Boy Virgin

(Written: 2004)

Dancing Days

I first met Erik at Starbucks when I went to visit my friend Jana. Technically, we didn’t meet. I gawked at him while Jana made me a free drink. And, as it tends to go with cute boys who serve coffee, I developed a crush. I asked Jana about him and she told me he was straight (yeah, right). I didn’t really see him, or think about him again for a while. Then, that fall Jana and I moved into a Seattle apartment with my friend Brent. She asked Erik to help her move boxes. He and I got a formal introduction as I stood shirtless and spackled with purple house paint from the rolling I was doing on my bedroom ceiling. For a long time we were just acquaintances.
When Erik started taking art classes at nearby Seattle Central, he began to drop by the apartment from time to time; even visiting when Jana wasn’t home. I found him very elusive. For instance: I was in my room trying to assemble my multi-part Crate & Barrel desk from a single-imaged, textless instruction sheet (picture one diagram with all parts flying towards each other on arrowed vectors) when Erik waltzed in with one of the beers from our refrigerator. He sat, oblivious, and drank and talked about school while I struggled to hold three parts of the desk with my two hands. It was only after I had finished that he offered, “Did you want help with that?” Ironically, it was his carefree and lackadaisical side that was becoming attractive to me.
Erik finally came out as gay that Spring, or at least that’s when he told Jana. I ran into him at a Starbucks where he relayed the news she had already told me: he didn’t really come out so much as infer that he was what I like to call “less than straight.” He had recounted some of his recent sexual experiences to Jana. “But I am still a virgin,” he insisted. “No you’re not,” Jana had retorted. “Well, I’m a boy virgin,” Erik amended. After telling me his story in much more vague terms than Jana had, Erik asked me for dating advice. He was currently being strung along by this guy named David who was also in a serious and, supposedly, committed relationship with another guy named David. “I’m a home-wrecker,” Erik lamented. “Why would you ever make somebody your priority when you’re just an option for them?” I asked. Erik’s brow furled, he seemed to be mulling this over. He finally said, “so, do you want to go get some water that gets you high?” He got up and I followed him into the grocery across the street. The water he was referring to was a New Age creation called Trinity: bottled water with extra minerals and vitamins in it. We milled around on the street corner drinking our bottles of Trinity before parting. About twenty minutes later Erik called me. “Do you feel it yet?” he asked. “Maybe a little, Erik,” I lied.

Dazed & Confused

In February Jana made plans to move to Florida with her boyfriend. Shortly before leaving she and I had a lunch date at Hooters (yes, Hooters). Erik ended up tagging along. Our waitress, Cassandra, seemed oblivious to the fact that she was flirting with two gay boys and a straight girl. Not exactly the best way to win tips (she even signed the receipt “Spanks!”). Over lunch we talked about the Seattle experience: working for corporate America, failing to date, and living in a semi-metropolis. It was then that Erik shared his penchant for nose-candy. “You did cocaine?” Jana asked with a mix of disdain and concern. “It was right there on my hand!” Erik replied. “"What else was I supposed to do with it?” I don’t think he was speaking rhetorically. As we continued to talk I became increasingly disenchanted as I learned about all the new boys in Erik's life. Talk about 'discovering your sexuality.' By this point, I had become somewhat indifferent to him, finding him physically attractive but rather uninspiring.
Both Jana and Brent moved out of the apartment in March. While Brent’s brother Nathaniel took his spot, Erik took Jana’s room. At first, I couldn’t stand living with Erik. His feckless behavior demonstrated a lack of respect for me, Nathaniel, and the house rules. He neglected Jana’s cat Oscar (whom he had agreed to adopt), he threw loud parties prompting angry visits from our neighbors, he moved my furniture around, and he smoked inside. Eventually I called a series of house meetings - essentially my way of trying to set Erik straight (no pun intended).
Then something strange happened. We became friends. I suppose it was natural. We spent a lot of time together as roommates. At first we would just lollygag around the apartment, sharing our mutual love for bands like The Clash and The Rolling Stones, cleaning, cooking, and watching movies. He would invite me out with him at night and I would decline, leery of his newfound drug habits. He had developed a wild streak in the months since I had met him and was wasting no time in finding his niche in Seattle. I would receive teasing text messages on my cell phone enlightening me about where to find Seattle’s best martinis and what bars had drink specials on a Tuesday night. Before long I did join him in going out to the bars at nightfall. “Hey Ho, Let’s go,” Erik sang. And we would leave the apartment, beers in hand, talking about the night’s plans as we made our trek to the bars. We always seemed to run the same circuit, hitting every trendy dive bar and hole-in-the-wall along the main drags of Capitol Hill. In the short time that I had known him I’d met more people in Seattle than I had the entire year prior.
For a while I really enjoyed my nights out with Erik. He sparked something in me that I had not experienced since my sophomore year in college. I was beginning to enjoy the fruits of our friendship, until he decided to have a cocaine party in my living room. There was nothing like coming home alone from a party Erik invited me to and finding him and a bunch of his Capitol-Hill-Blow-Head friends sitting in my apartment, listening to my Violent Femmes CD (too loudly), and snorting lines of coke. I kicked everyone out. “Are you mad?” Erik asked. “I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about tomorrow,” I replied. I later told him that he was disrespectful as a friend, and a roommate, and that I thought he was making some rather poor decisions about his life. “What do you mean?” he asked.
As the summer dawned I began to trust him again. We spent our days drinking beers on the balcony, shopping in thrift stores, taking drives soundtracked by the oldies station, reading books in the park; and each week we would walk to the marketplace to buy fresh-cut flowers for the apartment. By nightfall, we usually headed out to bars (occasionally staying in for a movie night). The days we spent together were veiled in some indescribable emotions. Suffice it to say that I liked the way I felt when I was around him. I never went so far as to label it a crush. Nor would I move on any of my feelings while he and I were roommates.
And then reality sauntered in. After losing his job at Starbucks “for not being a team player,” Erik was unable to pay rent. Shortly thereafter Cingular disconnected his cellular service. At the time I tried to be understanding. I even got him part-time work at J. Crew, where I was employed. But in the months that came, Erik consistently missed payments on rent and bills. I was the only original lessee in the apartment. If Erik didn’t pay, I was the one that had to foot the bill. But I continued my friendship with him, trying to be a positive force in his life – for I wasn’t sure if anyone else would be.
In June I moved into my own apartment. At first Erik and I did a good job of staying in touch. I even enlisted him to help me move furniture and decorate. But by mid-July it felt like we had lost touch without the day-to-day contact we’d had as roommates. He still owed me rent money and I needed it more than ever. When I asked him about why he never called, and why he hadn’t paid me the $250 he owed me, all I got was haughty attitude. Even the way he called me by my full name, intonating the first syllable, with a flinching of his brow, drove me crazy. He had developed a duality whereupon he would be sweet and seemingly genuine when it was just the two of us but would act superior when we were in a larger group setting. It reminded me of the studies I read in college on dominance hierarchies in the animal kingdom. A male heron will use his long bill to elevate his height and assert himself among those in his flock. With Erik, I was hurt more by the fact that he never returned my calls or visited me than I was by the money he owed me. Eventually I decided I could either continue to play the role of the doormat or I could “fight fire with fire.” I opted for the latter and confiscated a bunch of belongings he had left behind at our old apartment. His things needed to be cleared out of the apartment anyway; we had a scheduled final walk-through with our landlord at the lease’s end. I inherited his books, some clothes, his CDs, and a portable painting easel. I later told him he could buy the belongings back for $250.

I Can’t Quit You Baby

I continued my life in Seattle without Erik for most of July and August. I eventually ran into to him at one of my favorite bars where we exchanged some terse words. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you! I don’t think your phone works” Erik began. “Yeah, it helps if you dial it,” I retorted, turning away. I passed by him as I left the bar and reminded him, “you know where to find me.” Two days later he dropped by my apartment for the first time in two months. We talked for a bit before he had to run off to his new job. He was working at Johnny Rockets, a cheap burger franchise complete with faux fifties décor, jukeboxes, and dancing waiters. It was just a block away from the museum where I was employed. He met me at my work the following day, staying for my hour-long dinner break. Despite all the negative things I had said (and felt) about him, it was as though we fell right back to where we’d been in June. I opted not to say many of the things I had planned to, wanting to focus on rebuilding some semblance of a friendship instead of rehashing old problems.
Shortly thereafter, the concert surfaced. He made an off-the-cuff remark that his friend had gotten him a promotion-only ticket to a Joan Jett and the Blackhearts concert. He didn’t even know who Joan Jett was until I told him “she sings ‘I love Rock ‘n Roll,’ ‘Bad Reputation,’ ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You,’ and covers ‘Crimson and Clover,’ my all time favorite …” “Oh….” Erik said with a faint glimmer of recognition. “I love her!” I continued. Adding to my temptation, the 5,6,7,8’s, the Japanese surf band featured in the movie “Kill Bill,” were scheduled to be the opening act. “You need to get me a ticket!!!” I pleaded, figuring he owed me at least that. The concert was sponsored by Lucky Strike and the only way through the door was with one of their promotional tickets. Erik has a lot of friends in the bars. This is how he got his ticket, and eventually mine. I responded to his gift by jumping on him and giving him a big kiss on the cheek (if ever there was a way to win me over).
I made Erik stand ground with me in the front row at the Joan Jett concert. It must have been quite the site: two skinny gay boys moshing with a bunch of lesbians. It was so hot and so claustrophobic that Erik wanted to back away to a calmer region on the floor, but I insisted that we stay in the front. “Just focus on one thing, like the bass player, and you won’t get too dizzy,” I suggested. Erik did what I said, continually remarking on how cute the aging bassist was. And so we stayed front and center the entire time. While there, we befriended an adorable girl, also a Crimson and Clover fan, who asked if we were an item. I shook my head. “But you’re so adorable together!” she remarked. I grimaced. I don’t think Erik even heard her. Comments like that were commonplace for us and they always got to me a little. I was becoming aware, at the time, that I probably still had feelings for him. “Kiss! For me!” the girl requested. And so we did, briefly. Then again when Crimson and Clover came on. The kisses were not particularly intimate, but it is noteworthy that we spent almost the entire concert with our arms around each other. As we walked home from the theater he told me that he was glad we had gone together. “I should always take you to concerts,” he began. “No argument here,” I replied. He continued, “I always get so overwhelmed in big crowds. But tonight was different, you really helped me focus and make it through.” I just smiled in return, mistaking his comments as a metaphor.
Early the next morning I left for a two-night camping trip with my friend Brent. I told Erik that I’d call him when I returned to the city. On the trip I spoke at length with Brent about my feelings toward Erik, and the developing crush I had on him. I didn’t necessarily want to be in a relationship with Erik, but I definitely had feelings for him that were more than just platonic and I didn’t see any harm in exploring them. “Even if it’s a mistake,” I explained, “its one I feel I need to make.”
On September 21st, exactly a week after the concert, I met up with Erik to celebrate his Birthday prematurely since he was flying back to California for the actual day. We spent the afternoon downtown where I took him to a movie. Afterwards, we returned to my apartment and I cooked him a Thai stir-fry. Erik bought some wine to compliment it. I gave him a mixed CD, on which I had selected each of the 19 tracks for a specific reason.
After dinner, we took our wine glasses and went up to top of my building’s fire-escape so Erik could smoke. It took me until he was finished to come out with: “Can I talk about something with you?” “Here?” he asked. “Yeah,” I replied, staring straight ahead. I liked watching the Seattle skyline and traffic lights from the safety of my building. I decided not to preface anything and just blurted out: “I still have feelings for you.” Silence. “Wow.” Another pause. “Really? It’s always nice to hear that but I never know how to respond,” Erik continued. “How?” he asked. “I dunno. You can’t always explain these things,” I replied. He nodded. Then there was more silence. I watched the lights flick on-and-off, one floor at a time, in the Union-Square tower. “Well, if nothing else I guess I killed the conversation” I interjected. “No... I am just trying to think how I feel about you,” Erik replied. And so it went. We talked about how we’d both had crushes on each other when we first met, and whether feelings like that can go away. Erik thought that dating would be ideal since we were both single and we already knew each other. This, he ascertained, would take the superficiality out of our attraction to one-another. I offered that it could be hard since we were friends, but that I thought we were still a good match. He also commended me for telling him how I felt, “It took real guts to do what you did.” “I just figure life’s too short not to go for things you want,” I said. We finished our glasses of wine and walked back down to my apartment. No real consensus was reached, although I got the impression he saw me as more-of-a-friend than more-than-a-friend. I walked him out of my building shortly thereafter. “Thanks for everything,” he said, kissing me on the cheek.
I got called in to cover a shift at work and thus missed Erik’s call two nights later. He called to say goodbye, and tell me that he was leaving at 6 AM the next morning for Orange County. “I’ll call you when I get back to Seattle,” he promised. I was going crazy over how open-ended my conversation with him was. But it was perfect, in a way, because it was one of the only conversations we ever had where we let our guards down, let go of all sarcasm and cynicism, and just talked.

Communication Breakdown

In the weeks that followed I thought about him almost non-stop. I suppose by circumventing the dating process in both high school and college I had this coming to me. To make matters worse, I didn’t end up hearing from him after he returned from California, and I refused to make all the effort. Instead, I kept busy by painting, reading, and seeing my friends. In a way, the abject loneliness I felt because of Erik was a blessing. By channeling it I produced what I now consider to be two of my best paintings. One was a self portrait that I had started back in May. I’d lost my motivation and not worked on it in months. I had now found the inspiration to finish it, taking it in a different, albeit darker direction. The second painting was a portrait of Erik; I worked from a photograph I had taken of him back when we were roommates. This painting ended up lacking the dark psychological edge that my self-portrait had and was, instead, a warm and perhaps, sympathetic portrait of him.
My relationship/non-relationship with Erik dominated my thoughts in the weeks that passed. Yet in all my scattered thinking I always returned to one memory of him. There was a night back in April, before I ever seriously though of Erik as more than a friend, where he had the brilliant idea of combining Vicoden and Cocaine and then washing it down with shots of Vodka. I took it upon my self to baby-sit him that night as we ran the Seattle gay-bar circuit. I parted with him after last call and made him promise to call me when he got where he was going. I proceeded to stay up for another hour until his call came through circa 3:00 AM. Seven in the morning rolled around and Erik came bursting into my bedroom, Brita water pitcher in hand, wearing only his boxer-briefs. “Mike!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want to be alone right now. I’m sleeping with you” he continued. “Fine,” I surrendered. It’s not that I was opposed to having Erik in my bed, just not when he was coming off his Cocaine-Vicoden high. “Let’s spoon” he said. ‘Let’s talk about it’ I thought to my self, rolling my eyes. So Erik spooned me, talking about how much he likes to cuddle, and then he asked me to spoon him. And so I did. I remember holding him, as he was shaking. He was trying to move about, his hands crawling all around his own body, as well as on mine. He never stopped talking, but I stopped listening. I just remember being scared for him. And the more he squirmed away, the tighter I wanted to hold him.

Five weeks elapsed since our conversation on the fire escape and I still hadn’t had any contact with Erik. I had made numerous attempts to visit him at work. He would always appear glad to see me, but then made no effort to contact me or reciprocate my gestures. I finally sent him an email, telling him I felt he was avoiding me and asking if there was anything we needed to talk about. “Silly Rabbit! Of course not!” he wrote back. Eventually I gave up on him making the move. Instead, I wrote him a letter telling him I thought he had been treating our friendship as one of convenience. I explained that the closer I tried to get to him the more I saw him push me away. And that, by being there for him so much and getting so little in return, it felt like I was “losing a part of my self.” Not exactly an up-beat letter. But I was honest. And it was all stuff he needed to hear, and I needed to say. I walked to Johnny Rockets to hand deliver the letter. He was the only one in the restaurant and he seemed really happy to see me. “Hey Mike! We should talk. I think you kind of freaked me out….” he began. We had hit ground zero. Just weeks ago he had scoffed at me when I asked him if he was purposely shunning me. This time, I exercised the super-human sense of self control I had developed through months of Erik’s shenanigans and remained calm. I handed him my letter. “You want me to read this?” he asked. ‘No Erik, that’s why I typed it up and walked it down here, so you wouldn’t read it,’ I thought. But I somehow restrained my sarcasm. “Uh, yeah. And then we'll talk.” He called back about a week later, on Halloween – apparently it took him five days to get up the courage to read my letter and two more to digest it. We arranged for him to come over the following day. He did finally show, albeit three hours late, and we talked for a long time. ‘Talking’ consisted primarily of me explaining to him how I felt and waiting for a response. Usually just a slight nod or an “I dunno why I do that.” I would have been disenchanted had he not remained glassy-eyed the entire time. He was like a puppy who knows he’s been bad, just waiting for a reassuring pat on the head.

We, rather I, talked for two-and-a-half hours. My only hiatus was a half hour walk we took in the middle of things at Erik’s request. For the entire walk Erik made pointless small talk – talking at me, not to me – as I silently smoked his cigarettes. We eventually returned to my apartment. Erik broke my silence by asking, “what are you thinking?” I explained that I wasn’t ready to make small talk with him and instead picked up where I had left off before. By the end of our talk I had said almost everything I wanted to. But I was unsure of any possible future with Erik. “Are you still doing coke?” I asked. “Rarely. I did it on Halloween. My body just can’t handle it anymore,” he said. I nodded, changing gears, “So, I feel like things with us are cyclic: I get attached to you, you push me away, I eventually go back, getting even more attached than before, and then you push me away again.” “I don’t want to lose you” he said. The feeling was mutual. “It’s not like I feel a need to punish you, but to protect myself from getting hurt again. I mean, this is bordering on emotional masochism,” I explained. We both fell silent for a long time. “Will you at least walk me out?” he asked pitifully. As we stood in my apartment’s lobby I gave him a hug. He gives greats hugs, and whether it was just pheromones or something more atypical, I never wanted to be the first one to let go. He eventually loosened his grip. Then I offered this: “So maybe we meet. Once a week. For a dinner date or lunch, and that way you can think about things some more. And I’ll have the opportunity to test the ground, ensuring that I can trust you, and myself.” He liked that idea... but note, it was my idea.

The Crunge

The following Monday was our second weekly “date.” The problem, I was becoming aware, was that I did have immense affection, if not attraction, for him. It wasn’t going to go away with less contact or as a result of his feelings (whatever they were). We had dinner and then went on to the Crescent Karaoke Bar where he soberly sang 4 Non-Blonde's "What’s Up" (with a lot of help from the audience) and an encore the DJ made him do without assistance: “Like a Virgin.” You could see the trepidation in his eyes. And his voice, when audible, was shaking. I had spent so much time trying to break through his cool-cat façade that it was refreshing to see it shed so suddenly. On the short walk back to my apartment he revealed how frightened he was to sing. “I could tell,” I said. We stopped kitty-corner to my apartment. “That idea I had, about only seeing each other once a week….,” I began. “I can’t do it. I want to see you more.” I explained that I couldn’t control how I felt about him, no matter how limited our contact. “All I can do is take ownership of my emotions,” I continued. “And I don’t need you to feel the same way. You are what you love, not what loves you.” He explained that he did have feelings for me but couldn’t act on them because he was “terrified of relationships.” “All I’ve been able to give people is something more fleeting and physical,” Erik explained. With me, he said, it would have to be all the way (since when am I the ‘all or nothing guy?’). I told him I was scared too, and would never be inferior because of his fears. He nodded. Then we hugged for a really long time. “You give great hugs,” I told him. “You do too” he whispered. “You’re like the perfect size for hugging,” I continued. We finally loosened our grips on each other. “I should go,” he said, not moving. “Ok,” I replied. We paused for a beat. “Now I am scared again” he said. And then he leaned in. We kissed. In that moment, all the angst and disappointment I had felt faded from my consciousness. This was an amazing, abstractly tender, side to Erik. The part of him I always sensed lurking under the surface. He slid his head in to the nook beside mine as I ran my fingers through his hair. We weren’t even hugging, just holding each other in silence on the street corner. He finally loosened his grip. “I’m going to go,” he said. “Ok,” I said as he slid past me.

Naturally, I spent way too much of the next work-day thinking about Erik. You might even say he was all I thought about. In the middle of a sale my brain would go: scan barcode ErikErikErik say something Erik to the customer ErikErik get their credit-Erik-card, print their Erik. You get the idea. It’s not that he was worthy of that much thought, because he wasn’t. I just have a tendancy to analyze things until they don’t even exist anymore.

The following Wednesday I dropped into Johnny Rockets and asked Erik to call me when he got off. He called around 9:30, distraught about his day and the amount of time it was taking him to close the restaurant. At 11:30 I picked him up form work and brought him an egg nog latté to cheer him up. By my suggestion, we went for a drive. I took him to a scenic overlook in West Seattle. Thanks to the weather, we had a spectacular view of the descending fog. Once again, he was making small talk and gave no acknowledgement to the events two nights prior. On the drive back, I finally cracked. I had wanted to avoid a potentially intense conversation, knowing they make him squirm. “I have to ask,” I began. “What was that on Monday night? Because, to me, it felt like this big cliff-hanger moment.” These were the actual words that came out of my mouth. “No. No, it wasn’t that at all. I was just in the moment” he explained. The problem with our relationship, whatever one would call it, was that it was comprised entirely of moments. I emoted consistently and continually, always open to be his friend or his more-than-friend. Contrarily, Erik emoted in spurts, from one moment to the next. We did share moments in which he reciprocated my feelings, if only briefly. But I wanted more than just a series of moments and tried to explain this. I also conceded that I, too, find relationships scary, but that what really scares me, what “keeps me up at night, is never knowing what could have been.” He was silent, staring at me. “It’s always the things I don’t do that I end up regretting,” I added. He seemed to understand but was ill at ease. “Can we go to bar and talk or something?” he finally asked.

As we walked, we talked a little more. I should have shut up as soon as we left the car. ut naturally I gabbed on and on, trying to find where he was coming from. It was in vain. We both just ended up getting frustrated. “It’s not that I don’t see myself in a relationship with Michael Willen. I just don’t see myself paired,” Erik explained. Once in the bar – a cesspool of cheep beer, acid rock, hipsters, and cigarette smoke – Erik darted from table to table, bantering with his scads of acquaintances. He was a stark contrast to the James Dean I was wrangling with minutes prior. I met some of his cokehead friends for the 3rd, even 4th, time and they had no recollection of me. Erik and I barely talked while in the bar. I sat at our table and chain-smoked. He made small talk with neighboring tables. “Remember when we used to argue about what day of the week it was?” Erik was reminiscing with a girl adjacent to us. “And we would both be wrong!” he added, laughing.

We got kicked out of the bar at closing time. “You shouldn’t let it get to you, it’s just a bar,” he remarked as we left. ‘Or, you could stop telling me how to feel,’ I thought. “It’s not that,” I began. “I just feel like whenever we have a breakthrough of any kind you just shut down on me. And then I’m stuck overanalyzing everything for weeks while you don’t call me.” “Well, I cannot be responsible for how you feel, that’s way too much pressure for me!” He was beginning to get noticeably agitated. “No Erik, but you at least need to be open and honest with me if we’re going to be friends,” I explained. He was staring into the space behind me. “I just wish you would think about me for a fraction of the time I’ve spent thinking about you,” I remarked dryly. I was reaching for any kind of validation I could get. “I do think about you! But I don’t have to tell you every time I do.” “No, you don’t,” I agreed. “Maybe we should just part here, I want to talk to some more people,” he said in reference to the crowd that had formed on the sidewalk. “I already had a really stressful day and then you unloaded all this on me,” he added. ‘All this!?’ I thought to myself. Sometimes I wish that somebody caring about me, as much as I cared about Erik, was my biggest problem. “I don’t want to leave this on a bad note,” I protested. “I don’t think this is a bad note,” he said, giving me an all-too-brief hug. He left me with: “Well, I'm going to go mingle. It’s what I do.” He also promised to call about going dancing that weekend for my friend’s birthday. He never did. Which, by now, I should have expected.

How Many More Times

Three weeks went by before I got a message from Erik on my voicemail. “Hello Michael! I got a new phone. I'm sure you’re as happy about this as I am,” it began. I rolled my eyes. At least now he had one less excuse for not calling. I returned his call that night. He was closing at Johnny Rockets and was noticeably distracted. “We need to do a movie night sometime! We’ve only done one so far,” he was whining. “No Erik, we never even did one,” I corrected. “We never even did one!” he echoed. “What are you doing Monday night?” I asked. “Nights aren’t good,” he replied curtly. “Monday nights? Or any nights?” I asked a little annoyed. “Any nights,” he replied. As I groaned he quickly interjected: “Don’t judge!” “Well, why don’t you just call me when you are free Erik,” I said. He jovially replied, “Don’t make me persue you Michael!” “Fine, we’ll talk later,” I said. I hung up, maddened that I remained complacent. A lot of people adopt the “when's the other shoe going to drop?” attitude. Then there’s me: “Wait! There was another shoe?!”

I had reached a wall, once again. And each time I reached one of Erik’s walls, it hurt more than the last time. Apparently, I was immune to the principles of learning and conditioning that even Pavlov’s dogs mastered. More than ever, it seemed like it was the time to let go. I didn’t want things to end sourly, but I also couldn’t go back to being his…anything. Deep in my mind, which is controlled by emotions, intuitions, and the kind of false and syrupy clichés you'd see on "Felicity's So-Called Creek", there was a little voice of reason speaking. I needed to listen. I tried to focus on his lesser qualities, of which there were many; yet, I still could not detach myself from the feelings I had for him and the anxiety I was feeling over our failed friendship. I strove to understand him in any way I could. This included sitting in coffee shops and reading my Abnormal Psychology texts. I was looking for research on the lethality of taking cocaine when one has symptoms of adult A.D.D. And in the end I suppose I was overreaching. Erik did drugs and drank alcohol because they allowed him to escape. They deluded him; he thought he could predict how he would feel from one moment to the next. Conversely, I was his anti-drug, always prodding him to come out of his shell and consistently affecting his mood in unpredictable ways.
I had come a long way with Erik, at least in my own head. I felt as though I was really beginning to understand how his mind worked and the kind of relationships that he was capable of being a part of. Most importantly, I realized I was no longer capable of having a relationship with him. The hardest thing for me was being left with a failed friendship after trying so hard. That’s when I got the idea of making him a book. I bought a small journal and filled the first half of it with poems, quotes, and stories. I left the last half of the book blank for him to use – in hopes that I might spawn introspection in him. I also enclosed a letter explaining that “maybe we failed to ever be more than just friends. Perhaps we…failed to stay friends. But [that] I would rather let it go than risk entering a friendship marred with insincerities and conveniences. Because what we [did] have [were] memories, some good and some bad, but all invaluable…” Making the book was cathartic; and in many ways it was more for me than for him. Yet I still wanted to give it to him. I told myself that it was my way if getting a sense of closure. In retrospect, however, I think it was probably a final attempt to reach out to him.

I had sporadic contact at best with Erik in the month that had passed since our last big talk. In December I finally received an email message from him which said: "Sorry I haven’t called you, I ran out of minutes. We could still do a movie night sometime. I’m also at the Timberline [Bar] tonight if you want to stop by." It highlighted a lot of the things I hated about Erik: that we had a friendship of convenience, how little he made an effort, how scattered he was, the list goes on. So I went to Starbucks where I actually made a list: “The Things I Hate About You, Erik,” expecting to rack up ten or maybe twenty-five items. I got to a hundred and one. The items were in no particular order, some were generalized, others more specific: “19. I hate your internalized homophobia,” “81. I hate how much irony is lost on you,” “92. I hate that you’re predictable 75% of the time, but catch me off-guard just enough to keep me interested in you,” “93. I hate that you want a little black dog as a fashion accessory,” and, of course, “101. I hate that, despite hating 100 other things about you, I still care so much about you and for you.”

When the Levee Breaks

The following Monday Erik's cell phone minutes reset so I called him. I left a message and he eventually called me back. He said he would be busy applying for jobs in the morning but would be free to get together in the afternoon. “Are you still at Johnny Rockets?” I asked. “No. But I didn’t get fired,” he explained, “I got in a fight with the manager and walked out.” I said “hmpf.” It conveyed my disappointment and lack of surprise. “Call me when you’re done. I have a Christmas present I want to give you,” I continued. He said he would.

When 5:30 PM rolled around, and I still hadn’t heard from Erik, I called him. He was en route to a friend’s house. I told him I had plans at 6:00, but if he could drop by really quickly I wanted to give him something. “I don’t want to just drop-in,” he explained. He said he’d call his friend and try and push back their plans, allowing us more time. I said I’d do the same. “I’ll call you right back,” he said. I quickly dialed my friend Kim who cordially agreed to a later dinner-date. When I tried to call Erik back I got his voicemail. I left a message telling him to call me back. Around 6:15 I still hadn’t heard from him. I redialed his number, hanging-up when his voicemail answered. I began working on a painting project to pass the time, giving up shortly thereafter. At 6:30 I left Erik a second message, “Hey, don’t know what happened to you. I’m just sitting and waiting for you to call me back. So call me! Bye.” I lay down on my bed and stared at the wall. Literally. At a quarter to seven I finally gave up on ever hearing from Erik. I called Kim instead. “Guess who never showed?” I asked rhetorically. I then dialed Erik one last time, telling him to “forget it,” and that we’d have to “do Christmas another time.” I was livid. I wanted nothing more than to kick Erik in the shins. I drove around Seattle, blasting more angry rock music, and chain smoking with Kim. Self-destruction as sublimation. I expounded: “When you put so much of yourself into something, and you get nothing in return, it’s the loneliest feeling in the entire world.”

What Is & What Should Never Be

“This is a new kind of Novocain,” Dr Voget was explaining to me. But even as I was getting shots in my gums, all I was thinking about was Erik. I had planned to drop by his apartment on my way home from the dentist. I wanted to drop off his present, and perhaps get some closure if we ended up talking.

He was home, which was not a shock, since he was unemployed. “How have you been?” he asked casually. I swallowed. “This is for you,” I said, handing him the book. I stood against the wall with my arms folded as Erik pulled off the gift-wrap and opened the book. He was quiet as he leafed through the pages I had written on. “This is one of the best Christmas presents ever,” he finally remarked. I mustered a “Thank you.” “You must have spent forever on this,” he continued. I shrugged. “So, are you free to hang out for a little bit?” he asked, setting the book down. “No, I have to go take my car to the shop,” I replied. That was true – but a sad excuse nonetheless. “But, you can walk me out,” I offered. On the everlasting elevator ride to the first floor he remarked, “I hate that we never talk anymore when we’re together.” “Well, you know what happens when I talk,” I replied. And then continued, “Maybe its time we let go.” There was silence, save for the sound of the elevator’s brakes as we landed on the ground floor.

As we got off the elevator, he was distraught. Déjà vu all over again. It amazed me how easy it had gotten to tear down his façade. When he finally spoke all he said was “Why?” We sat on the lobby steps as I tried to explain myself to Erik one last time. “It’s not that I don’t care about you, I just need to care more about myself,” I began. He was quiet as usual. “We’re still stuck in this cycle,” I continued. “And the only thing that ever seems to change is how much I care about you, how long it takes for us to have a falling out, and how badly I feel afterwards. And really, the last two are just products of the former. How much I care about you.” “I do care though,” he replied. “I’m different around you than I am around other people. I can never think clearly and I don’t ever know what to say. There’s something really special about that.” This was all coming out of left-field, an instance of the 25% where he caught me off guard. ‘You’re special to me too,’ I thought, reflecting on the past year. “That is special,” I replied with hesitation. “But it’s not enough. I need your understanding and I need reciprocity, that’s what makes friendships work. And sometimes you have to work through the bull-shit to get to the good stuff.” “Why can’t we just enjoy things? It’s so much easier,” Erik asked solemnly. I wanted to hug him, to tell him that we would figure out some way to make things work. But something had crossed over in me, I could not revert to the way things were before. “But who cares if things are easy if they aren’t good?” I asked. We were both quiet for some time. “I don’t get what you even see in me” Erik remarked. “All I’m capable of is superficiality.” I shook my head, explaining how “there have been moments, wonderful moments, and they are what kept me going through all the drama. I just think the timing between us is off right now. I can’t be the kind of friend you are capable of having and you can’t be the kind of friend I need you to be,” I continued. After a while I said, “Maybe if we’re really meant to be friends, or if we’re meant to be more than friends, we will be. I don’t believe in fate or any of that crap, so that’s not what I’m drawing from. But I do believe that chemical reactions go on within us that are beyond our control. They affect our actions, even who we’re drawn to. It is the natural order of things.” He nodded and leaned in to hug me. We hugged for a long time. I could have gotten lost in that moment, but eventually I let go. I gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I'm glad you like the book,” I whispered. “I do,” he replied. “Goodbye” I said, turning away. “Bye,” Erik echoed.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been thinking about Erik since that visit, and wishing he would call. I would hear a familiar song on the radio. Or pass by one of the bars we used to go to. I caught myself taking “short-cuts” by his apartment on my walks downtown. I imagined those desires would subside over time. The important thing was, I no longer harbored any genuine resentment toward him. And I had no regrets. From the beginning, I was honest with Erik, and more importantly, with myself. In retrospect, there is nothing I would have, or could have, changed.

Epilogue : Over the Hills & Far Away

Psychologists and sociologists have frequently employed the opponent-process theory of acquired motivation to explain drug addictions. The theory postulates that systems adapt to stimuli in their environments by opposing their initial effects. When a psychoactive drug is tried, the desire to keep taking it (which did not exist before) increases with use. Interestingly, the team of researchers that developed this theory intended to use it to describe many different motives and behaviors such as thrill seeking, food cravings, social attachments, and love.
For a long time, I never heard from Erik. He had called me on December 24th to wish me “a happy Christmas-eve-day.” Then I texted him “happy valentine’s” on February 14th. It was on April 9th that I got the first real phone call from him. I was lounging on a bed in a down-trodden hostel in Vancouver BC. My travel partner and I had just finished switching rooms after discovering a tall-tale ochre colored stain on the otherwise crisp bed sheets in our assigned quarters. I did not recognize the ring tone nor the area code of the then mystery caller. “Hello?” “Mike?” asked the voice on the other end of the line. “This is him.” “Hey! This is Erik, he began, “I was just looking through that book you made me and wanted to call to see how you are.” Here we go again. “Hold on a second,” I said, leaving room two-twelve in favor of the more private hallway. “I’ve been really good. I started working at Children’s Hospital,” I said. “That’s cool! As a counselor?” he asked. It felt as though the conversation was having me, I certainly didn’t feel as though I was having it. “Yeah, basically,” I replied. He explained that he was working two serving jobs, and living in an apartment across town. “And Mike, I’m not sleeping around anymore,” he added. “That’s good to know,” I responded coolly. There was silence. I began to pick at the gapping hole in my thrift-store designer jeans. Despite all the times I had envisioned this moment, I could not think of one thing to say to Erik. “I have to go to work, but we should hang out sometime. Catch-up,” he said. “OK. Call me. And you know where I live,” I offered. “I do. It was good talking to you. I just wanted to call and tell you that everything is going well for me now,” he explained. “I’m glad to hear it.” And I was almost ready to be happy for him too.
Back in Vancouver BC I sat on the floor of the dingy hostel hallway. I furrowed my brow and anxiety slowly swept over me as our entire sorted history replayed in my mind. A part of me wanted to call him back, to see if maybe, just maybe, he was supposed to be in my life. Yet, I wondered if anything could really be different, if either of us could have changed in only four month’s time. I continued to introspect on the relationship I had with him, what it was and what it never became.