I loved my new apartment. I had this one terrible second with it where I thought I have to take a picture to send Diego, but I shut that shit down and distracted myself by applying to volunteer at the queer youth center Claris worked with. It was local and they seemed to be doing cool stuff and anyway, I had time.
A lot of time. More time than I’d realized when I’d just been going to work every day and drinks once a week and nights out with Tim here and there. For a stretch in my mid-twenties I’d gone on dates all the time, or Ronnie and Oscar and I would hit the clubs and see if we wanted to take anyone home (me and Oscar) or vet our friends’ one-night stands (Ronnie). I had no idea what I’d replaced all that with. YouTube? Podcasts? Video games? Probably video games.
When I’d been going around taking pictures and shooting videos for GFW I’d rediscovered entire hours of my life, as if before that everything between leaving work and going to bed had blurred into one long, fuzzy question mark. Now that I was used to Doing Something with that time, I got restless sitting in my (much improved) apartment.
I tried to Konmari my stuff, except I’d just done that like six months ago and there wasn’t really anything I could now purge. Go, me?
I tried going to a club I used to hit all the time when I just wanted to get laid, but it made me feel old and by eleven I was ready to go home and listen to a little Magnus Archives while getting ready for bed. I’d queued up Snap Judgment before realizing that even hearing Glynn Washington’s voice made me think of Diego and want to cry. So I quickly backed out of that and filled my ears with something else.
And I didn’t actually want to get laid. Being around all those pretty young things smiling and strutting for each other like peacocks waiting to see whose plumage would impress them the most just kind of depressed me. It had been fun back in the day. I remembered the feeling of that smile, closing my eyes and dancing by myself secure in the knowledge that other people were watching and appreciating. I just didn’t have the energy for it anymore.
Check that off the list of ways to fill time, anyway.
I extended my pre-work gym time by half an hour and added a yoga class to the mix. I’d been neglecting the gym a bit when I was doing all those other things, so I told myself this was a good excuse to get back to it and push myself. I hadn’t done yoga since college. The Motherfuckers had all joined a Saturday morning class held on the quad, but only Mia and I kept going after the rest of them decided sleep was a way better idea.
She worked retail hours, but I dropped her the link to the class I was doing and said she should hit it with me when she could.
The youth center got back to me almost immediately and asked if I wanted to be a “tutor” (in quotes). One of their big pushes was providing afterschool activities and “facilitating space for youth to fulfill their full potential,” which the guy who answered the email explained as, “Basically, a lot of our kids either don’t have safe places to go after school, or don’t have adults around who will help them reach their goals, whether it’s college or finding a job or finding a training program. Or anything else! :) So we try to have a couple of ‘tutors’ on hand in the afternoons to help out with that.”
I said that sounded awesome (because it did) and to sign me up. We made an appointment for me to go down the next day for a meeting. I could definitely do that on my weekday off, and the center was open later than I’d realized, so maybe I could go in on days I worked too, if the whole thing seemed legit.
Even with all that I felt antsy. Maybe I needed a project. One of those self-improvement projects, like learning a language, or taking up watercolors or woodworking. Maybe I needed to get serious with Tim. At least that potentially had a future. I just needed to be patient. Relationships take years to develop, after all.
We were doing drinks at The Hole and I was in the middle of telling my friends I was getting back on the dating horse, which they should have been happy about, when I realized they were all doing that shooting meaningful looks at each other thing. “What? You guys think Tim’s found someone else already?”
A round-robin of blinks. “Nooo,” Ronnie said, but with a dangling cliff on the end of the sentence.
“So what?”
“I don’t know, I guess. You know, it’s probably good to get out there. And you do know Tim, so that’s...” She looked around. “Right, you guys?”
Mia seemed more perplexed than made any sense. “Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“Of course it’s what I want,” I said, nettled. “He’s totally normal and stable and single and has goals and a consistent income and yes, that’s what I want, okay?”
She visibly pulled back. “All right.”
“So he’s boring,” Oscar said.
“Fuck you, Oscar.”
“You guys, come on,” Dec said. “Don’t fight, okay?”
“I’m not fighting,” I said through clenched teeth, wary of raising my voice and being The Guy Who Gets Shouty At The Bar. “But you know what? I kind of had an epiphany and decided to make some changes, and if you guys can’t be happy for me—” I shrugged, having no way to finish that thought.
“Oh sure, yeah,” Oscar said sarcastically. “An epiphany, also known as a breakup.”
I could feel myself starting to get pissed like a heater had switched on under my skin, flooding me with anger and warmth, and struggled to keep my voice down. “So what if that triggered it? I shouldn’t have bothered with that situation so now I’m going to focus on the things that I should bother with. I didn’t need to be gaming for forty hours a week, and now I’m not, and it feels good. I’ve overhauled my lifestyle, lessons were learned, the end.”
“It’s been literally three weeks,” he countered.
“Look, I’m not saying you have to change your life, I’m just saying I want to change mine, and it’s for the better, so fucking lay off.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, Mase. But I know exactly what running from your feelings looks like, so you’re only lying to yourself.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Dec leaned earnestly over the table, almost knocking over his half-empty glass of cola. “Let’s not fight. Just. Y’know. If you did want to talk about how you were feeling, Mase, we’re totally here for it.”
“Excuse me, I am talking about how I’m feeling. I’m feeling great. I’m doing yoga, I’m volunteering—or at least I will be—I redid the apartment, and I’m looking at language courses, so I’m actually doing really well, I don’t know why you’re all looking at me like I’m a ticking time bomb because I’m not.”
“We aren’t,” Dec said. “Not at all. Right, guys? Just, we want you to know we have your back. Whatever you want to do, we have your back—”
“It sure doesn’t feel like it. What the hell is everyone’s problem with Tim? He’s a good guy and none of you wanted anything to do with him, which is such shit after all the losers I’ve dated. Then I meet this totally unsuitable person and suddenly you’re all supportive? What the actual fuck.” I had not meant to say all that, but now that I had, I realized I’d been thinking it for a long time.
“It’s not that,” Mia said. “It’s not that we don’t support you. It’s just that we want you to be happy.”
“I am.”
Oscar laughed harshly. “We’ve actually seen you happy, dumbass, so we know what it looks like, and that Tim guy wasn’t even close, but whatever.”
“Come on,” Dec said. “I’m sure Tim’s great, and if you love him, we’ll love him. We’ll care about whoever you care about, Mase, and if it’s not Diego, that’s fine, we just—”
“I’m not talking about that.” The words cut through the air so sharply his teeth clanged together on whatever else he was about to say. “I know you want me to go pair off so you can stop feeling guilty, but that’s not my fault, and I’m not going to hook up with someone just so you can feel better, so get over it, Dec, okay?”
Everyone froze. Except Oscar. Who clapped, slowly, with intention. “Yeah, good show. Mase, pro tip, when you go after your closest friends who are only trying to help, you’re the asshole.”
“Shut up, Oscar.”
“You can’t hurt me, but you can hurt Dec, so congratulations on that.”
Had I? Fuck. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t meant not to, I guess, either, but it wasn’t like I felt happy about it.
Dec shook his head. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Sorry. I didn’t mean... I wasn’t trying to say...”
Mia patted his hand and Sidney shifted a little closer to him. A show of support because I said something fucked up, when I was usually the first in line to make him feel better.
“Yeah, I think I should take off.” I put down some money because I hadn’t bought my round yet and scooted my chair back. “Sorry, Dec. Like.” I had no idea what to say and I was still pissed, still defensive. “Never mind.”
I left. The bar. Drinks. My friends. Jack silent, Oscar smug, Ronnie ponderous, Mia sad, Sidney focused on Dec, and Dec...wasn’t actually crying. But I knew what he looked like when he wanted to cry, and that was it.
Oscar being right was the worst feeling, but I was clearly the asshole. I got home, got a beer, sat down to play video games and felt like a hypocrite, so instead of doing that I finally forced myself to do some research into budgeting programs. It had been on my list of Adult Shit To Do for years and I’d never actually sat down to do it.
I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to work the thing I’d downloaded, how to organize categories, and how much money needed to be put into them. It required a lot of going back into credit card statements to see how much I spent on gas each month, how much car insurance and maintenance cost, what kind of money I spent on household goods, and what felt like a hundred other things.
Aside from my massive Ikea haul, I apparently didn’t spend that much money on big purchases. I was pretty shocked at how those Amazon transactions added up, though. Since I wasn’t going out to eat all the time or indulging in a daily Starbucks habit I’d figured I was living on the cheap, but by the time I’d looked at the entire last year I felt like Jeff Bezos should be sending me a thank-you card.
It took one more beer and a huge bottle of water, but by the time I went to bed I had a functional budget I understood how to use, and that felt pretty fucking solid for a night that had started out horribly.
See? I was fine. More than that: I was taking care of business. Being proactive. Being productive. Getting my shit together. These were all life-affirming changes, whatever my friends thought. And what did it matter why I was making them? I was making them, and that was the point. Full stop. The end. I deserved a pat on the back, not a critique.
In case you’re ever wondering, I deserve a pat on the back, not a critique is actually not a great lullaby.
In the midst of all this adulting and taking care of business and feeling totally fine, I called Tim. Things had dropped off between us, but nothing bad or negative had happened, so I figured I didn’t risk much in saying hello and inviting him out to dinner. He seemed happy to hear from me and we made a date for that Friday night. I even made reservations for us at one of the better seafood restaurants.
“So good to see you,” he said, kissing my cheek, as he usually did.
“You too.” We went to our table, which overlooked the darkness of the bay and the lights of San Francisco in the distance.
After a few minutes of small talk and placing our orders he smiled at me, expression quizzical. “I was a little surprised to hear from you, to be honest. I thought you’d moved on and just not had the grace to tell me.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I got caught up in this whole—in this project I’ve been working on.” As much as I wanted to look away, I didn’t. “It was not my intention to ghost you, I should have said I was busy.”
“Water under the bridge. Project for the bank?”
And so somehow I found myself explaining Gentlemen’s Fashion Week to Tim, who of course made all the right noises and nodded in all the right places. “You sound quite passionate about it,” he said when I was done.
I flushed hot and took a sip of water. “Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away. So, um, what have you been doing lately?”
“Mostly the usual things.” Pause. “I dated someone for a while. Thought it might be getting serious.”
Which was not what I’d been expecting. “Oh. What happened?”
He shrugged. “It didn’t. But it hit me harder than those things used to hit me. I must be getting old.”
“Right? I just had a mild midlife crisis and bought out Ikea to redo my apartment.”
“I’d like to see that one of these days,” he said, smiling in that way that meant it was an open invitation for me to ask him back after dinner, that way that implied sex was definitely on offer.
But instead of thinking about sex with Tim on my new sheets, I could only think about how I’d never brought Diego to my place, wondering what he would think of it, imagining the way he’d grin when I told him he was standing in the foyer.
“I’ll give you a call when I have everything set up,” I finally said, realizing the silence had gone on too long.
Tim seemed to realize it too. “Sure, give me a call sometime. Oh, I think those are our entrées now. I hope I don’t regret getting the salmon...”
And that was...it. We caught up on things—the status of his sister’s new job, my mom’s various house projects—and then we cheek-kissed goodnight outside the restaurant and headed for our separate cars to go to our separate places to sleep alone in our separate beds.
I’d gone from dating one stable (if slightly boring) guy, to falling stupidly in love with a guy who was anything but boring, to having nothing but an empty apartment to look forward to at the end of the day. Well, and a bunch of new furniture. So at least there was that.