When I saw him last, I was in an disarray. I had lied to him. I told him that I had not been with anyone for a long time. He was mildly infatuated with me, he took me out and called me "sweetie". We went out for dinners and met up in hotels. He paid mostly but he was also very demanding of me. We never had vaginal sex, he was into other things. I was fine with it, I was not hurting myself, but I was sad because my affection for him was never quite as strong as my love for my boyfriend. I thought one day I'd overcome it, and transfer my affection for my boyfriend onto him, but it couldn't, and wouldn't happen. I couldn't force it even if I tried.
But he occupied my mental space. He was tall, handsome, had blond hair, and blue eyes. He grew up in upstate New York and went to a private college in Boston, he spent most of his adult life in Boston before moving to San Francisco. That was my M.O. Every man I dated since the twenties went to college or grad school in Boston. EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ONE OF THEM. I didn't try to find them. They tended to find me.
We met at a golf tournament. I remembered that day clearly. I had just spent an evening with my then boyfriend at a hotel. He had someone staying over at his place, so we stayed at a hotel near my work. He had not seen me for over a month. I was quite excited about seeing him. We spent all night fucking, or nearly all night. I was so incredibly in love with him then. I was frantic just a few days before, because he had completely forgotten that it was our one year anniversary, and he had not corresponded with me for nearly two weeks. As usual, he was out of town. When I met up with him I was emotionally spent and charged at the same time. The next morning I had to leave before 7, and I remembered leaving him and feeling a sense of loss, as I sensed again it was going to be the end. I knew because I couldn't handle my own emotions. That afternoon I met this guy, this good looking blue blood North-easterner who had gone to college in Boston, and who was a partner at a prominent firm in downtown San Francisco. He had a white polo shirt on and he stood next to me as I chitchatted with other clients of mine, who flew in from Boston to attend this event. I had left him that evening feeling unimpressed, because my mind was elsewhere.
A few weeks later I ran into him again. It was at an Americas Cup event. He was there when I walked in and he smiled at me. I knew he had remembered me but I was not sure what the smile meant. Since then things got a little murkier as I went into auto pilot mode. I saw him and I saw my boyfriend at the same time. At times I used him to offset my complex emotions with my bf, but being with him sort of reminded my relationship dynamic with my bf. Perhaps the worst thing of all was the fact I couldn't bring myself to be honest with him.
I couldn't tell him that I had others. I was afraid of being judged. I was afraid to be thought of as a slut. A professional, successful, submissive, slut. So I lied.
When I met up with him again that evening, I had left my past behind, and he had just gotten out of a relationship. I had stopped lying.
"I'm sorry." I began to tell him things.
"Why? I don't understand. I would not have cared." He said while yawned.
I was boring him.
He reached under the table and tried to touch me. I had worn work clothes. I didn't expect he'd meet up with me. It had been too long. He had gotten slightly order. I still liked him. I knew that I had father issues. He was still the kind of guy I liked: always in control, paid for the bill, expected me to behave certain way, and ignored me whenever he was too busy. He was always busy, like my now ex-boyfriend.
I stopped him. I was not interested in going anywhere with him. Sexually. Not that evening anyway.
I needed time.
I needed space and distance, not from him, but from other entanglements.
I didn't want to be viewed as a slut.
He wanted to know how many I was seeing at that moment.
I asked him to qualify it by giving it more of a definitive period.
"How about in the last one month?" He gave me a time table that I could work with.
"Then, one person." It was an accurate statement. More or less.
"How do I say goodbye?" I asked.
"You just say no." He gave me guidance.
"I have trouble saying no. It's such an inertia. I get into a pattern. Even after I lost interest. I still just keep on going and talk myself into staying." I said.
"That's one thing good about getting older. You do what you want. You don't have to do anything" He continued.
"Can you score some free Americas Cup tickets?" I asked an irrelevant question but a good one because his firm sponsored it and they had a huge center viewing stage that could take you to the race pretty close to being right on the water.
"Maybe. Are you a client?" He yawned again. He was getting tired. And he knew that I was not a client.
He told me that he had been up since 4:30 AM.
He was to leave for New York, then Boston, and then Ireland, and then back to Boston for a week.
He called me when he was in New York and Boston before. He used to text and talk all the time with me. Then I was distracted. He was traveling. Like most of my relationships with men, we drifted apart. But apparently he remembered those fleeting moments. He told me that we had met at Absinthe on Hayes for dinner one night. "We went out for a few months." He told me.
All I could remember was that sadness that washed over me when I felt that I could no longer put myself out there for that one person I cared about.
Why did men become footnotes to women? Why couldn't we just remember every single one of them?
Why did they always seem to remember those earlier moments, the good moments?
Perhaps that's the fundamental difference between men and women.
Men remembered the beginning. The magical moments women came into their lives and made an impact. The intensity that followed that initial meeting.
Women remembered the ending, the precise moment when she felt that she no longer mattered to him, or he no longer mattered to her.
My ex would tell me the first date we had over fifteen years ago, how we met at a white water rafting trip, and how he asked me out that same weekend. I was a young girl in a white dress without underwear.
But I only remembered that one morning when he kissed me goodbye in a hotel in Salt Lake City, and said, "See you in two days in San Francisco." I was sad that morning, because I knew he lied. I knew he would not see me. I returned to San Francisco in two days. He did not email. He did not call. I did not see him. It was the end of our first go around. I was 25 at the time. he had just turned 33.
"I met you at a golf tournament. Then a few weeks later, I saw you at the Americas Cup. We then went for dinner at Perbacco with your friend." He said as if twas yesterday.
I tried to tell him that was over a year ago. He said, "No, the golf tournament was September. Now it's only July."
I stared at him and tried to remember something intimate, anything, yet I remembered nothing, nothing at all.
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