Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

 0 items

• Login
• Join

Search this site:

For the past two nights in a row I have woken up after dreaming about the last guy I dated. Why now? I have no idea. But I haven’t been able to stop dreaming about it.

Okay, here’s the backstory… I was dating this guy three years ago. He was super nice and cute and blahblahblah. I don’t even know if it was dating – we just hung out in his bed and made out all the time, then fell asleep cuddling. Now obviously I knew where this was going. I was his neighbour, we were clearly just hooking up, and he wanted to start fucking. But I didn’t. I remember vividly the last time we ever hung out. I was peeing in his bathroom between episodes of BSG, and I notice in the trash can this little heap of blonde pubic hairs. I just thought to myself… “wow. gross. he wants to start fucking.”

Even though I was on the pill and had shaved my own body everywhere from the pits down, I was put off by the thought of him shaving. Right then and there I knew I never wanted to see his dick. Or, really, his anything. I didn’t want to get naked and I didn’t want him sticking anything inside me. Period.

So, what did I do? Come on, I was a cold, aloof college kid. And I had a very naughty best friend encouraging me not to call him. So I didn’t. I did the slow fade, and I’m not proud of it. But as far as I was concerned, the kid had never even taken me out of his room or
introduced me to his friends. Why did I owe him a break-up if he didn’t feel he ever owed me a date? Things were pretty off-balance from my perspective. I mean, I had brought him a hand-made (by me) apple pie after the Christmas break, I took HIM on a date, I introduced him to MY friends, bought him chocolate on Valentine’s Day and was making out with him on a semi-consistent basis. What had he done for me? He bought me a pizza one time and ignored me to talk about programming or whatever when his dorky roommates were around.

Still, he wasn’t that bad. And while my friends didn’t like him and were gleefully convincing me to just stop taking his calls and leave it at that, I knew he deserved better. I just didn’t want to do it myself. I was never a very good breaker-upper. So, fast forward through a month of painfully rude ignoring and avoiding, and the kid comes over to my house to return the pie pan of mine he’s had since January. I’m doing laundry downstairs and my (clearly useless) roommate lets him in and tells him where I am. Just as I’m throwing all my dirty laundry in the machine I’m cornered downstairs by a very sad, cute blonde kid. He looks adorable and pathetic at the same time… Just the moment I was hoping to avoid.

“So… Have you really been busy or are you just ignoring me?” He asked, leaning against a random pole in my basement.

“Uh… A bit of both.” I turn back around and finish stuffing my laundry in the machine, embarrassed.

He walks over to the other side of the machine and stands near me.

“So if a girl blows you off a bunch of times, should you assume she ever wants to hang out with you again?”

“No,” I blurt out, realizing this wasn’t actually a hypothetical question about a second too late. “I mean.. Probably not.”

He walks back over to the pole and leans back against it. “You can just say it then, you know. I can take it.” He crosses his arms.

I turn around, finished stuffing all my clothes in, and close the washing machine lid.

I take a deep breath. I don’t really even know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

He just purses his lips and kind of nods.

“Seriously, I am.” I have no idea what to say or do. He looks incredibly sad and I don’t feel sad at all, which makes me feel like a bitch. I grab my basket and start walking toward the stairs. I pause to let him go first. I kind of just want him out of my house now.

“You should have told me sooner..” he says, walking up the stairs in front of me. I notice a hole in the heel of his sock, which reminds me of one of the reasons I dumped him. Poor dresser. “Sooner is always better.”

“I know. I’m really sorry…” We get up the basement stairs and walk to the front door where he pauses to put his shoes on.

“I mean… Did I do something?” He finishes with his shoes and looks like he’s about to cry. Now I seriously don’t know what to do.

“No. You really didn’t.” I shake my head.

“Then can I ask why? I mean it’s fine if it’s personal and you don’t want to talk about it, but….”

“I don’t know.” I seriously didn’t know. Okay, I mean, I had a few “reasons” that were really just things that annoyed me about him that I was over-exaggerating, but in all sincerity, he was a great guy, and a great match for me. And if I was straight, who knows, maybe I’d still be dating him. But I wasn’t admitting to myself I was gay yet. Since I didn’t want to tell him it was his fault, and I didn’t want to make up some shitty lie about having feelings for an ex-boyfriend or something. I just said I didn’t know.

“Seriously? You don’t know?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated again. I felt like some kind of robot programmed to apologize. “Really, if I had a reason I would tell you. But I don’t. I just don’t know.”

“Okay. Are you sure you don’t want to come over and talk about it? My roommates are doing those shrooms today, if you want to come… There’sstill a piece of that pie in the freezer that I saved for you…”

“I don’t think so. Sorry.” I felt like total shit at that moment, knowing I should at least break up with him properly, or tell him some kind of reason. But I didn’t.

He just sighed and walked out my front door. “Good luck with…. whatever you do,” he said, waving and walking around to my backyard so he could jump the fence to his. I shut the door and went upstairs to my room to feel nauseous and cry for a while. Even though I was the dumper, I still felt terrible over the whole thing for a good month. Even though it was just casual and fun, that was the best relationship with a guy I’d ever had.

–

Okay, so fast forward again. Three years. For some reason I woke up after having a dream that I went back to my college town, found him, and told him that I was gay and felt really sorry about the way I handled things. My first thought when I woke up was “Wow, that was cathartic.”

And it was. Incredibly. Every few months for the past few years I have thought about shooting him an email or a facebook message or something, just explaining that he was a perfectly sweet, nice, attractive guy, and that I just happen to be gay and regret being so immature and mean. But I haven’t.

I’m not sure if it would be weird, or unwanted, or what. For a while he seemed to have a pretty serious girlfriend (okay anyone with their facebook profile set as public is just begging to get creeped), so I didn’t want to be weird and send him anything. I’ve thought of writing Dan Savage for his take on this, but I can imagine him saying not to bother. It was three years ago, we dated for three months, we’re both so totally over it.. Still, I can’t help but wonder – does he still think about it? Does it ever drive him crazy to not know what the hell happened? Does he blame himself?

It’s not about redeeming myself. I don’t care if he hates me, though I doubt he does. I don’t know if I ever will end up doing anything about it. But if my life was like Being Erica (a Canadian TV show) and I was doing time-travel therapy to get a second chance at fixing my regrets, that would be my first stop.