The Plus 1 Syndrome

2014 was turning out to be the year of love... for everyone but me. It seemed like everywhere I looked, Cupid was whizzing by.

Shortly after New Years, I arrived home from work one day to find an invitation to a wedding in the mail.

A week later, another wedding invitation arrived.

And the next week.

And again.

And a Bachelorette Party invite.

And a baby shower notification.

On Facebook, friends were changing statuses from "single" to "in a relationship;" and from "in a relationship" to "engaged" faster than Britney's 24 hour marriage.

Expressions of love were everywhere. And my checkbook was thinning.

Was Valentine on ecstasy this year? Was he shouting from the rooftops, 'hey, it's 2-14-14, bitches!'

Just this past Monday, another friend impressed upon me her most recent venture: she and her fiance were relocating into a fabulous two bedroom apartment in a Connecticut complex, complete with heated pool, on-site covered parking, dry-cleaning service, yoga studio, game room, and a washer and dryer in unit.

I was and I am happy for each coupling, life-event, and expression of love (even if my wallet may groan)... but as the invites for others in my life mounted, I couldn't help but feel a certain... anxiousness.

At 31 years and 9 months, was my time running out? Had I become complacent in my single-hood? I wondered, do gay men have a biological clock? And if so, was mine rapidly approaching ticking its last toc? Does the desire to couple force us into relationships too quickly?

After dating here and there, I boyfriended. Despite the quickness with which this coupling occurred, I admit, I was eager to develop something. Friends had seen posts on Facebook and communicated their... trepidation... for me over my newest love: 'It's nothing you're saying, Pete... there are some red flags in some of his posts. Just... go slow. If it's real, there's no need to rush.'

I can't say I entirely disagreed. Yet, when it's visceral and passionate, the only thing you find yourself wanting to do is be around the other person. It's like an intoxication or an addiction. You want more the more you have.

As this new relationship developed, I pictured my future with him. What would this be like in five years? Ten years? I imagined me introducing him to my family. I imagined meeting his. I pictured invitations in the mail with the label, "Mr. Me + one," instead of simply, "Mr. Me." It's an exciting thought, having someone you're falling for next to your own name. If I had a biological clock, it suddenly felt like it stopped... as if, I had all the time in the world now.

I pushed through with greater expediency than what I was used to in order to develop a close bond with him. It was easy in some ways; it was difficult in others. Forming trust takes time. Revealing yourself takes time, too; yet, despite this, I wanted this relationship. I wanted it to work. It's not that I had hidden myself, by any means. In fact, I am probably more resolved and honest in who I am, about who I am, now, than I'd been in prior relationships.

I sought counsel from friends to ensure I didn't make mistakes I'd made in the past. I was told I had grown significantly as a person. I was also reminded of the importance of me staying me so I can both be me in this newfound relationship and contribute myself as an individual to this new partnership.

As a writer, I write to process and express. I've been told it's a downfall. Sometimes, I'm more expressive in my writing than in person. It's something I am working on. Eh, we all have issues, I suppose. When I do write, I write with deliberate and precise wording. Usually, that is. The only time I don't write what I mean is when I am making a sexual innuendo; and never, ever is it to reveal personal information about another person without consent or speak disparagingly.

Sometimes, I forget how what I say or write affects the very real people around me, or about whom I write. This was brought to my attention in valid points by my boyfriend. He showed me how what I said affected him.

And through this all, did I really see him as a person? Had I fallen in love with him or with the idea of being in a relationship again? If it were the latter, that wouldn't be fair to him.

Still ill after days of battling whatever malady afflicted him, he was off to work. Luckily, he was given off upon arrival. He called me up and I invited him over. We had such a sweet date night. He cooked. I cracked eggs. We watched a movie. We kissed. It was the perfect low-key night after a long, tenuous weekend. We'd made up. Yup... in love with him. 

That next morning, I went to work... I dropped him off at home and hurried to my job. Mondays are my long day at work. When I arrived home after a dizzying day, I crashed onto my couch and immediately fell asleep... still in work clothes. No easy feat when you're wearing a Banana Republic cashmere sweater, button-down, tie, and khakis. I slept through every text and phone call for some time, and when I awoke, I realized how tired I still was. Life laboriously lapped itself onto my energies, sapping my strength as a mosquito drinks the blood of its victims. I needed to combat this heavy burden of responsibilities by using what little free time I had to recover some of the sleep I needed to have some semblance of energy to meet the next few days ahead.

I decided I'd turn in early after dinner. A change of clothes and some Trader Joe chicken nuggets in the oven later, I called my boyfriend back. He had called me while I slept. Without getting into details of the conversation, we joked some. I expressed how tired I was, despite having just taken a nap. We talked off an on a few times that night. Later, we had a friendly disagreement about communication. If I heard him right, he felt he shouldn't have to ask me as a boyfriend to essentially 'be there' with him while he was sick. He's probably right. Though, I felt if he wanted me there, he should communicate that to me... I wasn't a mind reader and I needed him to tell me what he wanted. Besides, we'd just seen each other that morning. I explained that I am the type to need some alone time and space. Being an introvert, alone time is sort of essential to my well-being... and if I am not well, I can't take care of anyone else effectively, let alone go into work and do my job teaching 90 very unique and individual human beings. I wish... I wish I could. I wish I had more energy.

To his credit, he also has a demanding job. I never meant to make him feel, if I had, that my job was better than his or his was better than mine. If anything, I envy in a lot of ways the freedoms his job seems to allow. When he leaves work, like so many in so many fields, he doesn't have to bring work home with him... or at least, not a ton, it seems. When I leave work... I always have more work to do. Our jobs are just different. Unfortunately for me, finding the balance between life and work is a perpetual struggle. I've lost many a potential relationship over this. It seems, I may have lost another from this, too.

I read this and I hear the words echoing in my ears: 'you play victim, really well.' Do I? Is this true? If it is... it's not my intention. Ever. Maybe this is something else I need to work on, too. Where's that mirror when you need it to face yourself?

I saw a picture of me that had just been posted. After the weekend, I jokingly texted saying I wanted to talk about this posting of pictures of me where, in my mind, I looked hideous. And, indeed, I wanted to address the sarcasm I sensed in our most recent discussion about me as a good boyfriend.

I lit a candle, took a shower, and fell to sleep. Sometime in the evening I awoke to flickering candle-light. I sleepily used the bathroom. I found my phone where I'd left it and put it on airplane mode as I customarily do, ignoring the notifications I had received, wanting to return to sleep quickly. My alarm was already set for the next day.

The next day, I awoke feeling refreshed. I jumped out of bed to my alarm, grabbed my phone, and went back into bed, letting my alarm play several times. In the cold of my room, my bed was inviting. After snoozing for awhile, I finally forced myself to come to consciousness. I turned my phone off airplane mode. Notifications popped up one by one. I went into my texts to read the texts I'd missed throughout the night and there, amid my texts were his texts. I had been 'playing games.' I had pissed him off. I had hurt him. And now, I had been dumped.

The night before, I was with someone who said he loved me. Someone who I can say I did, too. In earnest, I will for some time. Feelings may change, but they never truly go away... at least, not the good parts.

I was stunned awake. I didn't know what to think. I lied in bed piecing together what happened... what led to this decision... what had been this sequence of events. Was it my fault? I was tired... was it anyone's fault? I checked my Facebook. It's a funny thing: I was still in a relationship... only... where a name had been, there was now no one. I was in a relationship... with myself. Humiliated, I changed my status: unlike every card and update I'd seen in 2014, my 2014 was turning into a sham. I updated my status from 'in a relationship' back to 'single.'

He told me he didn't want to hear from me ever. I ignored this at first. I texted him immediately... 'I just got this. I'm confused.' But after a shower and some thought, I respected his space. I wouldn't contact him if that's what he wanted.

Maybe I should have gone after him. Maybe I should have reached out and tried to explain all of this. In the end, maybe we're just in different places... and that's okay. Maybe even though we want many of the same things, how we're willing to get there is too different. Contrary to popular belief, I don't live by my phone. I actually rather like turning it off for hours at a time. I ignored this propensity often in this relationship. I tried to meet the intensity of this new relationship with equal fervor, but such intensity isn't in me to maintain with consistency. I wish it were. I wish I could supply him with everything he needed and everything he deserved.

He was and is a good guy. I have absolutely no complaints about him. Sometimes, people are just in different places. Over the course of the day, I felt a range of emotions: sadness, furiousness, confusion... understanding. I had been broken up with in a text message over a misunderstanding. Rather than ask if I were okay, assumptions were made. That's not something I can fix and I have to accept that. I'm also not judging any actions or how anything happened. I can only know what's right for me. If someone is truly in love with someone... in my book... a break-up text wouldn't have been the answer. That mirrored for me so much of what was real in that relationship. Then again, everyone is different. Then again, maybe if I had cared more, I'd have gone over there... or showed up after work, despite the request to stay way. Maybe he wanted more: to see what I would do. Maybe there was nothing more to it: just a break-up.

Sometimes, you have to know when to say enough is enough. In the beginning, intensity is great. But that's one thing. Drama, arguing, and butting heads over anything is another. I don't blame him. I don't blame me. And I can venture that anyone on the outside will see the situation as they choose, which tends to happen no matter what. We're just two different people... wonderful in our own ways... needing to grow in our own ways.

Later that day, I came home. My body: tense. My mind: exhausted. I had checked his Facebook page more times than I could count, feeling a range of emotions. I reflected on past relationships. Some things would have put me over the edge... instead, I recognized my feelings, felt them for a moment, and moved on. I would not dwell in the underlying sadness this was inevitably causing me. When I arrived home, I ordered Chinese.

While binging on lo mein enough for five, I noticed how quiet my apartment was. My roommate was out; the place was all mine. It's a funny thing... even in a brief, intense relationship, you get used to someone. You get used to their presence: their sound, their smell, their laugh, their smile, their talk... everything. Now, the apartment was stone cold silent. I wanted to cry out of some despair I was feeling, but after a moment, I realized, this quiet was okay. If you can't be with yourself in the silence, how can you be with someone else? If not yourself, who else? I didn't need to explode, impress, compensate, forget, or do anything other than just 'be.'

Listening to Telepopmusik's, "Breathe," I know I'll be alright. I know he will, too. Though the whole experience may in time seem frivolous and silly in terms of the perhaps melodramatic descriptions with which I've painted it, the experience is still real, valid, and important to me. While I am very sensitive, to which I've been criticized time and time again, and ironically, told I lack sensitivity in many other areas of life, I'd rather feel too much than too little. I value who I am and how I exist in the world because my goal is always to make myself a better person. This isn't a victim talking; this is a survivor. After all life has dealt me, whether through my own fault or no fault of my own, I am still here, I am still trying, and I am climbing through the struggle.

I don't see myself as a man or a woman or any gender or sex. I know what I like, and I gravitate toward the particular qualities I like and the orientation to which I am accustomed for better or worse. I actually think it takes a lot within persons to admit who they are in totality to themselves; to embrace all of who they are, to work through their issues, to better themselves, and within this process, this willingness, this willpower is true strength. Still, sometimes I feel so weak, too. I like who I am. I know who I am. I am comfortable in my own skin. I am fine being vulnerable and being strong and being intense and calm and focused and spontaneous. I'm not perfect. I'm not a bad looking dude, but I'm not cocky either. I have what's important in life in my soul and, at the same time, I am bad-ass, sexy, sexual, and engaged with many of the illusions many people assign importance onto in life. In short, my validation is within me. When I find a partner, I will find someone who challenges and completes me; someone who brings the best out in me. Someone who sees me for me, imperfections and all, and sees it as sexy as any supermodel with a six pack may be. Someone who is honest. Someone who is sensitive and gentle and strong and true. And someone successful in their own right.

I don't know if I will ever find that one who will say I am the one. Who will be my one. Lord knows, I've dated couples before. I may end up with a two. That'll make for a hell of a blog. This relationship was amazing. It just surpassed in length my relationship with Stevie, which had equally been as glorious and riddled with challenges in their own right. I appreciate everything this relationship has taught me. In the end, this blog isn't about anyone other than me... my growth... my evolution... my process... and what I learn from being single (or not single).

I don't know if I am reaching a point where my biological clock is drastically changing or stopping altogether, assuming I have an internal drive to couple. Maybe it's not a biological clock at all. Maybe, instead, it's just me... maturing? Whatever it is... despite dreams of my own wedding... despite the very strong desire of having someone added as my plus one, in the end, it's not whether or not there is a name on the invite next to yours; it's having an invite with just your name and being totally fine with just that. Sometimes no plus one is a plus in its own right.

Even so, I took the batteries out of every clock in the house. Something about that tic-toc ticking makes it hard to sing, 'No day but today,' from Rent in my head with absolute serenity.