Two cranes and a snake

I got a surprising message couple of nights ago while out having Vietnamese food in Hackney. Two photos of construction cranes appeared on Whatsapp, sent by a guy who screwed me over back in December 2020. We hadn’t spoken since the day I got out of his car and walked away, having listened to him try to account for his actions and told him in return what I thought of him.

I like cranes, by way. I offer no further explanation because there is nothing much to say. Effectively this guy was saying ‘I’m thinking of you’ in sending them, but to send photos with no accompanying message after a year without contact following a horrible deception. I felt it was a touch audacious…!

I ruminated for an hour and sent him a photo of a snake – the most pathetic-looking snake I could find on the internet.

I’ll tell the full story. I learnt a lot from it…

I met Eli on the dating app Feeld. For our first meeting, a quick coffee turned into a road trip and then a sleepover and it lasted about 24 hours, all in all. I liked his lively and free-spirited nature, his openness, and his good manners. To top it all off, he agreed enthusiastically when I suggested watching Top Gun at the end of the night. Needless to say it set the first date bar pretty high.

We saw each other for a couple of months, enjoying more of those long dates. We talked for hours, shared important personal histories, and had an instantaneous sexual connection that got better and better. Set against the bleak pandemic backdrop, it was intoxicating.

The ending, in contrast, was swift and brutal. We went for a weekend away, staying in an opulent seafront hotel, ordering room service to our suite, and generally getting stuck in to the delights of the physical world. Our emotional connection felt deeper too, and there were moments in which I felt truly seen by him in a way I hadn’t even realised I was missing. He even asked to go to my hometown for a tour of the places I grew up, so you might forgive me for thinking he was somewhat invested in me, but bar a few positive noises on his part we hadn’t actually had a conversation about what we were doing.

I initiated one on the day we left. I remember the specific words I used, because I had spent time in my head assembling and reassembling them. That was probably a bad sign in hindsight, the next one being his reaction – he looked uneasy, made an awkward joke and suggested we go out and talk over coffee. Christ, I thought, whatever is coming is so bad you want to do this in public…!

Sat in an awkwardly quiet coffee shop, he explained, head bowed, that he was grappling with whether or not it was important for him to be with a Jewish partner. He apologised for not having raised this, including when I asked him about it quite specifically on an early date. Probing why he had lied – effectively by omission but same-same, in my opinion – he explained he thought it would appear racist and felt ashamed.

Though shocked by his revelation I managed to find some calm, and even some empathy. I said okay, I wish you had told me, but take some time and figure it out, or something like that. 

Underneath my measured response, my gut feel was that he really did want to be with someone from his background, and that I was to be an unfortunate casualty on the road to acceptance. The little bit of joy and hope I had found was likely to peter out.

Actually it went out with more of a bang. After three days of uncharacteristic silence, he asked if we could talk and arrived at my house looking gloomy and guilt-laden. With the elegance of someone ripping off a plaster, he told me he hadn’t actually given me the full story in Brighton. He’d been seeing a Jewish woman for the past couple of weeks, he wanted to make a proper go of things with her and was ending it with me. There was a further apology, I believe.

Barely able to speak this time and feeling myself well up, I asked him to leave, and felt the horrible sting of perceiving that it was exactly what he wanted, to leave and escape the mess he had created. No more dates, no more late-night chats, no more little road trips, holding hands between gear changes, he just wanted to slam the door and be done.

I sat in stunned silence, the rug pulled out from under me. I looked at my newly decorated Christmas tree like it was from another world, a giant green effigy of the hope I had felt not long before, and realised that Christmas 2020 was going to be more of a shit show than promised.

I can see there were a couple of things going on with this doomed little pandemic affair, some important contextual factors on my side. At the time I thought I was doing well following a big break up about a year prior. Ready to get back into a meaningful relationship. Healed. And I was doing well, in ways, but I was still a little fragile, and my longing for love and connection was overriding other important considerations.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was rebounding. It turns out there is no time limit on this.

The pandemic backdrop was important too; I leaned in hard and fast, rather than letting the relationship grow gradually, because life was tough and lonely. I expect mine is not the only such Covidy tale.

Recognising these factors prevented me from descending into self-blame. It didn’t stop the hurt of knowing someone I felt I had had grown intimate with had chewed me up and spat me out, a particularly cruel kind of rejection I had experienced once before in my mid-twenties, and didn’t think I would know again. The indignity of it, to be used by a bloody man, again, at my age.

I said I learnt a lot.  

Firstly, it was a reminder that despite the time I had invested in therapy and other things to help me show up differently in the world, I was still learning to be direct with people about the things that matter. I had mulled over initiating that conversation with Eli, admittedly buying myself a bit more pandemic pleasure, but also a shot of pain down the line. I wish I could say that was the last time I held back in this way – the awareness, unsurprisingly, didn’t solve everything – but it was the death knell for this particular pattern.

Second, the episode affirmed my own commitment to integrity with others, the importance to taking care of people’s hearts even if that means upsetting them in the moment. The masseuse I wrote about in my first post, for example. After seeing each other a few weeks I could see he wanted more than I did, and I made clear to him where the limits were for me. He backed off, and it disappointed me, but that was his prerogative.

Finally, I learnt I can pick myself up from anything, with a little effort, or a great effort in some cases. I cried it out, leaned on friends, and I crafted, and steadily completed, a programme of therapeutic writing exercises, borrowing from therapists including Guy Winch who deals with emotional first aid.

So why, a year later, did I decide meet the man who caused me such pain? After the effort I’ve described to dig myself out of the hole he left me in, why open that particular door again, you might wonder.

Well, while I still think the snake was a nice touch on my part, I listened to the slight pang of regret I felt at shutting him down like that. I felt like we had an unfinished conversation, things to express to each other.

I briefly interrogated this narrative, though, because I can lie to myself with the best of them. Did my ego crave the satisfaction of demonstrating I was un-phased and unmoved by him now, somehow coming out, in the end, as the winner? And what was the potential to be hurt by him again, if say, he agreed to meet me and then cancelled, disappearing into the sands of time once more. Would I be on the metaphorical floor again?

I knew that I would be fine. I had moved on from wanting anything serious with him and honestly, I was curious to see how he was doing with his struggles with belonging and identity.  

And so it was that Eli and I ended up having another date, talking, laughing, clearing the air. And the physical stuff we were so good at, some of that too. I don’t look a reliable-shag horse in the mouth.

Ah, the funny twists and turns life takes. The way time expands and contracts with some people.

Maybe that was the last date for Eli and I, or maybe we’ll work for a friends-with-benefits thing; it is good to see I have abandoned quite completely now the idea that a man must be everything to me or nothing at all. Wherever it goes, I’m glad I saw him. Because I believe in dialogue. I believe in reconciliation – with others, and with your own past. And above all, I believe in good sex.

Image via miniseries on istock