He was smart, funny and distinctly handsome, so I couldn't believe it when he wanted to meet me for coffee. It took a few weeks to arrange, but eventually we did and I was glad to have met a new friend. It was a complicated situation. I was married and he was in a long-term relationship - I know, I should have known better.
We started to meet weekly, for more than coffee, and from February up until July, we were pretty hot and heavy. He would message me every morning and it gave me a reason to wake up. His "morning handsome" texts were something I hadn't had in such a long time. This educated, funny guy was interested in me? He was waking up thinking of me? How could I not fall for someone like that?
He told me his relationship with his boyfriend was tumultuous. They lived together but there was no sexual activity, and he wasn't even sure if there was love there anymore. I started opening up to him, telling him things that I wouldn't just share with anyone, but that was probably a mistake. He begun to mock me for certain sexual interests I have, he didn't even understand why I, a gay man that was having no sex in my relationship, would want or need a butt plug. But critical comments like that were small fry compared to what was to come.
In the coming months we continued to meet, whether it be for coffee or to watch TV shows - a thinly veiled excuse for us to get naked together and do what little he would allow us to do, but the more we would see one another, the more intimate we would get. The last time I saw him sexually, in July, he was on top of me, kissing me deep as he caressed me. As we broke apart from the consuming kiss, he looked into my eyes and told me he wanted me - and that was it - I had fallen for him. Those beautiful, kind eyes told me more than I had ever expected from him and before I knew it, I was uttering the same words back as he leaned in to kiss me again.
I struggle from major insecurity issues, which he knew, so when he would tell me that nothing would put him off of me, I believed him. It was the end of July when things started to quiet down. We hadn't done anything sexual for a couple weeks beyond masturbating together online, and when he finished work for the summer, he promised we would see one another more, even telling me that he wanted to go to London with me and spend more time together. But it soon became abundantly clear that none of that was going to happen. By August, the morning messages had long but withered away, and when my shoot in Attitude magazine was released, something he had been excited for, his reaction was sexual, but muted. It slowly became apparent that there was something going on. His responses became vague, if he bothered to respond at all. Suddenly this person that had made such a big impression in my life was all but gone, and here I was, left with these feelings for someone that I had believed felt the same about me.
Throughout August and September, we met for coffee maybe twice. He would still sit there telling me how erect I was making him, and he would make loose plans for us to meet for a sexual hookup at some point, but those promises never became anything more than cancelled plans and rearrangements for more coffee dates. If I ever questioned if everything was okay with us, he would keep it short and brief; we were fine, apparently, he was just busy with work. It wasn't until October, when I found he had unfollowed me on Twitter, that I just didn't understand what had really happened to us. I questioned him about it and he insisted it was because of work and that he would have to unfollow all the drag queens he follows too - he's still yet to do that, not that it matters. He fed me fiction and I ate it up.
Eventually I couldn't take the confusion any longer and told him how I felt about him. For the first time in weeks he actually replied to me instantly and told me that he wanted me in his life, but only as a friend. Suddenly he was free to meet for coffee that very next day, when I had struggled to make him turn up to meet multiple times in the past month. When we met that next day, things were awkward. He had mentioned that 'a lot had been going on' and he was right - he had fallen in love with somebody else. Not me, nor his boyfriend that he still lived with, someone else entirely. It hit me like a rock to the face.
We took our coffees to the park and he attempted to tell me everything. Sometime in June he had started to see somebody else for the same kind of sexual encounters as us, and over the months he chose to see this other guy more and it developed into what he believed was love. It's bad enough to be second place to someone, but to find out you're actually third place - I felt like he had singed my skin with piping hot coffee. He was adamant that there were no romantic feelings between he and I, but then when I looked him in those soft, sad eyes and told him that we both knew that it was going there, those eyes said it all. He looked at the ground and couldn't even look at me anymore. He later told me that he 'probably did' have feelings for me, but he couldn't help how he felt now. As much as I struggled with all of this, I felt I had to support him and promised him I would still be his friend, despite him saying he expected me to walk away when I found out the truth. If only I had.
From that moment on, whenever something was wrong, he messaged me. When his new beau went hot and cold on him, I was the person he came to; when things got really complicated, it was me he contacted at 5am - and stupidly, I was there hanging on his every word, trying to help this man I'd grown to care about. It was never really reciprocated. If I needed help, he was nowhere to be seen, even in just trying to talk through how much he had hurt me, he would change his story sporadically and get agitated at talk of him hurting me. One moment he was so sorry for everything he had done to me and couldn't understand how I could still even be talking to him, the next he refused to accept hurting me in any way possible. My mind grew dark with all these stories and before I knew it the depression, which I was already succumbing to, was taking over me. Whenever we would meet to talk about the situation, I never got the closure I needed, and he just wasn't able to keep a straight story, not matter how many chances I gave him.
We haven't really spoken or seen one another for months. I briefly saw him in December when we came face to face unexpectedly and I was stopped in my tracks for having not been prepared to see him. Everything came flooding back, all the hurt, manipulation and lies. All the times when he had suggested I was meeting multiple men for hook ups when it was actually him doing so in reality. All the time when he told me he was so glad to have me in his life, yet obviously didn't respect me enough to appreciate me as someone with feelings. It was around that time that a close friend told me about narcissists and how one major thing they can do is to build you up, make everything about you for weeks,potentially months, and then just drop you unexpectedly. They make you trust them, allow you to grow attached and then cause you to feel pain and longing for them when you least expect it. It answered so many questions in my mind over his behaviour and attitude. Yet for some reason, I still long for this man. This man that made me feel like nothing.
Two weeks ago he told me that after the considerable mess he had made, he had asked the new flame for time apart so he could focus on his long term relationship. Apparently he can't decide if he loves or needs either of them in his life, he's even looking at job opportunities abroad 'just incase'. For someone that wanted time to focus on his boyfriend though, he's now back on Grindr as well as at least one other app, And so the cycle starts again. I just hope that whomever falls for him next is stronger than I am and more diligent and proactive than me - because it's not easy to still be hurting over somebody that only ever saw you as a piece of meat with a limited shelf-life.
- Chris
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