Pushed through and applied to eight jobs this morning, so that was a big accomplishment. Slowly crossing things off my list as I get closer to my trip(s)!
Walked to the gym, started doing my thing, and at my usual halfway point, I grabbed my phone. There was a missed call from Logan. Excited that he had reached out, I took a seat outside the locker room and called him back right away. It was out of character for him to call me like that in the middle of the day – or, at all – but I didn’t think anything of it. I was just happy to know that he was thinking of me.
We caught up fairly quickly, exchanging basic conversation pleasantries. However, in what felt like a very drastic turn of events, the conversation went from Logan telling me what he’s been watching on Netflix to him admitting, “So, I got a call from my doctor this morning….”
Seriously? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Logan has chlamydia. In other words, I likely have chlamydia. Logan’s on that preventative HIV medication, Truvada, and found out through his recent routine three-month test that is required while you’re taking the drug. I didn’t know what to say. I went silent.
Eventually I thought of something and the first thing out of my mouth was, “Do you think it’s from me?” He said no, or that he didn’t think that. Then he revealed that during this latest three-month period it could have been from me or two other people. I stayed calm, but told him that we would have to talk later. Shocked would be an understatement. Before I hung up the phone, I sighed openly to myself.
“Why does this keep fucking happening to me?” I asked nobody.
I sat there thinking about it and called him back ten minutes later. I apologized for hanging up and thanked him for being honest. Then, I asked a question I knew I wouldn’t like the answer to.
“Could it be from someone since you met me?”
Silence.
“Yes,” Logan answered.
My heart sunk. Hearing that was like getting punched in the stomach. I felt sick. I think Logan knew it was a shitty thing to admit, too. I heard him sigh. It sucks. Sleeping with someone else is the last thing I would think about doing right now. In fact, the only thing I’ve thought about since Logan left is how I’d be able to see him again. Nobody else matters to me but him. It hurts. It’s a deep hurt. He doesn’t feel the same way. Logan doesn’t think of me the way I think of him.
This is where it’s difficult to deal with, though, because the reality of our “relationship” is that it’s a voluntary thing. I don’t want to think about anyone else. That’s me. But, I can’t exactly ask the same of Logan, because we aren’t “anything.” We aren’t a couple. We don’t live in the same city. But, now my trust is bruised. It gets fucking beaten down with each new guy and I slowly build it back up, only to get kicked in the gut again and again. How am I going to feel each time I see Logan now? It’s just going to be me thinking about who he may have slept with since the last time I saw him. I don’t know what to do. And you know what? I’m not an idiot. I did the math. Logan had one week to fool around between when I met him in December and when he visited over New Year’s, and then he’s had the last three weeks. So, fuck this, man. That’s fucking shady.
On somewhat of a brighter note, it’s comforting to know that Natasha and I really do have a special connection as best friends. It’s like she knew I needed someone to talk to. Natasha messaged me out of the blue. I told her what happened, then she called and we talked some more. I miss her.
Tonight, I had a training workshop for the (very) part-time 3D printing job I got with DigiPrint, the company I visited before my car accident a couple of weeks ago. I spent a few hours at their office and then went home. That’s around the time Logan called again and talked with me for no more than ten minutes. He didn’t even bring up the fucking elephant in the room. We talked briefly about his work, then he had to go because he was meeting a friend for dinner. I wonder if they fucked after?
I took a bath and crawled into to bed with some unacknowledged texts to Logan. I really feel like shit. I keep getting taken out at the knees, and just when I find my balance again, something new comes along. This one really hurts, though. I wanted to tell Logan that I loved him.
I couldn’t sleep. After a couple of hours, Logan responded to my texts. He said he was sorry and that he felt like an ass. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it through text, so he called me. I tried to keep it together as much as possible. Be rational about things. I told him there’s a part of me that I know lives in an optimistic fantasy, but the other side of me knows the limitations of our arrangement. I just try not to think about that. When Logan told me about his sleeping around, it was like a punch to the gut. I was jolted out of my fantasyland and forced to think about the realities of our relationship. It really hurts. Ever since Logan left, the only thing I’ve thought about is how I can see him again. Being with someone else is the last thing I would ever think about. Yet, for Logan, that’s clearly not the case. Given our situation, I could never ask that of Logan. I know that.
After a while, Logan suddenly became quite blunt, explaining, “Well, this is how things are,” and that he was simply being realistic about things. I started crying. A lot. I kept it pretty silent, but I couldn’t stop. Eventually, I reached a point where I told him I had to go. I hung up on him after what was only about ten minutes.
A text followed.
Logan: “Fuck I wish I could hug you right now if you’d let me.”
That only upset me further. The sentiment was nothing but another reminder that – that can’t happen. Logan can’t hug me. We don’t live in the same city. About ten minutes passed and I had calmed down enough to try and call Logan back. Obviously, I still had more to say. A lot more. Logan didn’t answer, so I went to bed. I figured he wouldn’t call me back, but he did. The second phone call lasted almost an hour.
I asked Logan if he thought there was a possibility that things could work out between us, or if there would be a happy ending. Logan is all I can think about. What hurts the most about knowing all of this, is that it wasn’t even three weeks after he was with me that he was jumping into bed with another guy. It just seems so quick. How could Logan flip that fast after we spent such an amazing time together?
There’s no way I can remember everything Logan said. He was saying things like, “What’s happened does not negate the time we spent together,” and that he really cares for me a lot, but then he would add that he doesn’t think of us in a monogamous way. There were a lot of long, silent pauses where neither of us would say anything. I was waiting for him to talk.
I tried to get the details about the timeframe in which this shit happened, but Logan wouldn’t elaborate. He said it would just make the situation worse, or something along those lines. Maybe he was right. I know it was invasive of me to ask. Sometimes I want to know more than I should. A part of me still wants to know, perhaps to stop myself from forming a fictitious picture in my mind. But, maybe it’s best that I remain in the dark.
At one point, something was beginning to click in my mind when Logan was talking about the distance thing. I’d heard that somewhere before. How Logan has a lot of apprehension towards a long-distance thing because of past experiences. How we approached this situation in a really different way. How he doesn’t want to put labels or ideas on something, or feel obligated to try and make our relationship into something serious when we haven’t spent that much time together.
Logan said that there’s obviously something special and a really unique connection between us. “In a situation where we lived in the same city, that could develop as the physical component develops.” But, we don’t get that opportunity. He admitted he didn’t know when he was going to see me next, either. That one hurt, too.
I told him there was no question that I would do everything I could to see him again as soon as possible. To that he responded, “Because of everything going on in my life, I don’t want to lose focus. To have work and life to deal with, but have my head in another city and not be at home mentally. There are already so many distractions in my life and I don’t want our relationship to be another.”
I told Logan that I want that distraction, though. I like thinking about him all the time. I barely have a choice in the matter. I can’t help but think of him. He continued:
“I thought that, although we’ve had this time together and have this connection, because of the dynamics we would each continue to live our own lives, but parallel to one another. I think about you every day. I want to text you all the time. I thought that we would be able to operate by checking in here and there, talking, and continuing our connection. But, with the understanding that our own lives continue to happen as they were.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Logan barely talks to me as it is. Half the time he’ll completely ignore me.
Then, it finally clicked. I’m Dylan. I’m the fucking Dylan. I could hear it in everything Logan was saying and I felt like a complete moron. He was saying exactly what I said to Dylan, and I just wasn’t getting it. I felt like such a fucking tool. I knew this would happen. And just like the Dylan situation, although the tables have turned, I’m in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same way about me. Yeah, I’m in love with Logan. I have been since I met him and I knew it right away. I’m such a fucking idiot. I thought that I might have even been at a point where I would say that to Logan. Can you imagine? Ugh.
I think that you can overcome distance in a relationship. You can. It’s hard, but I’m convinced it can be done. It takes both parties, though. It necessitates effort from each side, otherwise it will never work.
With reality sinking in further and further, I was oddly beginning to feel okay. Logan said, “I’m sorry for breaking your trust, which is what I feel happened today,” and he was dead right. That’s exactly what happened.
Silence.
All I wanted to tell Logan was that now I have this image, this thought, this fear, that each time I’m with him after time apart, I’m going to end up at the Hassle Free Clinic. With continued silence on his end, I finally said that to him. I started crying again. I really fucking hate that clinic. It’s a horrible feeling to have to go there. I don’t know what I keep doing to deserve this.
Another long pause.
Logan talked about how, the last two times we met, he was in a very different place. When he visited me, he was completely at ease and was able to relax and take a vacation. But, now things are different. Especially with his job. He’s been thinking about how I might see him in a different light during my visit and asked if I ever thought about that stuff. “It’s something I really worry about,” he said.
As if it were possible, this was where I became even more emotional. Both of us did. I told Logan about the bad anxiety attacks I was having after he left. How I was in one of the worst places I’ve ever seen myself. That’s hardly an exaggeration, either. Those anxiety attacks were by far the worst I’ve ever had. But, all I would want in those moments was Logan. He makes me feel so good. I knew that if he was there, I would feel better. Everything would be okay if I had him.
I admitted to my loneliness. “I want to be with you. I care about you. I like you so, so much.” I could barely get that out because I was crying so intensely. “For the most part, I’m a pretty happy person, but I go through shitty times, too. There are sides of me that are very dark. That’s human nature. But, I would let you see that side of me and hope that you would do the same. I would do anything I could to make your life brighter.” He said that was an incredibly nice thing to say.
I was crying quite heavily during all of this. I couldn’t stop. I heard him crying, too. For long periods, it was just each of us crying on either end of the phone.
Logan said, “It makes me so sad to know that you’re lonely. Because you have so many special gifts and –”
I cut him off.
“I feel trapped,” I said. I do. I feel fucking trapped all the time.
I caught my breath, telling Logan, “Nobody can see any of that. Nobody sees that side of me. They don’t see my worth. I can’t even get a job. I barely have any friends who can see the real me, but you get it. You see me in such a different light after only a sliver of time together. I don’t need a crowd of people to like me. When I’m with you, that’s all I need. And I’m so scared of pushing you away and scaring you with this stuff because I don’t want to lose you, but it’s the truth. I care about you so much.”
Logan was crying a lot. I could hear it through the phone. I was sobbing. I think he knows how much I care for him. He definitely knows that he fucked with my head. More words were exchanged, most of which I forget now. Logan said that he was sorry and that I shouldn’t have to go through this, or deal with this, or have to think about it, especially the way my bubble was burst and all of this was brought to light.
Silence again.
I was getting lost in the image of Logan with someone else.
Referring back to a comment I made during his visit, I said, “Remember how I mentioned I don’t like talking about ex-boyfriends? This is why.”
Logan turned that on me, responding, “I understand why that might make sense at the beginning of a relationship, but I don’t want to feel like I can’t talk to you about things, or that a certain subject is off limits.”
I felt like an ass. I started backtracking. “Obviously, I want you to be able to talk to me about anything. It’s not about erasing history. It’s because I don’t want my view of you to be clouded with the past as I’m still getting to know you.”
I don’t want to have to imagine Logan with someone else. That image pains me. I was blunt, telling him, “I didn’t want to picture you with someone else’s dick in your mouth. Now I have that image in my head and I don’t know how to get rid of it. I don’t want it there.”
I think the biggest hurdle for me in all of this is going to be building my trust back up, but also pushing those thoughts to the back of my head. I told Logan, “I’m not stupid. I know that this is the reality of our relationship. But, of all the things I didn’t want to think about – cities, countries, work, distances – this was the absolute last thing. Now I have no choice.”
Things were wrapping up. I thanked Logan for talking with me and we joked about how he’s an awful texter. He said, “At the end of the day, it’s clear that we both want each other in our lives. Now we can move forward without rose-colored glasses.” That sounds like a crappy thing to say, but it didn’t feel like it. “I’m looking forward to your visit,” he added.
Earlier, Logan had asked if I still wanted to make the trip, because, “First and foremost, I still really want to see you and I hope that this won’t be a make it or break it sort of thing.”
I told him that was never what my visit was about. I wasn’t going to New York City so I could tie him down. Even before all of this happened, my trip was simply about taking advantage of time I had that I could spend with him. That’s it.
I felt a lot better than I did at the beginning of the call. We said goodnight. It took me a while to fall asleep. A lot had just happened and my mind was everywhere. Like I said, pushing those thoughts away is going to take a lot of work. But, it’s the reality of this arrangement. For now, at least. I think I can see it a bit more rationally now. The way in which this harsh truth was brought to my attention is certainly less than ideal, but at the end of the day, it’s our reality. It would have come to light sooner or later.
I’m not going to lie – a part of me still thinks that there will be a happy ending. I don’t care if it’s unrealistic, or if I have my head in the clouds, or if it’s childish and naïve. I like living that way. I want to keep seeing the positive in each situation and be optimistic about the future. If it means my heart gets hurt, I guess I’ll have to deal with that when it happens. But, I would rather go through life thinking the best of thoughts and continue putting myself out there rather than shut myself off because of reality. I don’t want to live realistically. As I was reminded today, reality fucking sucks.
My feelings for Logan haven’t changed. My feelings about the situation? Of course. However, there’s clearly something special between us. I don’t want to throw it all away because of this hiccup. As Logan said, “If we can get through this, then maybe it will help us move forward with the situation better.”
What really made me start to see this situation differently was when I realized I’m the Dylan. Logan was saying things I said to Dylan almost verbatim, and that’s when it clicked. I was completely wrapped up in a fairytale I had formed in my head. It’s not fair for me to have all these expectations about something that – I don’t even understand. I still think the two situations are very different, based on the connections alone, but I get it now. I see it.
This is why I write. Writing my thoughts down and reading them back to myself is very therapeutic. It helps me assess a situation almost from an outside view and then I can tell myself, “You’re being ridiculous.”
I don’t want to downplay things. As if I could if I tried. I’m not exactly one for being anything less than dramatic. The way this was brought to light really sucks and I was not prepared for it at all. Ironically, the fact that I likely have chlamydia is the least of my worries.
I don’t want to pretend like I’m not upset. I am. I’m stuck in a place where I’m really hurt, but understand that those emotions can only go so far because of the dynamics of this relationship. Logan slept with someone else. Well, we aren’t in a monogamous relationship, so who am I to say he can’t? It’s gutting, because it’s not how I think and that’s not something I would do, but Logan didn’t do anything “wrong.” I’m thinking with my heart. I need to be more rational about things, which I think is beginning to happen.
I still feel shitty. That glum feeling where all I want to do is listen to ballads. It will pass, though. At least, I hope it will. This is wound is still very fresh. It completely blindsided me. I’m sad. My heart hurts. Things will be okay. I’m excited to see Logan. I want to see him. I want to look at him and be in his company. I just wish I wasn’t so fucking crazy and emotional all the time.
This has come at a time when everything else in my life has been so awful. January has possibly been the worst month of my life. I keep getting dumped on. Everything in my life keeps collapsing and I often feel like walls are caving in around me. But, Logan felt right. It was so promising. Maybe I romanticized things so much because he was my outlet for optimism when everything else seemed so negative.
My New York trip and seeing Logan was something that was such a light at the end of the tunnel. Something that would make all the hurt and pain in my life disappear. Now it feels tainted, too. I’m trying so hard to be happy, but things just keep getting fucked up. Every goddamn time. But, this time I thought that I was enough. That a guy wouldn’t need someone else because I was enough to make him happy. Now it feels like another level has been added to an already leaning tower of inadequacy. I want to be enough. I hope that one day I’ll find my happily ever after – and that it won’t come with a honeymoon at the Hassle Free Clinic. It’s a work in progress, I guess. Damn.
Goodnight xo