I was on the phone tonight with a close friend who's about to go through a divorce. We spent an hour talking about love and marriage, expectations and communication, and everything else you'd expect to touch on when discussing any relationship -- especially one that's lasted for almost two decades.
I used to think that if someone really loved me then he'd be so in tune with my feelings and my needs, so much so that I wouldn't have to constantly tell him how I felt or what I needed. He would get me, simply because he was supposed to know me best, because he was the one who cared the most, because he would want to know.
Fortunately, I no longer think this way. I don't believe that anyone was put on this earth to make me happy or that any of us exist for someone else's benefit. That being said, however, I do believe that if I choose to exist in a relationship with a person, it has to be because both of us have the same desire to make each other's life better in some way, and in doing so become better individuals ourselves. Or else why bother?
So anyway, I was telling my friend about how I married a man with almost no natural romantic inclinations to speak of. I mean, get this -- I actually had to tell my husband, when we first started dating seriously, that it would be a nice thing to receive a card on my birthday -- and preferably one written out with more than just his signature. I also mentioned that a gift would be appreciated -- but no, it didn't have to be fancy. One would think that I'd immediately dump a guy who was too dense to know to do these things instinctively, but I didn't because I realized that these simple tokens of affection -- which I had assumed were universally understood -- were way beyond his comprehension. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt, ate my pride, and simply told him what would make me happy.
Here's the thing that made me stick around: he got it. Sure, his first few attempts were clumsy, even pathetic. But he kept at it. Soon enough he started picking out cards that were sweet, even romantic, and then he started giving me one from the cat as well. And just when I told him to give me gift cards because his talents were clearly not in the gift-giving department (shoe rack, Weber grill...), he pulled off a miracle a few years ago and gave me something I never dared to even hope for. He said the reason it took so long was because he was looking for just the perfect one. And it was.
My husband will never write me a romantic letter or sing to me as we cuddle during a gondola ride (or go on a gondola ride, for that matter). He won't ever hide a ring for me inside a champagne flute or tell me he loves me in public. But what he'll do is listen when I want to talk to him about something "serious," or be there when I say I need him, and interrupt his nap to haul our heavy ladder out of the garage into the garden to climb up and rescue the neighbor's kittens because I tell him I'm afraid they'll freeze out in the cold.
So my friend and I ended our conversation. I'd chosen to miss the teleserye I'd been following faithfully for weeks because I knew he needed me muchmore than I needed to know the latest plot twist. As I turned off my phone and began walking over to the living room to join my husband on the couch, I glanced at the TV in hopes that I could catch even a final scene. No such luck -- but something infinitely more amazing occured: I was surprised to discover that my husband had been watching my show -- the one which he swears he can't stand and that he constantly makes fun of. When I sat down beside him he told me everything I'd missed, or at least in as much detail as he could muster (which quite frankly is less descriptive than any given book's Table of Contents) because he knew that I'd want to know what happened.
And that, my friends, was the love letter I received from him tonight. Its words had nothing to do with us -- and yet it had everything that mattered.
It's been a month since I last posted anything and, judging from my blog stats that Typepad so kindly keeps track of, people seem to think I've gone away completely. In the meantime, I've discovered a few great products and terrific songs -- but I've had no one to share them with. Which partly explains why I'm back. Raving about my newest favorite hair product on Facebook can make me seem a tad bit manic, you know?
Another thing I discovered during my absence is that the more friends I add to my Facebook list, the longer I meander and skulk around that site. Obviously, when I'm there I'm not here. At the other place, all my favorite reads, brands, and stores update me with what's hot and new without my having to click over to their own sites as well, which makes me stay there even longer. And when you consider all the photos, links, and videos that my friends share (and which I invariably explore) it's a bit of a miracle that I have any kind of offline life at all.
Sometimes the most intense and interesting conversations I engage in happen over at Facebook chat. And, yes, I've wondered why the other person and I don't simply pick up the phone and actually talk with one another. I suspect that the answer is related to why personal blogs ever became popular in the first place: sometimes it's easier to be so exposed when no one can actually see you doing any real exposing. I tend to think of Facebook chat (as well as any kind of instant messenger communication) as online frottage, or dry-humping: it feels really intimate, the excitement is there, both parties can feel pretty satisfied -- but the connection is still limited because of its very nature.
Many other bloggers I used to share space with have now abandoned their sites for the greater intimacy and immediacy of Facebook. Some of them I can call my friends now -- or at least, they're now my Facebook friends -- and I'm even familiar with how a few of them spend their days (and especially their nights). But I do miss blogging (how old-fashioned the term feels now, 'no?). I miss posting whatever I feel like on my very own space without knowing who might be lurking about -- or if anyone's even still around. Why, I think of many of the stories I've shared over here and realize that all this (relative) anonymity brings along with it so much freedom.
Please pardon my sexual references here tonight, but I suppose blogging, given my reasons for doing it, can sometimes feel like the online equivalent of a zipless fuck. I write, you (hopefully) read, but because I don't really know you're there, I'm not trying to impress or manipulate you. And hopefully, in the end, we both get something out of it.
If you're still reading this, thanks for hanging around. Hopefully, you're also taking a break from Facebook and have decided to catch up with me here instead.
Well, people got used to seeing them both together
But now he's gone and life goes on
Nothing lasts forever, oh no
She gets the house and the garden
He gets the boys in the band
Some of them his friends
Some of them her friends
Some of them understand- Lyrics from "Her Town, Too" by James Taylor
When you're married, everything -- with the exception of the most personal of personal effects such as underwear, toothbrush, and (hopefully) deodorant -- falls under the large "Ours" umbrella. So if a marriage ends, trying to sort out just what belongs to whom can be as tricky as trying to sort out raindrops. In the end you might simply have to hold your bucket out and see what lands inside of it.
Still nothing, at least from my experience, is more complicated than sorting out the people whom the couple used to share. We've read of celebrities who have had to battle out who got to keep, say, the yoga instructor. Unfortunately, if the divorce is particularly acrimonious then it's not entirely possible for friends, especially close ones, to stay completely neutral. A line is drawn in the middle and everyone gets to step on either side, no matter how hesitant or tentative they are about doing so.
A friend of mine (X) and his wife (Y) divorced a few years ago yet the sorting process still continues. Originally, they were my husband's friends and became mine, too. We were their friends, they were ours, all under the same umbrella.I soon realized that a split was imminent when I became a mutual sounding board for each one and discovered that each wanted different things for themselves and that they couldn't provide what the other expected, wanted, or needed. Without going into unnecessary detail, my husband and I moved solidly and unflinchingly to X's corner when something Y did made us realize that she had no intentions of playing fair, even if she was the one who fell in love with someone else. She sorted us out, so to speak.
But for the rest of our friends, the remainder of our once-happy group who celebrated holidays and occasions together and hung out for no reason at all except to enjoy each other's company, it wasn't so easy. One of us, Z, who had known X since grade school, became Y's confidante; he was even at the wedding reception when she married the man she fell in love with while she was still married the first time -- to Z's own lifelong friend. Even if he refuses to acknowledge it, Z has also chosen his side of the line, at least from X's viewpoint.
When my ex and I divorced, one couple wished to remain neutral but my ex would have none of it. The husbands had been childhood friends, you see, and so they stepped over to the other side. I believed then, as I do now, that they made the right decision and I actually respected them for it. At the time I figured that eventually, as everyone moved on with their lives and started anew, we'd reconnect again if the bond between us was truly strong. We never did (or at least we haven't yet). In the meantime, I never tried to contact them or anyone else in my ex-husband's corner, never tried to explain "my" side of the story. It didn't matter to me what they thought -- and not because I didn't care. In the end, my ex and I left only with what we came with, although we valued what we had so much more.
You might think that I see things in black and white, but I don't. I view life in various shades of grey, but I do see the farthest ends of the entire spectrum along with the middle. I was talking to X today and explained that Z certainly never meant to hurt him, but that possibly what was more important to him was remaining everyone's friend, or at least trying to look as if he is. His actions and even some of his words, however, belie his professed neutrality. Still, what Z also might not realize is that when you stand for everything, you stand for absolutely nothing in the end. Which might be all well and good if it really were the case -- but how often are we really? Even raindrops, when they fall, land somewhere.
Sometimes I find myself wondering just when I became a grown-up. I don't think there's one particular moment, event, or year when this happens; I suspect it occurs over a series of all of the above, culminating in that time when you realize that you and only you are responsible for everything that happens to you and the choices that you make. Given that definition I suppose that some, unfortunately, never do grow up despite whatever traditional signs of adulthood they may possess.
The first time I grew up was when I decided that I couldn't love the way I used to -- with complete abandon, giving all of myself, feeling that I needed to love someone the same way I needed to breathe. It's simply too all-consuming, reckless even, and I always found myself not having anything left for myself when it ended (and alas it always ends). But having said that, I don't regret a single moment of when I did, not even when I found myself a little bit more broken than the last time. Perhaps because it's only when I've been splintered that I've been able to find it within myself to get up, fix myself, and become even less fragile.
I was going to write a story today, but sometime in the early evening life happened and I ended up with a wholly different ending. The funny thing is that I'd written this story before, from beginning to end, but realized just tonight that I'd been seeing it from the eyes of a young adult who thought she knew exactly how the narrative went.
A long time ago I fell in love against my better judgment, but I did anyway. See, the one thing about me that's never changed -- despite everything -- is that the only decisions I truly regret are of what I didn't do when I could have, versus the choices I made that turned out to be the wrong ones. I can live with making mistakes, but I find it difficult to keep wondering "what if?"
The thing about running into someone from your past, someone whom you were certain you'd never see again, is that the ending you thought you wrote can still change, even if it happened more than two decades ago. Tonight I discovered that I'd been played, and exceedingly well at that, and what I thought was true was really only in my head.
Although I suppose it doesn't matter now -- the decision I made then was always the right one and both he and I went on with our lives, and for the better. And yet that young heart of mine, the one that still exists even if only in memory, hurts like it used to. The one that's in me now, however, the one that was broken and fixed several times over, knows that it will be OK soon enough and I'll even congratulate myself for walking away when I did and for all the right reasons then -- and now. I'll even be grateful that he and I crossed paths again, not because I thought I needed closure but because now I see ever more clearly.
Tonight I became a grown-up again.
I just read "Guy Friends Rule" by Mary Elizabeth Williams, published in yesterday's Salon.com. It was one of those Hallelujah! pieces for me -- articles that get me nodding my head vigorously, muttering "yes!" every paragraph (and even an occasional "amen" to boot), and make me wish I could have written something similar -- but just as well or even better -- since I think and feel exactly the same way the author does.
And when she gets to this part, well, what happened to me was that proverbial scene where the clouds parted and I was nearly blinded by the brilliant rays of the all-giving sun. OK, so maybe it wasn't like I was given the secret to the universe or even to losing weight permanently, but what she writes in this paragraph is what I've always felt but somehow never quite found the right words to express:
It's been exactly 20 years since Billy Crystal eradicated platonic relations, uttering the immortal proclamation in "When Harry Met Sally” that "Men and women can never be friends, because sex always gets in the way." But Harry missed the point (for which his punishment was to wind up with Meg Ryan’s high-maintenance flibbertigibbet Sally). Sex doesn’t get in the way of male-female friendship -- sex is just along the way (italics mine). Even the most platonic of friendships smolder from time to time from the embers of attraction, and sometimes friends wind up becoming lovers (they often make the best ones). So what? Most rational adults can accommodate an array of feelings without acting on all of them. Even when they do, ex-lovers can wind up the tenderest of friends.
Even as a child I've always had guy friends. I've always had girl friends too, of course, but when I was much younger it seemed like I'd have both petty quarrels and vicious fights only with the girls, and the worst thing that could ever happen with the boys was that we'd ignore each other for a while until we forgot why. During my high school years my guy friends would ask me mostly advice about how to get together with the girls they liked; one boy in particular (a cute one who was really popular in our circles) would always have to get my opinion about a girl before going steady with her. I don't think I ever vetoed anyone, though. Even then I was smart enough to know that if a boy really wanted to make out with someone, nothing in the world would stop him from doing so -- and especially not me. Still it was nice wielding all that pretend power anyway; at least it made all these girls want to play nice with me for that brief moment.
While in college my closest friends were all guys. When Harry Met Sally was HUGE at the time and it was inevitable that we discussed whether we could truly be friends and not wish to have sex with each other. Although I did end up sleeping with a few and wind up in committed relationships with a couple, I'm still good (even great) friends with them still. I guess my point is that just because someone becomes your lover, it doesn't mean you'll spend the rest of your life hating him or pining for him when it's over. Occasionally it's difficult to ever completely forget that both of you once exchanged bodily fluids, but it doesn't get to define your relationship or at least it doesn't have to.
Now that we're older -- with all of us married (to other people) and most of them now fathers as well -- the friendships that I share with my guy friends are not quite the same as they used to be. No one shows up at my door at 2 AM to drag me out for steak and eggs and conversation, and I don't crash on anyone's couch anymore. We don't talk for hours on the phone or take long drives to nowhere, sometimes even in silence, just to know the other is there to listen. Thanks to the magic of Facebook, however, we now get to send each other messages and comment on each other's links and posted photos and videos. Once in a while someone will post an old photograph from way back when -- and the beauty of it is that we're all suddenly transported back to the days when we thought nothing would ever change between us and recognize that it has but not completely.
I love my girlfriends, when I'm with them I can simply enjoy being a girl. But my guy friends, or at least a few of them, have made me a better woman indeed.
My brother-in-law flew into town yesterday and decided to spend the night at our place."Give me 10 minutes," I told him. "I just need to put some stuff away in the (guest) room."
Which really meant that I needed to put shoes back into the closet so we could make room for him. Not an easy task at the moment. Because I'm fastidious about caring for my shoes and would never ever think of tossing my footwear into a heap, boxes are literally spilling out of every nook and cranny . See, each pair goes inside its own box, each labeled with a brief description (brand, style, color). Right now there are five columns of boxes filling half the closet, each about 20 rows high. I need a stepladder just to get to anything on the top rows -- which isn't as much of a problem as how to get to the boxes stacked at the bottom, if you think about it.
Outside the closet door is another five columns of the same, around eight boxes high, which will never join their siblings inside because there's simply no more room for them. If I stack any more, I'll no longer be able to reach the handle and slide open the closet door. Which explains why I had more boxes stacked by the stereo -- which I now had to find room for so that our houseguest wouldn't feel like he was drowning in shoes, or at least think that he was being forced to sleep inside a shoe stockroom.
As I was sitting on the floor gently contemplating my task at hand, trying to use my basic knowledge of high school geometry so that I could figure out how I could fit more boxes into zero space, my husband walked in to see what I was up to. I hate it when he does that, because it never ends up well.
He: What's taking you so long? L's falling asleep on the couch already.
Me: (Mumbles incoherently on purpose.)
He: Do you have more shoes now??? (Slides open the closet door. I hate it when he does that, too, because I know he'll freak out when he sees boxes all the way up to the ceiling. But I can't stop him.) WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MANY???
Me: (Putting on calm, rational face.) I take care of my shoes really well. I have so many pairs that I got way before I even met you and they still look like I just got them yesterday.
He: But why is it that when we moved in here there was enough room for them inside the closet and now there isn't?
Me: (Moment of panicked silence.)
He: Did you take any shoe boxes from the garage? Or from inside the hall closet?
Me: (Taking the Fifth.)
He: I can't believe we're running out of space because of...shoes! (Makes an exasperated sound and then walks away while making grunting noises.)
Hmmm. Maybe he won't notice then if I get these, after all then. I mean, would anyone notice if one more book was added to the New York Public Library? In the meantime I think I need to brush up on my geometry -- because if I don't, my husband may force me to use simple arithmetic and learn how to subtract a pair before I add another.
Gah -- once in a while I remember something and get the urge to blog about it. Good stories are hard to come by after all, agreed? And especially when they're personal and real, correct?
But when I think about the real and personal faces who read this blog, I quickly change my mind. You can imagine the stories I sometimes am itching to tell; after all, I've already written about how, say, I once dated a guy who claimed he had sex with a girl I knew -- who really was a guy at the time they were supposedly intertwined. Or about how my health professional once instructed me to buy (and, obviously, use) a dildo for post-surgery therapy, and how I ended up with my own mini-collection instead due to my inability to understand simple medical directions. I've even written about the time I needed to move apartments and was flat broke, and so I assembled a crack team of ex-boyfriends who soon discovered their common denominator as they were lifting my dining table (I still cringe when I think about how that conversation started).
So, yes. Those were the stories I could tell, and there are still those I can't.Sometimes I think it's time I start up an anonymous blog. The only danger is ensuring I don't post a story there that I've already told in this one -- and then blow my cover. After all, if I can't follow plain medical instructions, how can I be trusted to know when to keep within my own guidelines? I probably just broke one by writing this post, too -- and so I guess I can't. But it sure would be fun, wouldn't it?
This is NOT a Michael Jackson-related post.
That being said, however, his passing can't help but reinforce my belief that we tend to be kinder to people in death than in life. I'm not quite sure why this is, why we find it almost taboo to speak ill of the dead when we don't hold back our cruel words when they are still alive -- as if we were aiming darts directly toward our target's center so that we win something, even if it's only a sense that we're better than they were.
Do we do this because we fear that if remain as cruel to those who are no longer around as when they were among us, that we'd be opening up the possibility that others would do the same to us when we're gone? Is it because of our sense for fair play -- that it just isn't right to attack those who can't defend themselves (as if we all can protect ourselves from harm merely because we're breathing)?
Or is it because when we honor the living then it's about them, their needs, and their reputation; but when we do the same for the dead then it's about us, our needs, and how we're perceived? Are we kinder to those who have departed because they no longer pose a threat to ourselves -- that they're no longer better than us, more successful, or even happier than we are?
I'm certainly not saying that we should be cruel to the dead; in fact, I believe we shouldn't strive to be vicious to the living either. Neither am I suggesting that we should forget all about the dearly departed's crimes or transgressions -- because we should always aim to learn from all mistakes and misdeeds, not merely our own. All I'm saying, however, is that if we are clearly capable of giving the benefit of the doubt to someone who is no longer with us, then we should try to do the same when it matters the most.
I also say that it's dangerous to either vilify or sanctify any individual; we're all highly complicated, none of us being entirely bad or good. When we hold up someone to be a paragon of perfection, we also set that individual -- and ourselves -- up for a steep fall. But when we demonize a person, then we risk losing sight of whatever good he or she might have left behind and possibly benefit from it. They say that history is always written by the victors. I say that we all lose when only part of a story is told. And when this happens, what we choose to remember often says something more about ourselves then the ones who have left us behind.
I suppose it's evident that I love fashion more than the next person -- depending on who that person next to me is, of course. My love for fashion is much more than just a predilection for clothes shopping; I view it as art and business masterfully blended and find its constant change exciting -- and yet I don't take it too seriously. I do spend a bulk of my time reading fashion magazines and trade publications, scouring the internet for on-the-minute updates, and - yes -- checking out what's in stores (OK -- shopping), so much so that I'm pretty well-versed with the latest looks and upcoming trends, but it's all purely for my personal entertainment. Watching, say, a Vera Wang Fall fashion show online can give me the same kind of extraordinary rush that a Lakers fan got out of following the 2009 NBA championship games. And speaking of games, my idea of one is walking into a store, spotting a dominant trend, and betting to myself whether it will fly or fail -- and I love it when I'm right, even if I don't get to win a prize.
One would think I'd be the kind of person who gets a thrill out of Fashion Police type of articles, posts, and TV shows -- you know, the ones that declare when someone's got it all wrong. The ones that sneer at the "worst dressed" celebrities, even the ones who look all schlumpy on their days off. Well, I don't. The truth is that these irritate the heck out of me almost all of the time (except when self-declared fashion experts get it wrong themselves -- and then I revel in shadenfreude like an alcoholic trapped inside a bar). It simply reeks of snooty superiority and it's often downright cruel. Besides, if you read as many fashion articles as I do, you'd know that oftentimes, what one editor thinks is brilliant is the same as what another commentator condemns as hideous. Anyway, I think people should be able to express themselves and have fun with what they're wearing, or at the very least feel comfortable and be able to move around and do the things they need to do without feeling unencumbered by what they have on.
Of course, as with everything else in life, there are exceptions. There are occasions when what you choose to wear shows respect and courtesy. For instance, I think guests should make an effort to look nice when they attend a wedding -- it lets the hosts know that their event mattered, that it meant something special to their guests as well. But I also believe it's never a good thing to try to outshine or outdo the bride either; those who do are, in my opinion at least, tacky and rude and perhaps horribly insecure or alarmingly narcissistic. And so, for the same reason, I take care to look properly somber at a funeral or wake, the same way I would want to look festive at a summer night's party or elegant at a dinner event. If the host thinks I was important enough to invite, then I feel it's just right to reciprocate and show you feel the same way about him or her. The effort and consideration is what matters.
There are places where image also matters. For instance, business dress codes serve a purpose; they express expectations and priorities to the employee and communicate something about the company to its clients and vendors. And even in workplaces where there are none, it also reveals the same to all of the above. And let's not forget that it's considered sage advice to dress for the position you want rather than for the one you already have. Sometimes there are fashion rules, at times there's just common sense.
Otherwise I don't think it's anyone else's business what any of us choose to wear. I might softly giggle at the sight of the woman in front of me in the supermarket checkout line who's wearing a wild profusion of different animal prints from top to toe. I may do a double-take when I see a girl at the mall oblivious to the sight of her many rolls of belly fat fully exposed from her squeezing into a too-tight short tee and very-low-cut skinny jeans. Most likely I will roll my eyeballs when I see the top of a guy's boxer shorts above a pair of pants four sizes too big. But no matter what I might think or how I react, it's not my world that others only live in and I don't get to decide who's in or out. It's only my opinion and I don't have a license to inflict cruelty on anyone just because we don't see things the same way. No one does.
I'm trying to find my shape again (and, yes, I'm perfectly aware that round is a shape, too). For the past 10 years I've been trying to lose the same amount of weight; instead, I lose and gain it back over and over again. I have an extensive wardrobe consisting of clothes in all the different sizes I wear during my perpetual weight cycle -- I never stay in one size long enough to wear out any of my garments and so I can reach for them again whenever I have to.
I used to be able to lose five or more pounds in a week simply by depriving myself of food. That, in a nutshell, is my problem. I always knew that no matter how big I got, I could lose it using a combination of temporary starvation and my normal nervous energy (I fidget a lot and I'm never still even if I appear to be). But now I'm at the age when everything that used to work no longer does, and I'm not used to actually doing any kind of real work to stay physically healthy or fit so nothing works right now.
The last time I was at my goal weight was in 1995. My friend J asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding and I didn't want to be the only tubby one in the pictures. So I lost 30 lbs. in less than three months and everyone was saying how fabulous I looked. I loved how I looked in clothes again and dressed in what I wanted to wear rather than in what simply looked good on me. Obviously I started putting on the pounds pretty quickly, and 10 years later I weighed the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. Fortunately since then I've adopted a few better habits that have kept me from getting to that point ever again. I don't even own any clothes in that size anymore.
So lately I've been eating healthier and moving more -- no drastic steps, just little ones that I keep adding to my daily routine. But now I'm ready to go full speed ahead and start seeing results that inspire me. I won't bore you with details -- I mean, who cares to know what I eat or don't eat, or how many miles I walk a day? Here's what I will say, however:
1. I don't care about being able to get into a bikini. Even in the days when I was told I had a hot bod (1986-1987, just for the record) I never wore one. So why start now?
2. Therefore, I don't aspire for a six-pack or any kind of ripping in my ab area. No one's going to see it anyway. I want sculpted biceps and triceps, though. I don't have loose skin flapping around in that area now (thank heavens for small favors), but I want to look like I can beat up anybody who says I look fat even when I've achieved my fitness goals. This is because...
3. I want to stay curvy; I like my boobs and my ass because even at my age they don't sag. I just don't want to lose so much weight that my face sinks in and starts looking old. Do you know why older celebrities and society women start injecting all kinds of strange substances into their faces and chests to plump 'em up? Because they're too skinny, that's why. But for some reason people these days seem to think curvy means fat. No way -- they all can watch my hips swish beguilingly as I turn my back on them and sashay away.
4. I told my friends that I've broken up with a bunch of really yummy foods that I'm going to miss and most of them tell me that I don't have to, that all I need to do is maintain a healthy relationship with them. Well, I already thought I was, so I'm going to have to compare my recent decision to that of breaking up with a boyfriend. It only hurts so bad because it hurt so good, and if I stick around it won't be good for me in the long run. Eventually, when the time is right and when I get myself under control, I may be able to ring up the troublemaker for a booty call now and then and not suffer any serious consequences. But in the meantime I say to thee, "It's not you, it's me" -- and I'm outie.
See you all in my skinny jeans soon.
Just wondering -- and I may need to ask my other guy friends what they think because I have no idea if this particular fellow would give me a truthful answer today, even after all these many years.
When he and I were "seeing" each other (I use this term loosely because we agreed we couldn't possibly be in any kind of committed relationship at the time), he told me that once he'd been intimate with a woman, he would forever see her as someone he once had sex with. He even recreated the scenario for me on one of the many times we'd hang out in the living room of his post-war apartment (I can still visualize myself sprawled out on his brown leather couch, enjoying the feel of the cool, thick wood floors under my feet). The way it would go, he said, was he'd bump into her unexpectedly, they'd end up making small talk, and all the time he'd be thinking in the back of his mind as she spoke: "We slept together."
So I saw him recently, maybe somewhat unexpectedly (but only because seeing him always gives me a bit of a shock for some reason). It's been more than 15 years since I last left his apartment barely after sunrise like I used to. That early morning he, as always, walked me to my car wearing a rumpled university sweatshirt and a crooked smile and then kissed me goodbye, as I watched him slowly walk back across the courtyard to climb the stairs to his apartment while I waited for my windshield to defrost. Now understand that I have no actual idea what our final close encounter was really like because when it happened I had no inkling that it would be our last; for me it probably was just another morning goodbye. Anyway, we've seen each other perhaps a handful of times since then; each time I wondered if he was thinking what he said he would unfailingly -- just because he said he always would.
Of course, this means that when I see him I end up thinking just that -- even if it's not what I'd like to be thinking of because then I get embarrassed to look straight into his eyes when we say hello and my hug's just slightly bit tentative though still warm, because I'm always happy to see him. He's almost exactly where I thought he would be at this point in his life (perhaps because he used to tell me all about his plans and dreams back then) and I'm nowhere close to where I once expected I'd be at, though we're both in good places in our lives now. But still, only because of that dumb thing he once said a long time ago, he'll always be someone I once slept with -- even if he's really much more than that.
Perhaps it would be better if he told me he'd always be thinking: "We loved each other once." Yes, I suppose I'd much prefer that, even now when we both love other people and especially when everything else that we used to do is slowly fading away from my memory. Then at least there'd be nothing for me to feel embarrassed about.