Of first and second loves

Love is such a multifaceted thing.

People do weird and crazy things when they are in love. They go to great lengths (or maybe just the nearest gay bar) to look for the one they love.

Seriously though, I don’t think I have ever been in love, if any of the popular notions of love were anything to go by.

I don’t get weak in the knees, butterflies in the stomach, faster heartbeats or turn into a one-year-old who is learning to speak.

If I had those, it would be more like before I make an important presentation.

Reading spot's spot (so what is love then?) reminded me of my own experience.

My No 1 was two and a half years ago, back in October 2002. I still remember clearly how the relationship started. The furtive night phone calls and probing questions of ‘who called’ asked by mom. Those were dangerous times.

I am not sure I should be even calling it a relationship. At the time, I was just out of the closet and it seemed like an opportune moment to have what everyone around me had – someone special and this thing called a relationship.

Yeah, so you could say that I was in love with the notion of love itself. Just like spot did.

Which of course doomed the ‘relationship’ from the very start. Of course, not knowing how he looked like physically was also not a very smart move on my part.

Things didn’t get better the second time around. Clearly, I hadn’t learnt my lesson.

For No 2, it began with him clicking on my personal on fridae. We exchanged a couple of emails and finally contact number. I was bored on New Year’s Day and decided to give him a call (after a very sexually-unsatisfying New Year’s eve).

We got along quite well, though he was coughing incessantly. A very bad cough which he had at the time. He was working in Penang, but he is from PJ. He sometimes come back home on weekends.

Over the phone, we gushed lovey-dovey things to each other, making promises that were meant to be kept but were not, planned for things which never happened and had phone sex. Oh wait, the phone sex came later.

I have learnt my lesson now (yeah, so what if I am slow in this whole dating game?), phone calls does not a relationship make. We met the first time three weeks after that first contact and spend a weekend at Port Dickson.

Of course, as the place of the name suggests, we had some dick-sessions. But there was no penetrative sex (it was the first meet up after all). We both agreed to take things slow.

Looking back, I can say for sure now that this relationship was another mistake. I don’t deny that he is an interesting person, kinda witty, smart, and er … good with his hands.

What I didn’t find so appealing were his unpunctuality and forgetfulness. Minor things actually, but now I know that these two things are important to me.

I admit that the concept and the idea of love is appealing. Who doesn’t, when we grow up with stories like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast and movies like Titanic and Sleepless in Seattle? Someone who will be there for me, like me for who I am, help me stand when I fall and tell me everything would be alright and we’re in this together? Cooking and washing are bonuses though.

Of course, I am not a selfish prick and he could expect the same from me.

And it is painfully obvious that my approach to starting a relationship has more misses than hits. Perhaps it’s time I emulate Jay’s method of sex first, then relationship.

Back to No 2. So what was the cause of the breakup? Yes, he dumped me. And all because he didn’t know what he wanted.

Further explanation: No 2 came out to the scene about a year before we met and started to meet people. To him, he thinks he is a bit late on the scene. He wanted to try out the scene first before settling down with someone. After all, there are many fishes in the sea he hasn’t tried.

In his own words, ‘While I still have my youth and in demand’. He’s twenty five, by the way. Although, if he were to find someone suitable for a long term relationship, he would give it a try.

Obviously he can’t have the cake and eat it too. Those are two conflicting wants – to play the field and to have a relationship. And yes, I have heard of such a thing called open relationship.

Now, I am not such a prude to say that I am totally against it, though I don’t think I would be the one to propose it in a relationship. But if a couple was starting out on a relationship, surely an open relationship is inappropriate? To me, an open relationship is a possibility and can be given serious thought only when the relationship has developed further and has a more stable footing.

As such, it was clear that he decided to sow his seeds. And he also realized that I was not what he wanted. He said I was not sexually attractive to him and he never, and couldn’t, move past friendship to romance.

Even though he was being honest (remarkably so) about the reasons and it was better for me to know then rather than later, it still hurt like hell. Emotionally and mentally.

I took a little less than a week to get over him and the hurt, even though the relationship only lasted nine weeks. And he told me all these in Coffee Bean, five days before my birthday.

Fortunately, my birthday cheered me up a lot. I had four celebrations, so it was more like a birthday week.

So yeah, I don’t think I have ever been in love.