From the archives (2011): How We Talked

1.
Me: [maybe a month in] “I just mentioned that song to you – and now it’s playing on the radio! Isn’t that so weird??”
Him: “Not weird at all. Sheer coincidence.”

2.
Him: [3 or 4 years in] “What’s going on?”
Me: “Nothing.”
Him: “You’re looking around in this insecure way…”
Me: “No I’m not.”
Him: “Yes you are. You should never have that look on your face when you’re with me.”
[I don’t remember what was going on with me but we were in public, at a bar, and – in retrospect – I was dissociating.]
Him: [speaking to me like I was slow, or hard of hearing:] “I don’t have another you, you know.”

^^ He really did have his moments.

3.
Me: [5 or 6 months in] “How was your Thanksgiving?”
Him: “It was all right.”
Me: “Not good, huh.”
Him: “Well – clearly I have issues.”
[Backstory: I overused the word “issues” at the time, usually in combination with the word “clearly”, and this drove him crazy, and he would make fun of me when I would talk about how “clearly” I had “issues”. So when he said this, totally naturally, showing he had absorbed my phrasing, I burst into laughter.]
Him: “What did I just say?” [Then he got it:] “No! I don’t have ISSUES. I have PROBLEMS.”

4.
Me: [3 years in, maybe, 3 a.m. or something, sobbing hysterically for 15 minutes, or, half an hour, I don’t know, it was a big crying jag. This happened a lot. He was on the front lines – and neither of us had any idea what was going on.]
Him: [totally calm, not freaked out, smoking a cigarette, arm around me] “Come on now. Stop that.”

5.
Me: [2 years in, walking into the bar with a new and radically different hair cut and color]
Him: [taking in the change] “Are you breaking up with me?”
Me: “What??”
Him: “A girl changes her hair and I know I’m toast.”
Me: “That’s stupid.”

6.
Me [11 years in. I mean, this is insane]: “You went like this: ‘Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.'”
Him: “WHAT?”
Me: “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.”
Him: “WHAT?”
Me: “Yeah. You ‘Tsk Tsk’-ed me on my answering machine.”
Him: “What a fucking ASSHOLE.”
Me: “No! It was amazing. I felt like you were telling me to get my head straight.”
Long long pause.
Him: “That is the most generous interpretation possible for me being a hungover dick.”
Me: “But I was right, though, wasn’t I.”
…….
Him: “Yeah. You were.”
(This whole exchange deserves its own post some day.)

UPDATE 8/12/2026: I finally got it done. It only took 15 years – and a pandemic – for me to finally create the space to write about the “tsk tsk tsk”.

7.
Him [on our third date]: “I like what you’re about.”
Me: “You do?”
Him: “I keep waiting for you to have problems with me.”
Me: “Wait, what?”
Him: “I don’t know. Everyone has problems with me. Women especially.”
Me: “Why?”
Him: “I’m not saying everyone’s wrong. People have problems with me for all kinds of valid reasons. But you don’t have any problems with me.” [with a look of wonder and confusion on his face].
Me: “I don’t have any problems with you.”
Him: “I know. Why not?”
Me: “I’m sick of this conversation.”

Intellectually I know why people “had problems” with him, even though he didn’t really elaborate. We’d only been out a couple times. I understand now what was going on. But … people “had problems” with me, too. Men especially. And I’d say for similar reasons, even though this is evident to me only in retrospect. We were both too wild for prime time. People were drawn to the Wild in us, and then tried to get us to tone it down, blaming us when we couldn’t do it. Anyone who tried to date either of us in a conventional way was asking for trouble. I’d just gone through something like that when I met M. And … we were so young but we somehow didn’t put that trip on each other. At least this is my assessment now. I think about this moment a lot: him clocking the “me” part of the equation this early on, only three dates in. He looked at me with this weird wince, like, “is this a trap?” He couldn’t believe I was just … “okay” with him as he was. (And honestly, I felt the same way. It was this weird little miracle in the middle of what was supposed to be a hook-up.) And he said this shit out loud, whereas I never would have.

8.
Him: [3 years in] “Want to see my imitation of a circus horse?”
Me: “Of course.”
He transforms, and prances around me, a circus horse, and I am weeping with laughter.
Him: [as circus horse] “The key is to not make your arms the front legs, but to just use your legs. The problem with my circus horse, though, is that it sometimes looks like a velociraptor.”
Me: [suddenly seeing the velociraptor] “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

9.
Me: [3 years in] “I got a tattoo!”
Him: “While you’re sick? That’s so stupid.” [I had a fever of 103. “Burning up” was an understatement. I was in an altered state and had no health insurance.]
Me: “Peel off the bandage so you can see it.”
Him: [pulling down the bandage on my back. Long silent contemplation of my phoenix tattoo. I FELT the disapproval emanating through my back.]
Me: [in tears, randomly, I blame the fever] “Don’t be mad at me.”
Him: “Your skin is hot. Come here. I had an idea.”
[He led me to the bathroom where he basically had prepared a cold plunge for me in the tub with bags of ice from the liquor store downstairs. He helped me take my clothes off and put me in the tub. I shivered and protested, twisting around so my tattoo wouldn’t go under. I kept saying, “Don’t get my tattoo wet” and he’d say some cranky thing like, “This is why people shouldn’t get tattoos.” His roommate – a very nice funny guy who eventually ended up on a hit TV show – was in his room the whole time and was probably like, “What are those two idiots doing NOW.” I got out of the tub, a shivering wreck, and he put me into one of his T-shirts, tucked me in, and I slept the sleep of the peaceful and the blessed. I wrote a piece about this night.]

10.
Me: “Give me the keys to your car. NOW.”
Him: “There are traction issues you can’t understand.”

11.
Him: [3 years in? He briefly and almost off-handedly filled me in on the awful thing that happened to him in high school, which – unfortunately – I already knew, through gossip in the close-knit improv scene – someone saying, “you know what happened to him, right?” But before this was passed on to me, I saw the scars on his legs and hips, I am sorry to say, the first time we got naked – and I asked him about them and he said, “It’s nothing” when it obviously was not nothing. Even after the gossip-train filled me in, I of course didn’t push him to tell me. I mean, never would I ever. If he wanted to tell me, great. But it was his story to tell. Suddenly he told me the whole thing and I pretended I didn’t know, and just listened. Something soft/concerned must have been on my face because he said, forbiddingly:]
Him: “You are never allowed to feel sorry for me.”
Me: “Okay I won’t.”

And I didn’t.

12.
Him: [a couple months in] “I had some gumbo once. It was really good. You remind me of that. You are some really good gumbo.”

13.
Me: [9 or 10 years in] “What’s the first thing you think of when you think of me?” [Pause.] “It’s fine if you can’t think of anything.”
Him: “I mean, I know what it is.”
Me: “What?”
Him: “… It’s really bad.”
Me: “Bad??” [suddenly filled with terror]
Him: [really hesitating. He never hesitated. I didn’t know what was going on. He started a defensive monologue:] “I know that you are a three-dimensional person. You are more than this. You are a full human woman person.”
Me: “What is going on.”
Him: “It’s really bad that this is the first thing I think of when you come into my head.”
Me: “Tell me right now.” [thinking: what the hell did I do? what could it be?]
Him: [he tells me. He’s actually legitimately embarrassed, which surprises me. Like he thinks I’m going to be insulted that the first thing that comes into his head is a sex moment from 8 years before. Meanwhile, this former teenage wallflower was stunned and thrilled at living in his head rent-free as some sex-bomb. It’s the best answer! He’s never embarrassed but he seems embarrassed when he tells me.] “I know. It’s really bad.”
Me: “Are you kidding me? This is the best moment of my life.”
Him: “That’s not how I think of you, or all I think of you. But you asked.”

And glad I did. Because I never would have assumed.

14.
Him [3 years in]: “I know sign language.”
Me: “Why am I just learning this now?”

15.
Me: [4 years in, these words flew out of my mouth without planning] “I love you.”
We freeze in place.
Me: [quickly] “Don’t worry.”
Him: “I’m not.”
Me: “Okay.”
Him: “I love you too.”
Me: “Let’s remain calm.”

^^ lol.

16.
Him: [maybe 6 months in?] “I had an audition today.”
Me: “For what?”
Him: “Some commercial. They needed someone who could do a Mick Jagger imitation and someone saw me ‘do’ Mick at an IO show and recommended me. It’s not like I’m some serious mimic though. I was just fucking around. I go in there and there are all these guys dressed up as Mick Jagger–”
Me: “And you’re wearing …”
Him: “What I’m wearing now.” [white t-shirt, jeans, blue bandana on head]
Me: “Okay. So what happened.”
Him: “I go into the casting room and they’re filming and I start doing my imitation …” [I am already laughing because I am seeing it in my head.] “I’m dancing around and they’re filming me …” [I am in tears.] “And at one point, the casting director – this chubby older woman wearing glasses – shouts at me, [loud raspy voice] ‘WIGGLE YOUR ASS!'”
Me: “She did not.”
Him: “I didn’t want to do it, Sheila.”
Me: “Of course you didn’t!”
Him: “But I turned around and wiggled my ass at her.”
Me: “Oh no.”
Him: “And as I was doing it, I suddenly had this huge feeling of … shame.”
Me: “NO!!”
Him: “I was Coco from Fame.”

17.
Him: “Your armpit should win a beauty contest.”

18.
Him: [2 years in] “Can I ask you something?”
[with a wince, the wince I was very familiar with: the testing-the-waters should-I-tell-her-this vulnerable wince.]
Me: “Of course.”
[gearing up for something terrible since I am a catastrophist, and I assumed it was going to be some horrible revelation. In other words I assumed it was going to be about me.]
Him: “I got a new coffee maker and I read somewhere that you’re supposed to clean it with vinegar so I did that but I think I used too much because my coffee still tastes like vinegar.”
Me: “……”
Him: “Is that normal, do you think? Should I run water through it now? Did I do something wrong?”

19.
Him: [2nd or 3rd date. Early.] “So. What do you want to do tonight?”
Me: [involuntarily twisting up like a pretzel, teeny voice] “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
Him: [imitating me, little baby voice] “What do you want to do?”
Me: [horrified, infuriated, feeling so exposed, it was a maelstrom and I lashed out, lightly shoving his hand] “That was mean!”
Him: “No. That was even-handed.”
Me: “……”
[I had no reply. I just sat in the mess. I hated my twisted-pretzel response to a simple question about what I wanted to do. I hated being in my own skin. Having a brand new man basically mock me – and imitate my HORRIFIC baby voice – which I didn’t even mean to do – should have made the night unrecoverable. When he said “even-handed”, I felt for a second like he didn’t like me, or – worse – he had contempt for me. As awful as the moment was to endure – I somehow let in what he said. No lies were told. He WASN’T being mean. He handed back to me exactly what I gave him. And it didn’t feel good, Sheila, did it? This moment changed everything for me, I am not even exaggerating. The light dawned from above. What DO you want, Sheila? Just say it, because he’ll fucking do it. (You don’t know it yet, Sheila, but you’ve hit the jackpot. You’ll understand soon. This is a person who wants to know what you want. And it’s up to YOU to express what you want.) After I absorbed the full awfulness of the moment, I started laughing – with a giddy exhilaration I still remember. Which I think surprised him. I said something like, “Wow. You are RIGHT.” And I was so delighted by the whole thing he seemed a little confused, but also maybe relieved? I don’t know. We literally did not know each other at all. But I knew what I wanted even though I involuntarily became a pretzel when confronted with the question. Even-handedness was fair-ness and I needed fair-ness. Fair-ness meant space, somehow. Elbow room. If all of this seems like way “too much”, welcome to the world of my early 20s and what it was like to be a traumatized 24-year-old trying to go on a simple date. Whatever this thing with M. was, even on a “what are we doing tonight” level, it would be a co-creation. This was the start of me being totally free and totally unambiguous when saying what I wanted. He wanted to know what I wanted. There were no wrong answers. This was freedom. I shed a skin with this “even-handed” exchange. The experience was NOT pleasant but it had to happen.]

20.
Him [4 years in]: “You’re funny.”
Me: “You’re just realizing this now?”
Him: “No, I mean, you’re really funny.”

21.
Setting the scene: a crowded improv bar, maybe a month in: I am sitting with him, surrounded by all of his friends. I was a new factor for all of them, and they were all very curious about me, since none of them knew me or even knew of my existence probably. One of his best friends – who, I can’t help it, now has an Academy Award, for Best Director no less, was watching our dynamic like a hawk. Future Oscar winner said, ““Do you guys want to … talk to each other? ….. Or anything … like that …?” He was making a bit out of how we were sitting next to each other but not interacting – at least not to the naked eye.
Him and me, simultaneously: “Oh, we’re fine.”
Him: “That’s not what we’re about.”
Me: “We don’t really talk.”
Him: [taken aback, maybe even embarrassed] “What do you mean? We talk.”
Me: “Yeah, but it’s not like we’re all ‘getting to know you’. That’s what I meant.” [That … doesn’t make it better, lol]
Him: “Well – I think we exist more in the present.”
Me: “Right. I love it.”
Him: “You’re lying.”
Me: “No.”
Him: [Suddenly yelling:] “So don’t give me that We Don’t Talk crap!” [He leaned over and took my entire nose in his mouth.]
This dynamic did nothing to clear up his friends’ confusion. They were all improv guys and comedy writers. They noticed everything. I literally wrote this whole conversation out as a script in my journal the day after it happened so … so I trust the in-real-time reportage.

22.
Him: “What the hell are you wearing.”
Me: “A dress.”
Him: “The skirt is so short I can practically see your Si Señor.”

23.
Me: [A year in, regaling him with a story I thought was funny: a bunch of guys on the L followed me off the train and told me they were going to rape me at the bottom of the stairs. I was stuck up on the platform and scared to leave so I went to the pay phone and called my drag queen friend who lived nearby, telling her the situation, and she flew out the door and came roaring to the rescue. Because nobody – literally nobody – is tougher than a drag queen. I should never have told him this story but I thought – wrongly – he would get a kick out of it, at least the drag queen part. He reacted very very badly to the story.]
Him: “What the fuck were you doing on the L train in the middle of the night wearing fishnets?”
Me: [totally thrown off by his humorless intensity] “I wasn’t thinking.”
Him: “No shit you weren’t thinking. Why didn’t you call me?”
Me: “I …” [thinking: never in a million years would I have called you from that L platform.]
Him: [not amused, not charmed, unshakably pissed]: “If I ever find out that you’re almost raped on some fucking L platform and you don’t call me to come get you, I’ll never speak to you again.”
Me: “I’m sorry.”
Him: “It’s bullshit.”
Me: “Okay, I’m sorry.”
[Flailing pause, things are not okay.]
Me: [meek] “I thought it was funny.”
Him: “It’s not funny.”
Me: “Okay, okay.” [the realization dawned: “oh my God he actually cares about me.” Flood of warm fuzzy feelings. lol We’ve had a year of shmexy shenanigans but it took him yelling at me for me to realize “oh my God, he likes me.” This is the truest anecdote I can share. If you’re confused, I can’t help you.]

24.
Him [10 years in]: “Sheila, you could write a novel about the last 5 minutes.”

25.
Him, [3 years in, writing in my notebook]: “Trust is more important than true love. I don’t trust anyone. But I trust you.”

26.
Him [2 years in, 4 a.m.]: “I feel like there’s not a word evolved enough for what we are.”

Thoughts: This relationship is a very important part of the narrative of my life but we never called it a relationship and writing down “how we talked” is a little startling. Just seeing it in black and white. We sometimes went 2 or 3 months without seeing each other. To be honest, if we spent more than 3 days in a row with each other, the bickering got to be so constant we had to retreat to our corners. Less was WAY more for us. We had a huge fight maybe 2 years in and I stormed off through the icy winter night and we didn’t talk for months. For the last couple of years we lived 3,000 miles apart, engineering meet-ups whenever we could. We weren’t monogamous. We didn’t label it. None of that mattered. There are things about me that only he knows. To this day. And, not to sound like some Dickensian orphan or anything, but I have not been treated well by men. I’ve been treated with a LACK of care, let’s say. I don’t write about this a lot, it’s not the narrative I have chosen to tell – to others OR to myself – and this post really isn’t about that, ultimately. I can take care of myself now but back then I was constantly getting re-traumatized because I was only 24 when we met and I didn’t know how to take care of myself yet. He wasn’t a trauma counselor, lol. He also wasn’t overtly “sensitive”. He was rough, he was taciturn (really the perfect word), he was a tough guy with a muscle car. I’d describe his whole attitude as “cranky old geezer in a young man’s body”. He never lied. Which sounds great, but it can be pretty rough, being around that unfiltered bluntness. On the flip side, the no lying meant no mind games. And he also had his own trauma. Neither of us were sharing our traumas off the bat. It took years. But he paid attention, he noticed everything. I’d blink a millisecond slower than normal, and he’d be like, “You good?” (This was not always welcome. I’d be like, “Oh my GOD I’m GOOD STOP.”) It took me years to really understand how much care M. took with me – to make sure I was okay, make sure I was present – and just how much of a difference this has made in my life. I honestly didn’t understand at the time. I mean, look at what we were doing. It’s obvious to me NOW. It took me years to realize it was obvious to him back then.

2026 Update: I was looking for something in my archives and tripped over this piece. I don’t remember writing it. 2011 was a wild year. I might have written 200,000 words in that year alone. And it was before Ebert, before anything. 2011 was the start of the Elvis Thing. And in the middle of it was this. I might start resurrecting some things from my archives on occasion, since there’s so much there.