I don’t really know what I was expecting to happen when I walked into Tweedy’s Thursday night.
The final day of August, the second day of my first vacation at my new job. I wanted to go celebrate at my beloved bar. Say hi to my favorite bartenders. Have a drink, or two.
And, well, two-time Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson was there.
And so was my ex-boyfriend, Stephen.
Stephen and I dated over the summer. I’d been minutes away from deleting the apps for a while. I’d been addicted to them since moving back. Determined to find my next boyfriend, I went on date after date, forgetting that I also liked spending time with just myself, not having dinner with one random man after another.
Then he appeared, sending me what was possibly the best opening message I’d ever gotten on a dating app. Instantly hooked, I stuck with it, for a week of texting, for a date, for another date, for exclusivity, for official boyfriend titles until the reasons ran out.
We broke up for a host of reasons, and, strangely enough, this Marianne Williamson event exemplifies one of them.
He didn’t know how to slow down. He could leave work at 5 p.m. and have five different engagements to go to. At this event, that’s exactly what it was. Something else to fill his Google Calendar with. I told him he needed to learn to be with himself. He needed to realize that he was running, running, running after nothing. Yes, you can be everywhere and be everything all the time.
But what’s the point?
As we spoke, I learned he had been in attendance at an LGBTQ+ Democrats event earlier in the night.
“Did you learn nothing from what I told you?” I asked him. “What did I say? About how you needed to slow down, be with yourself, take a break?”
Ever with a reason, he replied, “I just got back from vacation yesterday! I’m catching up.”
I rolled my eyes. No reasoning with an incorrigible problem.
So, not only was I standing there, unexpectedly blasted by the words of author-turned-candidate Williamson, I was also standing there next to my ex-boyfriend.
How’s that for a night?
I’d gone there, with my laptop, hoping to work on … something? Maybe it was this column. But the fever dream of it all has ensured I no longer remember what it was I planned to do. Maybe I brought my laptop as an excuse. Telling myself I’d do something productive when all I really planned to do was drink two vodka sodas and giggle.
My laptop largely stayed in my backpack, opened once, so I could tweet about what I was seeing before returning to its slumber. The rest of the time, it stayed on my shoulders.
Quote of the Week
“Sometimes, it’s just, ‘wow, you really did that to another human being.’” —Kirsten on how people treat each other on Love Island.
I wonder what Skyler thought when he saw me. I wonder what I thought when I saw him.
What is there to say? How do you start a conversation with someone you broke up with six weeks prior? The breakup was my first time being the initiator. All the other times, I’d been broken up with.
I did the only thing that came to mind, the safest bet, the journalistic solution. I talked about what I saw in front of me. Marianne Williamson was both the reason my ex was at my bar and the only reason I could talk to him. I didn’t have to talk about us. I didn’t have to talk about what I did. I didn’t have to ask about him. I didn’t have to do anything. I could direct the topic of discussion outward, to anything else.
We laughed about one thing or another. Weird questions asked by the audience, weird audience members themselves, weird answers given by Williamson, who, at one point, said the word “genitals” in the context of gender, sexuality and political correctness. I wish I could tell you why she said it.
It was like nothing had happened, but I also couldn’t erase the reality that everything had happened. I couldn’t pull him out of the context of our relationship, not yet, at least.
I thought about our relationship. I thought about him. I looked at his lips, inches away from mine. I thought about the times that we kissed. I thought about how I was his first kiss. How I was also the arbiter of his first heartbreak.
Did he think he might see me at this bar? Did he wonder before going if it was a good idea? Did he think it might be a bad idea to go, in case he ran into me? Or did he not care? Did he not even consider the possibility? Did he go because he wanted to see me?
I don’t go there as often anymore, to be fair, but I still do know everyone who works there. And they all recognize him, considering how I told them before the breakup what was going to happen.
Am I living in an egotistical world thinking that for him to even dare to go to this bar, he would have to think about me?
I introduced him to this bar, and it’s where I ended our relationship.
It’s one of the rare times I’ve had to think about the consequences of my actions in a relationship. A careless eventuality.
All the other times, I loved and let go. Moved on or was moved on from. Until now, I’d never run into an ex in a place where I had an impact on them, only in places where they’d had an impact on me. Or, I had been the one who’d been wronged, so seeing them anywhere at all didn’t matter. Reid showing up to my physical therapist’s office was him encroaching on my space, not me doing anything wrong to him.
Stephen and I hugged when we saw each other, because that’s what you do? I guess?
What other response is there? Side eyes, pretending like I don’t see him, like he doesn’t see me. I’m over that idea, there’s something unnecessarily fearful of not facing your exes, your past, in whatever form. I ran into another man I’d dated but never titled while at Pride last month. He’d ended whatever it was we had, but I wasn’t about to run away from him, not in the gay bars I’d fought so hard to return to.
Stephen and I stood next to each other, chatting, and then took seats next to each other when they opened. Neither of us knew anyone else there. We had each other, even if it was a strange moment. I could’ve gone inside, sat at the bar and attempted to remember what I needed my laptop for, but the gravitational pull of this anomaly stood in the way. I couldn’t walk away and act like none of this was happening. I had to be there.
It makes me question. What if this had been Reid? Or Jackson? What if either of those two people who I haven’t spoken to in years had just randomly showed up at my bar?
Thankfully, the chances of that happening are rather minimal. Then again, the chances of Stephen, a boy who barely drinks, showing up at my bar for a Marianne Williamson campaign event, were rather minimal, too.
But this whole situation demands an answer to the question. With Reid, would I have spoken to him? Would I have given a man who harmed me emotionally the time of day? Would I have taken the chance to puff out my chest and talk about all the ways my life is amazing?
With Jackson, who I know is either married or about to be, would I just have hidden my head and run? Said I have elsewhere to be and apologized? Would I have asked him how life is going?
It’s a lazy answer, but I’m thankful I don’t have to answer any of those questions.
For now — hopefully forever.
More than just my Love Story
My adorable niece exists because of this weird app — Coffee Meets Bagel: Dating app users rue missed connections amid outage. (BBC)
‘The Golden Bachelor’ Cast Revealed: Meet the Women Vying for Grandpa Gerry’s Heart. (Variety)
Hmmmm. Archer is the new 'social-first' dating app for queer men. (Mashable)
Note: The names of the people in my columns have been changed to respect their privacy — and to allow me to spill a bunch of tea about them without remorse.