Stories from Twitter: What’s in a name?

Back when Twitter wasn’t a gathering of Nazi misogynists run by a mad-hatter oligarch, I used to do these long story threads and people seemed to like them. I’ve mainly stopped writing personally here but I’ll re-create some of those threads here (expanding them, of course) because they’re stories I haven’t told here. In general I don’t write in detail about my personal life right now in the moment, but the past is up for grabs. The stories are ancient history, and many of them don’t have a moral. They’re just Things That Happened.

So here’s the first one.

Man #1

Let’s just say, I was in love with him, although “In love” doesn’t describe what went on. It took me years – years – to get over him. And I did a pretty poor job of it. That piece is the only thing I’ve written about him. It was years ago and I’m okay and – unfortunately – he wasn’t a jerk or a user or careless with me. If he was those things, I might have gotten over him faster because I could have turned the loss to rage. I could have been mad at him. Instead, I was like a 19th-century literary character, suffering and making myself sick. Listen, I don’t connect with many men. Not like that. We were basically at ESP level in terms of communication. We literally had identical dreams about each other on the same night. It was spooky. Never had this before or since. I certainly never want it again. When he ended it – and he had his reasons, none of which were “I’m not into you” – it was like being abandoned in the middle of the ocean. A picture of me, taken the day after he cut things off, tells the whole story.

It’s far enough in the past that I am able to say now I wish I never met him. Not because he was bad or a jerk, but because the impact he left was way out-sized, maybe because I was undiagnosed with you know what, and my tendencies are already fatalistic and suicidal, and those tendencies entrenched themselves in the years that followed. I have tools now to avoid those thinking patterns. Back then I didn’t. I struggled for years.

Our relationship never was a real thing. It wasn’t an “affair” in the normal sense of the word. If I were a normal person, we would have gone on dates and then shacked up and done the regular things. But we didn’t do that. It was a big “what if …”, a road not taken. Another reason why I just couldn’t get over it.

In retrospect I wonder what would have happened if we did the normal thing. We might have spontaneously combusted from the excitement which … I looked forward to then but now think it might have been actually dangerous for me. I’m being serious. (Ironically, if I had gone into psychosis, I might have been diagnosed way back then. Oh well.) Maybe we weren’t built for the the everyday. Probably not.

So that’s the Doomed Gothic Romance of my mid-20s.

That’s Man #1.

Man #2

What I just described above may give the impression of a single-minded all-or-nothing passion. It would be him or nobody. I could only love one man.

I mean, okay. But not quite.

I was seeing him through the whole entire thing. I met him first, on my first night out in Chicago. I met Man #1 later that year, and actually the circumstances were kind of similar. I first saw Man #2 onstage. I first saw Man #1 onstage too. I mean, I was an actress. I wasn’t meeting people at an office happy hour, for God’s sake. I ended up being “a part of” Man #1’s weekly shows, I’m on one of his albums, he wrote songs for me, I performed at a massive regional music festival with him, and etc. It was intense, but I was hanging out with Man #2 the whole time. Once I passed the “Tsk Tsk” Rubicon with Man #2, we sort of settled in to a regular thing. I could rely on it and him. We went through some heavy shit together and … just like Sally Rooney writes at the very end of Normal People … I think we did each other some good. If you had said to me back then, “This sexy cranky guy right here? The one you’re lending money to so he can get his car out of hock at midnight after playing pool for hours in a total dive where you were the only woman present? You’ll still be seeing him over a decade from now” I would have laughed in your face. Turns out, he was the “normal” thing. The stable thing. The real thing, even.

So. To paint the picture. I’m starting to fall for Man #1 who is also falling for me, and I’m hanging out with Man #2 simultaneously. And, just to keep things interesting, I was also doing the “normal” thing, and going out on dates with guys who asked me out, and sometimes even seeing them for a little while. It was a mad swirl of men. I’d go out to dinner with a guy on a first date, we’d have a nice time (or not, whatever), I’d get home and I’d call Man #2 (on the landline of course) and say “I’m coming over.” I’m sure Man #2 was seeing other people too, although I’m guessing he wasn’t having an 1820-style Jane Eyre/Marianne-in-Sense-and-Sensibility doomed Love Affair.

Worlds Collide: Man #1 and Man #2 meet

About a year into the thing with Man #2, the thing with Man #1 started up. I was performing every week with him and I generated my own following. It was this weird anomaly. I worked temp jobs in corporate offices, but every Monday night I was at this legendary little music club, sometimes performing, sometimes not, wearing my outrageous riot grrrl clothes, plastic barrettes, combat boots, teeny nightgown-dresses, and a derby hat. Monday nights were everything and even more so when Man #1 and I finally just acknowledged what was going on subliminally. We would talk about it. What should we do? He didn’t live in Chicago. He was (much) older than me. If we went for it, his whole life would have to be overturned. There was a lot up in the air. So we circled each other. Meanwhile he was writing these crazy songs about me and what was happening between us. It was all-encompassing and total. And fun, too. Exciting. I wasn’t looking for love – like, at all – but here it was.

I can’t remember when it happened but one Monday night, I’m at the show and suddenly Man #2 walks through the door. He knew where I would be every Monday so I guess he just decided to come join. In the world before cell phones, you had to do stuff like that. He was so out of context I didn’t know how to deal with it. A total meeting of my two worlds. And he – a star in his small world – walked into my small world, where I too – was a star. He sat there next to me and listened to people literally chanting my name, demanding I go onstage. He just looked at me. I was like, “I know. This is what’s happening, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Man #1 notices me in the audience, sitting with Man #2. And he was totally thrown off. He kept looking over at us, blatantly, and then forgot some lyrics. I sat there watching him fumble thinking, “Is this about me? It can’t be, right?” I’m not smart about these things. I don’t think he ever considered I’d do something like this, or even have another guy in my life. I’d never brought a date to one of these shows. Man #1 had no game face with it. He was rushing through songs, perfunctory. There was no free-form monologues in between songs. He just wasn’t feeling it. I knew why and I couldn’t believe it. He was jealous. I’m not very smart when it comes to relationships and so I didn’t even think of what it might have looked like to Man #1, that I brought Man #2 just to fuck with him, even though … I didn’t. Man #2 just showed up without an invite. Besides, my thing with Man #2 pre-dated whatever unrequited-mutual-crush thing we’ve got going on here. The show ended, and Man #2 was like, “He is incredible. I have to go talk to him and tell him!” I couldn’t stop him. He went backstage. I followed, wondering What is about to happen??. I was a spectator.

Man #1 was still so thrown off by Man #2’s presence … in my life … that he couldn’t pull himself together. Man #2, having no idea the Gothic Doomed Romance he just barged into, put out his hand, and said, “Man, that was such an incredible show, I just had to tell you how amazing it was …” Unwillingly, Man #1 shook Man #2’s hands but didn’t look him in the eye. Refused. I stood in between them looking from one to the other, gob-smacked at what I was seeing. I hadn’t anticipated Man #1’s rudeness! He didn’t even try to hide it! Oh my God! It was so weird! Man #2 felt the awkwardness and his excitement sort of subsided. I was the only one who didn’t feel awkward. I was too engrossed with watching and thinking, “Holy shit, and what’s HE gonna say? Oh my God, what will be the response?”

I remember this moment vividly, probably because of what came after. As Man #2 basically forced Man #1 to shake hands, I said to Man #1, “This is [Man #2’s name].” Man #1, eyes to the floor, reluctantly shook hands, and said, almost to himself, “I like that name.” Grudgingly.

What? “I like that name”??

I wanted to say, “Why are you being SO WEIRD?”

Of course he’s “being weird”, Sheila. It’s concerning that you don’t get why this whole thing is weird.

The conversation dwindled down because obviously it wasn’t going anywhere and Man #2 and I walked away. We were barely out of earshot when Man #2 said, “Jesus, he wouldn’t even LOOK at me. That was so weird. Like, he couldn’t even look at me!” I said, “I know, that was really weird. I’m sorry.” Suddenly, Man #2 understood. “Ohhhh okay. I get it. He’s into you.” “I can’t help it.” “So I’m just a pawn in your SILLY GAME.” “Listen I didn’t INVITE you tonight. You just SHOWED UP.” “Now I get why you’re here every Monday.” “I perform with him. You saw me.”

This was happening as we walked away. It was not serious. We bickered like this all the time. I enjoyed it. I never felt comfortable with anyone. You have to know someone’s not going away to bicker with them. I knew he wasn’t going away.

Man #2 turned it into a joke. He said, “I understand now my role in all this.” “Oh my God, stop it.” “He wants you but I have you so I WON.” He tossed back a shot of Jagermeister. He kept saying, “I WIN.” “Yes, okay, yes, you win.”

Man #2 kept coming every Monday night, which completely changed my dynamic with Man #1, which was a good thing, as you can probably imagine. I got some distance. Man #1 hated it when I showed up with Man #2. But it’s not like I was cheating. I wasn’t. Sometimes Man #2 wouldn’t come to the show but he’d pull up in his muscle car to drive me home after the show. There were windows right out onto the street, so I could see when he pulled up. I’d race out the door to go off on some adventure with Man #2. Who, by the way, was my age. Not a decade and a half older. Honestly, in looking back, I think me being with Man #2 probably made Man #1 feel old. He was middle-aged, I was young.

One of those Monday nights, after the show, Man #2 and I were lying in bed, post-whatever, not speaking. I was falling asleep. Then, suddenly, through the darkness, Man #2 said, as though picking up the thread of an earlier conversation, even though we hadn’t been talking about it at all: “You know, Man #1 has the love of thousands. He plays to packed shows. He has a fan base like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But every Monday night? He’s wishing he were me.” I burst out laughing. Man #2 was so proud. He turned it into a little song, with a kind of Irish jig cadence, and the chorus was “But EV-ery Monday night he’s wishin’, oh he’s wishin’ he were me.” He was so proud and I was crying with laughter, and also at the absurdity of it all.

Welcome to my 20s. When I didn’t realize I was playing with fire, playing for keeps.

So he likes the name, so what?

Five or so years later, everything has changed. Man #1 dropped me. I think now he was trying to save himself from what could have been a potentially destructive situation. He said as much to me. Whatever, it messed me up. I would lie in bed and my heart hurt so bad – literally – that I thought I should go to the hospital. It was like stabbing hot pains in my chest. I moved to New York to go to grad school, tearing myself away from the mad swirl. I was still seeing Man #2, although it was less frequent. I would go back to Chicago three or four times a year, and he came to New York to teach workshops. If we were in the same location, we’d get together.

Man #1 and I wrote tortuous letters to each other. By hand. So we didn’t “break up”. The timing “wasn’t right”. I shouldn’t have been in contact with him at all. He wrote a song about our goodbye (the song’s title was the exact date we said goodbye). In the song he described my outfit. He wrote this horrible song – I mean, it’s great, but it put me out of commission for a week – where the chorus ends with: “You’ll always be my great lost love.” It was Marianne and Willoughby, the ’90s version. There was a lot of this kind of thing. Like I said, we tortured each other. We saw each other once or twice and it was always awful and I always regretted it. It was like relapsing on drugs after being in rehab for a year. I’d have to get over it all over again. I wanted to go back in time, re-order things around, make us say the things we should have said, tell us what to do to avoid the catastrophe. I’m older now. I hear the drama of this language. I can argue with my younger self’s interpretation and I do. But this is what it was like for me then.

For the 40th time, thank God for Man #2. He and I kept going. Our bond deepened, and it happened without me even noticing. We were very alike. Un-tameable kids. Everyone was always judging us and trying to get us to calm down and color between the lines. We couldn’t do it. On our third date, we barely said a word to each other, because he was playing pool and he was such a genius at pool people would stand around watching. People wanted to play him. So I watched. And he was a spectacle in his blue bandana, white T-shirt with cigarette pack rolled up in the sleeve unironically, cigarette dangling from his lips. He’d call out where the ball was going to go. It always obeyed. I was riveted. He came over to me at one point during someone else’s “turn”, and gave me a kiss. We still didn’t know each other at all. He looked at me with this sudden assessing expression, taking me in. He said, with a tone of wonder, “You don’t seem to have a problem with me.” I said, “I don’t even know you, why would I have a problem?” He said, “People have problems with me. Girls have problems with me. For their own reasons. But you … don’t seem to have a problem with me.” He still had that tone of wonder. Who is this girl in the babydoll nightgown and Chuck Taylors who is perfectly happy watching me play pool?? Maybe other girls were hurt he wasn’t talking to them? I get it, I do. But I learned more about him watching him play pool than I would have if he monologued about his childhood. So I think he found me relaxing: I had no problems with him.

I haven’t told the half of it, even though I’ve written a lot about him. And I never will tell all. It’s private. I may wish I never met Man #1, but I shiver to think of who I would be without Man #2. I’d been hurt by men. Men were careless with me. They took me too personally. He didn’t take me personally at all. Which isn’t the same thing as not being involved. But his ego wasn’t fragile. He didn’t get passive-aggressive, he somehow didn’t make things about him, he didn’t freak out when I was abject with despair (he was there for that too, the rhythms of my moods. I remember sobbing so hard one night I don’t think I’d ever made such sounds. It wasn’t about him. I don’t think it was about anything. I was beside myself. Retrospect shows the mental illness at work and I was probably crashing from a manic period. He didn’t even ask me what was going on. He didn’t try to fix it. He just said, “Come on now”, put his arm around me, patted my shoulder and turned on the television. He watched Creature from the Black Lagoon and I cried until I passed out on his chest. And I felt better and also safe. I’m just telling you how it was. I can say, with 100% certainty, that Man #1 would not have been able to deal with any of this. He got freaked out if one tear-drop welled up in my eye. He would beg me to stop crying, and then try to fix it, whatever it was, anything to make me stop crying.)

Once, Man #2 took care of me when I was sick, when I was very sick. I needed to be taken care of and he was there. One night, I considered him too drunk to drive and I tried to take his keys, and he refused, holding them up in the air, laughing in my face because I couldn’t reach that high, and saying the immortal words, “My car has traction issues you could never understand” and we ended up literally wrestling in a snow drift for the keys. I refused to get in the car with him and walked home, even though it was 2 degrees, seething out loud as I walked, “That was RIDICULOUS. Screw HIM … NEVER AGAIN … NEVER AGAIN…” Incandescent with anger! It kept me warm during the five-block walk home in the frigid night. I didn’t speak to him for a week even though I was totally over it by the next morning and then he called me and said, “I’m sorry” and I said, “Oh it’s fine” and I went to meet up with him. This kind of thing happened a lot. Nobody held grudges. He said stuff that made a difference, long-term. “You shouldn’t feel insecure when you’re with me.” “I don’t think you realize you’re perfectly fine just as you are.” Like, he said crazy shit that literally changed how I thought about myself and made a difference in how I saw myself to this day.

It’s important to lay this out. If it took me years to get over Man #1 then it took me years to look at the decade-plus relationship with Man #2 and realize … Oh. That was the real thing. It might not have looked like other people’s relationships but honestly a traditional and/or conventional relationship was clearly – CLEARLY – not my thing.

So a couple years after I leave Chicago, Man #1 gets married. I am somehow devastated even though it’s been over for years. Then, I get an email from an old friend in Chicago who used to go to those Monday night shows, and still went. He had some news. Man #1’s wife just had a baby. One of the things Man #1 said to me repeatedly was, “I don’t ever want kids.” And I wondered at the time … huh, is that okay for me? because I want kids eventually … I didn’t feel “betrayed” or anything. I mainly felt sorry for myself. I felt like I was living the wrong life. That something went really really wrong back there that I would now be getting such an email. But this news wasn’t what stopped me dead in my tracks. Here’s what did:

My friend went on to say, “He named the baby [Man #2’s distinctive name].”

Recall: Man #1, eyes on the floor: “I like that name.”

Okay, so, calm down, he did say “I like that name”. It makes sense he would name his kid that.

But.

I maintain it’s a little bit fucking weird to name your child after the Other Man in your “great lost love”s life. It would be like Willoughby having a child with his new wife and naming it “Colonel Brandon”. Wouldn’t that be just a little bit … weird?

Man #2’s name is not John or Jim. It’s not a RARE name but it’s certainly not common. Maybe Man #1 didn’t remember that it was the same name. (I doubt it.)

So.

I cavort with another man under Man #1’s nose for two years, driving him crazy. And he names his child after that guy. After my guy.

He just liked the name, as he said. It doesn’t mean anything at all.