HAVE WE MET BEFORE?

At first blush, it sounds self-absorbed for me to say I’ve been reading a few of my old blog posts over the last twenty-four hours. Is that like spending a day gazing at all your selfies? (Okay, I had to do that too, but I limited it to twenty minutes. I’ve got an article that’s supposed to get published and they need a photo of me. Made me realize I don’t have anything other than selfies, in part because I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone to take my photo, but also because I do most things on my own. Not a sad thing. I enjoy Me Time.) I’m telling myself it’s okay to reread some of my blog writing. People can spend afternoons looking through old photos or reading past journal entries. Let laughs and horror abound. 

 

I waded through past posts for a reason. I’d received another “Someone Likes You” notification from online dating site Plenty of Fish and, when I looked at the profile, the pics seemed vaguely familiar. Do I know you? 

 

I recognized that he was one of those longtime fishermen on the site. (Hey, me too.) Sadly, this was confirmed as I clicked on each of the five photos he’d included. He’d gone through the trouble of giving each one a caption to provide some context. Good move, generally speaking. It shows more attention to creating a profile than most guys. Unfortunately, his photo captions included the date of each photo as well. 2009. 2009. 2010. 2011. 2009.

 

Okay, mister, what do you look like nowadays?

 

Many of us would like to believe that we are ageless. Surely there’s no difference between fifty-six-year-old me and forty-six-year-old me. Heck, maybe I even look younger. (My hair stylist, Melanie, can do wonders!) Even if I can’t see the signs of aging when I look in the mirror, I know others do. Compared to a decade ago, I get called “sir” so much more. If Queen Elizabeth had knighted me, I’d be okay with it but, that not being the case, it rattles me every time. Good god! What is it they’re seeing? (Note to self: Get Melanie to dye my graying sideburns.)

 

Later in the day, I logged into another site. It’s for hookups. I’d set up an account when I decided my 2020 New Year’s resolution was to loosen up sexually. As with most resolutions, there was a flashy start—I’m doing this!—then nothing. I’ll blame COVID. (Sometimes a pandemic comes in handy.) Whenever I see a message on this site, I panic. I can tell myself that a quickie would be good for me, but the only reason I’d want to drop to my knees immediately upon entering a stranger’s home is if I’d lost a contact. (Heck, that would be awkward enough.) The guy who liked me on POF sent me a message on the smutty site, too. 

 

Isn’t this a little stalker-ish? Keep it to one platform, please.

 

The message was lengthy, squirmy Either/Or blend: Let’s date…or let’s just meet and do these (very) specific sexual things. What a mess.

 

The message also confirmed that I did know him. We’d gone on a coffee date at some point more than six years ago based on information he recalled which was, in fact, a lot: where we’d had coffee, things I was writing, other parts of our conversation.

 

If it was ringing any bells, the sound was faint. I now had a foggy image of us having coffee on Granville Island. I have some sense that he was okay. He liked me, but I felt relief that he lived in Victoria which meant he wouldn’t be in Vancouver all that often. He would have had to be much more than “okay” for each of us to be coordinating ferry rides to the city. 

 

Still, I was curious to get a clearer account of that previous date so I blog-checked him. I’ve written about so many dates. I did a quick search of “Granville Island,” another on “Victoria.” Posts came up but nothing about him. 

 

He wasn’t blog-worthy. 

 

That confirms he was indeed okay. Not a horrendous coffee date which is always oh so bloggable and not a hopeful coffee date that I might blog…unless I didn’t want to jinx things. If it were that great, a blog tour would have been unnecessary. I would have remembered, even with the fuzzy brain of a guy who is frequently called sir.

SHAKING THE DUST OFF OF DATING

I’ve joked many times that I’ve met so many guys for coffee from online dating sites, that I might have to switch to tea. At what point does coffee leave such a bitter aftertaste that it can’t be sweetened by a dozen packets of sugar? (Or stevia, if that’s your thing.)

 

I’ve gone on two post-vaccination meet-and-greets with guys from Plenty of Fish. No coffee. For the first one, everything was perfectly pleasant, but I knew we weren’t a match, not as boyfriends, not as friends. 

 

On Friday evening, I met John under a strange art installation that looks to me like a bicycle seat. (Vancouver’s public art is hit and miss, mostly miss.) If nothing else, the thing offered shelter. It had poured rain all day and things hadn’t let up by 6 p.m. The plan had been to maybe grab a drink—John had suggested tea—and walk part of the seawall. What Vancouver lacks in art, it more than makes up for in natural beauty. There was a café still open right by the bike seat thingy, plenty of covered outdoor seating. John didn’t want to sit or grab a drink. Instead, we would walk in the rain. All good. I had my umbrella, my Rains jacket and my waterproof Vessa shoes. (No, I’m not getting paid for product placement.) John’s shoes were definitely not water resistant, but he said he was fine. His mother would not have been pleased but okey dokey.

 

This was a date I knew we’d both been looking forward to. Sometimes you just get a good sense of things through the messages exchanged leading up to meeting. His profile had full paragraphs. (That’s not so hard, guys. Make the effort!) He’d included a quote above his profile and said, “Bonus points if you can identify its source.” In the Google world, that seemed too easy. I felt it was more fun to go old-school and use my imagination so my guess was Grover from “Sesame Street” and, if not him, then his Muppet colleague, Animal.

 

I should mention that John’s profile also mentioned he was an elementary school teacher and one of his photos was a crayon portrait drawn by a student.

 

John LOVED my reference. Incidentally, the quote was from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” a 1953 movie starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. I know I’m supposed to have seen this flick since it’s the one in which Marilyn sings “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” that’s scene Madonna pays homage to in “Material Girl.” I’m a bad gay. Lance Bass and a drag queen named Benny Boop just came to my door and took away my Pride flag. (What? You really think Lance had anything else to do? He was very apologetic—a gig’s a gig—and politely asked that I sign the online petition for an NSYNC reunion.)

 

I figured John and I would have plenty to talk about since we’d both spent many years working in elementary schools. With the school year just starting, he would have some amusing and precious stories about the kids and I could be a sympathetic ear to listen about how exhausted he felt getting back into it. (The first month is always rewarding but also somewhat painful as the pace is so sloooow, introducing all the routines and fielding kids’ questions about whether they can use their brand-new back-to-school purple pens and glitter glue for all assignments.)

 

We walked. We talked. Both of us had our jeans soaked through from below the knee. John’s shoes reached that sad level of sogginess unbecoming to even an abandoned bowl of Cheerios.

 

Nothing connected. 

 

He’d ask a question. I’d answer. I’d ask a question. He’d answer. There were obvious follow-up questions, but neither of us went there. There was nothing terrible about it. No friction. No coldness. Altogether, it was a forty-five-minute shrug. 

 

Maybe caffeine matters.

 

I had a very nice coffee the next morning. No bitterness, no sugar added. My drink of choice remains unspoiled, my favorite cafés remain unharmed. 

 

I’m hoping that, on my next meet-and-greet, I feel something…like when I view that giant bicycle seat (or whatever it is) art piece. Feeling good would be great, but bad wouldn’t be so awful at this point. Something needs to register or why bother? 

 

Maybe some of us are rusty at the dating game after all those months masked and locked down. Maybe that long, long pause offered new perspective. Maybe we realized that dating isn’t that much of a need anymore.  

 

I just logged in again to Plenty of Fish. No message from John. (Whew. That would have been awkward.) I noticed there’s a guy with “bomber” in his profile name—um, what?—and I have a message from chase_booty (Full text: “Hello Handsom”). 

 

Yeah, lockdown wasn’t all that bad.

 

 

WE MEET AGAIN (Part Two)

Getting out of an abusive relationship brought an obvious sense of relief but the freedom I’d gained sometimes felt tentative. So many times during our final year living under the same roof—no longer technically together, yet still living side by side in separate bedrooms as renovations sloooowly got done—he’d pleaded for me to give us another shot. Those moments felt as out-of-left-field and (almost) as unpleasant as his abusive tirades. I’d finally broken things off; I didn’t want to think or talk about “us” anymore. I didn’t like having to sound like a cold, callous cad, as if I were responsible for everything falling apart. 

 

I moved to a rural area a ferry ride away. I could afford a house there, but my daily commute to work took five hours (two and a half each way). Most of the year, I only saw my home in daylight on weekends. The water between my ex and me wasn’t exactly a moat filled with crocodiles, but it created distance. 

 

His mother once told me he’d come over on the ferry and “staked out” my house. (Her words, not mine.) For six years, he would periodically send me emails—more apologies, more begging to get back together. This correspondence concerned me greatly. What might happen if and when he accepted the fact there was were no more chances?

 

I never deleted the emails, thinking that if he murdered me, the police would go through my laptop and find a trail that would lead them to him. (How’s that for dark?) I know that people who’ve never been in an abusive relationship would say I should have gotten a restraining order. Sometimes that does work. Sometimes it only enflames matters. I’ve read too many times about people being killed by an ex for whom they’d taken out a restraining order. In a variation of the Rock, Paper, Scissors game, rage beats paper.

 

I have no doubt he’s Googled me many times. I started this blog anonymously and created a Twitter account using a pseudonym, in part, so I could express myself more freely without him getting any personal updates. For all I know, he could read this post. (He works in the tech industry. There are always ways to track someone’s virtual footprint.) He would take offense to me portraying things as abusive. It’s easy for someone to do when their rages occur as blackouts. I once recorded one of his rages so I could play it back to him as proof of his Mr. Hyde side. I needed him to know how bad it was. I thought it would lead him to seek help. I cannot recall if he refused to hear it or if I decided not to share it. (I suspect the latter since my gut told me that the fact I had recorded him would only enrage him more.) 

 

Deep down, I believe he knows how bad things were.

 

When I moved back to Vancouver six years ago—I managed to sell my three-bedroom house to afford a teensy condo—I ran into him (almost literally) after just one month. I was jogging the sea wall on a sunny evening and there he was, standing, smiling and waving. I held up my hand—Was it a wave or a stop sign gesture?—and kept right on running. I’d escaped the moment, but he knew I was back. It felt like a bad omen. It was a big city, I reminded myself. There was enough space so that the two of us could coexist, our paths never crossing again. And so it went. 

 

Until last week. I’d gone to the gym and then ordered takeout pizza (lose some, gain some) to sit and eat at a waterside while reading a book. It was a gorgeous, sunny Friday evening. I hadn’t treated myself to pizza at my favorite joint in more than a year. As I walked home along the water, I was calm, even happy (a mood that is hard for me to reach). To head to my condo, I didn’t take my regular route, instead cutting through a courtyard I’d never passed through before. A man stood at the end of the walkway, looking directly at me, smiling way too broadly. At first, I didn’t recognize him. His face and body were a bit fuller—part of aging—and the sun was in my eyes. As we walked toward one another, his smile got bigger, if that was possible. It became clear it was him. My face remained stoic, a sense of dread surged. 

 

He wrapped me in a big, extended hug as my arms remained at my sides. I never let down my guard as he filled me in on his family and the latest job he’d lost. He’d called his female boss the c-word. “It’s not like I said it to her face. I texted it.” Somehow he thought that made it less offensive. It would never have occurred to him to pause before pressing the send button. 

 

He never stopped grinning. “I live here now,” he said. He pointed to a building within view. “Where are you living?” Answer: only a five-minute walk away. Oh, god. I didn’t tell him and he knew not to repeat the question. My pizza served as my exit pass. The box was empty—let’s just say it was an individual pizza—but I was carrying it home so I could recycle it. “I’ll let you go since your pizza’s getting cold. Yes, so cold. Just like my demeanor. 

 

Saved by a cardboard box. 

 

I’ll never walk down that walkway again, but I pass by the area, walking, jogging and biking multiple times a week. Now it feels highly likely our paths will cross again.

 

I don’t feel unsafe anymore. I’ve blocked so much of what happened. No amount of therapy can dig it up. Honestly, I’ve expunged so many specifics from my memory. It sounds improbable, but it’s true. It’s how I’ve recovered.

 

Still, in the next eight days after seeing him, he popped up in my dreams five nights. Nothing scary. Everything happy, with the two of us together, in love. Each time, I’d abruptly sit up in bed, horrified. Sometimes happy dreams are nightmares. 

WE MEET AGAIN (Part One)

It had been six years. 675,000 people in the city, there’s a decent chance I could go a lifetime without seeing some of them. That’s what I was counting one. He’d be one of “some of them.”

 

Of course, I had seen him before. For seven years, he’d been my partner. I was thirty-two when we met and I felt ready. We had nine months of pure happiness, followed by patchy flourishes of contentment. Between flourishes, there was fear, desperation, numbness and a lot of darkness.

 

I’d been pulled in—charmed, wooed, amused, and head over heels in love in the kind of fiction I’d thought made for a decent Go-Go’s song. (Okay, just YouTubed the tune. Super vague lyrics. Still, a song that always makes me smile. Just like love, or something like it.) When the first jolt of deep disturbance hit, I was already all-in. Surely, it was but a blip. Charm returned that evening or perhaps the next day, my perfect world restored. 

 

But that’s the thing with darkness. It can’t be contained. I have this image of a barn door, shut with a big, steel bar secured in a latch to ensure the beast within never gets out. The image works for four-year-olds, lying in bed, worrying about the bogeyman invading in the night. No, son. He’s locked away. You can relax. Sleep well. It works for other fictional demons. Real beasts can’t be contained. And, once they find a way out, they escape more often, regardless of amped up security systems. Just knowing escape is possible emboldens their fortitude.

 

My perfect partner had rage issues. It’s been seventeen years since I finally freed myself from that relationship, but I cried anew, typing the previous sentence. I had given my all. I had done everything you’re supposed to do to build a relationship. I’d been invested. I’d been honest and faithful. I’d been worthy. I’d done what I thought you were supposed to do, keeping hope alive, sticking together, for better or for worse. (No civil union or marriage. I knew deep down it wasn’t right. Not yet, I kept telling myself; relationships take work.) Every time he berated me in a sudden fury—never once did I see it coming—he’d recover. “I’m sorry. I love you.” For a while, I believed him.

 

Yes, for the final two or three years, I had lost hope. He’d seen a psychiatrist. He told me it was depression. He took meds for a little while, then stopped. I don’t think he realized how extreme his rages were because he never remembered them. This was blackout anger, not caused by drugs or alcohol, but by some faulty wiring within. His mother and his sister exhibited the same behavior. Kind, loving people…and then…

 

It was abuse. 

 

I learned to go to a place of numbness as he berated me. To counter or to respond in any way only stoked the already roaring fire. I would do my best to zone out, my inner voice chanting, “This isn’t about me. This is about him.”

 

I have great empathy for people trapped in abusive relationships. From the outside, it’s easy for people to judge and to find fault with the victim. (How is that helpful, dear self-professed kind soul of the world?) 

 

She should’ve left after the first time. (It’s always assumed to be a “she,” something that made it harder for me to feel even acknowledged. The fact that abusive relations are almost always discussed in terms of a woman being abused only made me feel weaker and more ashamed.) 

 

I would never have stood for it. I’d have left the first time it happened. You’d have to be stupid. (Great. You’re stronger. Again, so helpful. Your compassion overwhelms.) When people make that last comment, they have no idea whether someone who hears it is in the midst of an abusive relationship or has been in the past. The comment does not in any way empower; rather, it is callous and only brings more shame to the listener. As well, that comment in all likelihood means a person experiencing abuse will never confide in that person. Judgment has already been cast. Why would anyone think such a person could be a real support? Please, don’t ever say it.

 

In all the years I went through it, I never told anyone. It was partly due to shame, but it was more about not wanting to disparage my partner. Even more than that, I didn’t want to put a friend or relative in an awkward position. Many times, I’ve listened to friends in difficult (though not abusive) relationships which made them unhappy. They’d seek my advice. They wanted someone else to direct them through what they were struggling with: “Leave him. You deserve better.” I’d get pulled in. Yes, I’d tell them this. Then they’d stick with it. That always made things uncomfortable. I’d heard about grievances and misery and now I was a guest at their place, sitting down to dinner with the couple, everything coming off as rosy. The cycle would repeat and my advice would become more vague. When they’d ask, “What do you think I should do?” I’d put it back on them. “What do you think?” (Probably what I should have done in the first place. What I think doesn’t matter when I’m not in the relationship. My role was to be a good listener, to show empathy, to support them as they struggled with the process of coming to terms with what to do or not do.) 

 

Confiding in a friend about abuse puts that friend in a tougher spot. When it’s abuse, the friend is unlikely to just listen. The concern for a person’s well-being is apt to elicit urgent appeals. Get out! Leave him! If it were that easy, it would have already happened. If I’d have told a friend (which I didn’t) and continued in the abusive relationship (which I did), I’d have felt even more shame every time I saw them—I’m weak; I’m an idiot—things I already thought about myself, but now exposed whose judgment and/or disappointment would have been too much. (It was enough to know I was letting myself down.) In turn, my friend would continue to socialize with me and my boyfriend, my abuser. Maddening and unfair, it seemed, to my friend.

 

For a while, my partner worked in Seattle during the week. I came to hate weekends. Sometimes, when things were good, I’d almost forget his darker side. I’d enjoy the moment. It might extend through one weekend, even the next. Then he’d snap. Uncontrolled rage. Vile putdowns to make me feel small (and—what?—build him up?). Much of what he spewed made no sense at all. 

 

“This isn’t about me. This is about him.”

 

“This isn’t about me. This is about him.”

 

He kept losing his job. (Guess why.) He joined sports teams and he’d suddenly snap with teammates, shocking and confusing them. Again, this came from a guy who was a charmer. I’d have to sit and hear longwinded rants about these bosses and teammates. His outrage was always thin on logic and I’d do my best to talk him down, pointing out the other side and, as he calmed, even noting the flaws in his perspective. In the end, I didn’t save those relationships, but I kept them going longer. He quit many teams but, being athletic, he’d pour on the charm again and get recruited by another team. Over and over again. 

 

When he lost the Seattle job and was back in Vancouver, I was getting my master’s. It got to the point where I’d cringe every time I’d pull up to the house and see his car out front. I’d often go for a drive to delay seeing him. Sometimes I’d head upstairs to our home office. So busy. Lots of student marking to do. A massive assignment for a course was coming due. Often, he’d give me space. Other times, I’d hide out at the university. One of the libraries was open till midnight and I’d stay until closing. He’d be asleep when I’d get home.

 

In those last years—we were “together” for seven—I thought about leaving every single day. I feared how he’d react. I didn’t know where I’d live. The Vancouver market is ridiculously expensive and I couldn’t afford anything on my own. I had a wonderful career and moving to an affordable place like Winnipeg seemed like more punishment, leaving behind all the connections, goodwill and credibility I’d built up. We had two dogs and finding a place to rent would be difficult. (I was constantly looking.) My greatest fear was that he’d fight to have one of the dogs. I absolutely could not allow that to happen. I have never loved any being as much as I loved my two schnauzers. When we got the first dog, two years into the relationship, I made sure I paid every single vet bill (and there were so many as he had all sorts of special needs which is why he was surrendered to the SPCA in the first place). The second dog, a pup we got three years later, came at my partner’s insistence. It was his ploy to keep the relationship going, much like when some couples decide on another baby to save their marriage. It was the second dog I feared I’d lose if I ended things. (Again, I paid every single bill.)

 

When I finally broke up, I was still stuck. Our historic, hundred-year-old home was in the midst of a renovation from hell. Everything was taken down to the studs and, in addition to a barrage of structural issues, we kept losing contractors. (Again, guess why.) The house was unsellable in its stripped-down state. There was no way I could afford to pay my half of the mortgage plus rent on another place. We continued to live under the same roof for fourteen more months. (Thankfully, he got a job in Toronto for part of that time and came home less frequently but, of course, he lost that job, too.) When we finally put the house up for sale, we had multiple offers. I’d put so much care into renovation decisions, particularly regarding the kitchen, creating a dream home that wouldn’t be mine. I was at my family’s cottage in Ontario when the papers had to be signed and my real estate agent called to say my partner refused to sign the documents. When I called him, he was still begging for me to give us another try. Sign the papers! To my relief, he did. 

 

Finally, I was free.  

And in a city as big as Vancouver, I hoped I'd never see him again.

ABOUT THAT "COFFEE"

Just a quick update on that awkward new friendship that’s been brewing in my building, the one with that married guy who seems to drop many hints about being queer and possibly interested in me…

 

We went for that coffee on Friday. And it was just coffee—cappuccino for him, iced decaf oat milk latte for me. It was a good thing when I began worrying more about the barista understanding my order than about Damien’s agenda.  

 

I decided to stop being so passive. I don’t mean I was direct or anything; rather I was less passive. I’d feared he’d text me Friday morning with a “Hey, I just brewed a fresh pot. Why don’t you just pop by?” To avoid that possibility, I texted him on Tuesday: “What time do you want to grab coffee on Friday? I’d like to try that café by the seawall which you had mentioned.” 

 

He didn’t reply for twenty-four hours. I worried a bit—progress since normally I worry a lot. Maybe I’d lost a potential friend. Some people don’t respond will to “let’s be friends” coffees. Would things be awkward at the gym? What if he was hatching a new plan for coffee chez Damien? It would be easy to rent crutches and feign a sprained ankle. Would the café fall victim to arson? (Yeah, these are my worrying “a bit” thoughts.)

 

If he weren’t so imaginative and instead went with something lame-o like insisting I try some new espresso blend he bought, I’d stick with my sudden obsession over this café I’d never been to. “Oh, I really, really want to try that Italian spot. If we’re in luck, they’ll have Italian-speaking baristas who haven’t yet learned coffee terms in English.” Turns out that was the one way I got lucky on Friday.

 

For the most part, it was a harmless experience. Damien was a bit more touchy than I’m comfortable with, but I didn’t jump back in my seat and slather my arm in that ol’ COVID mainstay, hand sanitizer. He talked, I talked, we laughed, we had a nice time. Damien even texted within an hour afterward to say so. I didn’t respond in kind.

 

I think we’re close to being in the clear. There comes a point when a person realizes that a relationship is now and will always remain in the friendship zone. Usually it happens faster when I am the subject of interest. I have years of cluelessness and a solid reputation of He’s Not All That on my side. Every so often, that’s a good thing.