She's so kind sometimes, and I forget about the million reasons why we can't be together. Our tastes are incompatible, and she's short-tempered, furious at me for a thousand imagined slights. She gives me no room to move, to breathe, to be myself. I must be what she wants me to be, but what that is even she doesn't know.
Still, she's there, and I'm lonely. She issues invites I foolishly accept. We'll go out, or maybe we'll just stay at her place and watch TV. Sometimes we make love, sometimes we don't. We decided--well, I decided, and sometimes she remembers--we could be nothing more than friends, that this was all it could be. There is no relationship here, never can be, but any physical contact between us muddies those waters, at least in her mind. I can handle a "friends with benefits" situation but she clearly can't. Yet she will offer herself to me and I will accept. I shouldn't, it's not fair to her.
But I'm human. Things happen.
She wanted me to come over this weekend sometime. She called Friday night, and I told her not now, I was tired from working long days all week, I needed some down time alone. How about Sunday, I asked. She thought that would be okay, but why not Saturday? Well, I could come over Saturday night and we could just hang out, and I could crash there, then Sunday we could go to a movie, get something to eat, just have a day.
Oh hell. What did I do? I suggested spending the night. I should have known how she'd take it.
Nothing happened, nothing sexual. We laid on the floor watching videos. She'd drift off to sleep occasionally, waking up and apologizing. No problem, I said, I'll just go lay down on the bed and get a good night's sleep.
So I fell asleep and she woke me up before too long, apparently wanting me to do things with her, but I was so far gone it took me awhile to come to, and she stormed off, angry that I was ignoring her. (At least, I think that's what happened. I wasn't fully awake.) I went back to sleep, and she woke me up again.
"This isn't going to work out," she announced. "We sleep at different times. You'll be getting up about the time I'm going to bed."
What? I pointed out that she was already asleep in the other room.
"That was just a nap. I hadn't gone to bed."
Sorry for not knowing the difference, I continued, but we were going to a matinee, so presumably you'd be up before noon. I brought a book to read, I thought I could head out for some breakfast--
"Well, if you were going to do all that, you could have just done that at your place. Why even come over here if all you're going to do is sleep?"
Sorry. Um, but you were the one sleeping--
"I told you, I was just napping. You know I don't go to bed until two or three AM--"
Which is one of the reasons why we could never make it as a couple--
"You always say that! You just can't change. You just won't change. No wonder why your wife left you!"
Okay, maybe I should go--
"You always want to leave. You never want to stay and talk things through."
Uh, you told me to leave. Also, this whole situation is getting weird. There's a real Play Misty For Me vibe going on here.
"I don't know what that means. You're always saying all these weird things nobody could ever understand."
Lots of people would understand it. You don't, and that's okay, but you're not everybody.
She starts to say something else, but by this time I'm to the door. I tell her not to call me anymore, that this time we're all through, and I leave without saying goodbye.
But I don't slam the door as I go, and there are no tears in my eyes.
