Man on the Side

"I can play it safe or act impulsively. I feel like driving down to see you or we can wait. What do you want me to do?" The latter she said. So I left at 11 PM and drove 3 hrs to see her. I revealed my surprise at 1 AM, arrived at 2 AM, but she didn't greet me until 3 AM. I left at 7 AM to drive her to work and then headed back home. And no, we didn't have sex. Perhaps when she left me in my car for an hour saying she’d be right out I should have known and left. Than again, I'm a glutton for troubled women with issues and the punishment that goes into dating them. Where "The Night I Met Sujeiry" drops off is where this story picks up. Princess Guyana was the friend of a friend I chatted up on NYE while waiting for the arrival of the Dominican I met through the hoodrat outreach program. We know how that story ended, and as this one does too, let me share with you how it went. She has a man down under. What became clearer over time was how she had only seen him 3 times over the 2 years they've dated but, despite spending a constant 6 months of that with me, she couldn't let him go. I saw the Brasilian twice in 9 months and London 5 times in a year and as great as they were, I could relate to wanting more than just a long distance love. So I tried to remain patient and optimistic so I took a chance and went for it. As things played out she proved supportive in helping me transition to a new city. She was exactly what I needed to renew my faith in decent, supportive women with values, except she always had her situation which sat ever present in the back of my mind. It was complicated, he was exceedingly jealous and flipped anytime she went out. While our interaction started off as purely friendly, this became her first time cheating. I believe in platonic friends that weren't, aren't, and will never be lovers. But we did get involved and so I took her away for Memorial Day weekend, invited her to my birthday party, brought her along to Toronto for Caribana, planned a long Caribbean weekend on a beach whenever she could take a weekend off, accompanied her to the West Indian Festival parade in Brooklyn, protected her when everyone ran thinking someone was shooting, helped her move, let her stay at my apartment for an entire week so she could deal with a medical issue, supported her at the funeral service of her best friend's dad, provided a quiet and stable place for her to work towards changing jobs, tagged along with her and her friends whenever I was in town, invited her to hang out with mine, and even drove her back and forth so she wouldn't have to take the hour worth of buses and trains through some rough patches. I treated her as if we were in a relationship even though she could never do the little thing in return and make it official. So I was forever mindful of her situation and since we were never in a relationship, I always held back from putting in my full effort. I'm opinionated, stubborn, and passionate so there is always friction in getting along with me. But I don't give up easily and always keep trying to talk and work things out no matter what. After all, lasting relationships require effort and hard work. But I always say the 3 C's are key: communication, commitment, compromise, because without them, it all falls apart. After 6 months, it started to become clear when she became hot and cold, inconsistent, that for every positive thing she did, she did something self-centered. I knew she was high maintenance, but it's a different flavor when you want someone to cater to your every need and want but then don't offer much in return. To me, a union is a partnership, a "we're in this together", not a one-sided affair. This weekend a female friend wanted to visit and asked to stay in my apartment. I had once stayed on her couch for 2 work weeks while I sorted out my transition for an inter-company job change through a pair of 70 hour weeks, so of course I said yes. Princess Guyana usually stayed over my apartment on weekends, but this time she had been there the entire week and we hadn't discussed the weekend. So I told her about my friend's last minute plans and upon meeting her, she felt disrespected by her presence. I tried inviting her out and had no problems if she wanted to stay over but she was upset, angry, and hurt. While I could have done a lot more to resolve things, I simply cannot apologize to someone who thinks they do no wrong and can't apologize themselves. Then again, she doesn't see that she's been disrespecting 2 men. Meanwhile I've been disrespecting myself for 6 months allowing myself to be the man on the side to her boyfriend. Yet she couldn't go more than 5 days before wanting out. In the end, she proved to be all about herself and catering to her way in her parting line, "so when can you bring me my stuff?" They say Aquarians are the humanitarians of the zodiac, but I think some people only care about others when it suits them, after they've taken care of themselves and their own needs, which doesn't make them much of a humanitarian in my book. In parting, I gave her my usual dose of my brutal, context-free, end of the road truth about her, her situation, and us. I never intend to be malicious, I just want to divulge the entire truth from my perspective that we might break free and learn and grow into better people. But if I'm misunderstood, then it can be the fodder to make women feel more justified in their actions so that later on they don't have to feel any regret. Maybe then, they’ll stop trying to come back. I knew what I was getting myself into, so I knew this was coming, but that doesn't mean I didn't hope it would end differently. It's healthy to vent and release everything you feel from time to time. But as I walked to work this morning I passed an accident scene where the taxi had jumped the curb and hit someone. The prospect of death has a way of putting into perspective the problems of the living. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.