I will write as if I were writing in my handwritten private journal, I’ll just dump everything out without deleting anything, because I can’t write this in any other way than vomiting it out.
On Saturday I broke up with my girlfriend. I should write that “I tried to break up”, because basically my request was denied. Perhaps I didn’t convey self-assuredness about how I felt about the whole situation, or the reason that I presented didn’t seem good enough.
My girlfriend came back from Perú at around noon. I picked her up at the airport and then we spent the day together. We had lunch at a restaurant and then we walked down Madrid Río, then we went to Retiro park and we laid on a blanket despite it being quite cold.
She was happy to see me. I was profoundly bored. I felt depressed and wanting to evade myself with alcohol or weed. On our way back we went to the supermarket and bought things for dinner. I prepared a quiche lorraine which came out terrible (too salty and I forgot to mix the cheese, so I put it on top and it ended up being like an egg pizza). My girlfriend was gracious about it. We drank a bottle of wine and we were both a little tipsy when a reggaeton song came on Spotify “I don’t want to get married” by Bad Bunny.
I casually remarked “Oh that’s my song”, and my girlfriend tuned her ears to listen to it. It's a juvenile song about postponing love and chasing money, with an underlying psychology of emotional avoidance. She kinda laughed it off but I said “no really, we have to speak”, and I turned off the speaker.
I said “The first day we kissed was the day we say Perfect Days. I’ve always doubted if it was wise to date you, we are friends and I'm not a good boyfriend. But, when I saw the movie I felt like kissing you and I thought 'to hell with consequences'. And day by day I've been enjoying our relationship. But when I don't see an end in the horizon I freak out. There is no end to it.”
“You see”, I continued, “I’m most comfortable in relationships with an expiry date. This expiry date comes either when I have to leave for another country, or when my partner is crazy enough so that I can walk away without looking like an asshole. But in your case, in our case, there is no end to this. And it unsettles me deeply”.
“You are afraid?” she asked. “Yes, I’m afraid because I will hurt you to get out of this relationship without an expiry date. I know this because I smoked a joint, I went to a club, and I lost the jacket that you gave me for Christmas. It felt like this was just the beginning of a tarball of hurt. It’s me sabotaging the relationship”.
“Did you make out with someone?” she asked. “No, I did not. But I would have. I’ll eventually be an asshole to you, because I’ll want to sabotage this. I don’t want to be an asshole to you, so that’s why I’m asking to break up”.
She mounted me on my chair. “Oh poor thing, you’re afraid”. “Yes, and you should be afraid too” I said. “I can handle it” she said. “I don’t want you to handle it”, I replied. "We need to talk this over tomorrow, I don’t want to stay tonight. I’m leaving now. Bye."
The next day I did feel compelled to see her. I spent the day in bed, depressed. I texted her excusing myself. I wasn’t feeling well. In the evening she said she could bring over food to my home. I said I would rather catch up with her at a restaurant. Again, I was profoundly bored and despondent. I didn’t bring up the topic that we discussed the previous night. She brought it up by saying was OK that I lost the jacket, she would buy me another one. No that’s very wrong, I said. I must buy it for myself.
Yesterday I replaced jacket. I had been castigating myself by weathering the cold on a measly hoodie. The new jacket was a handsomely discounted but still expensive Adolfo Domínguez. I couldn’t help but notice this was a move away from my usual utilitarian disposition into the realm of status, a very strange move on my part. Smells of mid-life crisis.
Today I arrived late to my yoga class. The only open spot was next to a really attractive young lady. We know each other from practice and we say hello to each other, nothing out of the ordinary.
However, in the middle of class the teacher assigned us in pairs, me with her. We were to help each other do a “pancake”, in which you spread your legs wide open and bring your torso close to the floor. We would assist each other by sitting with our legs wide open facing each other, and then grabbing each other by the arms and one would pull and the other would yield.
As I’m flexible, so my torso almost landed into the middle of her legs, my face quite close to her crotch. The teacher came by and said “oh that’s really helping him out, would you mind if he grabs you by the waist instead of the arms?” she asked my young companion. “No, not al all” she said. I let go of her arms and pulled from her waist, my face coming even closer to her crotch, encouraged by the teacher. Then we switched roles, and she brought her face close to my crotch as I helper her legs spread through the use of my feet. It was all so sexy yet respectful, both of us breathing into the stretch.
I don’t know how I should feel about this, but I do know how I feel: excited and aroused. I want more of it. At the same time I feel shallow, betraying love with cheap thrills. As in the song, underlying the shallowness is emotional avoidance which I don't feel compelled to work on at this time. I want to play out my mid-life crisis in order to burn out whatever impedes me from settling down into a stable romantic relationship. I don't want to get married.