not quirks, so much as issues

    A couple of days ago I was crossing the parking lot on my way into work. There was a call at the courthouse—across the street from my place of business—which is always apparent from the number and type of cars parked in the lot that we share. When there's a call, the ratio of snooty and/or devastatingly hip to "gets you where you need to go" vehicles is much higher.

    So I crossed the street and then the lot, toward the building, with a head full of lawyers. Considering how many I know, I'm almost embarrassed to admit how quickly my thoughts went to one that I haven't seen (yes, deliberately...sort of...) in months. And even as I felt myself make some sort of wish as my eyes flicked over the cars - oh please oh please oh please - I knew that I wouldn't see his, and that only in my pathetic fantasy-loving heart did I hope (vainly) that he would magically appear before me. I literally shook my head and laughed; it doesn't work like that. Second chances, those sorts of romance-conquers-reality dreams, just don't happen. And even if they did, I wouldn't believe in it. I wouldn't trust it.

    One strike, and you're out.

    That stopped me cold. Remember, this is all playing out real-time while I'm walking from my car into work, a distance of maybe a block and a half. I've already laughed out loud, and now I've stopped in my tracks, eyes (and probably mouth) wide open in wonder. This is a revelation to me.

    One strike, and you're out. Where have I heard this before?

    Johnnie. It was his philosophy about friends, and romance (in which he did not believe), and restaurants and barbers and novelists: I am willing to give you everything I've got, and put all of my faith in you. However, when you fail me, I am through without another thought.

    I never believed it. I refused to accept that someone that I loved like that could be so cold—especially after I did fail him, I did make a mistake that he had said before was unforgivable, and he did get angry and tell me he was through with me...and then later, he told me he'd changed his mind. And it happened not just one time. So I thought that the rule had exceptions, and then I eventually came to think that the "rule" was the exception, and I treated it that way. That was when I found out—we both found out, I suppose—that I'd crossed the line. He was through. I had failed. Not another thought.

    Standing in that parking lot before work, I realized that even if you, Mr. Gorgeous-&-Fascinating Attorney Man, sought me out, I wouldn't trust it. (Naturally that's easier to say since there's a heavy side order of mortification on the plate, too, and so very much confusion about all the many games we were playing in those two booths.) I wouldn't trust it, because I had laid it out clearly and you had rejected it. And so I grudgingly acknowledged to myself that I hope you are happy. I really do want you to be happy, even as it pains me to imagine you happy without me to have a role in it. To make you bark with shocked laughter, or bring out the pedantic lecturer. To inspire an argument so pointless as to require the participation of an impartial third party. Yes, it really does pain me, but I really do want for you to be happy—even as I realize that, were I you, I wouldn't have trusted her and let her back in. She'd left you before. Hurt you before. That's how I got that first lunch, damn it. That's how I realized: you're more trusting than me, and more hopeful. Good for you: may you also be happier.

    All of this dropped into my head/heart/stomach pretty much simultaneously with one more thing: Johnnie ain't never comin' back. He's never going to walk through the door, never going to call or text, never going to email. There will be no tweets or blog posts that have the slightest hint that I ever existed in his life, because I don't. I didn't. As of the moment he put me out, it's as if I was never there.

    I thought he was perfect. I thought it was a matter of time until the perfect...realigned itself. To quote one of my idiot friends at perhaps his most idiotic, "Things should always make sense." I thought that if I waited long enough, wished hard enough, wanted desperately enough, and crossed my [mental] fingers, then when it was "supposed" to happen, it would. And he would just come back, and we would just be, together.

    Well. Clearly, I'm really fucking wrong.

    The perfect man, against whom all others have been measured (and found wanting) does not exist. He never has. Another kind friend, the one who was at hand for all of this mess and pulled my head out of the river more times than I even realize, very gently told me about a week ago that I've gentled my memories of him, not just ignoring but rejecting the parts that don't fit the fairytale. It wasn't all magic and heartfelt connection; I'm wiping out so many tears and so much yelling, seemingly endless silent pouting and bullshit blog posts specifically intended to cause pain. The good old days won't come again—and they maybe weren't all that good, anyway.

    He's not coming back.

    Even if he did, I wouldn't trust him.

    This sucks. Without this truth, I don't know what's true, or what to feel, or what to hope for anymore.