‘I was thinking about it a lot, and I think we’re… too similar?’ said César, his round dark childlike eyes narrowing as if in confusion at his own words. ‘I think we are the same type, and a relationship should be more… opposites.’
‘No, but —’ I made a sound between a laugh and a death rattle. ‘I’ve been in relationships where we were opposites. That — doesn’t — work!‘ Instinctively, my voice turned into Elaine from Seinfeld saying ‘sex in a bathtub? That — doesn’t — work!‘ The reference went over his head.
His gorgeous head. With the dark curls and the silky smooth skin. Why do guys always look their best when they’re rejecting you? I dread to think what I looked like. Skin going dry in the autumn cold. I’d gone back and forth on my outfit before rushing out to meet him — ironed a plain white t-shirt; I never iron my t-shirts — maybe because I’d sensed that physical attraction was the best tool I had to keep some chemistry going, because any emotional intimacy was missing. Of course it was. For the past three weeks he’d only seen me for about an evening per week, in public, last time with his friend present. That’s not enough, to build anything. We should have spent more time in bed. The sex had been good! Had he forgotten how good the sex had been?!
Opposites. Similar. What did that mean? Okay, next time I dated someone I’d make sure to stand on my head and talk backwards. ?txen uoy gniees I ma nehw, oS.
‘I just think we had a really nice time; I enjoyed the time we had,’ he continued, throwing me a bone. ‘It was exciting to finally — go on a date with someone where we had lots to talk about; we just keep talking and talking, and we’re attracted to each other… ‘
‘Yeah, so? Where’s the problem? I’m not hearing any problem.’
I lowered my voice slightly as a woman’s heels clacked by on the concrete, down the stairwell beside us. We were in a square in the Barbican — away from the busy lakeside terrace — at one point of a brutalist concrete triangle. Like we were in a fucking Antonioni film, the concrete architecture mirroring our malaise. Or a square where people get executed in some dystopian future. I guess he was pulling the trigger on me. Brought me out back to do the job. And like a stupid goose on Christmas Eve, I hadn’t suspected anything. I’d thought we might talk about how we could progress — ha! — spend more time together, have some deeper conversations.
Fellas — if you’re dating someone, and the next date they suggest is a walk — in the city, not even a park or anything — it’s bad. If the next date they suggest is cocktails and dinner, you’re good. Even better if you’re going to theirs, or yours, with a short distance to the bed. But if they suggest the walk, on a grey, windy afternoon — and it’s always grey and windy when the break-up happens; the weather likes to give you that pathetic fallacy — if they suggest the walk, to quote Whoopi Goldberg, you in danger, girl.
‘I just think that we had the honeymoon phase, but in the honeymoon phase everything is always nice… ‘
‘Yeah, but you can keep going from honeymoon phase to honeymoon phase and discarding it every time,’ I tried to protest, lowering my voice again as a couple came up the stairwell and passed us. ‘But that way, you’ll never have any… real, healthy relationship —’
‘A healthy relationship,’ he repeated, with a scoffing grin.
‘What’s so funny about that?! I want a healthy relationship. An adult relationship. I feel I’ve had enough dysfunctional ones. I feel done with that. Don’t you?’
His gaze went distant as he tried to express something else, lowering his voice as a man on the phone passed by. ‘But I think it’s also about having… you know, the instinct. Just something that feels right. So you feel drawn together.’
I stared at him. ‘Okay. Well. I guess I can’t argue with that. If I didn’t give you the instinct.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I think I’m gonna go home.’
He nodded. Then looked around at the blocks of concrete. ‘I’m not sure what’s the quickest way to the street.’
‘I’m not either.’
I started walking, slow and floaty like a marionette, down the stairwell, but it only led to a hallway with doors to flats. ‘Oh.’ We went back up, across the square, back towards the busy lakeside terrace. Now that we weren’t dating, we were just two people trying to get out of the Barbican.
I imagined a zombie apocalypse happening, the two of us being forced to work together to survive, like in a film. Where the joint challenge of fighting back the zombies gives us more time to learn to communicate and get to know each other, and we’re both surprised to find we should be together. But life is not a film. In life you are mostly annoyingly free to make your own choices. No force majeure comes to alter your reality in some beautifully ironic and meaningful way. I mean, yes, life has forces majeure, but they’re usually random and shitty and they don’t make anything better.
We walked back into the main hall, through people milling towards the bathrooms or back to the concert hall. I massaged my neck, tilting back my head. ‘Ugh. This sucks,’ I declared, louder than I’d intended, drawing looks. César slouched along guiltily behind me.
I could already see what would happen. I would feel a wave of bitterness for a while. Then I would turn it into a story, into a joke, and him into a villain. Then I’d move on, to get excited about and be disappointed by someone else. Rinse, repeat. Until you die alone. At least this had only been two months. And I suppose I should have known something was off when, after one month — when I still felt excited, very much as if we were still in honeymoon mode — he’d said he wanted to ‘take it slow’ because he was ‘scared.’ I’d said yes, of course; that’s probably wise, and had interpreted it as ‘I like you, so I want to make sure we get this right.’ But he hadn’t said the I-like-you part. Had he? What he’d actually meant was ‘I’m not sure I like you, but I’ll give it a little longer to be sure. But I’m scared it’s not right.’
It reassured me, to realise at least I hadn’t fucked it up myself by being anxious and second-guessing my own behaviour with him. Because guess what — at that point, before he’d said that, I’d still been happy and excited as a puppy! You just never know what’s going on in the other person’s head. But then, isn’t that the point of relationships? To feel like you finally have someone where you do know what’s going on in their head. To feel like you finally have at least one person in the world you can trust. Isn’t that why people get into them? It’s a nice idea. I would like to experience it some day. But I suppose it’s also still an illusion, because it can still break down. People’s minds are their own kind of force majeure.
Outside on the street, finally free from the Barbican’s concrete clutches, I looked up on my phone which way to go, while César sheepishly said: ‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ and I grimaced with disgust and said: ‘No, don’t. Just… bye.’
And walked off.
