Breakup...

After a couple months of denying it, trying really hard to ultimately not falling in love, James and I have parted ways.

It all went down a few weeks ago, in the same bedroom we'd spent countless hours in before. The same bedroom where I woke up in his arms after my first Pride. The same bedroom where I told him my dirty little secrets, the stuff that other than you, dear readers, not many people know. The same bedroom where he too let down his guard and told me everything.

Trying not to be cliched but finding no other way of getting his attention, I sent him a text that evening, "Can you come by? We need to talk about something." I waited in my living room, with nobody else home, the TV on for background noise. My stomach clenched in sadness and in uncertainty; was he going to hate me after I said what I needed to say?

A flurry of messages later, and he told me that someone else needed his attention, and that he'd come late. So I sat there, alone, and waited.

He finally came, but not alone; as the lock tumbled, I realized that my roommates had come home the exact moment he had arrived. We all stood awkwardly, with everyone but James knowing what was about to happen. He came over to kiss me and I tried to deflect it...I didn't need closeness at that moment, and I didn't want to give him the wrong impression.

We stalked into my bedroom, I closed the door, and we sat facing each other, me in my chair and him perched on the bed. We talked briefly about each other's day and after a few moments I bit the bullet and started my speech. "Well, that's not why I asked you to come," I started, and then went into it.

How much he means to me, how great he is and how I wish things could work. But I just don't feel enough of that magic 'something' to push things to the next level. Without saying, "I don't love you," I tried as best I could to explain how, even though I was comfortable with him, dangerously comfortable...I didn't see it taking the next step.

He sat there, trying not to cry, nodding along. It felt like looking into a mirror, seeing his face cloud over with each sentence and his eyes glisten. My voice was like gravel, monotone, crunching out words.

I explained how I felt, how even though there was nothing broken between us there also wasn't that special 'magic' that I've always thought I'd feel when I was in love. There was so much that was good, so much hard to find with anybody else, but it just wasn't going to get us to the next level, up to the next stage.

Without ever saying the L word, we talked around how we both admittedly felt the lack of magic. As time wore on, he admitted that he'd been trying, probably too hard, to make things work. "But it's because I feel like there's something there...there could be something there, I didn't want to give up on it," he explained. I'd been trying too, but painfully aware of what was lacking in our relationship.

It became a really involved conversation into the facts of life, of relationships. What truly defines 'happy'? We both like each other, enjoy our collective company and for some reason, we can both share similar tastes in music, food, movies...all things that you seek out in a perspective mate. We were happy in each other's presence, even after six months. We got to know each other, the insides of our minds, the things that not many others know. There had to be something there to keep us together for that long, and cause making a decision to be a long and painful process.

We both acknowledged that the 'magic', that certain something that Hollywood tries to capture on film, that soul-wrenching attraction and draw to someone...was missing. While we were happy, we weren't blissful.

But is anybody? Are even the most happily paired couples really, fundamentally burning up inside for each other? Or does that simply exist in movies, or dollar paperbacks from the drug store?

Neither of us knew the answer. And at that point, it didn't matter really.

"So...what are we going to do?" James asked, subtly trying to figure out if I wanted to take a short break, or a permanent one.

"Well, it's pretty unfair to expect things to get better in a certain amount of time," I said. "I mean, if that were the case...we'd already have enough to get to the next level."

He nodded along.

What was most heartbreaking about the evening was, strangely, how close we felt to each other by the end of our conversation. James even remarked on it, "Tonight is an example of why I really like you, your honesty, your compassion. You thought things through, you take things seriously."

After two hours of talking, and both managing not to cry, conversation wound down. But it was so much more than a breakup conversation, more than the cliched 'this isn't working' that so many simply fall back on. We went into the issues, we dug into each other's souls, and we wound up feeling closer than ever to each other on the most ironic night of our relationship.

Someone had told me in the hours before that perhaps this wasn't the time for us to fall in love. I'm no expert, and from what I see most 'relationships' in the gay community are often too complicated and overcompensate a lack of love with quirks that seemingly do nothing to draw two people together. Yet, what he said seemed plausible; either that, or it gave my overly-romantic self something to cling to:

"Maybe this isn't the time for you two. Maybe in a year, or two, you'll find each other again and be ready."

Strangely, James said nearly the same thing at the end of our conversation. "We might not be ready now, but I'll always have you in my heart. And who knows, one day..."

"The one thing I've always been terrified of is loosing you from my life," I said. "I can't imagine life without you in it anymore. And I've told you that a lot of times," I said.

And so we agreed that we both care too much about each other to exorcise the other from our lives. "I have no idea how this works," I said, "since this is my first longer relationship. I don't know when we get to be friends. Hell, we weren't even friends to begin with. But I want to work on it. I can't not work on it."

We stood at my door and hugged tightly for a few minutes. There really wasn't anything more to say, we were both so sad and so drawn that we really had no idea what to do. But the conversation was over, and it didn't explode in my face...but we were both suddenly back to being alone again, and it was just starting to sink in.

As he walked out my door, and down the hall, all the positivity, the closeness and connection shattered, and I was left with the feeling that I was utterly alone. It was a crushing few moments, seeing him turn the corner and walk away for the last time, and me returning to my bedroom, sitting in bed, alone, and really realizing how alone I was again.

It's taken me a long time to get my thoughts together about it. At the time, I wanted to write, to get everything down on paper so I knew how I felt in the moment. But whenever I tried, it never came. I fell into writers block, and a mild depression, and it's even taken me a few weeks to write this one post. I guess it all comes down to time; it heals all wounds.

But it still really hurts.