Sometimes you meet someone whose hand fits perfectly in yours. Sometimes you meet someone who’s back curves right into your chest, his shoulder blades rising synchronously with your breath. Sometimes you meet someone whose jokes are so ridiculously stupid that you can’t help but laugh. Sometimes you meet someone while you’re traveling that makes you want to stay in that town a little bit longer; maybe even forever.
Sometimes you meet someone who complements you so perfectly that you force yourself to ignore the wedding ring on his left hand and stupidly let yourself fall into a confused fantasy. You think it’s just for fun, that his open relationship does not concern you, that for this brief moment you are immune to emotional ramifications because you are just a traveler, a visitor in this person’s life.
You spend an entire weekend together. Frolicking in the park, shopping in the town square, holding hands like two lovesick teenagers. You’ve only experienced this much joy a handful of moments before, and being with this new person, this stranger really, makes you feel invincible. You both make plans for a future that will never come. He wants to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. You want to go on an Antarctic exploration. He wants 4 kids. You want to hire a nanny. It’s fun. It’s exciting. You forget to take deep breaths.
And then it happens.
You’re standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus that will take him away. Back to his life in the suburbs. To his other life with a partner who lives thousands of miles away. He’s running late for their nightly Skype session. You hold his hand, slowly drawing hearts in his palm with your finger. The bus arrives. You feel him grip your hand a little tighter. He smiles at you and says, “there’ll be another bus”.
As I am about to travel to a city I have never been to this weekend, this post seems very appropriate.
– Fish
Gaysian Third Space 