Tried to break it off with Gemini this morning, I really did. He called, obviously distressed about something but saying that he didn�t think he could talk to me about it . . . he implied that he had screwed up by being too big a flirt in front of a woman he liked. In my most pissed-off voice, I said I couldn�t talk and hung up on him.

Shortly thereafter I decided that this all needed to be resolved, right now, once and for all. I called him up and said everything that was on my mind: I can�t do this any more. I want to end this and move along, get on with my future. I am tired of being offered teeny little slivers and scraps of his time. I know that if it were really important to him he would make time to see me, and he hasn�t. I deserve so much more than that! I deserve to be someone�s favorite. I deserve phone calls and real Saturday-night dates�much, much more than lunch because he�s �going to be in the neighborhood anyway� and �uh, maybe we could get together Sunday.�

I hate this whole stupid business of �dating casually.� I hate trying to play this new game�pretending that we barely care for each other at all, keeping each other at arm�s length, having cagey little conversations, avoiding real emotion at all costs. With a new man I could and should do all of that in the beginning, but not with him, not after everything that has passed between us. I could not go on being so untrue to myself, pretending that I could be satisfied with this strange, contrived arrangement.

It was thoughtless, utterly thoughtless of him to call me and fish for friendly reassurance after he pissed someone off by flirting too much, and I was very disappointed in him. No, I don�t want to be friends; I don�t have friends who do such things.

I said all of that, and he listened. It was sort of amazing. He didn�t get angry or defensive. He apologized. He understood everything I said, and why I would feel like ending it. He said the only trouble is that when he sees me, he still feels the way he felt when we first started dating. He said that there are times when he wants to put on his coat and run all the way to my apartment, just to hold me in his arms. He said he wants to keep trying to find some way for us to be together, somewhere between the horrible fake-careless-casual we have now and the overly-intense-nonstop-togetherness we had before. He said he wants to have more evenings like the last time we went out, when we simply enjoyed being out on a real date together. He said he wants us to start being diligent about making plans in advance to see each other for actual dates. He said, �How about tomorrow? Okay then, how about Thursday?�

I don�t understand, after the way he�s been for the last month, how it can really mean this much to him. I truly don�t. Maybe it just looks better because I very nearly took it away. But it gets to me when he says he doesn�t want to lose me. HE gets to me. I don�t understand that, either, but it�s true.

Still, I spoke my mind and there was no calamity. I warned him that things are different for me now, that I understand things now that I didn�t understand before. I�m not starving. More on that later . . .

{ prev & next }