I think I wrote this in 2008? Maybe earlier. I'd given up pretense of every "being a writer" per se, but sometimes something spews out of me. Since it is, in fact Friday the 13th in July and I'm far enough removed to no longer be horrified at the inevitable self-indulgence of offering one's internal lucubration to the world to oxidize and lay bare one's latent pretensions, I'll share it here.
We'd met on Friday the 13th on an uncharacteristically stuffy July. Two days after a recent ex's birthday, if I recall, and an aseptic Happy Day swap of well-wishes to the blurred memory of that nameless archetype of all-relationships-failed. I was ready for something new and, shockingly, "new" presented itself to me in quite the novel and uncanny form at the regular Friday night dance thing that was most often populated by tweens, middle-aged divorces, and all-too-familiar faces. He was a recent emigre to this part of the country and stuck out accordingly. A newbie whose various abilities were begging to be tested.
When I'd agreed to "hang out" the next, I had miscalculated my commitments for the next day. I knew I'd RSVP'd affirmatively for a friend's birthday party, but I had come under the impression that it was a morning event and that I would be free by the afternoon. It became fairly clear during my help with the set up for the party it was a much later affair. So in a move I would consider not the most advised in the general scheme of things, I invited him to a party full of my friends.
It went swimmingly. The day presented an illusion I'd almost never partaken of, personally. The level of attentiveness and affection that he afforded me gave the impression to all involved that we'd been a long term couple. I rarely like to be associated with other people, but with him I felt neither an obligation to babysit, nor the sense that I was being overshadowed. We seemed equilaterally complementary.
I suppose in hindsight it was an odder day than I'd imagined. In future interactions, he was uncomfortable to the point of rudeness with my friends, frequently so resistant that he'd sit alone at a bar and refuse to talk with them, or me by extension. Occasionally there were times when he made a conscious effort, but even then he kept a wide distance between me and his friends and always seemed ... well, like he was making an effort, not like this natural and smooth familiarity afforded to me when I'd been a near perfect stranger. The contrast, I suppose, made it harder to endure. But I digress.
The party continued along its eidetic course for hours and then things - as they tend to do - changed. Checking his messages, he discovered that his mother had been hospitalized due what might have been a suicide attempt. As my car headed towards his house, I was the unwilling audience to a number of fevered and unfriendly phone calls to various uncherished familial members, hospital inquiries, and inter-phone-call utterances given as explanations or manifestations of frustration.
When I'd agreed to "hang out" the next, I had miscalculated my commitments for the next day. I knew I'd RSVP'd affirmatively for a friend's birthday party, but I had come under the impression that it was a morning event and that I would be free by the afternoon. It became fairly clear during my help with the set up for the party it was a much later affair. So in a move I would consider not the most advised in the general scheme of things, I invited him to a party full of my friends.
It went swimmingly. The day presented an illusion I'd almost never partaken of, personally. The level of attentiveness and affection that he afforded me gave the impression to all involved that we'd been a long term couple. I rarely like to be associated with other people, but with him I felt neither an obligation to babysit, nor the sense that I was being overshadowed. We seemed equilaterally complementary.
I suppose in hindsight it was an odder day than I'd imagined. In future interactions, he was uncomfortable to the point of rudeness with my friends, frequently so resistant that he'd sit alone at a bar and refuse to talk with them, or me by extension. Occasionally there were times when he made a conscious effort, but even then he kept a wide distance between me and his friends and always seemed ... well, like he was making an effort, not like this natural and smooth familiarity afforded to me when I'd been a near perfect stranger. The contrast, I suppose, made it harder to endure. But I digress.
The party continued along its eidetic course for hours and then things - as they tend to do - changed. Checking his messages, he discovered that his mother had been hospitalized due what might have been a suicide attempt. As my car headed towards his house, I was the unwilling audience to a number of fevered and unfriendly phone calls to various uncherished familial members, hospital inquiries, and inter-phone-call utterances given as explanations or manifestations of frustration.
I suggested that I leave him alone to deal with his business, but he insisted that the day had been going so well, and that the last thing he wanted right now was to be alone. I didn't want him to come. I don't mean to sound cold, merely aware of the fact that somebody you've just met cannot in any semblance of sanity become an immediate confidante without some pretty significant consequences to any future relationship. I didn't want to give up that possibility just yet, but it seemed impossible to say no.
So we attempted to go dancing, but the phone constantly interrupted and the mood had soured. While I waited for him outside the venue, he held me tightly and explained to me why there had been such tension that day - as if the potential death of one's mother wasn't significant enough. What he told me was an incomparably sad and infuriating account of a lost childhood, one so upsetting and deeply personal, I couldn't dream of sharing it even here. Shortly after we went back to his place.
It wasn't fun so much as involved by then; inextricable and sad. I was inclined to spend the night. No doubt he had been aiming for this as well earlier in the day, and yet somehow the circumstances of the day altered the motivation and tone entirely. It seemed undeniable that he was seeking physical affection as comfort and I was offering it from pity instead of good old fashioned cupidity.
His loneliness stirred mine and the undeniable suffering of desire added a disturbingly appetizing flavor to what became less and less a human connection and more and more a grasping for some sense of meaning and comfort. I poeticize, but I suppose we all hold in our hearts the sum of our experiences and by a certain age, these became more profound than the poetry that attempts to evoke them. Art stirs them, but so do experiences, smells, touches, and most definitely people... Some manage to stir the deep melancholy and the perversely entrancing sting of rejection and self doubt...
This is an essence of dancing ... the naked emotional responses that were once attached to specifics long dead and now reconstructed into something beautiful, expressive, and cathartic. I suppose it is a general experience of any form of artist to hold emotional memory in their arsenal to heighten an experience. It isn't acting a part, so much as allowing myself to be possessed by an essence that is both a part of me and a small shred of the infinite. I suppose it's where the sensual meets the emotional and spiritual. To a degree, we all do this, although perhaps my connections between sex and dancing makes it more acute for me. I battled a heavy depression at one point of my life and as fortunate and proud as I am to have escaped its tyranny, there's a certain voluptuous satisfaction to simply succumbing into the familiarity of despair.
The next morning, we went to the store and bought an abundance of fruits, breads and cheeses and concocted a picnic that I prepared at my house. While I did so, he investigated my apartment, asking questions about various artifacts and telling me his own stories. Again for a moment or two, it was a wonderful whiff of a sort of trust and connection that I'm not sure I entirely believe in. We continued for most of the day until my exhaustion and introversion reared its head in substantial irritability. A bit of driving later, I returned him home. When there, he asked if I wanted to come in and I declined, although more reluctantly than I'd have imagined.
It's wrong to divulge such intimate details of one's life to a near-stranger, or to be the recipient of those even though circumstances made it inevitable. Because it is so intrinsically vulnerable it creates an artificial and one-way illusion of intimacy between two people who have no foundation of trust or confidence and the weight of this intimacy causes the structure itself to implode.
The vulnerability inherrent in dancing and sexuality have an entirely different import, largely because they are rendered safe through rules and context. Premature displays of emotional intimacy, unfettered from certain rules become all consuming, dominating the dynamic. In general, those who are doing the confiding feel exposed and compensate by adding distance in other aspects of their lives. Those who have been confided in feel an odd mixture of duty and pity, which make them in turn oddly vulnerable to manipulation and self-compromise.
To what extent did I imbibe his tragedy and loathing, intoxicated by its link to my own emotional and artistic gratification? To what degree was I stroking my long resolved hurts and pain with his? I couldn't say. I don't know that anyone could delve too far into their emotional motivations without shuddering. Hence, my relief when he was gone. The whole thing seemed too intrinsically and irresistably messy and yet I found myself missing the man I'd brought to that party, who held his cold beer to my neck to cool me off while holding my hand and making small talk with my friends.
So we attempted to go dancing, but the phone constantly interrupted and the mood had soured. While I waited for him outside the venue, he held me tightly and explained to me why there had been such tension that day - as if the potential death of one's mother wasn't significant enough. What he told me was an incomparably sad and infuriating account of a lost childhood, one so upsetting and deeply personal, I couldn't dream of sharing it even here. Shortly after we went back to his place.
It wasn't fun so much as involved by then; inextricable and sad. I was inclined to spend the night. No doubt he had been aiming for this as well earlier in the day, and yet somehow the circumstances of the day altered the motivation and tone entirely. It seemed undeniable that he was seeking physical affection as comfort and I was offering it from pity instead of good old fashioned cupidity.
His loneliness stirred mine and the undeniable suffering of desire added a disturbingly appetizing flavor to what became less and less a human connection and more and more a grasping for some sense of meaning and comfort. I poeticize, but I suppose we all hold in our hearts the sum of our experiences and by a certain age, these became more profound than the poetry that attempts to evoke them. Art stirs them, but so do experiences, smells, touches, and most definitely people... Some manage to stir the deep melancholy and the perversely entrancing sting of rejection and self doubt...
This is an essence of dancing ... the naked emotional responses that were once attached to specifics long dead and now reconstructed into something beautiful, expressive, and cathartic. I suppose it is a general experience of any form of artist to hold emotional memory in their arsenal to heighten an experience. It isn't acting a part, so much as allowing myself to be possessed by an essence that is both a part of me and a small shred of the infinite. I suppose it's where the sensual meets the emotional and spiritual. To a degree, we all do this, although perhaps my connections between sex and dancing makes it more acute for me. I battled a heavy depression at one point of my life and as fortunate and proud as I am to have escaped its tyranny, there's a certain voluptuous satisfaction to simply succumbing into the familiarity of despair.
The next morning, we went to the store and bought an abundance of fruits, breads and cheeses and concocted a picnic that I prepared at my house. While I did so, he investigated my apartment, asking questions about various artifacts and telling me his own stories. Again for a moment or two, it was a wonderful whiff of a sort of trust and connection that I'm not sure I entirely believe in. We continued for most of the day until my exhaustion and introversion reared its head in substantial irritability. A bit of driving later, I returned him home. When there, he asked if I wanted to come in and I declined, although more reluctantly than I'd have imagined.
It's wrong to divulge such intimate details of one's life to a near-stranger, or to be the recipient of those even though circumstances made it inevitable. Because it is so intrinsically vulnerable it creates an artificial and one-way illusion of intimacy between two people who have no foundation of trust or confidence and the weight of this intimacy causes the structure itself to implode.
The vulnerability inherrent in dancing and sexuality have an entirely different import, largely because they are rendered safe through rules and context. Premature displays of emotional intimacy, unfettered from certain rules become all consuming, dominating the dynamic. In general, those who are doing the confiding feel exposed and compensate by adding distance in other aspects of their lives. Those who have been confided in feel an odd mixture of duty and pity, which make them in turn oddly vulnerable to manipulation and self-compromise.
To what extent did I imbibe his tragedy and loathing, intoxicated by its link to my own emotional and artistic gratification? To what degree was I stroking my long resolved hurts and pain with his? I couldn't say. I don't know that anyone could delve too far into their emotional motivations without shuddering. Hence, my relief when he was gone. The whole thing seemed too intrinsically and irresistably messy and yet I found myself missing the man I'd brought to that party, who held his cold beer to my neck to cool me off while holding my hand and making small talk with my friends.
Somehow when we were together, though, the sad small pit of our stomachs simply pulled to each other like magnets, eclipsing the greater parts of our personalities. His unhappiness spurred my depression, somehow, in a fairly self-perpetuating cycle.
Because of these reasons, I cried after dropping him off, so dissapointed that there seemed to be no way for a happy ending to occur and yet feeling unable to simply walk away or perhaps simply drunk on the general air of misery about it all. Friday the thirteenth... I shoulda known.
Because of these reasons, I cried after dropping him off, so dissapointed that there seemed to be no way for a happy ending to occur and yet feeling unable to simply walk away or perhaps simply drunk on the general air of misery about it all. Friday the thirteenth... I shoulda known.
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