28
FEBRUARY 18,2011
I’ve endured my share of splits. Ends seem
most difficult when neither party is wrong;
neither committed unforgivable sins, ones
that might help steel hearts, softening blows.
I realized, after my latest split, sometimes
neither person holds a monopoly on wrong,
each simply is—an epiphany that made me
long for more dramatic, concrete lines in the
sand, tangible things to tidily (or messily—
just definitively) wrap my head around. But
with prediction comes preparation, inhaling,
bracing for the aftermath; impromptu melt
downs are infinitely more unsettling. I’m left
with way-too-familiar feelings.
A Taurus, I’m a slave to routine, stubbornly
addicted, overly reliant on friends. In the
wake of this newest end, the dearth of famil
iarity is jolting. I wake, finding no customary
texts or phone calls from my now-former
suitor, ones that used to mark the start of my
day. Nothing aptly fills the void. I find only
relentless, eerie silence—a precursor to a
thousand disjointed moments to come, in
stances retracing old paths, comfortable
haunts, altering once-beloved patterns. The
Northwest streets I know and love become
temporarily foreign, hostile betrayers. No
Muu-Muu’s, spent too much time there.
Avoid Bastas, too many dates there. Relation
ships: the hardest habits to break. Flailing
some, I find my friends.
voices >
Anatomy of a Break-Up
I glean bits of what they say, their attempts
at comforting; I’m in no position to digest
long, complicated threads of information.
Kevin, ever clever, ever my foil, laments my
return to our city’s perpetually-shrinking dat
ing pool. He reminds me, “You can’t make out
with someone in this town without having a
friend know what his bodily fluids taste like.”
With that, I’m back where I started four
months ago, saddled with reputation in a sea
of friends’ exes and former one-night-boy
friends—nights out, while welcome respites,
bring to mind old places, spaces I’d rather not
reside. It’s pretty adorable to be a hip, swing
ing, bar-hopping single in your twenties—it
grows progressively less cute as decades wear
on. See: Silverado Sunday afternoons.
Dodging emotional landmines in gay Port
land is challenging; it’s like maneuvering past
the minefield of daytime drinkers littering
Northwest. Some I trip, causing me to relive
specific, relationship-related failures—then
ones before that, and soon the earliest. I won
der how I’ll fill my time, though my life seems
full. Work, gym, activism, socializing, writ
ing—there’s no lack of obligation; but com
mitment rings hollow when I’m trying to fill
WWW.JUSTOUT.COM
entirely comfortable engulfed in all that clan
destine, empty sex. One day soon, my friend
Komo and I plan to set up camp outside Ry
an’s apartment, noting the tricks parading
past—impromptu, early Pride before the dog
days of summer. A glimmer, at least, that life
will return to normal, a marker indicating the
tiniest bit of momentum.
Had I mulled it over, analyzed, could I have
predicted—prevented—our last kiss? I’ve had
The Thermals’ Personal Life on repeat, an al
bum where, start to finish, the band traces the
trajectory of a fledgling (and doomed) rela
tionship. In the opener, singer Hutch Harris
declares, “I’m gonna change your life, I’m
gonna steal your soul.” This: “I’m gonna leave
my mark.” Lyrically excruciating, the album
meticulously maps a heart: the questioning,
risks taken in opening up, bliss, regret, revela
tion—then, the end. Maybe the end isn’t a trip
back to the drawing board, but a time to cel
ebrate fleeting moments we allow ourselves to
be vulnerable, to try, to invest in relationships
that might not work. Experience, a crescendo,
builds and soon appeases me, enough to be
content spending a Sunday afternoon drink
ing at Silverado. JM
sudden, glaring holes in my week. Memories
and second-guessing consume my mind no
matter what my body is doing. My days are
no longer filled with regular dinner dates, no
sleepovers, no assured companionship. O f
course, the internet reminds us exes still func
tion; I’m shocked to see mine walking around,
animated, functioning, since I envision (se
cretly hope for) some version of the walking
dead, something more closely resembling me.
Another night out, with Ryan, once my
guide through the rigors of online dating—I
failed miserably. “When you rejoin the online
ranks...” he begins. I sense a warning. “Try
not to sleep with anyone in our neighbor
hood; I’ve probably been there already.” I re
member Kevin’s sage advice and think twice
about committing to online rummage sales.
Like in bars, we get less marketable as time
wears on, more prone to people with fetishes
about daddies, tube socks and jock straps.
Ryan is anonymous sex’s champion, and I do
marvel at his surprising wherewithal. Men
approach him while out, whispering in his ear,
covertly, as if passing off some hot new Besides, Poison Waters holds Church there every
WikiLeak. Planners emerge, schedules set, Sunday— and she makes me laugh. Email d a n -
and the kind suitor saunters away. I’m not IE L @ JU S T O U T .C O M .
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