Good morning. It is Saturday morning and I haven't written a blog entry since yesterday late morning. A lot has happened. The last I wrote about was that Jess had sent me an email. In that email he said that he felt "weird" having Oliver stay at his place.
He wrote "but I am finally understanding what you mean when you were telling me that it is weird for him to be staying at my place. I have no interest in him physically -- that chapter is over, as I told you before -- but I know what you mean about it being a little weird".
I actually was a bit happy when I read this email. I thought to myself that Jess finally was seeing clearly and perhaps this is a good thing. But after a few minutes, I thought further. Just because Jess is seeing clearly on the issue of Oliver coming to visit him doesn't mean that other things will change. If you remember, things with Jess were complicated and there were lots of issues and discontent and words like suffocation and claustrophobic were tossed at me in the weeks prior to me even knowing that Oliver was coming for a visit. Regardless of Jess's enlightened email, I still needed to tread carefully because there are many other things going on. aside from the Oliver weekend! Read much more after the jump below.
So, I decided to write back and respond to Jess's email. I mean, he was expecting that, right? And not to respond would be rude and game playing and I've said many times, I might be upset, sad and frustrated, but I still love Jess very much and the last thing I want to do is be dishonest by playing games and being dishonest. That could come back to bite me in the ass. I decided that I was going to continue my stoic and uncomplicated indifferent attitude. My email to Jess was the following:
Hi Jess,
Another really nice afternoon. I'm feeling better then I was yesterday so hopefully when I get my work done, I may even get to enjoy some of this pretty day. I got your email and I appreciated hearing from you. I'm hoping that you will complete your review today and at the least gain some piece of mind that it finally is behind you! Well, it's finally Friday and I am happy about that. This past week was hectic for me but nonetheless it still dragged on seemed to last forever.
Hope your day goes well. Speak with you soon. Steve
And that was it! I didn't really want to or feel comfortable with or even know how to address his last email where he discussed his feelings about Oliver coming to visit. I left it like that.
I thought I did the right thing. I actually made plans to hang out with Mary (my friend now but originally Jess's friend who I met from Jess). She knows whats going on too, and is a bit surprised that Jess has totally avoided telling her that Oliver was coming to town. She doesn't agree with it and can't understand why he is doing it. She too thinks it's weird but more important, is annoyed that he hasn't told her.
Mary and I went for coffee and then walked around the city, talking mostly about Jess and Oliver and me and then more Jess and more Oliver and more me. We were both fixated on the subject. Mary and I went for a walk on the High Line, a 1.45-mile (2.33 km) New York City park built on a section of the former elevated freight railroad of the West Side Line, along the lower west side of Manhattan. It was a beautiful evening and a great place to walk and talk. At around 8:30pm we went to a local art exhibition. While there, my phone rang. I looked at Mary and she looked at me. It was Jess! I didn't answer it. He left voice-mail. I listened. Jess was saying that he was just leaving work now and he was heading home. He said that he felt that I might be hanging out and possibly I could use some company and he could use some dinner - perhaps we could meet if I was free. He asked me to call him back if I got this message and if I was available. He also mentioned in the voice-mail that Oliver wasn't home at his apartment. He chuckled and told me that Oliver was going out tonight for a while to meet up with a "hookup" that he met online. He made it clear that Oliver and him were not hanging out, at least not at this point of the night. In my opinion, what the fuck is he talking about.
When I got his email, I felt bad. I felt a sort of sadness intensify in me. I asked Mary what do you think I should do. I mean she was with me and we weren't doing much. Normally I would have answered the phone when Jess called and I didn't want to play a game by avoiding him or ignoring him totally. I thought, what harm could it do to meet him with Mary for dinner and then send him on his way. I wasn't going to discuss Oliver or anything with him. Mary was curious as to see if he would tell her (even privately) at some point during dinner, perhaps when I was in the bathroom, that Oliver was in town staying with him.
So, I called him back. We spoke for five minutes. As always, it was friendly and not very deep. The call ended with me telling Jess that if he still wanted to meet for dinner, Mary and I (oh, Mary is with you, he said) will walk east on 28th Street and you head west. We will connect at the corner of 5th.
We met Jess as planned on the corner at 5th Ave. He gave me a big smile and a warm, tight embrace. It felt good to see him. He told me that I said the same back. We walked into two or three crowded places. It was a Friday night in Manhattan and restaurants were packed with hour waits for table. We finally settled into a cozy dinner that never has a wait, where the food is good and where Jess and I have gone many times before.
We were starved. Dinner was good. The conversation went well. Nothing was awkward and we all had a good time, lots of laughs and an all around nice evening. No one mentioned a word about Oliver. Jess and I acted as if we were two friends who had absolutely nothing wrong between us. It was not a time for us to discuss emotions, events or anything personal and we didn't.
I ducked into the men's room for a few minutes. Perhaps Jess will clue Mary in on what is going on or at least discuss with her that Oliver is staying with him. I think Mary would really like to hear Jess come clean and tell her. When I got back from the restroom (I was curious as to what they had discussed while I was gone. Perhaps I will find out from Mary when she and I were alone), we all decided to walk to get some frozen yogurt. I told Mary that I would walk her home after that, and assumed that Jess would head south on his own towards his apartment. I'm sure that Oliver was home, and waiting for him. But, remember, no one mentioned Oliver all night. It was as if he didn't exist and that everything was perfect. In actuality, everything was far from perfect!
After yogurt, Jess continued walking north with us toward Mary's apartment to drop her off. I thought why is he coming with us? All he had to do was head south and he could have been home in ten minutes. In my head, I thought, maybe he wanted to be alone with me to talk as he and I walked back alone together. I would be walking south then west and he would be walking south. I was curious as to what Jess might tell me when it was just him and I alone. Would he discuss with me what he has been writing me in his emails? That he misses me and that he was sorry about certain things, including the Oliver coming to stay with him saga? I would think that he almost had to discuss that with me, right? I mean, he had just written me that morning telling me that he acknowledges that it was "weird" that Oliver came to stay with him and that his only excuse is that, he himself is weird, so I expected that he would want to tell me that in person.
We dropped off Mary at her door. Jess and I headed south together. We talked about work and about how beautiful the night was but we didn't discuss one word about his emails and texts and the messages he sent acknowledging that Oliver coming to visit was a bad idea. Instead, Jess kept telling me things like, "its nice having a house-guest stay with me because whenever I have a house-guest, I get to bed usually earlier and get a good night sleep". Is is me or is that fucked up? Was he trying to justify that Oliver is now been reduced to just a house-guest and that he is trying to tell me that he is getting plenty of rest because he goes off to his room to be alone when he has a house-guest? I am not fucking buying it! This type of talk lasted about 5 minutes. I didn't say a word. Jess told me that his house-guest is probably still out on his hookup. Jess said that he was exhausted and that he was again looking forward to going home and getting a good night sleep. I had to say something but I made sure that I didn't break my personal code for saying too much. All I said was, Jess, perhaps your house-guest is home in your apartment waiting for you. Maybe his "hookup" is done or perhaps it didn't work out. Jess's reply back to me was, "yeah, maybe he is home". That's all we said. We were still walking south and Jess still had seven more city blocks to go until he got to his apartment. Normally I would have walked the seven blocks with him to his door and then headed west to the subway. I had to do what was best for me. I looked at Jess and said, okay, I'm heading west here. I'm going to catch the subway up here instead of walking down with you. It's more convenient.for me. Jess said okay. We stopped walking, we hugged, said goodbye and told one another that it was good to see each other. Nothing more was said. I then walked west and Jess walked south. I made sure that I didn't turn around and look back at him. Why couldn't he have discussed with me what he had written and talk to me the last two days in emails and texts? This is Jess, this is what I have had to deal with for nine months. Although it was still great to see him that night, I still walked away sad, frustrated and wondering if meeting him was actually a good thing to have done.
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