Theme Song: "Can We Still Be Friends?" - Todd Rundgren
Previously on Chaos Under The Big Top: The College Years... Kyle and James hooked up after years of not really knowing each other. Three weeks into their budding romance, they were physically separated for the summer, James in Pasadena and Kyle in Gettysburg...
I've been in Pasadena for three days and already it feels like three weeks. It really is true what they say: time DOES NOT fly when you're working 17-hour days for a father you can't stand, UNPAID. :-( For the first week or so, Kyle and I TXT each other each night about the pangs of being apart--as I've said before, everything reminds me of him. Hell, I can't even look at a tree without thinking of "my favorite Pagan."
Once June rolls around, the space between the messages grows more and more, the FaceBook responses come less and less. By early June, I'm already entertaining thoughts of dumping him because I'm feeling majorly un-loved. Almost all of my friends urge me to go ahead and end it. ...But despite my frustration, I remain hopeful: "I really like this guy. This is his first college relationship, so I should let some things slide. He didn't have this problem when we lived 9 doors down from each other. He'll learn." However, once I finally get Kyle on the phone (as opposed to TXT/email), I hear his voice and I can tell that he does care. Crisis averted, right? WRONG!!!
Little do I know, that a Fuck Wave is about to hit the coast of Maryland, in the form of the Baltimore Gay Pride Parade. At the parade, I'm being hit on left and right, getting compliments and cattle calls, and I have to reject them all because... I'm spoken for. I promised myself and my friends that under no circumstances would I fuck around on Kyle. Once I've made it through the slutfest, chastity intact, I feel so proud of myself for resisting all that temptation for my special guy. (Heads up: Here's where the shit hits the fan.)
The morning after the parade I upload photos onto FaceBook, one of which is me holding a picture of Kyle and myself with a caption that reads: "'Thank You!! But I'm Taken.' Only two more months, baby! <3" *sad shake of head* Less than four hours later, I notice that Kyle has removed his name tag from the photo... without saying a word to me about it. Why would he do something like that? My mind reels at all the possibilities: Is he embarrassed of me? Has he grown to be ashamed of me? Is he mad at me? Does he think I look too slutty? Paranoid as I am, I immediately assume this photo untagging is an act of rejection and/or embarrassment by my adoration.
As my mind contemplates one bad scenario after another, I call Kyle's cell. Five rings... VoiceMail I try back an hour later. TWO rings... a sharp CLICK!! ...He just hung up on me... One last time: NO RINGS. I start freaking out, wondering why he might be mad at me. "I just turned down dozens of REAL, LOCAL offers for this guy, and for WHAT?" Afraid that I'll forget how horrible I'm feeling or do something extremely stupid the next time he does something wrong, I decide that this conversation CANNOT wait. Although I personally hate discussing relationship issues in any way other than in-person or by phone (so you can hear each other's inflection), I decide to send what we now refer to as "The Email."
Lurched across my bed, tears of rage welling up behind my eyes, I pour all my sadness and frustration into an email. I don't attempt to edit it. I don't read it back to myself. The words come straight from my heart and I want them to come out as raw, honest, and unfiltered as possible. I write about the photo untagging, how I'm so frustrated having to always guess how he's feeling, how sometimes it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall (that doesn't return my messages), how I've never felt more alone in my life...
I ask him the question that has haunted (and in 4 out of 5 cases, ended) every relationship I've ever been in, "Are you ashamed of me?" I remind him that that has been the #1 reason I've broken up with practically every boyfriend I've had. (In hindsight, as he pointed out, I should NOT have thrown that in his face). After railing him for all these possible problems, I make sure to remind him that I DO want us to fix things and that I still like him every bit as much as I did back in April... I just need to know that he feels the same. I don't know if I could bear being hurt by yet another man... especially one I actually care for and respect.
Around 11AM, I get a TXT from Kyle saying, "I will talk to you tonight." I see it as a good thing. I'm sure that he'll calm all my irrational fears. He calls me back around 11PM and when I ask how his day's going he responds, "Not good. My car broke down. And then there was your email." My heart immediately sinks and I feel intense guilt. I think, "Oh my God, I could've caused him to have an accident. I'm so glad he's OK! I should never have bothered him with that venomous email."
Once again, I hear his voice for the first time in weeks, and I can tell that he genuinely was unaware of this communication problem. When I ask him why he's not taking my calls, he assures me that he's not always by his cell phone. He's also taking that Science class at HACC. But I hate that he says, "I'm busy," as an excuse not to contact me. I'm working SLAVE LABOR from 8AM to 1AM with 2 meal breaks, and yet I can always make the time to somehow acknowledge Kyle (whether it's a call or a one-line TXT saying "Miss U" or "xoxo" or whatever).
During the conversation, I'm calm, but obviously he's shaken, hurt, upset, just plain confused... He doesn't say all that--I'm just reading into it. I tell I'm glad he called, that's all I really wanted, and we hang up.
Moments later, I feel the urge to say more to him, so I send an apologetic email. At the very same time he manages to send me a message minutes earlier, about how lots of things went unsaid and he would like talk on the phone again sometime soon. In my apology email, I explain that I'm just happy he called and that he didn't intend to make me feel unloved. But I don't want to have to SCARE HIM into talking to me more. We're boyfriends. He should want to talk to me. It means nothing if I have to tell him to call me.
The only reason I even bothered to send that urgent first email is because I believe our relationship is WORTH saving, worth fighting for, and I should be sharing my fears and insecurities with HIM--not my friends. Of all people, I want to be 100% honest with him... no (big) secrets. Looking back on it, I wish I would've waited longer before I sent the email: I really did mean a lot of those things I wrote, but I shouldn't have just blurted them all out like that... But I was sooo sure that he was intentionally avoiding me and that photo untagging is just the kind of passive-aggressive behavior that drives me berserk.
I apologize for tossing around crazy accusations and for misguidedly thinking that he was INTENTIONALLY trying to avoid me or distance himself from me. I will always feel extremely shitty and guilty for that one. Following that second email, I pray that the matter is over and done with, and not too much damage has been done. If only life were that easy...
After having a cute conversation about our 4th of July festivities, I start thinking that we're definitely gonna be OK. Our communication has slipped to about once a week, and Kyle doesn't seem to have a problem with this at all. I'm dying. It takes soooo much energy for me to not call him every 3 days just to see how he's doing. Although he flipped the script for about 2 weeks, we're back to the way things were and once again, I'm the one who's always making the first move.
All of our recent phone conversations end with me asking, "Are we OK?" And his stock response is, "I think so, I've just been thinking a lot about that email you sent." That phrase... "the email," just hits me like a hammer to the heart every time he utters it. Ever since I sent it, I've been apologizing to him ad nauseum and trying to prove how much I really care about him. In the public sphere, I've written blogs, made a video, posted on his FB wall; in private, I've sent him TXTs, even a love letter via snail mail. I don't want him to feel 1/10TH of the pain that I'm feeling. I need him to know that he's the very LAST person in the world I'd ever want to hurt.
Not the best opener to a conversation, I know, but after nearly two weeks of silence and 3 unreturned calls, I catch Kyle on AIM, of all places. We have another blowout, and he throws the same crap excuse in my face, "I'm not always by my phone." What? You haven't looked at your phone in four days?! This anger is compounded by the fact that while I write genuine messages on his FaceBook wall every week to no response, some random guy simply writes, "Yo," and gets a response in under 4 hours. Fuels my fire. It re-enforces one of my oldest insecurities with Kyle: He cares about his friends waaaaay more than he cares about me. And now that we're dating, he doesn't even treat me like a friend. I think to myself, "I bet if I were (insert friend's name here), you'd pick up."
I try to get him to tell me how he feels, what's wrong, because I hate guessing all the time and all he says is what he's been saying since mid-June, "Trust me, I have plenty to say but I wanna wait 'til we're back in Gettysburg." I force him to tell me how he feels, even if it's negative. I'm a big boy, I can take it... I think.
When he finally talks, he tells me how he hadn't intended on counting the summer as part of our relationship. WHAT?! It is now Mid-August, and I'm just NOW hearing this? He doesn't know how much longer he can stay in this relationship, which "kills him," because he knows that I'm so into it. I had no idea he felt that way, and believe it or not, I'm incredibly relieved that he has finally told me about his complaints. This, I can deal with. This is progress. It's quite clear that we're on separate pages and I tell him that I'll back off for a while and give him his space.
Why the fuck did I say I'd back off? x_x All I'm doing is punishing myself. It's been two weeks of agony. Kyle's on vacation in North Carolina... it's sad that I'm afraid to call him out of fear that I'll ruin his trip. I reach the breaking point one afternoon when I'm watching Rush Hour 3 and I'm reminded of how Kyle praised Jackie Chan's performance in Rumble in the Bronx. I CAN'T EVEN WATCH A JACKIE CHAN FILM WITHOUT THINKING OF HIM.
I finally break down and TXT him. Several hours later, I get a response: "Space isn't the issue, it's the distance." What a crappy fortune cookie! XD Although Kyle doesn't explain this proverb, I disagree: our mental and emotional distance is a direct result of the physical distance between us. Had it not been for the long distance, we never would've had these problems, or rather, they never would've been dealt with in such impersonal ways (TXT, IM, email).
He claims that I pissed him off with the email, making him think that we had all these problems, only to blow them all off in the apology email. In that second email, I was genuinely sorry for making such a big mistake, for accusing him of something he didn't notice (not communicating). His choice of words throws me: I didn't "blow it off." You don't talk and talk about how you don't communicate enough; you instantly solve the problem simply by communicating more.
The clock strikes 2AM and he has to go to bed... we'll pick up this fight later. That's been the general trend since July, we have the same fight over and over and it carries over from one conversation to the next due to time constraints.
It's August 28th, I'm already back in Gettysburg and Kyle's slated to arrive today. Even though I know we're gonna have to have a long discussion about what happened this summer, I CAN'T WAIT to see him.
Like a kid on Christmas morning, I get up early, make sure to tell the Obama office that I won't be volunteering today because I want to spend quality time with my boyfriend who I haven't seen in 3 months. Around 1:00, I go upstairs to see Jai and she tells me that I "just missed him." Huh? She informs me that Kyle and his father just dropped his stuff off in his bedroom and left. My heart sinks a little bit. "Oh." I didn't even know he was in town yet. A little downtrodden, but trying to rationalize it (maybe he didn't want me to meet his dad, etc), I go back into my room and watch TV. I hear the front door slam...
Eagerly I glance out the window, and OMG, I SEE KYLE!! He's across the street walking and talking to Corn. I can't contain my excitement, I've missed him so much. I frantically throw on some shoes and stride outside to give him a proper welcome. I've dreamt of this magical moment in my head where we'd lock eyes, run toward each other, and leap into a savage embrace with the same spark we had when we started dating. Trying to surprise him, I shadow Kyle & Corn for a distance until I finally catch up with them at the crosswalk. As Kyle crosses, he turns back quickly and finally notices me.
He flashes a quick wave and keeps walking, not even REMOTELY excited to see me. OK... I eventually catch up to the walking duo, and I say to Kyle, "I didn't even know you were back." He keeps walking and simply says, "Well, I am." So, where you off to? "His room. (pointing to Corn)" Oh. I stop dead in my tracks, say Goodbye, and walk home.
Even though he probably doesn't mean to hurt me to such an extent, his attitude literally places me in what I can only describe as shock. I'm not accustomed to feeling like this. I'm trembling and can barely speak. That episode back there played on every one of my insecurities about our relationship: this whole thing may have been one-sided, he's gotten what he wanted out of me and moved on, he really liked Corn (when asked he'd say, "He and I talked about it and decided against it"--NOT "I don't like him like that.") but only settled for me. I feel like I'm about to lose all composure.
About an hour later, I hear a timid knock on my door, and it's Kyle. After initial hesitation, I let him into my room. As usual I ask him how he is but this time he responds, "Honestly, I've regretted (probably meant to say 'dreaded') seeing you." Gee, Thanks. The question I wonder is: why did I have no fucking clue that he felt sooo cold toward me? We TXT-ed briefly yesterday and I assumed things were fine. Sure, we'd have a deep talk, but I feel like he truly HATES me.
Here I am, in ALLiES House, going on and on about how great you are to people and despite all that's happened, how I can't wait to see you, and it turns out, you feel the exact opposite. Why am I the last to know this? I ask him what that incident with Corn was all about, and he can't give me an explanation. Sitting there in silence because I always have to interrogate him to get any sort of response, I feel like I'm about to fall apart. I tell him, "I want you to go."As my friends know, I'm not a crying person (not by any stretch of the imagination), but once he walks out the door, I just let it all out. Collapsed, convulsing in the fetal position on the floor, crying uncontrollably I think of how awful this day has turned out to be. This was the moment I've been waiting for all summer, the thought of seeing him again was the only thing getting me through each miserable day of that eternal summer, and he treats me like a goddamn STRANGER. *sigh* I'm starting to think that this relationship is beyond repair...
(PLEASE, No Kyle Bashing)
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