I told my Foreign Correspondent last night that I needed to not hear from him for a while. What I would be hearing right now is all about his exploits with other members of his sub-species who share a need for a kind of physical interaction devoid of any kind of emotional entanglements—the kinds of entanglements that were the basis of our relationship. I don’t want to hear about it.
I haven’t written about this past year yet, as it’s been a bumpy one. I guess I should start filling you in by saying that we finally broke up, as breaking up seemed the only direction this relationship ever seemed headed in. “Separated” is how we’re defining it. I told him that we should spend some time seeing other people, learning about ourselves… when really, I just wanted to set him free to openly do all the things that he had already been doing behind my back, and to separate myself from it.
He’s been a pretty clumsy fabricator, so when he finally confessed to all of his indiscretions, he was merely confirming what I knew already but hadn’t been able to squeeze out of him. There was a simultaneous sense of release—I wasn’t crazy for assuming that the condoms on the floor weren’t part of some complicated home theatrical production after all!—and a great sense of failure.
I’m not mad at him, as I don’t think he did anything that isn’t in his nature. I suppose I’m a little disappointed in myself, for not embracing it, and for trying to impose something on him that his actions didn’t support. I thought I could sway him towards monogamy, toward something he claimed to desire. In the end, my siren’s song fell on plugged ears. His nature punched my nature in the face, and I don’t know how long it’ll be before I’m up and ready for more.