All The Things That Men Have Called Me: Part 9/10

A Woman Now: You Were a Child When We Met

We’ll call him The Banker, always meticulous, always careful, never what I needed. I was 21 years old, I thought I was smarter than everyone around me, but I knew nothing. My issue has always been that I feel everything, all at once, or nothing at all. But I didn’t realize that yet.  I was sure that I’d learned my lesson about older men a few years before with The Comedian, but this is the one that would change me. 

September 12, 2015

I walked into the Edition Hotel on Madison Square Park. I had just gotten back to the city after a mania/ex boyfriend induced 6 month hiatus (read:spiral). I needed to sit down somewhere with wifi. I was hoping for a lobby but I settled for the cocktail lounge. It was nearly empty, save for two older men at opposite corners of the bar. I sat at a table and laughed to myself about the uniformity of their presentations, the matching suits and haircuts and mid-day bourbons. I suddenly hoped that they didn’t look too closely at me, my scuffed platform Nasty Gal boots and studded leather bag suddenly made me feel out of place, like I was a child masquerading as what I thought a woman was. 

I looked up and realized one of the men was looking at me, he was handsome but definitely older. I smiled politely and looked back down at my laptop, trying to decide if I wanted to re-enroll in classes or make my drop-out status permanent. I could feel his eyes on me, suddenly my cheeks were burning and the words on the screen all blurred together. I had butterflies, sensing he was about to say something. I glanced up and noticed that the second man had left, I couldn’t remember a single detail about his face. The first man was smiling at me, and stood to walk the 10 steps that separated us. He was tall, with salt and pepper hair and warm features. He sat across from me without asking, but I didn’t mind. I liked the way he smelled, warm and clean, it definitely wasn’t cologne, just soap, detergent, and him. He leaned in slightly and just asked what I was drinking, I responded with more confidence than I felt; vodka martini, dry, olives.  

He went back to the bar and returned a few minutes later with my drink. After placing it in front of me he pulled a small bottle of purell from his pocket to sterilize his hands, a quirk I came to notice about every man I’d care about after him. I closed my laptop and slid it back into my bag, suddenly the reason I’d gone there no longer mattered. Everything about him was attentive, inviting. His stature was far from intimidating and despite his age, and there was something impish to his demeanor. It felt safe, so we sat and talked for a while. He told me he was 38 and I believed him (he was 49). He said he had to get back to the office but asked for my phone number, I had a fake one ready for moments like this, but I didn’t use it. Something in me wanted to see the older man again. This was one of those decisions that you think about on late nights for years to come. So much of who I am now was forged from the fires he set in me, but every time he would leave me to burn he poked at the embers just as they began to die out.

October 6, 2015

I couldn’t stop tugging at the hem of my burgundy bodycon dress. I could feel judgmental eyes on me, my black platform boots and deep berry lips were far too juvenile to blend into the crowd here, the SoHo Grand before it was invaded by DJs and club kids. I glanced up and saw a woman about my mothers age, I couldn’t place her. The Banker followed my gaze and whispered her name in my ear, an actress who’d been prominent in the 90s, I wondered if she was younger than him. I looked around more, most of the women seemed older than me, taller than me, thin in a way that I’d never achieve no matter how many meals I forcibly expelled from my body by sliding my fingers down my throat. I couldn’t compete with them.

We were sitting on a velvet couch, my heart still racing from the anxiety of being half an hour late, as if I wasn’t late to every date I ever had or would be on. It wasn’t like he’d minded. He just seemed to be glad I was there. The moment I arrived he ordered my drink, exactly as I’d described the day we met. I could tell he was trying to impress me, he’d been persistent in getting me to go out with him for weeks. After The Comedian, I knew an older man was a bad idea. 

I gave in, knowing that I’d regret it if I didn’t. 

I’d decided not to go back to school, and I was working for a designer vintage store, going out every night with The Model (the friend, not the lover), The Producer, and all of our other too young, too glamorous friends. My life was fun, and I thought that he would be more of that. 

He asked me about music, film, literature. He told me that I was “impressive”, I’d find that condescending now but it worked at the time. My cheeks were sore from smiling and I lost track of how many drinks we’d had because he would nod at the waitress whenever our glasses got low and she would bring more cocktails before the last round was empty. Suddenly he was stroking my cheek, his hand moved down my body, the back of his fingers brushing lightly against me. At that moment, I should have gotten up and gone home to my Brooklyn apartment, where my roommate was waiting for me. Instead I stayed, still and silent as he leaned forward and whispered into my ear that he wanted to kiss me. I wanted him to, and I didn’t want to seem like a child. I was invested in making him believe that I was mature, sure of myself, although we all know now that wasn’t what he was after. Instead of simply granting him permission, I leaned back, putting a few more inches of space between us and whispered, “is that all?”. 

He looked surprised, and for a moment seemed frozen. His eyes were wide and he paused before telling me to follow him into the washroom after counting to 30. As I sat, trying to steady my breath as I spaced out the numbers in my head I was suddenly terrified. I considered leaving while he was in there. I didn’t have much experience, I’d never even actually slept with The Comedian, but I decided to stay. The second I stood I realized I was far more intoxicated than I’d realized. I tried to steady my steps as I made my way through the dimly lit hallway that would lead me to where he was hidden. As soon as I entered he locked the door behind me. He grabbed my face very gently and began kissing me. I was dizzy but it felt good. If this is all that would happen I could handle it. 

But it was only moments before he pressed my body against the edge of the vanity so that I was almost sitting on it. He maneuvered his knee to spread my legs apart and suddenly his fingers were moving my panties aside, my head was spinning but none of it felt bad. He slid a finger inside me and kissed me more deeply to cover up the gasps and moans I couldn’t prevent in my uninhibited state. He knew exactly what to do with every movement.

It was the first time a man had made me orgasm. 

I walked back through the hallway, past the hostess stand where I was sure that the sins I’d just committed were fully known, and down the staircase to wait outside right where he’d told me to. I was slightly sobered by what had just happened, and shocked that I had liked it. He hailed a cab and I assumed I’d be getting in alone, but he walked around and got in beside me as I told the driver my address. We rode in silence and he held me against him, it was my favorite part of the evening. We pulled up to my building and he asked if I wanted him to come in with me, but I lied and said I had things to do. Truthfully, I was afraid that my roommate would see him and tell me what I already knew, this man was not 38 years old. He left the meter running and walked me to the door.

He whispered into my ear that he needed to see me again before kissing my forehead and walking back to the car.

Unfortunately, this is one of those times I felt everything.

October 15, 2015

He hadn’t texted me in almost a week, it was humiliating to admit even to myself. In the days immediately following that first date, his attention was constant. I’d been sure I hadn’t made a mistake with him, he was trying to make plans with me at every opportunity. Then, silence. 

During the days he didn’t text, I hated myself. I blamed my body for every bad feeling I had, and punished it by withholding food. I lost 6 pounds that week. 

I was too embarrassed to share the cause of my mood with anyone around me, I thought I was being ghosted by a man I now knew, from nothing more than a Google search, to be almost 30 years my senior. The only reason I began to share anything about him was the familiarity of the feeling of isolation. It was far too close to how I’d felt a few years before, with The Comedian, but this one didn’t tell me to lie to my friends, he didn’t tell me anything at all. 

I sat at work pretending to sort through vintage Versace, the lightly crushing feeling of rejection taking hold, grasping at me physically. It tore through my spine and settled in the center of my chest, a black hole creating a pressure that made every breath heavier than I thought I could handle. Then, it was suddenly gone the second I saw his name light up my phone. There was a made up story about an ailing aunt that I chose to believe and an overly contrived apology that I chose to accept, and we suddenly had evening plans. 

This pattern didn’t stop for a while, and the crushing feeling never lost its severity. Allowing him that kind of power seems so foreign to me now.

December 12, 2015

We’d been on quite a few dates, usually once or twice a week. I expected his urgency to let up after what happened on our first but it was constant aside from the week he disappeared. He was texting me all day, every day, always trying to make plans. He’d send 4,5,6 messages in a row if I didn’t respond while I was at work. It was comforting in the early stages, it made me sure that he cared about me, that he wanted me completely. 

I’d finally given in and told my friends about the older man, I couldn’t handle a repeat of my 19 year old mistakes. My roommate had gone back to California by this point but The Model and The Producer (who I now lived with) were curious about him. They were a little bit older than me, and always protective, almost parental. I knew his real age by this point, but I hadn’t divulged that information to anyone else. I was convinced that it was real, that he was my person, that our ages didn’t matter. I knew how it looked from the outside, like I was just looking for someone to take care of me, not that it would be the worst thing. For someone to love you enough to want to provide for you, to be so closely bonded to someone that your needs were theirs and theirs yours. But that wasn’t it, it was how he listened to me, his performance as a respectful and caring man was unparalleled. 

I introduced him to my friends, outwardly it seemed that I’d evaded judgment, I wouldn’t learn until years later how much of this particular social circle thought our arrangement was more professional than I’d let on.

January 29, 2016

We went out and then stayed at the Waldorf. He lived in Long Island and would sometimes get rooms for the weekend, this time he had an early Saturday meeting to get to in the city, so we just stayed the night. I believed him when he told me this, it didn’t even cross my mind that he was meeting another woman, especially one who he’d been with for 17 years. I didn’t think to question a Saturday morning business meeting. 

He gave me a beautiful night, taking me to beautiful places as he always did. I was too excited about the details, I couldn’t see the whole picture. I couldn’t see what I was to him. Even without the context of my position, I ended the night locking myself in the bathroom of our suite, screaming at him about housing rights as he apologized for callous words, begging me to come out. Too many martinis, too many feelings, and my mascara ran down my face as I laid in bed with him as he held me, after I finally gave in. 

The next morning I had to go to a brunch for some magazine. The Model (friend, not lover) was receiving an award for a palatable level of activism. I laid in bed for a few hours after he left, charging my phone on the minibar chord I knew he’d be billed for later. I ordered a latte to the room and talked on the phone with the same friends that I talked to every day, never once mentioning where I was or who I’d been with. I was late to brunch, hungover from my martini dinner, and ready to pretend I hadn’t been with him the night before. My friends were becoming progressively more disapproving of this older man, I should have taken it as a warning.

February 4, 2016

I went to a party thrown by a magazine at a venue that I hated. I couldn’t decide how I wanted to proceed with him, so I drank until I forgot. He had told me that he loved me months before, on our third date. I was panicked, he kept talking about “our future”. But I usually only saw him on weeknights, even at my most naive I knew what that meant. By this point I figured there was someone, but I couldn’t find any public record of a current marriage, so I dismissed my suspicions. I tried to be present, to pay attention to the girls I was spending the evening with. Unfortunately, drunk me still had his phone number. Via text I told him I wanted to be together, a message I don’t recall sending. 

I woke up next to him in the morning.

February 14, 2016

He told me he’d made Valentine's day reservations for us, but never called when the day came. I stared into space, refusing to accept the obvious. The crushing feeling came again, just as strong. I was overwhelmed by grief for what I thought we were, knowing that there had to be someone else. 

I didn’t eat more than 500 calories a day for the next few weeks. I liked what it did to me. 

May 1, 2016

Spring had been all romance, he texted me a few days after he missed Valentine’s day as if nothing had happened, and I let it slide. I would give anything to tell this 21 year old version of me the power I could have had over him, but she didn’t know. All she knew was that she was in love.

And that with every mistake he made, she got a beautiful gift.

June 3, 2016

I woke up to texts that I couldn’t comprehend, about not being able to do this anymore. Nothing had happened, nothing had changed, I just kept asking why, and he’d use his stupid cryptic words.

“I didn’t want the last time to be the last time either, I don’t want to make you sad anymore”

Again, the darkness gathering just behind my sternum was pulling me in. He was my first heartbreak, but he was also so many after. The ebb and flow of his constantly shifting desires was becoming normal, calming in a way. I forgot what consistency was, or maybe I’d never learned.

I couldn’t make myself eat. This heartbreak took 2.5” off my waist. I was proud of the progress.

June 4, 2016

I had to quickly let go of the darkness this time, a friend had come to visit from back home. Luckily, I could compartmentalize like no other. I put the crushing feelings into a heavy little box to be picked back up later and slid into normality. 

Or mania. 

Either way, I seemed ok enough to be left alone. 

June 19, 2016

The crushing feeling had come back, again sneaking in through my spine and drowning me. My sternum was being pulled in and completely through me, I couldn’t catch my breath for days. The Model was out of town and The Producer took care of me, forcing me to drink water, and Diet Cokes to mimic some form of routine. I couldn’t peel myself from my bed, I just laid running my fingers along the twisted white metal of the headboard. I didn’t understand how it had happened so suddenly. He wanted me then he didn’t, he made me feel crazy for believing everything he said. His responses were curt and bordering on cruel, he acted as if he didn’t understand why I’d be upset. His declarations of love quickly turned to the dissolution of what he began to refer to as “friendship”. 

Maybe I was crazy. 

You are crazy. 

She is crazy.

But as she laid there, frozen in her pain, she didn’t eat. How long could she do it? How long until the hunger took over the other pain. Would it make him come back?

Another inch, gone. I had to eat in front of The Producer to avoid worry, but all of it was quickly expelled.

June 27, 2016

I woke up with an instinct. Deep down I had known about her since the beginning, but until it got bad I had no motivation to look. I found the facebook he said he didn’t have, extremely private, but it still wasn’t difficult to find her from there. A Cheshire cat smile overwhelmed her aged face in every photo, most of which he stood beside her in. They’d been together for almost as long as I’d been alive. The crushing came in a wave, but quickly dissolved into melting. 

I had thought I was so smart, mature, able to read people. In general I could, but my blindspots were wide and easily activated by promises of great romance. 

I tried not to hate her, after all it was I, of the two of us, who had done the most wrong. Although it was he who had lied to us both. But I couldn’t contain myself. She embodied my least favorite kind of person. Entitled, hateful, bigoted. Her words lacked any self awareness, and she shared them with an eagerness that demanded debate that was shut down at every opportunity. I dove into knowing everything I could, I knew it was too much but to occupy my mind with anything but the agony of losing him was enough to keep me from stopping myself. 

At least now I knew why he’d done it. 

August 6, 2016

He’d been texting me daily for the last month, his silence barely lasted through June before he’d decided I was worth the risk again, but he didn’t know that I knew. I felt powerful for the first time since I’d started seeing him, and all I had to do was nothing. I’d never played games like this before, I was always all in when I wanted someone. It was freeing to be this way. Once a week or so I’d send a one word response to his pleas for forgiveness, just enough to give him the hope that drove him to continue. 

August 28, 2016

I grew tired of the age appropriate prospects I’d been dating since June, so I gave in and began talking to him in earnest. But I’d started a game I never wanted to play, and now our dynamic had shifted. I pushed his true partner to the back of my mind and convinced myself that I could enjoy the fun parts of being with him without getting too serious. I was better equipped to handle my own feelings. I didn’t worry about hers. 

We started spending time together again, but it quickly got serious. He was very clear in his intent, he wanted me to be his. I thought that maybe it was over with Her, the partner who I could never bring myself to call the other woman, so I told him what I knew. He assured me that it was over, that in reality it had been for a while. I allowed myself to believe him.

November 8, 2016

I was at a friend's election party, feeding off the excitement of my centrist libral friends was somehow energizing. Like at most parties where anyone mentioned politics, I got too drunk and wouldn’t stop talking about Abolition to anyone who would listen. I was almost glad he wasn’t there to be condescending about my beliefs. The Banker claimed to be home alone that night, another lie I chose to believe in my hope that his love would eventually expand to be as all consuming as mine. 

As the night went on, and we took shots every time a state turned blue on the screen, we realized how badly things were about to go. We were barely past New York when I started arguing with him via text. He tried to convince me none of it mattered and everything would be the same, I tried to convince him that it all mattered to anyone without his privileges. In the years that followed he would see that I was right, but that night no resolution was reached.

By the time they called it, I was on my knees expelling the demons that I’d poisoned myself with. A beautiful girl, who’s now a famous actress, held my hair back and talked me down from my argument with him. She told me I could fix him tomorrow.

Thanksgiving, 2016

When he asked me to come home with him for the holiday, I forgot all my anger. His rigid indifference to the effects of a Trump presidency, the shift in his attitude towards me since August, the possibility of Her still being in the picture, none of it mattered anymore. The invitation made me sure, it was only me.

I wore a high necked black dress and twisted my hair back, trying to conceal the lavender tint to the bright blonde dye job I was sure his elderly parents would hate. We arrived and I handed his mother the wine I’d brought thinking it made me look more mature then a pie or vegan side dish would, but she only commented that she was surprised her son was with a girl who couldn’t cook. I stuck to his side all afternoon, immediately mortified at my decision. 

At the dinner table I was the youngest by at least a few decades. The next room over held the “kids table”, full of his nieces and nephews and youngest cousins, half of whom were older then I was. This was noted at the dinner table a few times, and The Banker relished in it. He never defended his choice in me, he was too busy enjoying the attention he was getting from his brothers for having a young pretty girlfriend. I couldn’t speak. I was choking back the tears of humiliation everytime a joke was made about him being old enough to be my father, or even worse, when a cousin or brother made a joke about having his turn with me. I somehow still thought he was mine in the same way I was his, even when his reactions were nothing but triumphant. 

When he disappeared with the men into his fathers study after dinner, I tried to blend into the wives, but nobody would look me in the eye. I was a pariah, and I was not to be convinced that I was welcome. These women, all twice my age, didn’t even give me the courtesy of telling me why I was so hated.

Until that morning, they had all thought his plus one would be Her, as she had been for the last 18 years. He’d made a decision that day, and it would change everything.

As we left, one of the wives called out to me. 

“Don’t worry dear, that baby weight will come right off”.

I made him pull in at a gas station a few miles away, I had to expel the demons.

December 20, 2016

I never mentioned what she’d said to me. I brushed it off as the jealousy that inevitably creeps up with age, not knowing that her hatred of me was just an extension of her anger at the pain of the woman she had considered a sister for almost two decades. Despite how well I thought I was handling myself, there wasn’t a day since Thanksgiving that I’d eaten more than 800 calories. It felt so good, like I was flying. All I could think about was how we’d look in photos together once I got where I needed to. A number on a scale that was ever shifting, never enough. 

Thinking was difficult for me, especially about Her, wherever she was. I gave a lot of yes’s where questions should have existed, but my body was too tired for no’s. It had now been over a year since he’d entered my life, it felt serious. I avoided any talk of Christmas, afraid he’d want to meet my family, but that night he did the only thing that would be more terrifying than meeting my mother.

He proposed. 

He kneeled down on one knee on my bedroom floor, holding a small black velvet box that contained a ring. He knew jewelry was important to me, and I was now in the industry full time, but there it sat, the ugliest ring I’d ever seen in my life. The bright gleaming stone mocked me. I could tell he had chosen what would hold its value the best, and that it likely cost more than I’d make in 5 years, but I hated it. 

My immediate instinct took over, I denied him within seconds, and we both remained still for an eternity. It wasn’t the ring, I just wasn’t ready. I felt so young at that moment, and I knew it had to end.

As a consolation prize, I allowed him to indulge in his disgusting Christmas kink that night. I laid contemplating where I was in life as the dejected 50 year old man fucked me with a candycane and then licked it out as I faked the pleasure he once so easily brought me. 

January 7, 2017

We’d barely spoken since the proposal, and I decided it was time to break it off for good. He took me on a lovely date, as he usually did. I always appreciated the planning, the care to detail. Knowing which places I’d love based on my favorite shows and films and books. He did, in his own way, care about me deeply. Unfortunately even at his greatest depths he could not be what I needed. I had decided to enjoy the evening, which I thought would be my last with him. It was playful, romantic in a surface level way. We held hands and walked around SoHo, he took me to dinner and drinks and a jazz show. We talked about the novels I was reading (he didn’t read much anymore) and he was flirtatious in a way I didn’t expect from a man who I’d so recently rejected. 

It was a Saturday night, a rarity for us. I know now it was because in the beginning I was a mistress, and weeknight rendezvous were a condition of hiding my existence. By this point, he’d proposed, he was with me whenever I wanted. Though, we still rarely visited his house. His weekend place in Greenwich, hotel rooms, my apartment, all fair game. His home felt like a red zone, but I was past the need for questioning it, I was out. 

As it got late, he kissed me gently and asked if I wanted him to take me home, or if I’d like to spend the night together elsewhere. It was time. I tried to be straightforward but I used far too many words, enough for him to slide in between them and leave himself an opening. It somehow ended with him telling me he would wait as long as I needed, and me telling him that I might need forever. 

It was our second major ending, and I thought it would be the last.

Mid-January, 2017

The crushing was lighter this time. Or maybe I was just more able to stand it. I wondered if he was being swallowed whole as I was the first time. 

I remembered Her and felt no guilt about how I’d made him feel.

February 3, 2017

I found a man who shared his name and was nearly his age, two dates in he seemed hooked on me. I immediately lost interest. Looking at him caused a chasm in me that could only be filled with the types of transgressions that I performed against myself during every period of emptiness in my younger years.

The pills made me forget the hunger. 

February 14, 2017

After my disappointment with the other of his name, I gave in and called him. We went out a few times and the last I’d seen him was two days before, and he promised to call with plans on the morning of Valentine's day, so I waited. The feeling was familiar. It was the perfect temperature for me to sulk. I sat on my stoop chain smoking Marlboro blacks and drinking cans of Diet Coke until I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. By the time the sun started setting I knew I had to pack it in. I waited for the crushing feeling, knowing instinctively that he was with Her, but it never came. Maybe it was the cold, freezing my extremities to the point of paralysis, but I was numb. 

I assumed he was punishing me, so I decided to punish myself harder. I was so close to my lowest weight.

February 19, 2017

I tried again with another man who just wasn’t him, I was bored. This one was interesting enough, he seemed to have a permanent residence at the Baccarat hotel, and he told beautiful stories over candlelit dinners. If there was anything inside me at that time I may have been able to fall in love with him, eventually. 

Early March, 2017

He had been texting, calling, emailing, sending flowers and letters. I ignored it all, thinking I would stop feeling anything at the thought of him soon, but the apathy I craved never came. I realized around then that I hadn’t had a period in a few months. A test from the drug store, that I bought shamefully under the cover of night, confirmed my fear. 

I was still under my mothers healthcare, and my paranoia about her figuring out what I was planning to do prevented the possibility of an easy solution. I couldn’t tell The Banker, a man insane enough to want us to be married. He’d use it against me, try to use it as tool to keep me captive. So I did what I do best, I went on a self-destructive bender for the ages, no living thing could survive the wave of poisons I sent through my body over the following weeks.

In the middle of the night it came, excruciating pain and a clump of blood the size of a grapefruit between my legs. The Model took me to the ER, as I was too delirious to explain what was happening, but my mission was complete, I was free. 

March 27, 2017

“I’m afraid of you being hurt if we can’t spend time together sometimes. And I’m afraid of how easy it would be to fall in love with you.”

As if he hadn’t been trying to convince me of his love for over a year, as if he didn’t declare it on our third date, as if he didn’t propose to me. Did I make it all up? Was I insane? How was he justifying his words to himself? His texts had turned from begging for forgiveness yet again to trying to convince me that he was ending something that had died months before, and for my own good. I felt insane again, like I’d made him up.

Don’t eat. That will fix it.

Don’t EAT.

Don’t think. 

April 3, 2017

“I think I’m becoming obsessed with you, addicted to you”

As if he weren’t already. I began to wonder if he was confusing me with another girl, or if he was the one losing his mind.

April 20, 2017

“I love you, I can’t not think about your face, all day and all night.”

I hadn’t responded in about a month, but he was being sweet again, like in the beginning. I missed him. I gave in. 

Later that night, after too many drinks at a bar that shared his name, we were in my apartment. The only other present party was The Producer, who I begged not to judge me. We sat on my ikea bed, in my room decorated with handbags I couldn’t afford and fashion magazine clippings. He left the room only for a moment to wash his hands, but it was exactly the wrong one. I looked down to see his phone light up, and there it was, her name.

“Are you coming home tonight?”

Home. 

HOME.

A home that they shared? It wasn’t possible, I’d been there, not often but I’d seen it. There was no sign of a woman in residence, but they’d been together almost 20 years, although he assured me it was over now. I was suddenly enraged at the cliche I’d allowed myself to become. He walked back in and I was already screaming, demanding he leave, unable to pause and explain my demands. He wouldn’t stop trying to hold me, to figure it out. 

I started screaming Her name. He went pale. 

He tried assuring me that it was over, that he didn’t know why she would text him that, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t back down, I couldn’t stop myself. But he wouldn’t give in, he demanded the chance to fight for “us”. But my mother-figure, The Producer, heard my screaming and came to my rescue. 

She somehow looked so intimidating, her 5’2 frame draped in a sequined pink shift dress. She demanded he leave, cast iron skillet in hand. She escorted him downstairs, watched as he left, brought me a Diet Coke and told me to sleep it off. Her judgment never came.

May 2, 2017

He somehow convinced me that the text from Her was nothing, that she was trying to get back together but he never responded. I didn’t believe him, but I missed him. We met for drinks at The Palace. He knew about my Gossip Girl fantasies and used it, as most men did, to plan easy dates with me. He ordered my martini, the one thing he never messed up, and fell into a rehearsed speech about waiting until I was ready for marriage. Quite the jump from the deranged texts from the previous months. The attention was feeding me, but it was short lived.

He went pale as a woman who looked to be about her age approached us. I knew from the photos it wasn’t Her, but there were similarities in their features.

It was her sister. 

Immediately he pulled away from me, refusing to look me in the eye. I could tell he’d been caught in a lie. I didn’t understand why he kept doing this, why he kept hurting us both, then I realized, it was because I let him. Finally the words fell out of his mouth.

 “She's nothing”

At first I felt nothing. I just stood, threw my icy martini in his face, and walked out with the glass still in my hand. Nobody stopped me. 

The crushing came later, when I was home. I ignored the way my phone lit up as if in morse code, screaming his pleas at me. I decided that I’d respond the next day. 

I didn’t want him back to enjoy it. I wanted to make sure he suffered.

June 1, 2017

THE FRAT BOY

July 2017

In the midst of my whirlwind with The Frat Boy, I continued to string The Banker along. I justified it by telling myself since we weren’t sleeping together and he meant nothing to me it didn’t matter. I was blinded by my pain, masking itself as rage. 

September 7, 2017

I was at my lowest weight since middle school, convinced that if I kept going I’d be invincible. I didn’t think I was being affected by him.

October 5, 2017

I was still seeing The Frat Boy, but I agreed to getting coffee with The Banker because TFB had texted me asking if “not dating anyone else” meant “sexually exclusive”, to which I responded, “guess not:)”. I waited 24 hours to text him back after that. 

Coffee quickly became mid-day martinis, and I was fueled by anger. The Banker sensed it but mistook it for excitement. He took the opportunity to spew more apologies that I no longer cared about, I stopped listening but regained focus when he pulled it out. 

The awful, ugly ring from 10 months before that I’d nearly forgotten. 

I told him to put it away, that it wasn’t the time. I panicked and whispered into his ear that I wanted him to describe a fantasy to me. I saw no conflict behind his eyes as he immediately dove into his deranged desires. I barely listened but gave him permission. He disappeared into the restroom for about 10 minutes and came back with a small container in his pocket.

I found myself drinking a c*m martini. It was worth not having to marry him.

October 24, 2017

A few days before it had ended with The Frat Boy, so I didn’t see the harm in meeting The Banker for drinks after work. It was a busy season for me, leading up to a jewelry show, so I told him to expect me to be late. He didn’t mind.

I walked in, 4 minutes after his last text, and didn’t see him. I went to the back of the bar, glancing around as if he’d pop up out of nowhere. 

Silence.

Did he change his mind? Was he angry at my second refusal of marriage? Did he see that I’d gained weight and leave, disgusted by my grotesque body? I stood there, in a dense crowd of midtown professionals drinking away the mundanity of their lives. My eyes stopped on the display of bottles behind the bar, I examined how full each one was, imagining the burning sensation of drowning in them. I was empty. I knew he’d abandoned me.

A man in a suit touched my arm and asked if he could buy me a drink. I couldn’t stop the tears, I walked away from him wordlessly. 

I walked back to my office, I knew I wouldn’t make it home without breaking down completely. The black hole engulfed me again, stronger than ever. I sobbed at my desk, frustrated that I felt anything at all. He texted an hour later:

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore”.

And then, nothing. 

November 6, 2017

THE ARTIST

March 21, 2018

THE RUGBY PLAYER

May 19, 2018

THE CAPTAIN

June 23, 2018

THE FRAT BOY THE ARTIST THE INFLUENCER 

THE MESS

September 18, 2018

I gave in again, and although he wasn’t my primary partner this time, he accepted any amount of “together” he could get with me. He was different, desperate. 

October, 2018

I crack open my skull on the pavement, as I bleed into the city street the Gods laugh at me, because although it was my blood being spilled, the permanent end that would soon follow would be of my heart, not my body.

I say goodbye to The Artist in the most permanent way.

January 2019

I can’t eat.

Mid-January, 2019

I was out every night, with the models, actresses, and the kinds of friends who were always around when the liquor was free. I was a shell, it was as if I had died. 

To the onlookers, it was the best time of my life.

January 23-30, 2019

I was in Miami for work, feeling only what was prescribed to me. I texted him to meet me there, 4 hours later he was in my hotel room. It was a fun mistake to make. I felt nothing. 

February 26, 2019

He tries one last time, after a month of having me again, to convince me we should be married. I was almost broken enough to say yes. Instead, I walked away, and ghosted the man who had claimed to love me for three and a half years. 

I decided to look online again, it seemed that it really was permanently over with Her. He’d lost us both.

March, 2019

THE MODEL  (lover, not friend)

August 10, 2019

THE BARTENDER

March 13, 2020

The world was ending, his messages were constant, but I had a new man to be sad about, and I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to respond to him. He deserved his solitude.

November, 2022

I’d been dating people that I barely cared about, trying to be casual in the same way that everyone my age was. Not allowing myself to be all in, to be consumed completely to my core by another person, or at least the version of the person that I created for myself. The Banker remained constant. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t hear from him. I was drained, and frankly bored, at the men who thought that they were making progress in dating me. I wanted passion, and as one does,  I mistook passion for drama. The drama that he brought everywhere with his inexplicable immaturity despite his advanced age. I gave in and responded to one of his texts. I agreed to sit down and have dinner not knowing where it would lead. 

We walked around Soho, but when I refused to hold his hand he asked if I was embarrassed of him. I looked him in the eye and asked why I wouldn’t be. I didn’t intend to be so harsh, but I needed him to know that this was a risk for me. I now knew how people looked at us in the beginning, not just strangers, but my friends. To be seen with him was to allow a certain version of myself to exist to others. My life had value to me now in a way that I didn’t when I was 21. We sat down at a restaurant patio and he ordered my martini exactly the way I like it. He looked at the menu for a moment then ordered dinner for both of us, knowing exactly what I would want. The things that I would’ve found condescending in another man we’re comforting with him. I allowed myself to feel the tiniest bit of satisfaction at my feelings for him resurfacing. Slowly my butterflies came back, yet it wasn’t all-consuming. I was sure that this time it could work, that this time I was mature enough to handle it. I somehow misplaced the memories of his transgressions and began to take responsibility for all of it. 

We talked for hours about our lives and what had changed and how much he had missed me. Still playing the game that I created for us when I was 21 years old and angry at his lies, I never admitted to missing him. Although I couldn’t remember a moment when I truly missed him over the past few years, of all the past lovers that I couldn’t get out of my mind he no longer made the cut. I tried not to dwell on that because for the first time in years I was enjoying an evening with him.

Until he ruined it for himself.

He looked me in the eye three drinks deep, and the most vile phrase I could imagine spilled from his mouth. 

“You’re a woman now, when we met, you were a child.”

And just like that he admitted to everything he had done wrong. I WAS a woman now, I was sure of myself, I couldn’t be convinced by him there any part of me should be less. The child he’d met in that hotel bar, who was insecure about her cheap shoes, was gone. He couldn’t hurt her anymore.

But I didn’t end it there. I knew that walking away at that moment wouldn’t solve my boredom problem, and I needed to feel something in order to be alive. What harm could be done by enjoying the ride of the drama that this man’s stupidity would cause in restarting a romance with me.

January 7, 2022

I’d had enough of the drama. I ended it in a text from my desk at work. I turned his contact to “do not disturb” and felt nothing.

January 12, 2022

SOAP BOY

July, 2022

The texts still come almost daily, as they did when I was 21 years old. I feel like it’s now my duty to punish him for crimes against both myself and a woman I was never supposed to know about. I respond on occasion, just enough to give him hope. 

I can see how he’s been worn down, the pathetic shell of a man who was once so self assured that he approached 21 year olds in bars with bravado that could be envied by men half his age.

I feel no pity for him. I am still open, and romantic, and proud of my vulnerability in ways that I never imagined I could be. But there is a smaller part of me, a vindictive part, that will never stop enjoying his pain. I know we will for the rest of our lives, or at least the rest of his, be tied together intrinsically. 

I will savor every pathetic attempt he makes to reenter the moment in his existence when he was enough for me.