I Think A Change Will Do You Good.

We started dating in June. The day I moved out of the apartment I shared with Craig, my boyfriend. I broke up with him in St. Thomas and when he asked me why, I didn’t know what to say. I’d been spending time with L and knew I wanted more. He asked me if there was someone else and I said no. Craig had been my friend since high school. He was good to me, he was in love with me. He’d asked me twice to marry him and I’d stalled. I always knew we wouldn’t end up together.

He helped me pack to move out. He bought me boxes and insisted I keep the car we were sharing. He offered to pay the security deposit on my new apartment and the day I moved my things out, he shuffled around, offering to help; looking hurt and alone and confused but still wanting to help.

The day after I moved into my new (rat-infested) studio apartment, L showed up with flowers. Our first official date was at a Latin restaurant. He showed off, ordering for me in Spanish and telling me about his family’s roots in Argentina. I swooned and didn’t notice that he hadn’t asked me what I wanted, what I like to eat.

After dinner he told me he’d like to take me to a concert the next night but he’d already promised his extra ticket to his sister. I admired his loyalty to family and swooned again. I later found out, from his sister, that he’d taken a date, someone he hadn’t yet stopped seeing. It became a joke. Ha ha. Remember the early days, when L was still playing the field, before he’d realized his heart belonged to me.

Before he took me home we stopped at what he called the most beautiful spot in the city. We parked the car and walked. When we got to “his” place on the pond, where the skylight was lit in the distance and couples were clustered against it, he kissed me. I admired his ability to sweep me around the city and show me new things. That was before I’d discovered metromix, the website that lists romantic sites in top 10 lists, makes it easy.

Within weeks, I was sleeping at his studio apartment most nights. Walking to work after sleeping just a few hours, lying awake talking and laughing and then watching him sleep. I’d never felt like this, never wanted anything like this.

I came home from work one Friday in July and he told me to put a dress on. I had one in a suitcase in his closet. He took me on a night cruise, one of those boats I’d deemed cheesy and for tourists; for someone trying too hard. The minute we boarded, I decided it was romance defined, I’d been wrong. We stood at the railing and took in the skylight. Later, we took a cab back to his neighborhood and he said he couldn’t wait to be alone with me. I shivered and knew, right then, he was the one. Later that night we walked to an all night Mexican joint and ordered beef tacos. I don’t eat beef. But that night, I did it anyway; it just felt right.

Last night, the nice guy from the bar a few weeks ago called me. He called to ask me for dinner tomorrow night. He offered to pick me up. He asked me what I like and what I don’t like. He listened and even sounded intrigued. He said thanks, he’d think about where to go. He’ll call me tomorrow afternoon with details.

It will be a long time before I’m ready to give myself up, especially now that I’m settling into the rhythm of me. but I do recognize a gentleman. One who asks questions and listens to the answers.

I like being single. I like being on my own. I like waking up in my own bed and starting a day by myself. I’m nowhere near ready to give that up but I’m sure as hell ready to have dinner with someone on a Sunday night.

Are You Sure This Is Where You Want To Be?

Once, we got in a fight because I didn’t want to go to his “favorite grocery store”

It was a Saturday in June. A sunny and gorgeous day. A day to be outside. To buy whatever groceries you needed at the farmers market.

His store was an hour and a half drive from the city in bumper-to-bumper traffic on always-under-construction, bungalow-cluttered roads. It smelled like rotten fruit and was always mobbed. There was no charm or reward for the trip there. He liked it because it was “so cheap.”

I told him to go by himself. I tried to project lightness and cheer as I fantasized about how I’d spend the afternoon if it could be just mine:

Wandering the farmers market without him asking why are you looking at that if you’re not going to buy it?

Riding my bike along the lake to Evanston. Taking a book with me.

Getting a pedicure.

Sitting outside with spiked lemonade and my laptop.

Shopping the stretch of overpriced boutiques that made him uncomfortable because “we’re always like the only people in there. I feel like the salespeople are looking at us. It’s embarrassing.”

Meanwhile, he was pissed off. He ALWAYS went places I wanted to go. (Then don’t, I said, easily. Still thinking about my list of ways to spend an afternoon on my own.)

“Oh. Yeah. Don’t be ridiculous Jessica. I’m supposed to sit home while you go places? I’m supposed to sit and wait for you.”
(Uh. No. you could go to your cheap ass grocery store.)

And this was one of our more memorable fights around the same theme: he didn’t believe in what I called spaces in our togetherness. He never liked it when I made plans with girlfriends or took too long getting home from the gym. He didn’t like my idea that he sign up for soccer on Sundays. He said he’d only do it if I came to the games, the practices.

Still screaming about the grocery store:
“What don’t you understand? I don’t ask for much. I let you do what you want 95% of the time. I’m asking you to fake it. pretend you like it because you know I do. what’s so hard about that?”

And he made me think he was right, reasonable. I was being selfish. Why couldn’t I pretend a simple, harmless thing to make him happy? He’d do it for me.

So we went to the store. Traffic was extra thick because of an outdoor festival. I sat there hoping he couldn’t tell what I was thinking: look at all those people OUTSIDE.

We went out for dinner that night after I put the groceries away. He took my hand and said “See, my bratty little girl. It’s not so hard to make me happy is it?”

I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. He loved that.

A week later, I filled a garbage bag with the mushy grapes, fuzzy strawberries and deli salads he’d bought because they were so much cheaper than everything at the farmers market.

Sign Says Curve Ahead You’re Gonna Crash And Burn

When your marriage breaks in half, you’re instantly, intimately bonded to all other broken and unmatched halves. A divorced acquaintance, one who's a few years ahead of me and has benefited from a lot of therapy said this:

"The key question you will need to ask and reflect upon is, Why did I ignore the signs that were there?"

My first instinct: ignore that question. Whatever. What signs? He told me he adored me. Everyone thought he adored me. Nobody saw signs; to say they were there is somehow saying this was all my fault.

In Seoul, I learned about how a typical man spends Friday nights. Instead of going to happy hour, he goes to a Madam. He chooses a woman to sit in his lap, take her clothes off, drink shots of vodka and pass it to him through a “kiss.” She’ll make him laugh, make him look good, sing and dance for him and spend the night with him. She is inexpensive and she follows instructions. This all takes place in a bar not a brothel. It’s not in a dark alley, it’s across from the office.

Saturday morning he’ll dress in the clothes he wore to work Friday and go home. He won’t craft a story to explain his absence to his wife. She won’t ask.

Three months after we were engaged, I found out my fiancé was having cyber sex with a woman in his office. Was that a clue? Should I have asked more questions, packed and left, at least made him sleep on the couch?

In the months that followed, when he told me again and again that I think too much, that “crazy little head of mine” doesn’t know when to let things go, I needed to remember that nothing happened, they were just emails with no thought or love behind them, I was acting insecure, was I ignoring a big sign?

When he stood up for his father, who left his mother for another woman and now spends much of his time surfing online porn in the office, meeting women online and then traveling the country to meet them, should I have pushed back, not decided to go easy on him because it must be painful to have such a fucked up dad?

My problem recognizing signs was simple. He made me believe he was right about my crazy little head acting up. I was thinking too much. I needed to forgive and forget like a big girl.

It’s only now, in Shanghai, surrounded by a neon skyline of billboards written in Chinese characters that I’m starting to think about reading signs, wondering what they mean.