Thursday, February 6, 2014

Saying No

He emailed me the day the other day, "Where are you?"

I said, "I'm back."

He then said, "What are you doing tonight?"

I replied, "Working."

Then the phone rang. It was his name. I've deleted his name from my phone directory twice and I finally gave up. I used to answer phone call and not know it was him, and he was someone I used to avoid.

I saw his name blinking on my phone and I hesitated, but finally I picked it up.

We chitchatted. He was always very pleasant. Powerful men tend to be very convincing and friendly early on.

He told me that he was waiting for someone to arrive from a plane ride, and he was at a place waiting for that person. Then he invited me over. He gave me the name of the restaurant.

I said, "Never heard of it." He then said, "No, we have been there before." I couldn't remember it. He described the location and I said, "It was not me, you were with someone else." Whenever I couldn't remember something, I think the person I was speaking to got me mixed up with someone else. I never went with him, just like when B told me that he took me to some club to listen to some comedy show, I said, "That was not me. You got me mixed up with someone else. " Or when B returned an earring that did not belong to me, and lost a white dress I left at his place. Men mixed women up, and my default assumption was that I was one of many to a man, and therefore I was easily confused with someone else.

He insisted that it was me. I finally realized he was right. I did indeed forget. We went out on a date that evening. I was late, exceptionally late. He was being really patient. He called me kiddo. I was not a kiddo, maybe to him I was but not to anyone else.

"Come over and keep me company." He said.

"I can't. I am almost home." I replied. I knew that answer contradicted my earlier claim of "working".

"Some other time then." He was disappointed.

I had not talked to him for months, I thought. But that was not true. He and exchanged texts right around the New Year. I had wanted to catch up and he wanted to drive a bargain by getting me to be with him, physically and I said no.

I really could not remember much about our interaction, but he remembered it well. He appeared to think that I was seeing him. I reminded him that we'd broken up year ago, after June, before July was the last time I was with him in a fairly intimate way and I did not like it. I couldn't possibly be with him because I was in love with another person.

For a while he tried to call and text me, and I refused to answer. In the end he got frustrated and he was gone from my life for a while and I enjoyed it, the peace, the lack of inappropriate demand of me doing things to him or for him.

He would then write, "what do you want? What kind of relationship do you want from me?" I would ignore. I loved watching powerful men trying to conquer women as if I were their projects.

He drove over to see me. I did not ask for him to come to see me but he wanted to see me so he did.

He tried his touch on me again. I did not respond. I stared at him, and said, "No. I don't want it."

He went to bed early. He traveled all the time. He had to leave town again so he wanted to see how much I could comply before he went away. But I removed his hand and  I looked at him and said, "No."

"I don't care." He said.

"But I do. I don't want this." I insisted.

He withdrew.

"Send me a picture." He demanded.

"No." I answered.

He realized for the first time that I was not joking. That made him wanting me more. He was used to calling all the shots and he wanted to see if I could budge. He wanted to know if I could be his, again. He missed me. I was generous, gentle, adventurous, submissive, and I was fun. He wanted all that but then the rug got pulled under him. One moment I was his then the other I was gone.

When I was only twenty two, there was a partner from a similar consulting firm in Chicago liked me. We went out, and I thought sex was at best mediocre. I kept in touch and used to send him postcards wherever I traveled. One day I got an email from him, asking me to stop, because he got engaged.  I stopped sending cards. I did that religiously with all the men I was involved with, it save me some stamp but he was nothing special. Years followed I started to get an email from someone who I did not recognize, every time it was "I'm in San Francisco, do you have time to get together?" I ignored him for years on end until I finally got curious, and I would reply, "Who are you?" He replied, "I'm xx from Chicago. We used to go out." I remembered writing back, "I thought you told me to stop contacting you back in 96, after you'd gotten engaged." He wrote back, "That relationship had not worked out. I've been thinking about you for years now. I'd like to see you again." I told him that I had moved on.

He somehow reminded me of this Chicago man. He thought that he could go away and have himself a nice relationship and then it did not work out and he wanted me back. It had happened several times now. I knew the drill. I knew how men think.  They wanted what they could not have and when they had it then they started to become complacent and they stopped trying.

He was tired. He went to bed early and got up early. He had two kids, all grown. I was often told by men that they wanted a clean new start when they met someone else, and inevitably they all wanted to get back in touch with me and wanted to will a different outcome.

I had seen this in my twenties, I have been seeing it recently.

"I need to call all the shots. You can't be telling me what to do." He whined. For a grown man he truly behaved like a child.

"I am not trying to call the shots. I simply wanted nothing sexual from you." I said, this time firmly.

"Then no deal then." He answered.

"I never wanted a deal." I replied.

"Okay." He said, starting to get up.

"Are you seeing anyone else?" He stopped midway and asked me.

"It's none of your business. And there is no 'else'. I'm not seeing you. I am seeing someone. The same person." I answered.

"Is he giving you what you want?" He quizzed some more.

"No, he's not. I want more sex. More interactions. He gives me very little of both." I was being honest.

"Then why can't you be with me? We can have good sex. Fun times." He was being flirty again.

"Because I don't want to. I just want to be a friend. I love him." I was being matter-of-factly.

He started to chuckle. "He's not there when you need him. He's not giving you enough sex. Sounds like a lose lose proposition."

"It's for me to decide. I don't want this with you. Just friends." I insisted.

He was always an impressive dresser. I liked how he looked. I liked how he was dressed. I liked how tired he appeared to be at ten o'clock. I liked that I was able to say no to him and he appeared to be listening.

He wanted to prolong our conversation. I wanted to go home. But we did become friends once, until he wanted some more. Now it would appear he wanted to extend the relationship to more than friends again and I was not having it.

"When do you go back to Boston?" I asked him.

He went to school in Boston and was very involved with his private school.

"End of May."  He answered.

I told him that I was going to be there, end of May, early June.

He would be spending a month in Europe, like I, except an month early.

He gave me his itinerary as if I cared. As if we still dated.

He seemed to recall our dates more than I could ever remember.

This is how I am: when I say goodbye to a man, I say goodbye. I mentally erase my encounters with them in my memory, and I forget the times I spent with them. I forget their names. I even forget the specific events that I used to write about in my blogs. I simply push them out of my memory well, and they fade into the past.

More than once I told B that he should find someone else. "Go find someone else, and leave me." I'd say.

B would always respond, "I don't want to be with other women. I just want you. You are perfect for me." I would look at B, wounded and hurt, "why me? why me?" I was angry when B refused to let me go. One thing that B did that no one else did was his ability to deny my wish of having him to let me go. I don't like to to the responsibility of leaving someone. I want them to say no.  I was weird that way. Most people wished that their partner never to leave them, I always tried to push them away. Sometimes they comply. Sometimes they don't. When they don't, I'm at a lost.  I'm horrified of intimacy, I'm terrified of being vulnerable.  I much prefer staying on the surface, and never rock the boat. I'm a fragile, easily hurt person. Yet on the surface, I'm strong and completely worry free.

He wanted to see me again, even though I'd told him no way.

"Tell me when you are going to be available." He demanded.

"I thought you just said, no deal." I reminded him that his request contradicted his desire of seeing me again.

"I like being dominant. You keep on telling me what to do. That's why there is no deal." His repetition was becoming too irritating to me.

I knew being defiant turned him on, even though it was not my intent.

He would try me again. I would again, say no.



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