muckefuck | Hump Day Drama Update (Reply)

Over ten weeks ago, I wrote:

Also problematic is Hump Day, who's been MIA for two weeks. Yesterday I reread our old messages and spotted what I think was the problem: I told him about hooking up with with an Ozzie a couple weekends ago. It was just something I mentioned in passing, but from his response it seems like he may have interpreted it to mean that we were dating now and his services were no longer required.

If that's the case, clearing it up should be a simple matter, but I'm kind of annoyed. This is the third time something like this has happened and I'm asking myself "Why?" Why does he assume that I'm so ready to kick him to the curb? I've done what I can over the years to make it clear to him that this relationship is valuable to me without making it sound like I want him to leave his man and yet it doesn't seem to have taken.

I was, of course, utterly correct. He did, in fact, leap to the conclusion that I was dating and "needed space". Clearing things up, however, turned out not to be such a simple matter, mainly because even after he discovered he'd been mistaken he still didn't reach out to me to reestablished ties. He could tell I was annoyed and retreated. Meanwhile, although I continued to reach out to him (sending him greetings on Pride, on July 4th, on his birthday, etc.) I resolved that I was going to wait for him to take action to repair things.

How did that work out? I ended up waiting three months during which I went through a lot of feels. At points, I thought maybe this chapter in my life was closed and that's not such a terrible thing. I took it as an opportunity to explore other avenues. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly, alas) those haven't really panned out. A couple of times, my longing got the better of me and weakened my resolve but I held firm.

Sunday he finally messaged and invited me to get dinner with him. Well, he invited me to "stop by" and get dinner after; I said just dinner was fine. There was too much that needed to be aired for us to just going back to hooking up like we did before. He agreed and we settled on a place on Argyle.

I wasn't looking forward to it, which may be why I didn't sleep well the night before. That of course only made me dread it more. We hadn't even ordered when he just blurted out an apology. It was exactly what I'd wanted to hear and yet all I could do was stare at the table in silence.

Nevertheless, we had a pleasant dinner, though I was very aware of how my feelings towards him had changed subtly. Did his voice always have that peculiar timbre? Had I actually considered what it would be like to date him? Afterwards he proposed a walk and we headed towards the park, where the Full Moon Jam was underway. We watched that briefly and then I dragged him toward the shore for some privacy.

I don't know that we said everything we needed to but we said most of it. He reasserted that he'd never meant to hurt me and I acknowledged that. He told me that he never wanted to do anything that would impede my search for a long-term partner. I told him to trust me to make decisions about what that entailed and not think he had to make them for me. He talked about the many competing demands on his time and I talked about the strains of being a sidepiece.

Then I proposed make-up sex and we went back to his place and went at it. Was it like old times? Kind of. More than once, to maintain the intensity, I found myself having to push away intrusive thoughts. Hopefully those won't stick around. You don't heal a rift of three months in three hours and things are never the same again because things are never the same full stop. But I put work towards being okay if this turned out to be the end of the relationship and the consequences of that still hold validity.