Twenty-two months. That’s how long, in total, Ryan and I have been involved. He was supposed to be a one-night stand, a fling after the end of my marriage. After six months of basically being a social hermit, my friends urged — nay, begged — me to find a man and get laid. Apparently I was that annoying.

So I poured a drink, got online and started flirting. I can’t even remember what it was about Ryan that stood out. But he was funny and smart and seemed cool. All this from drunken IMs, mind you. He wanted to come over that night; I might have let him, but there was a snowstorm and I didn’t want to be housebound with some guy I didn’t even know. Between Christmas, work, etc., it was about a month before we hooked up. He came over, two minutes later we were kissing, about five minutes after that we were in bed.

The chemistry between us was h-o-t. So much so that it was easy to overlook a lot of things, like our age difference (five years, I’m older), his lack of long-term relationships, and even some basic incompatibilities. The sex was so good, we kept seeing each other. We’d e-mail, IM or talk daily. Every few months, I’d get pissed off and we’d take a “break.” A few, long weeks would go by, he’d start calling again and a few weeks after that, we’d fall back into bed. I never could figure out what we were. More than booty calls, less than partners.

During our time together, I dated other men. He always swore he wasn’t involved with anyone else. He hung around, in the background, while I dated, checking in on me every so often. I never understood why he did a lot of the things that he did. I haven’t blogged about him lately, but in the past six weeks, we’ve seen each other twice. He blames work. He blames football. He blames everything and anything. I was putting up with it, until last week. He just disappeared. No e-mails, no IMs, no text messages. No phone call on my birthday, not even an e-card. (Last year he gave me a $50 gift certificate to my salon.) I e-mailed him yesterday, and just commented I hadn’t heard from him in forever. This is what I got back:

“Hey…no kidding…I don’t even know where to begin. I can’t talk now…about to head to some meetings the rest of the day….and comedy club tonight…I will try to reach you tomorrow :)”

Of course I didn’t hear from him today.

Many many months ago, I realized that the downside of not having anything expected of me was that I couldn’t expect anything of him … I have used Ryan as a back-up plan, something I wasn’t proud of. I kept my lust for him around even when I was seeing other men, but the crazy thing is that I never was able to decide what I wanted from Ryan.

Of course, the sex was great. We wouldn’t have stuck around this long if it wasn’t. I’ve never been attracted to someone for so long like I am attracted to him. Sometimes I thought, well, we have fun together, we enjoy each other’s company, why not hang out more? Then other times I’d think, as much as he likes my spunkiness and my sass, I know he’s looking for someone cute and quiet and traditional to be the future Mrs. Ryan, so why even bother being in a relationship?

Yeah, so why bother? Because you just never know.

Overall, I just feel sad and tired about the whole thing. Honestly, I always thought that I’d be the one to end it and that it would end as passionately as we’ve dealt with each other the past two years. I should have known it would go quietly, falling to the wayside. If nothing else, a new word has been coined out of this ordeal; the delightful Izzy came up with “Ry-lationship” to describe what I — and she — have gotten ourselves into. I like it.

By the way, I’ve blocked Ryan’s access to this site, at least from work and home, so this isn’t some passive-aggressive, pay attention to me plea. Of course he can get to my blog from other IPs, but I doubt he’ll work that hard.

∗ Posted by Monique on 10.18.2006
∗ Love life, My life