Several months ago, things were going amazingly well with the guy I was dating. Relatively. It was as amazing as “on again, off again” can be, anyway. We were a few months into our second round of “on again.” We’d been “dating” or “spending time together” (depending on which one of us you asked) for about 4.5 months by this point. I was staying at his house several nights a week, usually heading home in the morning to get ready for work.
As my birthday neared, he still wasn’t retreating. I became more and more cautiously optimistic that we wouldn’t break up anytime soon. But didn’t want to get my hopes up.
Which was a good thing, because he completely over-delivered. Came to my work happy hour, took me to a fancy dinner. Ordered a great bottle of wine. Dressed up. Even had two gifts wrapped and waiting. Cautious optimism transitioned straight to downright excitement as I opened the second gift: it was exactly perfect. Suited both my love of everything vintage and my obsession with writing. And he was so tickled with it that I assumed he must be – finally – into this whole dating thing.
This new development in thoughtfulness and inclusivitymade me bold.
I asked, conversationally, “How would you feel if I kept a toothbrush…and maybe some face wash…at your house?”
He left the room. Responded with, “We can talk about it…another time” As he rinsed old beer out of a brown glass bottle.
Things between us veered away from excitement and headed back downhill.
His aforementioned “another time” took a week to arrive. We sat, silent and uncomfortable, on his couch. I knew “off again” was just a few minutes away (because he tended to withold sex before breaking up). But what came out of his mouth surprised even me.
“I am NOT Ready for your TOOTHbrush to move in!!” He recoiled as he said it, eyes rolling back into his head as he attempted to create more physical space between us.
With that one statement (and a few others that immediately followed), we found ourselves officially “off.” Again.
*****
Known to all my friends as “The Toothbrush Story,” I recapped it for my trainer between today’s sets of lunges and side-steps (see Soreness Inventory – Week 2). He laughed, as most people do when I tell it. Followed up the laughter, as most people do, with indcredulity. Then took it even one step further by saying what a jackass he was. And asking me – point blank – why I’d accepted Toothbrush Guy’s invitation to meet for coffee after our training session.
I didn’t have a great answer. I just knew I’d be there at the appointed time.
So. Today at 9:20 AM – exactly one year after our first Sunday morning together – we had coffee. Which Toothbrush Guy had initiated. And to which he wore a shirt I’d bought for him.
But where one year ago we were snuggly and chatty and he insisted on buying my coffee, today he looked panicked when I asked what he wanted to order. He went to the end of the line despite me being at the cash register, and got his coffee to go (mine was for here). We kept a bistro table and miles of distance between us.
An hour into the coffee appointment (I won’t give it the justification of the term “date”), we’d covered work talk and sports talk and mutual acquaintance talk. Silence became the main topic – until his real intent for inviting me came out. He apparently had asked me to coffee to be sure I was ok. And he hoped I wasn’t mad at him.
I may have snorted. Probably my nostrils flared. And definitely I asked him if he was looking to renew his ”Nice Guy” stamp.
The funny thing was, he took my question seriously. Or maybe just was caught off guard. Either way, he stammered through an honest answer: Yes, he wanted affirmation that he was a Nice Guy. He didn’t want me to associate him with anger or disappointment.
Claimed to not have remembered that today would have been our one-year anniversary. Likely never realized the implications of wearing the ONLY shirt I’d bought him to coffee – months after breaking up.
I just sat there. Thinking anger and disappointment were the only two emotions I could associate with him. Certainly they overwhelmed any hint of Nice Guy he’d teased me with in the past.
Every day another story -
Sofie
