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Sparkle (2)
I'm a writer, but I will not write the end of this story before I live the beginning.
“Are there any physics terms that imply 'cooling off'?” It was a text message from my friend, Gina. She's been seeing an engineer named Sebastian for a few months and occasionally hits me up as her physics Cyrano de Bergerac.
Recently, Gina and Sebastian had the conversation about sleeping with other people. That is to say, Gina told Sebastian she wanted to be exclusive. His response was not what she was anticipating -- he explained he'd just gotten out of a relationship, and he wanted to take it slow and not commit yet.
“Should I break up with him?” Gina asked me when we spoke later. She was in Manhattan for work and it was hard to hear her over the roar of the city.
“You want to break up with the first guy who's been honest with you about his emotional situation?” I asked her. “He hasn't said he doesn't want to commit, he just asked for some time. I think that's reasonable.”
“What if he is never ready to commit?” she screamed over a cacophony of honks.
“That's the risk. You have to decide whether your need for control is greater than the possibility of eventually having the relationship you want with a man who is otherwise everything you want.”
“What?”
HONKKKKK
“Gina, what's greater – your fear or your faith?”
I find it ironic that my girlfriends often seek me out for relationship advice considering my track record. If I wanted relationship advice, I'd probably ask someone who had been married for a while, not someone who was known for the explosive endings of her affairs. I do what I can, often noting, only half-jokingly, “I can tell you a million ways to get a man, but I don't know the first thing about actually keeping him.”
A couple of weeks ago, I started seeing someone new. I wasn't really looking to become involved with anyone. Last year had been turbulent and the vague thaw of spring and miserable excuse of a summer had brought me no closer to stability. Most recently, a man had cut through my life and nearly spun me off my axis. Like Gina, he had been faced with the choice of waiting or moving on and he had decided to go his way.
I don't blame him. Despite what he may have said, I believe he does ultimately want a family. I don't. That's not something either one of us should try to negotiate.
So, now, Rodrigo. There was no strategy because there was no intent. We knew each other, confided in each other about the trials and tribulations of living, including the excellent highs and catastrophic lows of romance, and hung out with some frequency. Then one day, we decided we should try dating.
Slightly awkward. Not because of him, but because friends are friends and lovers are lovers. The relationships are forged in different furnaces. There are different processes at play, there -- oh, why overextend the metaphor? The bottom line was that he had a lot of information and it terrified me. The situation struck against every principle of mystery and seduction I thought I knew.
Worst still was that I enjoyed spending time with him, so I couldn't make any space. I didn't want to suddenly impose space. But space is essential -- it defines erotic tension.
I couldn't reconcile the two things. I had a mild panic attack. My first impulse was to jump on a plane. Go somewhere. Anywhere, doesn't matter. Just get out and clear my head.
No, I couldn't leave. You can't just take off -- what if you decide you want to come back? You can't just shut someone out and take off when you have established fluid communication. You need no words at that point. The message is clear: it says “peace out.”
That afternoon, I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes while pacing my apartment. I thought about something I'd written not too long ago, about soulmates:
We’re two rivers that have met, different but now flowing in the same direction. We don’t know what will break our trajectory -- or if anything will. It doesn’t matter: eventually, we’ll all feed the sea. The beauty of romance isn’t in an elusive forever just as the beauty of humanity isn’t in an elusive heaven. It’s in the fact that right now, at this
