Broken Hearts Damaged Goods

by Gunthridge, Jack

  Anyway, I said, “Has not having my number been keeping you up all night?”

  “No, not having you in my arms did that.”

  And there was really nothing to say to that. I mean, I wanted to let out a giant “Oooooh” sound that would convey just how cute that was, but it’s generally best not to do that to in front of a guy. They don’t like to know when they are being really cute and adorable. They think it makes them less of a man.

  And I would have rolled over so that I could see him and make out with him, but I kind of wanted to wait and see what he was going to do. I didn’t want to encourage him physically after I had made the blowjob comment earlier that night. It would be like rewarding his cuteness with a sexual favor. I felt like that was bad at this point in the relationship.

  And yet I couldn’t not respond to what he just said. If I didn’t say anything, then he might take that to mean that I wasn’t interested. So I had to think of something to say that would show that I was interested, but not overly interested. This somehow came out as, “If we had met at a bar or somewhere other than through Steve, would you have still asked me out tonight?”

  And he was quiet for a minute, as my heart was breaking for an answer and I was silently praying that he had somehow fallen asleep. He then said, “When was the last time a guy actually took you out on a date?”

  And instead of answering the question, I ended up babbling on about meeting guys at parties or at the bar and doing more hooking up than dating. Even the dates I had had seemed less like a date and more like the formal trappings of a date with a guy that I was actually in a relationship with, even though I knew very little about the man, except what he looked like naked.

  And when I had finally shut up and stopped revealing even more of my slutty past, he said, “You know, I’m still going to need your number. I generally like to call a girl the next day.”

  “We appreciate that. It keeps us from thinking that you’re not going to call.”

  At that he just held me a little bit closer to him, and I was okay with him not saying anything. And before he fell asleep, I said, “And, Jack, you still haven’t added me as a friend on FaceBook.”

  “I’ll add you first thing in the morning.”

  “You don’t need to worry about a relationship status between us. I would rather be listed as your friend than to be complicated with you or in an open relationship with you.”

  And that was the last thing that was said before we drifted off with me in his arms. And it was the most perfect first date I have ever had.

  Two Lovers

  By

  Jack Webber

  I’ve always considered myself an extremely faithful, one woman at a time man, but lately the strings of my heart have been being pulled in two different directions by two different women. It is making the whole romantic rehabilitation thing extremely difficult as I am trying to get over a confused thinking process that is now getting clouded by a confused heart.

  Since the breakup with my ex, I am beginning to see that she was not the ideal woman that I have sometimes imagined her to be. Love polluted my vision of her. I have realized that especially lately, and this has nothing to do with her cheating on me. The cheating was like a spring thaw that awakened me from the winter I had grown accustomed to, but it was not something that I would call a character defect.

  No, my realization of her true character came about after the breakup. When she attacked the woman that I am currently with for the appearance of any sort of promiscuous past she might have had, I started to realize that the woman I used to love was not what I had always thought that she was. And it made me realize that throughout my relationship with her that she engaged in this type of behavior.

  I don’t know how many times I have heard things like, “Did you see what she was wearing? Oh, my God! Look at her hair. Does she even own a mirror? Oh, look. She’s with another guy this week. I guess looks and a slutty attitude are everything.”

  And I didn’t think about it at the time, but she was always putting everybody else down and judging them on some sort of cultural concept and moral high ground that she seemed to possess. And I didn’t think about her moral superiority in these matters. I could see where she was coming from in a purely societal sense. Some of these girls did have clothes that were horrendous, hair that looked awful, and were seen with a lot of men.

  And since I have gotten to know the latest victim of her attacks, I have to say that the validity of the attacks may need to be revisited. Over the past two weeks, Liselle has shared her entire sexual history with me. Instead of judging her, I am finding myself wanting to be with her. There is an openness to her that longs to share herself with you. And instead of closing up like a hurt flower, she has always decided to continue to bloom and to share her beauty with the world.

  If blooming meant that she got hurt in her pursuit of true love, she was willing to do that. And I respect that more than somebody that closes themselves off to the world and the chance of love. Instead of seeing herself as a victim of the game of love, she looks at each guy as a learning experience.

  My ex, on the other hand, seems intent on some sort of moralistic crusade against love. The appearance of love is very important to her. And I fit that role for a very long time. I’m not sure what caused it to change, except that the concept of love can never compete with actual love. So when a relationship becomes stale and complacent, one of the people involved looks to alternate avenues.

  And that leaves me. I don’t know what I did wrong, or if I could have even done anything differently to have avoided the breakup. And as much as I am hurt and want to hate my ex, I am still partly in love with her. And I am finding a substitute lover in Liselle, which is not really fair to her.

  When I am with Liselle, I have started to find a lot of what I missed when I was in a relationship. There’s the physical touch of holding somebody in your arms, kissing them and having them kiss you back, and holding hands with somebody where you feel connected with something in this world.

  I’m on shaky ground now when it comes to love. I know that I’m going through a certain amount of detox when it comes to my ex, but I’m afraid that I’m just replacing one drug for another. And I don’t want Liselle to get hurt in the process. I want her close to me, and yet I know that I shouldn’t. We both promised that we would just use each other to get over the breakup. When we are complete individuals, we will float on to our next lovers.

  I wish I could tell you how the rehab was going. There are times when I hold Liselle and wish that it could be my ex. These times are getting fewer and farther between. Liselle did a good job in the beginning of trying to draw the poison from the years I spent with my ex, but lately she seems to be employing a new tactic in the rehab process. She has been breaking my already broken heart.

  It was one thing to have my heart broken by being rejected as I was proposing to the supposed love of my life. It is quite another to have it broken by the physician treating me with her tales of past relationships. Maybe my heart was broken in a way that couldn’t be mended the first time. It had to be rebroken and put into a cast.

  I just hope that I don’t end up hurting the doctor treating me. If I had been whole when I met her, or not poisoned by my previous relationship, I could have been perfect for her. Repaying one of the greatest friends I have ever had and one of the kindest people I have ever known with being another man in a line of regrets is not something that I want to do. I just don’t know if I can overcome the toxins and grow my heart in time while it is confined in the cast of my past.

  The Call

  By

  Jack Webber

  There are some things that should be easy, like calling a girl that you’ve been living with for the past three weeks. But as I found myself on the phone with her for the first time, I discovered that the conversation that flowed freely every time that we talked started to get damned up somewhere in my mouth (although it could be my mind or heart that was damned as w
ell).

  “Hi. I’m sorry for calling you so late, but I wanted to wait until I could find a good time to call you, which was kind of hard since I was with you all day today. I would have gone off into the other room to call you, but I figured that would look bad, even though I know you were expecting me to call you.”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you called. When are you coming to bed?”

  “I will be there later. I just wanted to take this time to actually talk to you without being in bed with you.”

  “I accepted your friend request today. Thanks for sending that.”

  “You’re welcome. I, um... What are you doing next weekend? I know that it’s a long ways off, but I wanted to see if you would want to go out again next weekend.”

  “You could ask me this in bed. You don’t need to do it over the phone.”

  “I know, but I’m trying to wean myself off of your shelter. And I...”

  And the fact of the matter is that I am a little confused right now. I know that I am feeling things that are similar to everything I was accustomed to with Brittney. I don’t know if it is because I am using you as a substitute for everything that I miss about her, or if it is because I am feeling something for you. You see, that’s the trouble with love. It feels good in the beginning, whether it is real or not. It takes time to prove that it has substance.

  “...And I want to prove that I can actually have a conversation with you, without your look, touch, and embrace clouding my thinking.”

  “So what do you want to talk about? How my day was?

  “No, I... Was your day okay?”

  “It was glorious. Was it good for you?”

  “It was... Do you have to make fun of me? I haven’t gotten a girl’s number in over four years, so I am kind of new to this.”

  “I’m not making fun of you. I think you’re being really cute right now. I can’t wait to tell Megan about this in the morning.”

  “Please, don’t. What have you told her about me?”

  “I can’t tell you, but she is wondering what is happening between us. She’s wanting me to put a label on it.”

  “You could tell her that we are FaceBook friends without benefits, but that you quite clearly want to give me a blowjob.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m going through a tunnel. I think I’m losing reception. You’re breaking up.”

  “Well, before I lose you, could you answer my question about next weekend?”

  “If you can answer my question about next weekend. Are you considering this a date?”

  A date? A date by definition shows some sort of interest in pursuing a relationship with somebody else. I have spent the past few weeks in an isolated microcosm with this woman. As much as I have come to depend on her for everything, I know that love is a gamble that I may not be ready for. My answer would be a bet as I play a game of chance. That’s another problem with love. Every good gambler knows there’s a time to bluff and a time to show your cards.

  “I consider last night a date.”

  “In that case, I will make sure that I don’t forget to invite you in next weekend.”

  I have never been much of a gambler. I always enjoyed playing the game more than winning, but at least I had a game plan and never bet more than I could lose. When it comes to love, I don’t know whether I’m bluffing or showing my cards right now. So I can’t say if she is calling my bluff or not. Either way, I’m kind of down on my chips right now and will just enjoy seeing how the next few hands play out.

  Sept. 26, 2010

  So Jack has clarified that the other night was a date. The only problem now is that it still leaves us without a definition. We aren’t hanging out, which is a good thing. That always means that a guy likes fooling around with you while he is trying to decide if he thinks of you in more than sexual terms.

  Anyway, Jack still hasn’t tried anything sexual with me, even after the whole blowjob comment. It’s kind of nice being with a guy that I don’t have to worry about groping me. It’s also nice to not have a guy ask you to service him without being pleasured yourself. A lot of guys today expect you to blow them before they enter into a relationship with you. It’s become as normal as kissing a guy.

  When I was growing up, I always thought dating would be different than it turned out. You see stuff in movies or read about love in books, and it always seemed to be nicer than what it is in real life. And I’m not talking about that fairy tale sort of stuff that you see when you are kid where the guy is a prince and everything. I’m talking about soap operas, teen dramas, and Lifetime movies. They all make you think that really hot guys can be somewhat decent. And any drama they might pull is really just to make you interested in the story and to make you wait for the hot guy to realize that he is madly in love with the girl that he screwed things up with, which really just makes you want him more.

  But in real life, I am finding that the really hot guys act like there are a lot of other girls that they could get, so they don’t really have to treat you as anything special. And no matter how attractive you might be, you can always look around and see some girl that you know is better looking than you are.

  And I don’t want to blame some of my previous behavior on guys understanding that women are competing to be with them. I mean, part of my past actions have been because I did like the guy (if only physically). But after blowjobs on the first date and sex on the third date, I am finding that it hasn’t exactly been good for developing a lasting relationship. It has led to some extraordinary sexual encounters, but that has never gone on to anything more enduring.

  But, anyway, back to the relationship status thing with Jack. I don’t think Jack and I are dating. He has asked me on dates, but this doesn’t seem to be dating in the classical sense. Of course, in the classical sense of the word, the couple isn’t living together as they start their relationship. So given our circumstances, some things are going to be messed up, which I kind of regret now considering that I probably could have had a perfect relationship with him if we would have met and gotten together in a different way.

  I’m hoping that the definitions get clarified when we reach that “in a relationship”

  stage. It’s just that with hanging out, talking to, dating, and going out with guys nowadays that things have gotten very confusing. You don’t know what you are doing with them, or what they are feeling for you. And you don’t want to get too involved emotionally until you are sure that the guy feels the same way. If you start to feel too much, you are just setting yourself up for heartache. And yet, if you don’t allow yourself to feel anything for the guy, then you end just having sex with them, which doesn’t exactly work out either.

  And if things were normal between me and Jack like a relationship should be, then I would have the “Where do you see us going” talk with him, which I kind of want to do right now. It’s not so much that I am concerned about a relationship status. I feel like we need to have the sex talk, which I haven’t had with a guy since James Michael Finch in high school. And that conversation took place three months and many blue balls for James before we actually had sex.

  And I don’t know why I haven’t had the sex talk with any guy after that. I guess I just kind of went with the flow with everybody else. I told a few guys to stop a few times, but then I usually ended up having sex with them a couple of weeks later.

  I guess alcohol played a certain role in some of my sexual decisions with guys I was seeing. And once you have sex with a guy that you are kind of seeing, dating, or whatever, it is a lot easier to keep having sex with him. You almost feel more for him than that physical attraction stuff. You do actually care for him like you do when you are in a committed and caring relationship. And the guy is actually more attentive to you. You know that they are no longer with you just to get some. So getting the sex out of the way has its certain benefits, if only for a short period of time.

  Eventually the sex doesn’t become enough to sustain the relationship. You start to see that even rea
lly hot guys have physical faults as well as severe personality defects. Even if you try to recapture the magic that existed in the beginning, you realize that it was never real to begin with. And you wonder what happened and how your opinion could change so much in as little as two or three months.

  Anyway, this is the longest I have gone without sex since I have become sexually active. It’s not that I’m missing the act right now. I think I probably should somehow. I mean, I usually hook up with a guy right after I break up with somebody.

  That’s the odd thing about this whole thing with Jack. I don’t feel like I’m a totally unlovable person, which is how I usually feel right after a break up.

  In terms of actually be successful, I think this whole rehab thing is working. I’ve changed a lot of my previous negative behavior and am engaging in truly positive things. I just don’t know if I had a sex talk with Jack if it would screw up everything and count as a setback.

  The Talk

  By

  Jack Webber

  There are times in my life where I wonder how I came to be in the situation that I am in. They seem to be so absurd that you would think you were in the middle of a comedy, and yet you recognize it as your real life.

  I had a moment like this the other day when I was in bed with Liselle. She turned to me and said, “So about that blowjob?”

  She said it with such frankness and sincerity that I knew I was in for an interesting discussion to say the least. But there is very little that you can say after that, except, “Yes?”

  “I was thinking... Not that I’m dying to give you a blowjob... I mean, I’m not obsessed with giving you one, but if you wanted me to, I’m not opposed to it.”

  “Um, okay. I, uh, like you a lot and feel really uncomfortable with you doing that to me. Not that I am opposed to you as a person doing that. I just didn’t really give your comment the other day much thought.”