I made a friend this year of an Atlanta Homicide Detective, who recently advised me to write a blog about my experiences with men and love.
I wonder if he knows what he’s advising, for I intend, at this point in my life, to be as revealing, open and honest as possible with my writing, and with those who choose to enter my circle or who pull me into their own.
“My Detective,” as I call him, is in love with me, of course. (“Of course,” I say, because it is rare that a man enters my circle who does not fall in love with me… as pompous as that may seem to those who don’t know me, who haven’t seen it is as true as the sky appears blue.)
You must know this - that he is in love with me, and that men around me fall in love with me immediately or eventually - if you are to understand me, and the stories I tell in this blog. (This one will be a blog, where my other writings are not-so-much… but that’s another guilty tale.)
He’s in love with me, and he’s married, and he’s older than me; and I don’t care. For he loves me enough that he can be around me without kissing me, without making me feel that he wants to kiss me, without being dishonest with me, without making me feel uncomfortable in the least. I do not worry that he will “cheat” on his wife, for I’ve made it clear that, while I adore him and appreciate his friendship and his love, I respect his wife and his life with her too much to do anything with him.
Besides, I am not inclined to do anything with him; I do not love him romantically, nor sexually.
He is not the first to suggest that I tell my stories, nor the first to suggest that I write about love. I’ve considered it before, but considered my thoughts, perceptions and beliefs - not to mention my experiences - too risqué for publication, too racy to share with the-public-at-large.
Until Christmas, that is.
I fell in love again, quite recently. (Not with the Detective; with someone else.)
To those who know me, this is not really a surprising feat: I fall in love easily (even if I resist it more and more often, as time goes on) and quickly (even if more-or-less rarely); and I give myself as completely as possible, even when I sense a chance of being hurt.
I knew something was wrong with him when we met, even if I was drawn to him; and I resisted, waited, watched, tested gently to try to get to know him, to find out what was wrong. And I gave in, as much as he agreed to, in the initial stages of getting-to-know-each-other:
I flirted with him, as he sat on the bed in a mutual friend’s apartment, trying to draw him out when I sensed his tension - for I dislike people being tense. He liked me: appreciated my kindness, favored my attention. It was clear he needed, desperately, to be liked, to be loved, to be appreciated.
Our mutual friends encouraged our flirtations, perhaps knowing (perhaps not knowing) the attraction that grew between us. He had been working out for the past few months, building his body from tall-and-lanky to rippling-and-hard; and he was both shyly proud and excitedly thirsty for the attentions he received from everyone around him for this new body: everyone remarked on his body all the time, caressed his rippling biceps and abs every chance we got. I, single and alone for far too long, appreciative of kindness and beauty and sensuality, found myself overwhelmed with girlish thrill when I first felt his muscular arm, tingling with excitement that I should be allowed, even encouraged, to indulge my senses in the body he’d built, knowing he enjoyed the innocent freedom and lack of restrained reaction to my fingertips tracing shoulders, back, torso through shirt and legs through slacks as our lesbian friend stood nearby, encouraging our mutual enjoyment of each other after dinner one evening.
Of course, I wanted more. He was beautiful, like a marble statue come-to-life. He was sweet and innocent in his own reaction, clearly taking measured pleasure in the attention almost as much as I took pleasure in anyone appreciating me from afar.
But it was clear that he withheld himself; and I mistook that withholding for lack of understanding or appreciation for himself - which, in the end, I suppose it actually was, and is. I didn’t know what to do.
Until I heard that he confessed to our friend he’d daydreamed about my touches. Until he confessed to me that he found me “amazing,” that he appreciated my writing.
We spent long hours, day-after-day, texting one another about our interest in one another, building the power of our attraction through revelation of our hearts’ and minds’ intent upon one another… ignoring all misgivings and calls to restrain, to be careful, to take heed.
And then we saw each other again, and I knew he was pretending not to be interested; he said he was uncomfortable mixing business with pleasure, and we were working together, with a group of friends.
The attraction was too much; and I care little for rules of social etiquette, particularly amongst friends doing business together. Though I hated it, I kept a certain watchful front, waiting to see if his feelings had changed, waiting to see if his intentions had changed; I’ve known too many men who change their minds about getting involved with me, and there was most certainly something causing this one to withhold, to lie, to hide. To wait.
But I despise hiding. I despise lying. I despise withholding, waiting to love, to be affectionate, to receive affection.
We all wound up at a bar nearby, after our business meeting (during which we sat on opposite sides of the room, as far from one another as possible - his deliberate and conscious choice, he later confessed). We all met his mother, about whom he had bragged continuously during our first conversation. We went inside and I watched them shoot pool; I sat beside him and felt the tension growing steadily between us, as strongly as it had been when we saw each other at Thanksgiving, when he remained shyly, distantly curious about my writings; as strongly as it had been when we sat beside each other during our mutual friend’s podcast, late one evening.
Attraction is a funny thing: We’ve all grown up around people, having had mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts and teachers and strangers and friends shower us with love and affection, even while others in those groups hurt us (intentionally or unintentionally), even while others in those groups neglect us (intentionally or unintentionally); and we know, at some point, consciously or unconsciously - we've learned to know, as a necessity of living as social creatures - who will help us, who will love us, who can heal us, who can teach us; whom we can hurt, whom we can love, whom we can heal, whom we can befriend, whom we can teach, from whom we can learn. We know it in the instant we meet, or very soon thereafter; we know it upon a glance, upon a smile, upon instinct, in the blink of an eye.
We call it “magic,” we call it “crazy.” We call it “fate” or “kharma,” and many other names - but it is, ultimately, as Malcolm Gladwell explains in Blink, simply immediate deduction based on a lifetime of experience.
We may judge it later - but it is a result of our wishes, our calling, our needs, our desire; and the stronger the wish, the call, the need, the desire - the stronger the attraction. It is our mind, our heart, our gut stating, definitively: THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR.
I was looking for a handsome man. A sweet man. A kind man. A fearless man, who knew how to break rules. A gentle man, who knew how to make love intensely, appreciatively. A man who saw me, who accepted me, who appreciated me, who wanted to know me, to explore with me.
I found him; and he found me.
…He was still attached.
He sent me a text, telling me his girlfriend and he were recently in touch, that she was coming down for Christmas, and that he was still in love with her. He said he was afraid I’d not talk to him again, that he feared even telling me, for fear of my anger.
I was relieved, and I told him so. This explained the hesitance, the misgivings I had felt in getting involved with him. I was still attracted, still loved him (yes, loved him; for time has nothing to do with love); and I respected his need to make a choice, his desire to be with her when he still loved her. I would not interfere, felt no desire to break them up. I would still be his friend.
I was out of town on Christmas, driving with my brother to pick up his children when I received the note from a pretty girl who recently followed me on Instagram, whom I’d followed back because of her loveliness and sweet-but-conflicted posts. She was a mess of sometimes-wise, sometimes-harsh memes, interspersed with selfies revealing an absolute beauty. Why was she so conflicted? I wondered. Why was she so hurt?
“Who are you to him?” she asked. "I’m not mad; I won’t even show him. I just need to know if I should move on.“
I was shocked. Pained, suddenly, at her openness, at the sweetness of her approach, at the pain obvious from the act of her reaching out to me. Pained that such a beautiful girl should be pained by someone I cared for, who was obviously also pained, who obviously lied to both of us out of his own pain and fear and need to resolve pre-existing pain.
I admitted that we were attracted to one another, that I cared for him - but little more, at first. I apologized to her, explaining that I now realized she must be the "ex” he had spoken of… and she shocked me again.
“I’m not an ex - or wasn’t, until now.”
Oh my god. My mind flooded with thoughts, emotions overwhelming me: I realized he had lied to us both, to all of his friends who he’d told he was single. The forgiveness followed immediately; I understood too easily the need, the desire to lie… but it was still wrong, still shocking to see, to sense the pain in this girl, to follow the repercussions of this lie… to be somehow a part of it….
To have abandoned my instincts and to have overstepped my self-protective barriers that screamed not to be involved with him, despite any attraction.
We carried on a discourse via IG messenger for the bulk of the afternoon, as my nieces and nephews surrounded me in the big SUV, as my brother drove us home. She revealed more about herself, about him, about her pain and her life, about her emotions; and I responded amidst my helplessness, my shock, my own growing pain at being deceived, at learning that he continued to deceive her about us, about himself. Her pain grew and receded and grew again; my pain grew and receded and grew again. We did not hate one another at any point: she expressed her thoughts and pain, and I expressed my thoughts, and held back most of my pain.
I wish I had told her more of the pain I felt; I wish I had related more to her, that she would not feel alone, except for the one hurting her.
I tried reaching out to him, knowing he was in pain, too; that he was scared, running scared from himself, from her, from me. It backfired, and she lashed out at me; she could not understand what I was doing in wishing to heal anything in him, in wishing to reach out and take from him some of the condemnation he felt for himself that drove him to lie and lie and lie.
She was lost: she loved and forgave him, and felt pained again and again with every lie.
He was lost: he loved and hated himself, and felt pained again and again with every lie.
And I was lost: I loved and forgave them both, related and sought to relate with them again and again, sought to bring them to the truth and to trusting, feared my past and every mistake that led to this point, trembled internally with fear for her, fear for him, fear that I would make another dreadful mistake and I’d lose them both - not just in relation to me, but to the painful madness dragging them into their respective hells.
Eventually, she stopped responding, and I reached out one last time to him, begging him to be truthful with her, to stop lying, to care for her and not let her die, as she threatened to do.
Eventually, he responded, saying he was sorry, that he knew we had a connection but that I could not fill the place where she stood, that he could not talk with me anymore, that he felt terrible and kept making things worse; condemning himself as a “psychopath” and expressing a wish not to be… and rejecting, misunderstanding, my forgiveness.
I remain in terror for them. I remain in pain for them, for I love them both.
“To know me is to love me,” Christ said. It is as true for anyone as it is for Him: to know one is to love them; and I knew these two; I know these two, and cannot help but love and adore them for all that they are, good or bad, effective or ineffective, right or wrong, rightly or wrongly.
“Love has no blueprint,” my Detective texted me. "It won’t come when u want or how u want. But when it arrives (sic), it’s (sic) there no matter what happens (sic).“
He’s right, of course; and I love him all the more for saying so, for pointing out the truth, for loving me enough to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.
There is an unpardonable sin, in my book: Love me, and I’ll never forgive you for it.
My friends, with whom I share this irony, are all confused by it.
There are too many people who never forgive so many things, and they withdraw their love from others for "unpardonable sins.”
For me, love is the one thing that is unpardonable, unforgivable: it cannot be excused, cannot be justified, cannot be withdrawn, cannot be taken away. That I love is unforgivable: I love relentlessly, helplessly, with as much abandon and “wrongness” as anyone may commit any sin. I love people who do me wrong; I love people who do right to me. I love people who I see for a second: I love strangers and family and friends and co-workers and employers and puppies and cats and birds and trees and the wind and the sun and the sky and the sea… I love the cold and the heat; I love shivering from chills and sweating from humidity. I love and love and love… and will never pardon myself, or anyone else, for loving.
There is no excuse, no reason; the act of loving is completely self-contained, and completely unforgivable: an act without and beyond the ability to forgive.
So I love, because I am not-always-so-good at forgiveness; and I love, because I am not-always-smart; and I love, because I often make mistakes.
I love, because it’s easy to love. And I’ll never forgive anyone for loving me, because there’s nothing to forgive, and that’s the best feeling in the world: that no mistake has been made, that no forgiveness is demanded, that love exists and can exist forever and ever and ever, in every scope and realm and possible action.
If you love… there’s no need to forgive anything.
And that is peace, truth and happiness; that is sadness, regret and terror; that is everything, all rolled up in one.
…Does that make sense?
If not… I’ll continue writing, and, one day, perhaps I’ll find the words to explain.
With all my love for you all,
M.
