Last Splash

Tuesday, 11 October 2005

Let's get this one off my chest first. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, probably because someone brought him up around the same time I started reading someone's blog that reminds me A LOT of his personality. Tall, dark, stocky, handsome in that bumbling, irreverent, ratty shorts and Converse sneaker sort of way. Loves to argue, to play devil's advocate, to twist your words and thoughts until you're frustrated, but all with a mischeivous smirk on his face. A master of sarcasm and charm. A near-genious level of intelligence, which was intriguing and off-putting all at once. I once thought, in a space of three short months, that he was everything I had looked for. He was so attentive when I was there, making me feel like I was the thing that mattered most, that for those two or three days his sole duty was to make sure I enjoyed myself. The problem: we lived too far apart, and for the four weeks between our visits he was married to his job. Maybe I could have made it work, but I was young and stilted by my shyness with him; my need to not feel like a burden or intrude on his workspace. Had I been more confident, had I just showed up at his house and really expressed the way I felt, would he have realized what he was missing? Or would he have felt pushed and distracted from what was really important to him? I was so careful to not get in the way, not ask for too much of him, and to likewise not show him how close a connection I wanted and felt with him, that maybe when it was ending he was left with the same impression. Maybe he wanted to be closer all along, but thought I was the one being aloof. I heard from the friend that introduced us (we're still close; they speak occasionally) that he thought of me as "one of the good ones". She seemed to think he cared more than I thought. What I missed most when he was gone? The distinct memory of being alone on his porch, or taking a bath at his apartment, and knowing he was there, cooking dinner or reading the paper. Not talking, just comfortable in the knowledge that he was nearby, in the strange domesticality of our new relationship. I hope he figured it all out in California.