Day Thirty

May 2, 2006,

Dear Lunch Buddy,

I’m a dorkfish. Today I pretended to pocket-call you so that I would have an excuse to make contact with you in the hopes that you would call me or e-mail me. As soon as I did it, I felt like a big jerk, hearing your voice so small and tinny and me pretending not to hear you. I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry for that. It was dishonest and silly. My only comfort came in knowing that you would find it endearing if you knew, and you would smile and hug me and tell me how cute it was.

And it did pay off. You e-mailed me later, to tell me about the pocket-call and then about your encounter with Roommate. We chatted via e-mail for a while, and I knew that you are missing me in your heart, even though you hold back a little more each time I see or talk to you. I suggested that you call me some time and we could meet for a soda. You called me immediately and suggested that we meet for lunch, and it made me happy to know that you still want to spend time with me.

When we met, there was more space between us than last time. I tried to be cheerful and just laugh and be who I was before this all happened, but I wanted you to take my hand or kiss me or hug me or something. You paid for my lunch, and I listened to your stories and your plan for your garage. That alone made me have to swallow hard. Plans for your garage mean plans for a future in that house with that woman and not with me. I didn’t want to hear them, but I listened and pretended not to take it that way.

I just wish we could go back to before she found your phone bill. That’s when things went south for us. I would go back to being your part-time lover, just to know that you’d be here tomorrow and the next day. I miss so many things about you, about us… I miss things about me that I found because of you.

It seems so wrong that I should share the gifts you gave me with someone else. But then I suppose that you have shared my gifts to you with Her.

I considered online dating again, briefly. I’m so lonely, I just thought I could find someone to distract me for a while, until I felt normal again. But the deluge of mail made me tense and my head started hurting and I just din’t want to look at it anymore. I’m not ready to date. Even as filler.

You hugged me before we parted at lunch, and you kissed the side of my mouth which eventually turned into a full on kiss. You discussed coming over to meet Sweetness and that gives me something to look forward to. Then you told me that you don’t care if I never pay you back the money you loaned me last summer. My feelings are mixed on that, too, because when you last told me to hold on to it, I had hoped that you were wanting me to hold it so that you could move in here later and have some rent paid up. I don’t know how to just take it as a nice gesture without having to read your feelings into things.

I just want you so badly. I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of being lonely. I’m tired of waiting for my life to start and waking up to find it’s ended. I don’t want to live in a world in which love like ours can be denied for stupid reasons. Even you said that it was for "no good reason."

I’m tired. I guess I’m also whiney.

I ache for you from my core,