WHEN DID LIFE GET THIS HARD?

Answer: About the fifth grade. And “hi” by the way.

The following conversation was held by me with my first love over IM. I- as I am apt to do when in a funk- opened with the rather direct “when did life get this hard.” His response more or less sums up every reason I ever loved him and why I still have faith in menfolk. The usual response to a question like “When did life get this hard” is some sort of pity-fest. I kvetch about the problem, my friend consoles me, we work on a solution and the conversation comes to conclusion.

Not my boy.

He knows there is no real solution short of allowing me to run my moods. He also knows there is great validity and universality to my quandary. And best of all, he knows how to admit he’s listening, thinking and unable to answer the larger issue but he does it with humorous truth. I think I have no dearer friend than he. Our time has passed and there are a great many things about my life he will never overtly know because, considering our history, I simply cannot speak to him about them but there is something so distinctly precious to me about what is left between us.

I’m in a funk because I’ve got what I want romantically on paper but not in life. What I want in life is not to be mine, my girl is leaving and I’m in domestic limbo with my home. And last night, I slowly came to realize that all my friends will do everything in their power to make the paper-perfect man my lover because they like him and they like me and so the two of us as a couple would be perfect for them.

The paper-perfect man is a lovely gentleman who would care for me and do anything for me until the end of time. He has the means and the will to provide me any lifestyle I would like to grow accustomed to. He is European, elegant and smitten with me. He is kind, smart and self-effacing. He sees me and he is simultaneously elated and at ease. He is does and says things with great regularity with the express purpose of making me feel good about myself. There is nothing creepy or unsettling about him. He is truly, genuinely lovely.

However, there is no spark for me. And somehow, I understand implicitly that he would always be little more than my slave because of that. I have absolutely no desire for that. I crave an equal and it gets damned lonely without one but even lonelier with a servant. The notion of having to hurt this man is truly unappealing. However, my friends are going to make it damned hard to extract myself from the situation because they’ve all clearly decided we’re to be together.

This certainly is not one of life’s great horrors but it has left me notably blue and feeling markedly guilty. The guilt is only compounded by the fact that while I should have been fully present with the paper-perfect man, I kept drifting to the man who truly has my attention; a man I may never see again and a man with whom I could never be the platonic friend his girlfriend would demand. An artist friend of mine, J, to whom I have confessed my smitten state said, “I thought so.” Of course, hearing from him that he could tell there was something between us only deepens the guilt as it strengthens the attraction by confirming its less-than ephemeral existence.

However, I am resigned to this state so well captured by Cesaria Evora’s “Besame Mucho” because of the dinner I had on Sunday night. I had dinner with my French friend married to the Chinese woman alone in their home. She made the decision she wanted to go out and tango dance with a single man friend of theirs and so I was invited to their home for dinner to keep my French friend company. In short, they’re both still dating, despite the fact that they’ve just married. That may work for them but it wouldn’t work for me and if I were to take up with the paper-perfect man, it would be the only way our relationship would survive.
So, instead, I have Cesaria on repeat and take comfort in the greatness I once had and may have again.