credit he looked a little horrified – no, of course not, he just wanted to be honest with me. Damn, I hate that so much about him feels so right, that his sweetness and awkwardness are so endearing, that his honesty is so very appealing, and I especially hate the little fantasy that my love would turn things around for him. Because when someone tells you who they really are, you should believe them. We would very likely fall in love with one another. And he would very likely and very quickly fall out of love, and not have any explanation, other than the excuse that he’d warned me.
So, it comes down to this… if I am smart, I walk away, even though I don’t want to. I fucking hate these fucking lose-lose choices. I really do.
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