Before the invention of apps, dating in New York City could be surprisingly difficult. In a city of millions, actually meeting somebody you wanted to see again was sometimes paradoxically out of reach.
It is for this reason, in my 20s, I dated people I didn’t necessarily see a future with. A known average relationship was better than an unknown future of possible singledom. A lot of my time back then was spent ignoring realities, or otherwise disregarding them until they became unavoidable.
Like with Danika.
When I met her I was still in the phase of my life (Ages 13 – 27) where I wanted to sprint through the flirtation phase as fast as possible up until the point of true commitment. This trait made me dive headfirst into relationships barely deep enough to wade into.
Once a relationship had become official I felt the need to keep things from getting too serious, too quickly. I avoided commitments requiring deeper emotional investment. Saying “I love you” was one of those commitments.
I don’t know if I have ever been the first to say it. Not because of fear of vulnerability but because of how long it takes for me to truly feel love in the first place. This generally meant I was either confronted to make a decision by the woman I was with or the relationship collapsed.
Sometimes both happened at the same time.
I didn’t doubt my capacity to love, I just didn’t often have those feelings for the women in my life. While others have wondered aloud why I move slow, I myself have always just wanted to be sure. To know I could back up the weight of that statement with my own actions. “How long are you going to wait?” people asked me.
As long as I needed to.
There is no appropriate amount of time, one template best for all. Those relationships in my 20s were infused with so many methods of communication that tricked me into thinking my girlfriends and I were closer than we actually were. Email, text, and chat meant we could be in contact every hour of the day. It expedited the perception of connection if not the actual quality of it.
It did not expedite the pace at which “I love you” felt appropriate. Certainly six months felt very soon for me. But after six months with Danika, she asked me how I felt about her. I knew what she meant. People ask that question to validate their partner is as committed as they are because it isn’t obvious.
I knew I didn’t have the answer Danika wanted. For me, it felt like a strange conversation to be having. Things were going well, we enjoyed each other, why this sudden escalation?
But it wasn’t sudden. I just wasn’t paying attention to the progression of the relationship. While I didn’t want to break up I also couldn’t tell her I loved her because I didn’t yet, nor did I anticipate feeling it in the near future.
And so we sat on the grass of Madison Square Park on a beautiful summer afternoon deciding our future. I hadn’t given her the answer she wanted but I knew we were both reticent to continue on. She asked me if I wanted to stay together. And in all my young wisdom I said to her:
As long as you aren’t waiting for me to say I love you.
Dear reader, would you believe we broke up that very summer?
Now I want to be clear: being honest about my affection for her without promising something I couldn’t deliver seemed like the right thing to do. I thought it made sense to communicate that. Because back then I still believed romantic relationships could exist in a state of perpetual lightness.
But I know better now. It is rare for two people to want the same minimal commitment from each other. One person will always end up suppressing their stronger feelings to keep the relationship alive. It is a burden that only grows as time passes.
After our conversation on the grass, Danika and I hobbled on as a couple. While the relationship wouldn’t be pronounced dead until weeks later, it’s demise was forecast there on the park grass.
It would take me several more years to realize how hurtful I could be when I continued on in relationships I wasn’t emotionally invested in.
It wasn’t fair of me to stay with her. In my mind, it didn’t make sense for us to break up if things were still fine. But “fine” was my definition, not hers. Things always seem fine when you are getting what you want.
That kind of aloofness, while not mean-spirited, is still harmful. Ignorance and carelessness are not lesser crimes of love. It might not be immediately obvious at the moment. But they are just as harmful, gradual death by 1,000 ignored affections.
My ignorance with Danika was very different than my carelessness with Kelly.
We met at a housewarming party in the West Village one frigid winter night. We fell into a relationship with each other the way people in this city will when the dark and cold makes being alone so depressing.
She was quirky and cute and a fine person to pass the time with. I knew we weren’t going to get married or move to the suburbs. But it was nice to have somebody with whom to get dinner, to get drunk, and makeout.
Especially in those winter months.
There were also things about her I found strange and ultimately annoying. She talked at length about her love for her father and her anger at her mother. She referred to herself by her own last name. I was bothered but not enough to act. After being single and alone for so long, dating somebody who kind of bothered me was much was better than not dating at all.
Those disgruntled thoughts would sit under the surface, causing mild frustration but not real anger. It wasn’t until Kelly went away for a weekend that their negativity multiplied.
When she returned I should have been excited to see her, and to some degree I was. But as I walked up to give her a hug I was caught off guard, unintentionally vulnerable and accidentally honest when she asked:
Did you miss me?
It is a question nobody should ever ask anybody. “Did you miss me?” is begging for one of two answers:
What you want to hear – which may or may not be true.
Or
What you don’t want to hear – which is definitely true.
I wasn’t prepared for the question. I was just thinking about how the language of our relationship continued on autopilot while she was gone, how the words I said weren’t backed by a deeper affection, just a familiar routine. So mid-hug when she asked if I had missed her I accidentally said:
I didn’t miss your drama.
Has your body ever made a sound you weren’t aware it could make? Like a strange burp in the middle of a word or a fart that gave you no warning?
That is how those words came out. Pent-up brain gas that escaped as a noxious mouth fart when I wasn’t paying attention. It was and is a terrible thing to say to another person. To this day it still makes me cringe.
It was also the inflection point of a relationship which wasn’t built to last. I wasn’t trying to be mean I just stopped trying with somebody I was no longer invested in. And instead of being deliberately honest, I was accidentally so. In hindsight, I’m not sure what I would have said otherwise.
I have rarely had the capacity to truly understand everything I was feeling the moment I was feeling it. As such, I did not speak up as much as I should have in my early relationships. I hedged around communication with girlfriends, hoping things would just work themselves out. They never did.
Both of the aforementioned interactions occurred because I hadn’t been honest with myself, and I hadn’t been vocal with my girlfriend. When it comes to matters of the heart, we cannot wait out our problems.
We can only confront them if we hope for change.
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