Not lost as in dead, thank God. But quite possibly he's now out of my life. And even more possibly, it'll be better that way, although it sure as hell doesn't feel better now.
Oli's been my closest friend for a year. Doesn't sound like a very long time, does it? And yet I feel like I've known him forever, even though I've only known him maybe 16 months, and have only been talking frequently since the end of last June. If I think about it, our relationship was probably doomed from the start. We became close when he was the one to support me after a shock I had last June, when I finally split up with my previous best friend - a guy I'd known and loved for nearly seven years - after our relationship had been dying a long and painful death for a year or more (for reasons that I'm not going into right now), but never quite took its last breaths. Anyway, that relationship ended, finally, and Oli was there to pick up the pieces. I figured he was safe, since he had a girlfriend, and he never seemed to do in-person relationships anyway - most of his girlfriends had been online ones, and he seemed happy enough that way.
So we became close. And flirted. And when he split up with his girlfriend, it seemed inevitable that something would start between us. I held back, because of the girlfriend at first, and then because I didn't want to fall in love, especially with someone who had another year of uni to go, and for the next year would be a 3-hour, £60 (at best - and that's about $120, btw) train ride away from me. But even though he's an Aquarian, like me, and kind of aloof (also like me), he's never been as cautious as I am. He doesn't overanalyze things the way I do. He certainly doesn't hold back because of premonitions that things might go wrong, the way I do frequently. So he pushed me - first to flirt with him, then to have phone sex with him most nights, then eventually to go and visit him - and I liked the pushing, never found it obnoxious the way I would with most guys, and I convinced myself it was healthy to take the leap out of my comfort zone. So I flirted, and I stayed on the phone with him until 6am three or four nights a week, turning him on and getting turned on too. (Which, btw, is something I've never done before, or since. I'm not exactly a prude, just...cautious is really the only word.) And in October of last year, after three months of flirting, I went to visit him up north, and that's when things all fell apart.
I don't know exactly HOW it happened. Part of me, the cynical mean part, thinks that he wasn't attracted to me and he didn't want to say so and hurt my feelings, so he found some other way to fuck things up. All I know is that for four days, things were blissful. We woke up late, ate breakfast together, in the afternoon he'd go to work and I'd either go with him and do Christmas shopping while he worked, or I'd stay home and do reading for college. In the evenings we'd either cook, or get Chinese takeaway, and watch a movie all curled up on his bed. And morning, noon and night, we had a lot of sex. Wonderful, amazing sex. And then, on the day I was supposed to leave, he turned to me and said, "What happens if you get pregnant?"
For a while, I didn't know what he was asking, or why. We had this conversation before I even decided to come up to visit. Neither of us likes condoms much, so we didn't want to use them - but neither of us is a risk-taker either. So our solution was pretty simple: I have a Mirena contraceptive implant, so I didn't have to worry about pregnancy, and we both got tested at the GU clinic before my visit. Neither of us had been with anyone in six months, so we were past the window period for HIV testing, and all other tests only take a couple of weeks to get results. Both of us checked out clean, and Mirena is one of the most effective contraceptives available, so we figured we were safe. And we'd talked about this in depth before we even met, so I didn't get why he was bringing it up NOW.
At first, I was just sort of curious, so I stayed calm. Oli, you remember I have the implant, right? Sure, he said, but he'd feel better if we'd used condoms too. And then I got just a little bit annoyed. Firstly, I said, it's a bit late to be saying this NOW. We discussed this before, so why didn't you say something then, before we met? Or at any time since I've been here? And secondly, condoms wouldn't make things much better. My implant has a failure rate of 0.02% - that's fifteen times as effective as condoms at their best. And failure rates are based on the average woman, over a year. A failure rate of 0.02% means that if 1000 women have sex three times a week for a year, two of them will get pregnant during that year. Considering that we've done it maybe eight or nine times, I don't think we have much to worry about.
But he wouldn't let it go. He just had to know what would happen in the worst case scenario, wouldn't let me get away with "we'll cross that bridge when and if we come to it". And my visit ended up with us having a screaming fight, him insisting that neither of us could deal with a baby right now, me crying because I'd had a miscarriage two years previously that he'd forgotten about, and I couldn't go through that again, both of us with raised voices and even more raised emotions, and eventually both of us cuddled up together, crying.
Honestly, it was the kind of scene you'd expect if I'd just found out I actually was pregnant.
What made it so scary was that neither of us is an emotional person. I know I've mentioned this about me before, but it's true of him, too. Yeah, he's more emotional than I am, but not by much. And yet both of us totally lost it during this fight.
Eventually I lied to him. I told him that if it did happen, I'd get an abortion. I think it's the only lie I've ever told him, at least the only non-vague one (saying I'm fine when I'm not doesn't count as a real lie, IMO ). Truth is, if I'd found I was pregnant after all that, I probably would have cut all ties with him and kept the baby, and prayed that he never found out. In hindsight, it might have been easier on both of us if that's what had happened. But it didn't. My implant worked, the pregnancy tests that I took religiously every week stayed negative, and the crisis was averted. Except to our relationship, which never really recovered.
For awhile I thought it might. But then I got word that he was trying to work things out with his ex (not the one he was with when I met him...a different one), who'd moved back to Canada. Sometimes I wonder if part of the reason he chose to get back with her was BECAUSE of the distance involved, because with her, he couldn't possibly have a scare like the one he'd just had with me.
Well, it's easier to think that than to admit that she's just prettier and smarter than I am.
So he got back with his ex, and I got a lot of shit from her for a couple of weeks. Notes on facebook, comments on journal entries (god knows how she FOUND the damn thing), other stuff like that. All of it pretty venomous: lots of screaming at me about how deluded I was, and how he'd never loved me, and how I'd made everything up in my head to split them apart, and how he was only with me because I was easy, how he might sleep with someone like me but he'd marry someone like her...just bile, all of it, but still enough to make me want out of the whole situation. So I told him that we should probably stay away from each other for awhile, and he didn't like it, but eventually he agreed.
I tried. God knows I tried. But it didn't work. I guess we just loved each other too much. Not in a relationship-type way, that was probably the problem in the beginning. But it was love, that kind of friendship-love that can last a lifetime if circumstances don't interfere. He was miserable without me around. I know, because he'd call me a handful of times a week, sometimes crying, sometimes just sounding depressed, but always telling me how much he missed me. I didn't have the time or energy to miss him too much: that was the week my mother had a hip replacement, and I stayed and worked in her hospital room most days from mid-morning until visiting hours finished at ten pm, and my brother gave me a lift home so I didn't have to take the bus both ways. I'd get home at 10.30 or 11, feed the dog, do a load of Mom's laundry that I brought home with me, clean up after the lodgers, and collapse into bed, only to do it again the next day. Mom came home after a week in the hospital and I had to wait on her constantly, as well as dress and bathe her, change her dressings and put her through her physio. For maybe a month, I didn't have the energy to miss Oli much, beyond that vague ache that never quite went away.
And then after a while, we started talking again. Sort of behind his girlfriend's back, although I didn't realise that at the time. When he said that we probably shouldn't add each other to our facebook friends lists, because it might stir up trouble, I agreed, against my better judgement. I guess I just shoved it to one side, and just had the vague idea that eventually things would get better.
But here we are, a couple of days away from July, and things aren't better. And I don't feel okay with it anymore. More and more I feel like his dirty little secret. And I don't like that feeling. So I told him this the other day, and he didn't seem to have a clue what I was talking about, and I couldn't go into it and explain it without getting emotional. So I just asked him to let me be for awhile.
Then this evening, he apologized to me. He said he realized today that he'd been letting his relationship with his girlfriend get in the way of his friendship with me. And part of me really wanted to smile, and say forget it, and just let things go back to how they've been for the last eight months. But another part of me says no, it's too little, too late. And that part won't let things go back.
The thing is, it's not totally his fault. I'm responsible for my own behaviour, and I let things continue the way they were. I could have spoken up earlier, and I didn't. I could have stood up to his girlfriend, called her out on all the bad stuff she said, and I didn't. I could have listened to my concerns and refused to meet up with him in the first place, and I didn't. If there's any blame to be shared out, I get as much of it as he does, even if he's the one who's been thoughtless and unintentionally cruel. (And it IS unintentional - despite everything that's gone on with us, he's one of the sweetest, nicest people I know.)
But honestly, I don't think it matters who's to blame, or even if there's any blame to be given at all. What matters is that I don't feel right around him anymore. I feel dirty, and kind of cheap. For months he's been treating me like something that needs to be hidden away, and consequently that's how I now feel. And because of that, I don't think we can be friends anymore.
I didn't tell him any of this. Some things are just best left unsaid, especially when saying them wouldn't alter the outcome, and would just make him feel bad. All I told him is that I wouldn't be around for awhile, and that I hoped things worked out for him, and that he didn't end up sacrificing more than he could afford for this girl.
I know this is probably for the best, however much it hurts now. But I'm going to miss him. He's the only person in over a year who bothers to ask me how my day went.
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