CLOSE THE DOOR

The different vantage points between dumper and dumpee fascinate me. I don’t think the topic is discussed enough. It explains why breakups can be so messy, why the dumped dude is so emotional, reactionary and far from his best self. Not only has the dumper determined they’re not a match, the perspectives are woefully mismatched, one focused on the future, the other already seeing things in the past.

 

Four years ago, I was the dumper. A five-month relationship that came to be because of COVID lockdown. I realized it would never go deeper. Even then, I had a clear sense in the abstract that the dumpee had it worse. In a blog post, I wrote:

Being the one who is broken up with is so much harder. Sometimes it’s completely unexpected and, even when there are plenty of clues, it can feel like being blindsided.

 

I would have been the wrathful subject of a Paula Abdul song (please, not an Alanis Morissette or Taylor Swift tune) to be unaware of how hard Daniel took it. He’d done nothing wrong. I had zero desire to hurt him. Pre-breakup, I’d put in the time, mulling over what we had and didn’t have. By contrast, he was still fully committed to us when I had The Conversation. He hadn’t considered any sort of exit plan. 

 

I’ve been fortunate to fall in love five times. (Sadly, none has gone the distance. No anniversary posts on Twitter. This is why I don’t change my status on Facebook. That “in a relationship” thing? Yeah…never mind.) 

 

I haven’t been the dumpee since my first love disintegrated forty-two years ago. I was devastated and inconsolable. I remember showing up at John’s place at three in the morning a couple of days later, sobbing, begging and seeking answers. Even with his disclosure that he’d been and was still seeing a good friend of mine, it wasn’t enough to jolt me into moving on. Emotions had to play themselves out—a loss, even if wronged—before the brain could bring some sanity to the situation. He was never going to be my Forever Love. 

 

Here I am, dumped once more. This is Day 12 of being alone again (naturally). (Sometimes a wallowing song makes me smile.) 

 

I’m not nearly as emotional. Life will go on. I know this. My track record would seem to indicate this would be the logical conclusion. Evan too has a similar past. Oddsmakers wouldn’t have bet on us. Still, I was all in, and so was he, for a few weeks shy of two years. I feel humbled and humiliated, but that comes with a shrug. As a highly/harshly self-critical introvert, there are always humiliations pending. This episode just takes it to the nth degree. It’s the circumstances and Evan’s explanation that I have struggled to accept. His reading of me and of us in the last twenty-four hours of our relationship felt completely off…so off, in fact, that I thought he’d “come to his senses” and want to do the work with me to get us on track again. The breakup came after a great deal of stress. He’d just made a big move from Seattle to Denver that proved to be full of glitches. He was diving into a new job, navigating new policies, procedures and colleagues. And then an acute illness made matters worse. I did what I could to listen and support from Vancouver. We’d agreed about when I would come and stay for two weeks but suddenly it couldn’t come soon enough. Indeed, it didn’t.

 

Making big decisions under high stress is often not a good thing. Telling the boss, “I quit!” may feel good in the moment. Instant relief. Sometimes such a decision has been a long time coming. No regrets. It needed to be.

 

But he quit me. He quit us. No regrets? Did it really need to be? I couldn’t get my head around getting dumped. I still saw our future. I kept waiting for a text, an email, a call.

 

Nothing.

 

Finally, after eight days, I texted: 

Can we schedule a FaceTime call? I’m not mad and I won’t be emotional. I just need closure.

 

He agreed, said he had some questions, too. We set a time the next morning. I wrote down some questions and thoughts. I do the same now when I go to the doctor’s. If this was going to be our last chat, I didn’t want to wake up at three in the morning that night or a week later with a growing list of things I should have asked.

 

It was a tough call for each of us, for different reasons. I’m not going to deny I’d hoped we’d talk through things and agree to try again. The moment his face appeared on the screen, I knew that prospect was hopeless. There was no warmth, no smile, nothing of the jovial person I loved. He was on guard, jarringly stoic, perhaps stressed, perhaps wishing he were having all his teeth pulled instead…without the anesthetic. 

 

Still, I had no pride. I’d flown to Denver to get dumped in first our ten minutes back together on Valentine’s Day. What’s an extra helping of humiliation? So I reiterated that I didn’t want the breakup. I was still invested in us…if he’d be open to it. 

 

Dead air. Dead relationship.

 

All righty then. On with the questions. I suppose, as the dumpee, it was my turn to dump. More than questions, I needed to defend my character and what we had. His version which came out during the dumping undersold me and us. It was all for naught. He listened uncomfortably. “I don’t see how this is helping,” he said at one point and then, “How much more do you have?” Understandable. When he’d pronounced us dead, I’d wanted to flee. When I had the chance to more clearly give my perspective after the in-the-moment shock of Is this really happening?!, it was his turn to want to flee. 

   

He held on. He stuck it out. I commend Evan for agreeing to the call. He’s a good man. 

 

Having gone through this and thinking back on how things ended with John, with Daniel and a few other longer-term relationships, I’m a believer in a closure call. Under the right circumstances—calm voices, a willingness to listen, basic respect—it evens things up a bit in terms of allowing both people to move on. While the dumper was and still is ahead in this regard—his decision, his timing, his prior period of mulling—the dumpee has an opportunity to share thoughts and feelings after facing bad news while in some degree of shock. 

 

The closure call isn’t fun for the dumper. When Daniel kept wanting to raise things with me, I allowed it. I knew he needed it. He was in pain. Maybe I could help him get over me. (How hard could it be? My flaws and deficiencies are many.) It’s uncomfortable when the dumper has to listen after getting his exit pass. Do we really have to go back over this? I say yes. Not fun but neither was getting dumped. It’s not about wrath or payback or venting. The person who only days ago was your partner and still in love is owed this last conversation, a chance to say things he couldn’t express in the moment of being blindsided. Hopefully being somewhat composed, the dumpee can ask the whys and maybe cross off a few wonderings so they don’t continue to swirl in his mind. There’s dignity in allowing a closure call as part of a more complete ending.

 

In truth, I didn’t get much satisfaction from the call. Nothing I said changed his mind. It saddens me that our versions of our relationship are so different, that he diminished what I gave and what we had. Part of me thinks that’s what someone may have to do in order to walk away. Regardless, I had my say. I didn’t leave anything on the table. 

 

Up until the end and extending until nine days after, I know I gave it my all. (I keep playing a Dido song as a little affirmation.) That first glance of him on the screen turned out to be the biggest help. There would be no going back. It’s not the look I wanted to see, but it brings clarity. There is no hope. I must find a way to move on, single once again. It’ll be okay. I will heal. There is much I like about being alone.

 

A little while after the call, I texted him a thank you, acknowledging it couldn’t have been fun for him. [But, hey, bright side. All his teeth are intact. His beautiful smile remains to dazzle Denver.] He replied saying it was “painful” while wishing me the best. 

 

Door closed. I don’t have to keep jigging the handle or checking the lock.

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

After getting dumped in Denver and checking into the hotel, I had to book my flight home, tail between my legs. Sitting in a nondescript hotel room with an ugly sofa and a clunky black desk way out of proportion for the space—Evan would have hated it—I imagined an automated voice saying, You have reached your destination. Please, no. But the voice didn’t relent and say, Recalculating. This was it. Hello, humiliation.

 

Back in the car with Evan, I’d known I had two stress-based options to respond to the breakup: fight or flight. I had enough self-dignity to sense that the first option was useless. Why up the humiliation? So flight then. Quite literally. I scrolled one-way options, all pricey given the short notice, some offering a quick turnaround. Yes, I thought. Just get me home. ASAP. Let me crawl into my own bed and fall apart. In a span of thirty-six hours, all of it centered on travel, this final episode would be over. Exhausting, to be sure, but I’d be exhausted under any scenario given the circumstances. 

 

But then I chose to delay my retreat by a day. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I held out hope that Evan would come to his senses and text, “Where are you?” I’d respond: “I’m still here.” Geographically, metaphorically, desperately(?). 

 

It’s programmed in me to stick with things. Thick or thin…whatever that means. But what I actually told myself was that, while he’d ended us, Denver was just an innocent bystander. If I stayed and spent an extra day, maybe it wouldn’t be forevermore known to me as The City Where I Got Dumped. It felt kinder to myself if I stuck around and let the unfamiliar surroundings distract me. My bed at home would bring on full wallowing. Maybe a slow release—or, at least, a delayed release—of pain would be healthier. 

 

As I walked the streets of Denver, one of Evan’s misplaced criticisms kept popping in my head. “You’re only here for fun. You’re not here to help.” It was a gross diminishment of me and of us. Still I could hear him saying, “See? I told you so.” Crazy. He’d turfed me. He’d shut down any opportunity to prove myself. (Just the thought of having to prove myself two years into a relationship feels sad.) I did what I often do in my own city and in other places. I snapped photos. Specifically, I went on a mural hunt. It wasn’t so fun. Instead, it was forced distraction. More murals, Denver. Please.

 

The city came through. Thank you!

 

My return trip mirrored the one from forty-eight hours prior with the layover in Seattle being a little longer. Blessedly less stress about making the connection. First, I had to manage Denver’s airport which has always felt especially chaotic. I didn’t even try. I flagged down personnel for guidance and they were incredibly nice. Could they sense the old guy needed to be treated with kid gloves? Did they see the L on my forehead? 

 

When I boarded the plane, I glanced at the screen attached to the back of the seat in front of me. I rarely pay attention to in-flight programming. The little headphones don’t suit me. Even at full volume, I can’t hear a lot of the audio. Does it even count if I say I watched West Side Story on the plane when I can’t lipread?  

 

I don’t know if West Side Story was a choice. I didn’t scroll through the movie menu. Instead my eyes stared at the current slide—3 of 25—and I knew in an instant I had a way to sit through this flight without my mind obsessing on what the hell had happened to my relationship. Pass the distraction baton from Denver wall art to Mary Tyler Moore.

 

My Mary! In a true moment of need.

 

I can’t fully explain it, but no TV series has had a bigger impact on who I am than The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Sure, I adored St. Elsewhere, I longed for a house like Hope and Michael had on thirtysomething where friends always popped by—ditto an apartment complex like 28 Barbary Lane in any incarnation of Tales of the City—and I have often wavered on who best represents me on Sex in the City (mostly Miranda, but with moments of Carrie or Charlotte, never Samantha). But I connect with Mary Richards to the core, someone always trying to do the right thing while navigating wackiness all around her. In the pilot episode, Mary Richards is fresh off a breakup and has to make it on her own. (Suddenly, an extra connection.) The theme song’s nods to notions that “love is all around” and “you might just make it after all” always lift my spirits, offering hope and making me believe I’ll one day throw my hat in the air at a busy intersection as a gesture of celebrating success and a joie de vivre while the busy-ness of life surrounds me.

 

I’m not overstating this. I’ve read my hardcover copy of Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s engrossing Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted (Simon & Schuster, 2013) multiple times and it’s chalk full of Post-its marking various passages. During COVID, I conducted several online searches to finally acquire an MTM t-shirt. (There were copyright issues.) Throughout the series, she’s open to dating, but accepts being single, shrugging off bad dates. I often listen to the theme song (“Love Is All Around”) on YouTube for an instant pick-me-up and I still love to watch episodes on the internet. Most telling, however, is the fact that, in 2015, I planned a weeklong trip to Minneapolis, where the show was set, just to see the places Mary Richards was filmed in the opening and closing credits. (I wrote six blog posts about it, beginning here.)

 

I could elaborate but I think I’ve said too much already.

 

With the plane still sitting at the gate, I glanced up from the screen and saw a flight attendant approach, holding up those cheap headsets I didn’t think were still offered. My fastened seatbelt kept me from leaping into the aisle. I waited patiently and was rewarded with my swag item…way better then those miniature cookies or pretzels. 

 

Just as captivating as Laura Petrie
on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Immediately, I plugged in the earphones and began watching Being Mary Tyler Moore. There were interruptions, of course. The standard blah-blah-blah about my seat cushion as a floatation device—between Denver and Seattle?—and federal regulations prohibiting vaping and smoking. (A reminder that not everything was better about flying in the old days.) 

 

Back to Mary (and a fairly decent audio!).

 

Most of Mary Tyler Moore’s story was familiar to me. It made some of her personal statements in interviews stand out even more. Prior to being cast in Ordinary People (1980), her roles had been sunny and optimistic. Prior to my breakdown at forty-nine, I had clung to a similar façade in life. She described herself has having long been protective, reserved and afraid to show imperfection and one segment described her as a “self-styled workhouse.” I’d always related to the character, Mary Richards, but there was more to connect with regarding Mary Tyler Moore. I needed this. I needed to connect to someone, even a dead celebrity (and icon!).

 

The documentary lasted almost the entire flight. Sugar for my brain on any other occasion but true medicine on this day. Yes, sometimes a sugar pill is exactly what a wounded soul needs. Relief for two solid hours. 

 

   

 

DUMPED IN DENVER

It's the 15th, Denver.
Can I help you yank this down?

There’s never a good time to be dumped but, I’d have to say, some times are worse.

 

Christmas. (Eve or Day.)

 

New Year’s. (Same as above.)

 

Valentine’s Day.

 

Guess which one I just experienced.

 

He didn’t!

 

Oh, yes. He did. 

 

I’m on record as saying I don’t like Valentine’s Day. Gotta say, I like it even less now. 

 

The day before had been rocky. One of the tough parts of long-distance relationships is that communication while apart is always somehow lacking. Texts can be misread, the tone unclear. Calls are better but there are distractions. FaceTime is my preference, but it’s always clear you’re still apart. 

 

Something had been off in the morning phone call, a laugh meant to convey lightness and support misinterpreted as uncaring and a suggestion dismissed with irritation. He was stressed, I told myself. He had reason to be. 

 

When I FaceTimed in the evening, he didn’t answer. He quickly message instead: 

Can’t talk now, sorry

 

A little later, a flurry of texts, an unexpected attack. He needed to focus on himself. And, incidentally, I was deficient…in many ways. 

 

It felt so wrong. An assault on my character. Little things were suddenly everything. I know I’d disappointed him a few weeks ago and, what I’d thought had been resolved was now the equivalent to that pesky spinning rainbow on a computer screen. It would not go away.

 

A FaceTime followed. More character assassination. He depicted my view of our relationship as narrow, self-serving and a total letdown. Where was this coming from? It was exacerbating. Slanted. Absurd! I hung up. 

 

A few more texts came, more of the same. I let them go. What was the point of arguing—even defending—when the point of view had gone so dark?

 

Feeling shaken and wounded, I immediately faced more confusion. I was supposed to fly to Denver the next day for a two-week stay, my first visit at his new place, a chance to help him settle in and for us to feel out our new U.S. base. Was I still welcome? 

 

I didn’t pack. I managed a couple of hours sleep but mostly the night passed slowly as a pillow fight, solitaire edition. When the alarm sounded, I felt both relief and dread. No more agonizing tossing and turning but now I had to face the day. Where were we? Were we even “we”?

 

I texted:

You’re my partner. I would like to come today—to

see you, to be with you.

 

Is that okay?

 

And immediate response:

Yes. Happy Valentine’s.

 

Okay then. What had been the significance of yesterday? Anything? Nothing? 

 

There had been times when our evening chats had involved misunderstandings but, in each instance when Evan had been harsh or moody, he’d texted an apology immediately the next morning. His ability to say sorry, quickly and genuinely, had always been one of the things I most admired about him. 

 

No sorry this time. I packed. Was “Happy Valentine’s” supposed to make everything better? I spent the day traveling, still confused and wounded. I knew we’d have a difficult conversation. I knew we’d get through it. 

 

I took the train from the airport to Union Station where he picked me up. It was a fifteen-minute drive to his place. We broke up before we arrived. 

 

What was going on? Why did he keep casting me in a negative, dismissive light? I could have rebutted everything and defended my character. I made a few points, but, as startling as it was, I knew nothing I said mattered. 

 

He’d made his case and said it. He’d dumped me. He’d freed himself from the apparent awfulness of me. 

 

He mumbled a couple of times, “This is a great Valentine’s Day.” I will begrudge him this. As the dumper, he needed to keep his mouth shut about that. His choice. I was the dumpee. That was my line. True, not a great VD for him either, but I’m the one who didn’t want this. I’m the one who spent the day traveling for a greeting that plays back as “Hello, I’m dumping you” on the highlight reel.

 

As the drive continued he gave me a tour guide’s narration of things along the route. It felt so tone deaf. Random buildings didn’t matter when I didn’t matter. I stared at the glove compartment, trying to will my mind to go numb, waiting for him to change course, to glance at me, to see me for me again, to see the man he fell in love with, the guy he spent the past two weeks repeatedly saying how much he missed. Nope. The tour dragged on, even as we walked the block to his place after parking.

 

I went through the motions looking at his place. I tried to offer a positive comment or two. My heart wasn’t in it. His heart wasn’t mine anymore.

 

Two weeks here? He floated the friends concept. We’d be better as that. 

 

I sat and focused on my phone screen. How much to fly out the next day? How much for a hotel? The costs were high, but I saw no other options. I did not want to be where I was not wanted. I could not flip a switch and become friends with someone who’d just portrayed me as too much, not enough and wholly unappealing.

 

I should have Ubered it to the hotel. Instead, I asked for a lift. I suppose he owed me that. We drove mostly in silence. We got lost. I was relieved to have the GPS voice fill the space between us. 

 

Still stunned, I kept thinking he’d recant. He’d remember how we gel instead of perseverating on how we’re different. He’d come to his senses. 

 

He didn’t. 

 

Hello, nondescript hotel room. It was eight o’clock at night, eleven hours after I’d left my home, a single scone to sustain me for the day. I needed food but I knew you don’t ask for a table for one on Valentine’s Day. Couples don’t want a sad single dude, freshly dumped no less, in their periphery as they thank god they no longer have to eat Lean Cuisine on February 14^th. 

 

As with many downtowns, Denver doesn’t have a big offering of grocery stores. I walked half an hour to Whole Foods, passing many restaurants loaded with couples. Not fun. The streets were quiet as I slogged back to the hotel with my banana and guac, passing the occasional love birds spilling out of a diner, clutching bouquets and boxes of flowers. Still not fun.

 

Before turning in, I checked my phone yet again. No calls, no messages, no regrets. 

 

In the middle of the night, it became crystal clear, his resolve would not relent. Our relationship ended three weeks short of two years. Rest in peace, or something like that. He has a clean break in a new home, free of any memories of me or of us. I get to return to a home where the presence of Evan is everywhere, reminders I can’t pack away in a closet. (Maybe I’ll buy a tarp and turn the balcony to an indefinite storage space.) 

 

He’d frontloaded all his thinking about ending us. He’d had time to think about us shifting to friendship. Maybe even plenty of time. Had it only been a few weeks? Had he flirted with thoughts of freedom at Christmas? Did doubts set in last summer? He’d often gotten caught up in our differences and, to be sure, some of them are pronounced. I’d repeatedly said, You be you. I meant it. I don’t think he ever got his head around that when it came to me. 

 

He’d held off and didn’t say it until he was ready. Why then would he recant? He’d said it. He’d freed himself. Hello, relief! 

 

A little reminder, courtesy the
City of Denver.

I checked my phone first thing in the morning. I still hoped he’d express regret. A big mistake that’s all. Stress and sickness had made him turn against me, the easiest target for doubts, frustration and distraction from other big changes in his life. Alas, the only thing on my screen was a notification from Duolingo, suggesting it was time to practice Swedish. 

 

Plenty of time, as it turns out.

 

 

  

YOU AGAIN

It had to happen at some point. Ran into a hot guy I’d pined for all summer five years ago. It was different from my typical pining. This was a guy who actually pined back. For a while, at least.

For the month of June, I was giddy and smitten. Looks-wise, Tim was ridiculously out of my league. I’d first noticed him twenty years prior, when were technically in a common league—gay volleyball. But I was Friday nights (the “social” play evening, an unnecessary code word for hapless Novices); he was Sunday afternoons...Intermediate or Competitive. We didn’t even share the same facility. Still, he’d pop in from time to time to help run Fridays, whatever that involved. All I knew was he’d sit behind a folded out table on the stage in the high school gym and beam a smile that could sell a thousand tubes of toothpaste. Per second. (Turns out that, yes, he’d been a model. I never dared ask about commercials. Why highlight our differences?)

Back when we dated, I was still living a ferry ride away from Vancouver. It took some effort to see each other and, without a clear invitation to spend the night, I was always rushing back to the terminal to catch the last sailing home. The kisses were passionate, literally making me weak in the knees. I figured things would advance in due time. He was just being a gentleman.

Our courtship was interrupted because I’d committed to five weeks of dog-sitting/house-sitting for friends in Los Angeles. We kept in touch through texts and Facetime, though not as frequently as I’d have liked. Still, he’d sprinkle “handsome” and “sexy” into our exchanges, reassuring me that Too Good to Be True was actually true.

When I returned mid-August, I sensed a struggle in getting back to where we left off. Warm hugs, pecks on the lips. I knew that we just needed one passionate kiss—or, fingers crossed, something more—to get us back on track. Didn’t happen during our first get-together, but then that occasion had been especially rushed. Then came strike two. And then The Phone Call. Too good to be true, indeed.

He was hard to shake. It was good that we lived in different communities but I’d periodically be blindsided with “What the hell happened?!” entering my mind. It didn’t help that there were no new prospects for moving on. Having him still as a Facebook friend was triggering as well, but I didn’t want to unfriend him and come off as petty or hateful or what I really was: wounded. Thankfully his posts were rare. Golf scores mostly. Golf?! I really didn’t know him, did I? After a full year passed, I realized neither of us had reacted to a single Facebook post with a “like” or a comment. We weren’t “friends” in even the most tenuous sense. It was the right time to quietly do the unfriending. No more selfies of me in Whistler for him to scroll swiftly past.

By then I’d moved back to Vancouver. I figured we’d run into each other occasionally. We’d exchange pleasant smiles and I’d successfully bat away a sudden impulse to buy Crest Whitestrips. We’d catch up. Mostly a few nods and “good, good” replies before a perfectly civil “Nice to see you” in parting. Nothing, really. But still, a solid confirmation that I’d weathered the Summer of Love Infatuation and moved on.

There was a time when I was jogging the seawall, adjusting the retro disco playlist on my phone when I spotted him walking his dog. He didn’t seem to notice and I had the good sense to keep running. Sweat stains and a blotchy red face do not constitute a good look for me. Another opportunity would come soon enough.

Except it didn’t. Years passed. At times I’d pass his old haunts—his gym, his condo building, the restaurant where he literally swooped me off my feet after lunch—not as a stalker, but just as someone going from point A to point B. To take detours to avoid him would have felt weirder. I will admit to disappointment that a chance run-in never happened. My life is not a movie.

But today we finally shared the same space. I had to make a quick errand, stopping by my doctor’s office to pick up a medical form. The clientele is primarily gay so it can sometimes feel cruise-y. Hey, call me when your Staph infection clears up. But I was a man on a mission, eager to move on to a nearby cafe to begin my morning writing session. When I entered the waiting room, I headed straight for the receptionist’s desk, not even thinking to do a quick scan.

I was hyped up from the brisk twenty-minute walk. The pace often wakes up my brain as well as my legs. Writing ideas popped into my head, a few key phrases and an exact starting point for my writing. I knew it would be a productive day. Hence my heightened state. I blurted a friendly “Good morning!” a little too loudly to the receptionist. Same with when I gave my name. My first words of the day. Needed to turn down the volume button. Everyone in the waiting room would have heard me.

As the receptionist searched a filing cabinet for my form, I reached for a tissue and remembered my environment. This would be the gayest spot of my week. I did a casual pivot to survey the waiting room as I blew my nose. (An alluring look, no?) And, yes, there he was, leaning forward in a seat against the wall, head down, eyes on his phone.

It was probably a good thing that the receptionist so quickly found my form. If he had already seen me, he was making every effort to block me from sight. Hell, maybe there’s an app for that on his phone: Scram, right beside Shazam. I stepped away from the desk and rested my backpack on the arm of a chair to unzip it and toss in the form. I suppose I could have done that in the hallway while waiting for the elevator, but a part of me was wondering if I should extend this moment, walk all of six steps deeper into the waiting room, say, “Tim?!” and then finally have our how’ve-you-been, nod, nod (keep smiling) moment. Get it all out of my system.

As I zipped my backpack up again and flung it over my shoulder, his gaze was still fixed on the phone. If there was going to be an exchange, it would be all my doing. Door? Chair? I chose the door. I pressed the elevator button and, with my other hand in my jacket pocket, I used my index finger to draw a simple checkmark gesture. “Done that.” Paths crossed and as much of a meeting as I (and probably Tim) wanted. The elevator stopped at two floors on the way down. Plenty of time for me to berate myself for not having a conversation, for not seeing if this was our “When Harry Met Sally” moment, the one where we sit side by side on a bench, I look into a camera and say, “We met five years ago but he dumped me.”

He’d interject with, “It just wasn’t the right time.”

“Yes,” I’d say. “I suppose not. But then, there we were once again, in the waiting room of a doctor’s office five years later.”

He’d smile. “There was something about the way he blew his nose...”

Cut! Delete scene.

Not to be. I’d paused in the waiting room, expecting to stir up something. Maybe a little of that giddiness I’d felt back when we were together, perhaps a simple “Ooh!” as I took in his good looks again or, on the other hand, a sense of satisfaction. I’ve been feeling relatively confident these days. Just yesterday, a woman stopped me in the street to compliment me on my hair. (A new look, yes. My hairstylist managed to recreate what I’d described as a Swedish cut based on my time in Stockholm.) Had Tim and I exchanged pleasantries, it might have stirred up some regret in him. Let me be the one that got away.

But outside on the sidewalk, I walked even a little faster, still eager to start writing, but now feeling extra invigorated. That meeting with Tim had finally happened/not happened. A song from “A Chorus Line” popped into my head—yes, I know...so very gay—a line: “I felt nothing.” True enough. Complete closure. Sometimes feeling nothing is actually a pretty awesome feeling.