“For what? Declan, that’s...normal. It’s normal to want to avoid pain. It’s built in for evolutionary purposes, right? It’s not like that undercuts your desire to save the people you care about from pain.” They sort of choked. “Not that I’m saying—I mean—you haven’t said—and I wouldn’t say—”
“Oh my god, stop, I care about you so much.”
Their cheeks lit like a sunset, all pink and rose. “I care about you too. But I need you to not disappear again because I can’t do that. I really, really can’t be okay in a relationship where I’m always afraid the other person is going to pull away and refuse to speak to me.”
“I won’t. I’m sorry. I freaked out and got scared and next time I will tell you if that happens.”
“Okay. In that case, I deserve what I say I deserve, and you’re...you’re it. If you still want to do this.”
I swallowed. “I do want to do this. More than anything. But I thought it would just feel right and it didn’t. I mean, some of it did? But some of it didn’t, and I don’t know how to talk about that.”
“I think in a way we both sort of tried to walk a path that wasn’t ours.” They took another deep breath. “I’ve thought a lot about this, and I wonder if maybe ‘dating’ as a conceptual framework just isn’t really for us? Or I should say, I’m beginning to think it’s not really for me. My favorite times with you are the times we didn’t approach like they were dates.”
I nodded slowly. “Like me hanging out while you worked. Or you texting me to be your sex monkey.”
The flush deepened. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it that way.”
“Dude, I dig being your sex monkey. Don’t steal my joy.”
“Your sex monkey joy?”
“With bells on.”
We both smiled, which felt good.
“So I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve been thinking about. While hoping you would talk to me. I have a lot of stuff to say, but I guess that’s what it comes down to: maybe we should analyze the results of our past experiments and alter future experiments according to what seemed to be working?”
I leaned forward and whispered, “FYI, you’re turning me on right now. Can I say that? I know we haven’t worked everything out yet, but I just thought you should know the effect your hot analytical summary is having on me.”
“It’s less a summary and more a proposal.”
I pretended to swoon a little.
“But what definitely won’t work is if we don’t talk about things when they’re not working, so I propose we start from a standpoint of clear, honest communication from now on.” They paused. “The cookie date seemed like a really good idea, but it totally fell flat.”
Ouch. “Um. I think that was my fault.”
“I think if we prioritize assigning blame we’re not gonna get very far.”
“Okay, fair enough. It did freak me out a little. Our Valentine’s Date.”
“Can you say how? I have theories, but I’d like to hear yours.”
“Um.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a few seconds. “I think the wedding was already sort of all up inside my head. Like I spent serious time hiding in bed the night before our date because I felt emotionally oppressed by my rental suit? And I thought we were going to do mad casual because of Valentine’s Day, and you not being into Valentine’s Day, and then you were so dressed up, and you had this amazing plan, and I felt so rotten for not being into it.”
They were nodding. Continuously. “And I thought you were only doing casual for me, which is why I wanted to prove to you that we could do romantic Valentine’s Date if you wanted us to, but it wasn’t a natural fit to me, either.”
The sheer relief of hearing that they hadn’t been entirely comfortable with that night made me legitimately light-headed. “Really? You’re not just saying that?”
“Saying the thing I think you want to hear would skew the results of our clear and honest communication experiment.” They smirked. Gently, though. A soft, gentle sort of smirk, which is totally a thing. “Did the wedding end up...being triggering?”
“I guess so. And it was such a beautiful day, but Oscar, Mase, and I went back to Mase’s after and felt sorry for ourselves. It brought back all those feelings, all that pressure. To be a player in that world. That narrative. And I think it got jumbled in my head until I felt like we—the thing we were doing—was part of that pressure.”
“That honestly makes perfect sense to me.”
I frowned. “It does? It makes me feel a little crazy.”
“I’m grateful to The Love Study because it brought us together,” they said slowly. “But I also think it kind of...shunted us into a dating metric that we wouldn’t have otherwise gotten into as quickly as we did. Like, on our own I think we’d both be happy—I’m pretty sure I’d be happy—hanging out a lot, and sharing food, and watching documentaries, and listening to podcasts, and just talking. And having sex. Um. As much as we wanted, which for me is...more than a very little.” That flush again, oh my god.
“Me too. The sex thing. Actually all of it. Like the ‘datefriend’ thing seemed really good for a minute? But ended up making me feel like we were in deep waters without a map. Wait. In the desert without a map? What would you need in deep waters, a compass?”
“And a boat, presumably.”
“Deep waters without a boat! That’s how it felt. Like flailing around while the waters got more choppy and I didn’t know how to get out.”
“Okay.” They squeezed my hands, which was apparently a thing I was into, because it made me want to purr and press my head against them like a cat. “Next time you feel that way, if it happens again, I really need you to talk to me about it. I wasn’t drowning, but I wasn’t comfortable either. And I’ll do the same.”
“Next time. I mean...you mean...” I looked at them over my glasses, afraid to raise my head, afraid to commit. “So you think we should try again?”
“Yes. In the interests of discovery. And also because I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“Can I say one more thing, that’s more...spinstering than deep feels relationship talking?”
“Sure. Yeah. Always.”
They shifted a little in their armchair, eyes wandering over their books before coming back to me. “I think you have some internalized stuff going on with your anxiety that played a role here, and while I’m not going to make some kind of awful ultimatum about it, I also think, as your friend, that it might be a good thing if you...addressed that. In some way.”