It is never easy telling someone you don´t love them, when you know it is not a reciprocal feeling. And yet there he was the other night, doing it. And still the most surprised person in the equation was me.
It seemed I had jumped to a conclusion that because the other person had been very generous and kind to me, and that we had easy relaxed conversations and I enjoyed his company, and that there were so many warm feelings I had towards him bubbling away under the surface that it must be more to it that simply a friendship. And of course all those things are potentially a reason in themselves. But I was seemingly quite wrong and the emotional loss I was feeling after losing a best friend was being misplaced into an even stronger need for an emotional connection with this other person, (lets call him ´Jean Pierre´).
“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.”― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
That long tunnel ahead I wrote of previously, contained metaphorical flashing red lights in the darkness for a very good reason. Every thing I wrote before still holds true. As gay men we are indeed often inclined to perceive and view these things under a hetero-normative template. There are indeed many things a man loving a younger man is perceived to be, names can be called, disparaging remarks made. And to feel it, as a gay men with no children, was indeed not something I had experienced before.
But the very novelty of it does not alas make it more solid, it makes it fraught with unexpected emotions, feeling, reactions and ultimately rejection. This is indeed a very big reveal, especially if that other someone is not on that same page with you. And the very fact that even I was not entirely sure how I would have coped with it, had it happened to me, say, three decades ago was another warning sign. Even I thought I might well have run away, as I wrote before, frightened off by the curious notion it presents in its raw form, which doesn’t really fit into any of the societal norms. My needs in this were clear but I don’t think in feeling them, I took into account the needs of the other person involved in this situation. Or perhaps I did but had overlooked them enough to consider that such news might be accepted and dealt with.
And after several emotional outbursts from me, as the person pulled away from me, there followed the dreaded ‘I think this has got out of hand´ note by text. The classic ´´we can still be friends but not now and not in the way you want´´ moment, that every lover dreads. For me it had faint echoes of the Mike moment, decades ago I still remember well even now ´I can only see you every two weeks and not like this´.
And as I process this and strive to accept it, to take it on board and all it entails, a wave of much softer emotion washes over me. As the tightening stomach cramps ease, the need to check the phone for messages, to see whether he has logged on today and not sent any messages, to want to be with him but alone and so on, these ease too, a blessed relief. Along with it comes acceptance of change, and an ability to perceive the situation from an ´other´ point of view. The ´awful´ thing about unrequited love of whatever nature, is that the recipient often feels nothing more than slightly irritated. Irritated that this is hindering him or her doing a myriad of other things which for whatever reason are far more important, more needed, more necessary. And sometimes too, a feeling of pity for the ‘lover’: of weakness, of being let down, of seeing how even the strong are brought down to the ground, on their bended knees by this thing we call love. Is it an illness? Well, some psychologists would suggest so. It has many of the classic signs of some forms of mental illness. Delusion. illusion, confusion. They all exist in this spectrum. And yet we give it pride of place in our world, write countless words, verses, songs and prose in its honour. You´ll feel no doubt I´ve gone to the opposite extreme here and of course in some respects you would be correct. And yet, and yet..
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
And yet, as with all things there is something to be gained by the experience. The wisdom that comes through bitter experience. Bitter, broken love serves often as a reminder that we are fallible, it pricks one and all who experience it, whether rich or poor, man or women, black or white. That empty feeling in your heart is really there, an absence of some of the most potent chemicals that circulate our bodies. Time will heal, will fill this absence as we mend emotionally day by day.
And for me? Well it is indeed a two fold healing process, the loss of two loves at once. Two deaths, if you like. But I am mending well, dark clouds lifting like the early morning fog on a spring day. I really can feel it lifting. And writing words, writing songs is part of that process for me, though others find different ways of helping it lift away. And from it come a few revelations too. The ways freinds can help the pain lift, the huge importance of a simple yet heartfelt hug, above all the realisation that I can still feel such intensity of emotion, even now, unmatched I think in two and a half decades.
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
And if I can indeed get over it reasonably quickly perhaps, as I wrote before, the feeling that I can allow myself to open up to love again, to being loved again should it happen before I pass on. I understand that you may scoff at my notion of preparing for death but I suspect it is a very natural process as we age, after our mid sixties or so. I have a modicum of regret that I did not realise this earlier but nevertheless it is true that ´Jean Philippe´ has given me back my capacity to love and to be loved. And that gift has surely to be priceless. It is also why I will never feel angry or hurt about the situation as it eventually unfolded, as I think I gained, I took, far more than I gave. However, my thoughts still turn to the person in question and I hope he gets what he wants and needs in the future to move forwards, onwards, along wherever his own path leads.
And I marvel too, at the sheer complexity of the patterns we humans weave into our lives.
