Thursday night’s date was a much needed get-together with my favorite West Coast gay friend, Johnny. After work, we filled each other in what’s been up with our lives in the past few weeks it’s been since we’ve seen each other (& the jerk hasn’t been reading my blog, despite my telling him to!). I really needed to talk to him about my being conflicted about beginning to actually like Aaron, wanting to hold out for Brian (whom I STILL haven’t heard back from since Portland & to whom I sent a Christmas card for him to get while he’s back home with his parents next week that says, among other things & a sappy note I wrote about being excited over the two of us finding each other again, “All I want for Christmas is YOU” – figured that might be a bit of insurance/investment), getting myself into a Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby relationship, & the absolute love of my life: Adolf. Let’s talk about him.
Adolf & I go back about 10 years. During my early college years, I found myself lonely & afraid that now that I had “finally become who I really am” (puuhleeease!), that no one would accept me for the “real” me. So I began online dating for the first time ever. It was still relatively new & considered taboo. Adolf & I began talking & really struck up a great friendship. Oddly enough, we never met. We would talk online & on the phone all the time at night. He was the lead guitarist in a melodic hardcore band & would send me samples of what he’d written & I would pick them apart & tweak them for him. He took my critiques into consideration & actually implemented some of them (too bad I never saw credit or a thank you in their liner notes).
Months later I began dating someone who was also involved in the music scene as a guitarist in a band in the same city. Adolf was aware, as we talked about everything. One day the guy I was dating invited me to his place & told me that his band was coming to practice there. I was excited to see/hear the band & pretend I was Lindsay Weir from Freaks and Geeks. In walks Adolf! Our jaws hit the floor & as my guy went to introduce us, he says, “THIS is the guy you’re dating?!” & I say, “THIS is the band you’re in?!” My guy asks, “you guys know each other?” AWKWARD!!! We never divulged how we knew each other, so it was just chalked up from having seen each other at shows.
My guy was so excited about all the fun things we could do together since my dorm wasn’t more than a few minutes away from where he lived, so began making all these plans for us to go on morning runs & grab breakfast together before I had classes & stuff. Mind you, none of this ever happened, as it was already close to the end of my semester & I was going back to my hometown which was an hour & a half away. He did come to visit me a few times & I went back to spend weekends with him. About a month in to dating each other, the band was about to embark on a summer tour. As can be expected, being young, attractive, in a band, & horny, he decided he wanted to be single. (Recurring theme: a la Brian. Gah!) I was not upset, but moreso confused at his blatant 180 turn he made from his excitement of us. Oh well. Adolf & I still kept in touch while they toured.
3 years later, I was visiting my town for the summer before moving back down to Brooklyn (I had been living in Long Island the year prior for school). I had no 4th of July plans, & neither did Adolf. We decided to hang out, one-on-one, for the first time ever. He booked us a jacuzzi suite hotel room in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Yeah, true patriotism right there. I picked him up & we chatted all the way across the border. Slightly worried about whether or not we’d be able to get across, he told me that when he was younger, his friend stole a car & they were caught drinking in it, so he wasn’t able to get a license until he was 18. Being in a touring band, he never was obligated to drive, so he just never bothered in getting one. Luckily we didn’t have any trouble. We grabbed a couple 6-packs of beer, threw on our swimsuits, & spent the entire night talking, drinking, & having sex. That was SO uncharacteristic of me. How bold! How daring! What was I thinking?!
I wasn’t. I went with my gut. We clicked on more levels then I had ever thought was humanly possible. We had an insane connection & truly understood each other. He, a warped, troubled soul & me, an understanding & previously oppressed one (oppressed, that is, until being able to be myself with him). I have always prided myself on always being myself. But I’ve never truly felt more myself than when I was with him. We fell for each other hard & fast. I never knew it was possible to feel the way I did with him. Did he buy me gifts or take me places? Other than beers at bars, no, not really. It was just the connection we had. Unparalleled. Even still, to this day.
I moved back to Brooklyn & we still made the time to travel back & forth to see each other. It wasn’t enough. We thought that it wouldn’t matter whether I lived there in upstate NY or in Brooklyn because he was on tour 9 months out of the year, but that wasn’t the case. Having to coordinate schedules between my work/school schedules & his time when he was home, it just became too stressful. I decided to transfer back upstate to finish school there & be with him. His mom found an apartment for me just down the road a little ways from them but it wasn’t ready until February, so I moved in with them for the month. It was amazing. His parents loved me & took care of me as if I were their own & he & I were together, at last!
At this time his band was really blowing up & had a really big, important tour approaching. We had talked about marriage here & there, but never in a truly serious tone. This was a huge deal for the both of us, as we were both die hard anti-marriage enthusiasts. Yet, there we were, madly in love with each other & actually able to see a future together. As the weeks dwindled down to tour commencement, Adolf started getting panicky. Late one night we stayed up talking about it. He was absolutely ready & willing to quit the band to stay & build a life with me. Talk about a girl’s dream come true: the bad boy giving it all up for her! I couldn’t let him throw his future away on me, though, as badly as I wanted to accept his offer. I couldn’t bear the thought of one day us getting into a fight about something & him feeling regret & blame towards me for never pursuing what could have been. He assured me he would never, but I also knew that music was just as much his passion as it was mine & I wanted to be there for him & support him & let him find out what might lay around the corner in the same way I’d want him to do the same for me. He was very reluctant to go on that tour, but did.
That was the hardest part of our relationship. Every night he’d call/text & tell me how much he loved & missed me & how worried he was about the singer in his band, who would routinely consume a 6-pack of beer, handle of Jack Daniels, & 3 lines of coke & then piss himself in his sleep in the back of the van. He didn’t want to be around this lifestyle any more. He missed me & he missed home. I felt a bunch of regret in having let him go & on several occasions we shared tears over the phone & contemplated how to get him home.
Then our world changed. I stopped hearing from him & when I did hear from him, it was like I was talking to a totally disengaged, disinterested man who only communicated with me out of obligation. What happened?! I was so stressed beyond belief & worried about him as well as us. After about two weeks of this change, I got into a car accident. I swerved to avoid an oncoming car & landed my car into a telephone pole down the street. His dad came to my rescue & brought me back to their place for me to calm down & fix me a sandwich. I was at my wit’s end. I burst into tears & asked him if he had known what was going on. Unfortunately he did not but was quite stoic about it. He assured me that if things were to be, they would be.
Out of nowhere, Adolf tells me he cheated on me with several women on the road. I lost my shit. Thing is, I didn’t believe him. It was so uncharacteristic of him & didn’t make any sense. I resolved that he was only trying to push me away to save both of our hearts the aching we were already going through from this tour. I told him I knew what he was doing. In an attempt to conceal this, he gave me more & more weird explanations of things he had supposedly done. Hurt beyond belief, I still refused to believe any of it. It didn’t feel right in my heart that he would do such things. I went crazy. I tried checking in with his mom & best friend. Stupid girl. Of COURSE they’re going to side with him, whether they knew what was going on or not. His best friend did say that it was a total shock to hear these things about him as well & he doubted it, but couldn’t confirm nor deny. Not long after my incessant inquiries & late night talks with his best friend, he finally told me that what Adolf said was true. Yet I STILL refused to believe it, knowing in my heart that it was just as I had resolved it to be. The thing that hurt me more than anything was that, while I knew all of this to be false, I couldn’t wrap my brain around WHY he was doing this.
A few days after his return from tour he contacted me. Thus ensued several months of a grueling on & off relationship, intermittent whether he was home or on another tour. I finally found my strength & forced myself to get over him…by any means necessary. It took a while to find a healthy means: drowning my sorrows in a several glasses of wine each night, creating a fuck buddy with one of his friends in an attempt to change my focal point & also feel some sort of vindication of wronging him because the guy was a friend of his, to finally getting a cat. Yep, you read that right. My cat was my savior. Why? Adolf is deathly allergic to them. I felt that if I had something that physically restrained us from seeing each other that we’d have no choice but to be apart. Even this didn’t work, as he agreed to see me & try his hardest to make things right, despite her.
I was forced to finally delete him from my life, altogether: phone number, pictures, mementos when he started being proactively mean to me to push me away. I was pathetic. I believed in us still, almost 9 months after the drastic change happened & just couldn’t bring myself to let go of what I knew was the love of my life.
Fast forward 4 years. We ended up back in touch after I started seeing his band’s merch guy. (Yeah, I know…what is it with me & the guys surrounding that band?! Then again, the scene is super small back home… To be fair, though, this guy & I met at a bar & it wasn’t until a few days later when I learned how small of a world it was & what he did for a living.) The merch guy was afraid to mention anything about us seeing each other because he knew we’d dated in the past. All it took was just one reference of the other (merch dude finally balled up & mentioned we were talking) & we were compelled to see each other again. Adolf reached out to me. This marked the end of merch dude’s involvement in my life, as every man was & will always be irrelevant once Adolf is back in the picture.
We began seeing each other once more. I slept over several times & kept telling myself to take it with a grain of salt. Adolf confessed one night as we were laying in bed that he never did cheat on me while we were together & that it all really was just him being messed up & trying to deal with the pain of missing me. I KNEW IT! As it had been years since then, I tried putting on my big girl panties & saying that I didn’t want to know the truth because I spent years, literally, wondering & trying to actually believe that he WAS unfaithful just so I could be angry at & hate him for what he did to me & get over him that way. It was easier to justify throwing away the greatest love I’d ever known by telling myself he was the worst thing to ever crawl the earth & getting myself to internalize him cheating on me. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be strong enough to stand once again after undoing my false sense of security I had structured my life around since my reluctant resolution.
Turns out, I was right: I couldn’t handle the truth. Even though it was the truth I’d known in my heart all that time, just hearing him finally admit it & break down crying telling me he was so sorry for everything he’d done to us & that he’d never be able to forgive himself was more than I could bear. It was all I’d wanted for years. I finally got it, & my defenses sprang up like never before & I forced myself to stop seeing him. I didn’t dare allow myself to fall into the same trap again.
So what did I do? I ran & fell madly, hurriedly, & falsely in love with another man who really did cheat on me every chance he got & lied & manipulated me from the get go. Hey, that’s better than opening up the freshly repaired wound from Adolf, right? (Clearly not.)
Three years later, we began talking once more. I was finally moving out here to Los Angeles, & just HAD to see him one last time. I finally felt I had a good head on my shoulders & both feet planted firmly on the ground. I know who I am & can be around him without melting into a puddle again. Adolf was actually finishing up recording a band in Michigan (what he does now that the band has disbanded) & wouldn’t be back for two weeks. I was leaving in three & a half weeks. In the meantime, we exchanged goofy quips via text. Adolf’s schedule was really busy, as was mine in preparation for my move, but we both made time for each other. I went to visit him, not expecting to spend the night, but to just come up for dinner & drinks. I was so proud of myself being able to maintain composure. In the past years, I couldn’t have been more proud of Adolf! He has a license, a car, a successful recording business, lives in a house with his brother & another friend, is quitting smoking, doesn’t drink heavily any more, & has undergone psychological therapy. He is now every bit the man I always saw deep within him. Why, oh why does the world work out this way? Just when we’re both at a point in our lives where we’re not only ready but actually capable of having a legitimate, solid, good relationship, I’m leaving. I refused to emote any of this. Conversely, it was he who couldn’t hold back. I kept taking it with a grain of salt & seemingly dismissed it as nothing more than dumb luck.
I have been out here in Los Angeles now for 6 months & we still keep in touch several times a week. 80% of the time, it’s him contacting me. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder & I can see that happening with us. We often exchange fond sentiments for each other & gripe about how cruel it is that we’re now so far apart. Adolf would never move his life for someone like I did for him so many years ago. He even confirmed this, unless it was to be with me.
WHAT?!
He said that he loves Los Angeles & it’s one of the few places in the country he’d consent to living. (Years ago, this man claimed that, after seeing the entire country, he still just wanted to settle back in his hometown.) Not to mention, his business would thrive with way more work out here. The catalyst for actually coming here would be to be with me.
While I have Brian as a preferred reservation to “put a ring on it”, am dating around, liking Aaron, & even looking into Sugar Daddydome, make no mistake: I would give it all up for him. I truly believe with all my heart that Adolf & I are soul mates. He knows that I’m dating around & I know that he’s having occasional hook-ups back home, although we don’t often mention these things to each other. He knows I’d give it all up for him, but has asked me not to let him derail me from having fun & finding happiness. I’ve assured him that I’m not, although he will always come first. Just the other day, he mentioned that he would give anything to be able to kiss me again. We are currently trying, loosely, to arrange for him to come out here to spend time with me.
Until that happens, let’s get back to my dinner conversation with Johnny.
So I explain all of this to Johnny. He looks at me with adoration & encourages me to continue having fun. He backs up my decision to pursue a Sugar Daddy for the time being, but cautions me that if I decide to get serious with Aaron that I’m going to need to respect him enough to drop everyone else. I agree that Aaron definitely deserves that….IF we get super serious. He’s actually the friggen wrench in my system right now, actually: I’ve been able to separate my love for Adolf & my desire for security with Brian from my dating because both of those men are far away from me & are not making realistic moves to make something worthwhile actually happen. Well, OK, Brian is flying me out monthly, but where is his communication between visits? And while Adolf & I talk frequently, I can’t afford to hang up everything until that gains much more momentum too. But here’s Aaron, being fun, sweet, &, probably most of all: accessible/convenient. Dammit, that’s not convenient for me to continue to date around & see if I can’t get my inner gold digger to come to fruition right now, though. I figure, I’m in a city with more rich people easily accessible to me than ever before & it’s only a matter of time until my youthful good looks abandon me, so it’s prime time I see about capitalizing on this. I can’t get caught up in liking Aaron! Can I?
I part with Johnny from dinner resolving to only accept sugar daddies that I’m actually interested in & where sex hasn’t even been brought up. (I was to meet up with one of them this coming weekend, but he was so explicit & brash that I felt it was way too akin to prostitution so told him to keep his money & lose my number.) I’m going to finish reading my Gold Digger’s book & try the tips out on some of the other guys who, while they may not be rich, may be able to be manipulated for my financial/materialistic gain, or, at the very least, practice. Thanks, Johnny. I really needed that dinner conversation.
I was excited to sleep over at Aaron’s after that dinner, as I felt vindicated in pursuing a comfortable potential relationship with him (versus a sugar daddy), since I had told that one to kick rocks as I was driving home. I felt renewed. Mostly, I felt excited to be seeing a man who likes me for me & not what my body has to offer. Not to mention, my hormones have been raging all week so I decided I might allow him access.
Well, scratch that, as I just started my period once I got home. Thanks for forcing me to stick to my 60 day rule, life. I know…I’m horrible. I’m so fickle at this moment in my life with men that it’s not even funny. OK, well, maybe it is to you readers. I’m just caught between sticking to my morals, getting myself involved in another relationship like I always used to do so easily, & wanting to release that inner sex goddess for my own personal gain (to Hell with standard conventions!)
Aaron excitedly kissed me as we sat on his bed talking lively. Our time was spent chatting until 2am before I finally told him I needed to get some sleep, since I’d had late nights & long days all week. The next morning I awoke annoyed once again that we hadn’t really cuddled at all throughout the night. Erg. I kissed him goodbye & went home to get ready for work.
xx,
Lilly Cat
LA Date Buffet 