Candy Canes and Carpet Bombs

Needing is one thing…

This is a type of post I don’t usually do.

I’m sitting here, early in the morning, when I probably should be sleeping, because I’ve spent the better half of the day thinking about the things I want, but can never have.

For those of you reading this whom I haven’t told, I should probably give some context. You see, there was this guy last year. I confess, we first started talking on Grindr. I was just out of the closet, bright-eyed and overeager to finally start meeting guys. Of course he was closeted and secretive, but he still seemed really cool. So I figured what the hell and met him for lunch. And of course, he was gorgeous. Completely my type. But more than that, he typified the kind of man I dreamed about dating. He was athletic and good-looking, yes, but he was quiet and normal and masculine in a strong-but-reserved kind of way. He wasn’t effeminate but didn’t seem concerned whether or not people thought he was. Closeted, but still comfortable with who he was; he’d known since the 6th grade, he said. Of course, I don’t actually know him this personally. We only ever met once, followed by some very one-sided texting. But what’s important is this is how I built him up in my head. An Adonis, the perfect crafted specimen, and of course we were going to hit it off and so on and so forth.

But I was not athletic nor good-looking (I was rocking some questionable glasses and far-too-long-hair), nor was I quiet, normal, or strong-but-reserved (I still don’t know where I fall on the masculinity scale so I’ll leave that up to you). To the contrary, I was talkative and nerdy and even skinnier and weaker than I am now. And with my bright-eyed, bordering on desperate, idolizing self I clung to him. On that first date I’m fairly sure I did almost everything I possibly could wrong: talked too much, got too personal, let slip my habit of playing Sherlock with people’s Facebook profiles. Scary doesn’t even begin to cover it. But believe it or not, he still talked (or rather texted) with me for the rest of the year, although I can’t say at what point he stopped wanting to. But by the summer his texts had faded to one-word responses when I struck up a conversation every two weeks or so. And I knew I was being “let down easy” even as it was happening, until one day my texts stopped getting a response. And for that summer, it honestly didn’t bother me much. I stayed busy and it stayed out of mind.

But when I returned to campus in the fall, I remembered him. I knew he probably wanted nothing to do with me still, but once again I thought “what the hell” and sent him a text, the final nail in my slightly obsessive coffin. Or so I thought. He never texted back. But shortly after, I started seeing him around. A lot. First at a football game. Then at Lafun, Then in the dining hall. And in the stadium again; I managed to pick out his seat. And then in the dining hall, at breakfast this time. And breakfast again. I by second semester I was seeing him almost twice a week. And so the perfect man, the guy I had erected as the be-all end-all in my mind, came to haunt me around campus. He itched in my brain, a craving I couldn’t satisfy. Why didn’t he see me? He had to have seen me, right? Could he forget my face that easily? Sure I wasn’t wearing glasses anymore, and my hair was a lot shorter, but my face was the same. Why was he pretending I didn’t exist?

If he would just acknowledge me, I told myself, that’d be enough. I would’ve been fine with just being friends. We had a lot in common, so we would’ve been good friends. This wasn’t true of course — he was too perfect for something platonic. I knew if I scratched it, the itch would just get worse. But I wanted to scratch it anyways. I was playing the part of the clinger, all the while dealing with a handful of them myself. But I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

And I still see him, even just today, out on the quad reading. And I know I shouldn’t care. I know I should move on and forget about him and find someone who doesn’t think I’m a creep. But I’ve never been happy to let something slip away, even if that something is probably just an asshat who wishes I’d never bothered him in the first place. So I’m stuck here, wondering how to remove the tumor and stitch myself up when time has failed to heal the wounds. 

I want to send him a final text. One that reads “Hey, I know I was kind of over-eager and couldn’t really take a hint last year, and I’m sorry.” Because I am. But I know that it would just come off as worse, because the truth is that if I had really moved on, I wouldn’t want to send him anything at all. Instead I’m left picturing him forgiving me and praying that final text turns my whole disaster around. So I’m not going to send it. Rather, I’m going to write this silly blog post, in the desperate hope that it somehow gives me a sense of finality and allows me to stop chasing the unattainable perfection this one man seems to represent for me.

I guess I’ll close with a link to one of my favorite songs, Needing/Getting, by Ok Go. It’s the song I listen to when there’s something I want so bad it hurts, but I know I can’t have, and it’s done more than a little to get me through my numerous straight boy crushes. And tonight, it’s gonna help me just a little bit more.