A Strawberry Good-bye

I look across at you, examining your face. The very face I fell for – your blue eyes, your dimples, your wispy hair. The way that you walked, bouncing off the sidewalk on your tiptoes, showed me you were someone who was not on this earth, someone who wouldn’t get trapped into worlds that made you conform to their norms.

How is it that at the beginning of this relationship, every one of your features seemed inconsummable, overwhelmingly exciting, dripping with gargantuan hope that you were not like the other guys I met.

You had ambition. You were successful. You were good-looking. You were light-hearted and funny. You seemed healthy. Every piece of your hair, the crevices on the side of your nose, your freckles and even the wrinkles around the corner of your eyes were enticing –they were yet to become known, yet to be loved, yet to be explored.

The infinite hours I spent staring at my computer thinking about you, double-checking my emails and voicemails at home, waiting to get a message from you – just to know that you, too, were thinking of me. Little ol’ me. The one who had yet to publish anything. The one who still had to cover her insecurities with fashionable, appealing outfits. The one who had a tough time admitting that bills had to be paid and I really shouldn’t be ordering another cocktail.

Through our shared timeliness you became someone to me who I never knew existed—someone who carried the same struggle I did of having been born into the battle line of 2 opposing cultures, struggling to figure out which one to be loyal to, only to resolve that oneself is the only thing that is dependable and worth preserving.

Not to forget to mention how great we looked together -- wouldn’t we be a smash at a fancy cocktail function where ladies show their fine features under silk stockings of high-slit black velvet dresses?

But our dreams seemed to be littered by previously failed relationships, and I could tell that behind the liberal mind of “whatever comes comes” you had noticed your life was passing beyond the veil of denying your desires for home, children and family. Being with me meant forgoing that part of you that wanted more of that. But perhaps you saw this as an exciting experience that could be written about somewhere in trashy literature that would eventually pay a sweet price for saucy screenplay rights so you were willing for it to continue on for a little while longer.

It seems that the only glue that kept our lives intertwining for this long was our shared outlook that life is to be approached by laughing through the nose of false pretensions and belief systems made by others who take themselves too seriously.

As I look at you tonight, I see the moment I said “yes” to our first date and the glimpses of you that made me come back for more. I’d have to admit that the charming air of your successful stature certainly pulled me in. You permitted indulgences of fine wine snootery while boldly being yourself in bright blue-ribboned cowboy shirts.

But each of our meals over the last 6 months have been dotted with this flavour that has become blander and blander in the same way that a snort of cocaine loses its potency the more one becomes acquainted with it. Over time the surf ‘n’ turf dinners start being sprinkled with a poison that reeks of keeping everything on the surface of pleasure without delving into the juicy and sharp bones of each other.

Many early mornings I’d ride away from our ravenous evening, only to have to face the day with the mirror of hickeys lining up and down my neck. Turtlenecks in June don’t quite do the job for hiding double-life secrets from employers. And one can only call in sick so often before it becomes abnormally obvious.

I think the clincher, though, was that date we had when we went for Chinese food. When you pulled out the coupon of Buy One, Get One ½ Price. When you counted out perfectly $11.95 in change and you pushed the payment plate over to me to contribute my $4.95 plus tax and tip, even though you had $30 in your pocket, looking at me with that stare of “I won’t be taken advantage of by some woman.”

I wondered then if you treated all your dates before me this way, ungenerously withholding any opportunity that showed you could support them. I understood in that simple gesture the reason why all the women you met before me had left you. Not because you’re cheap and it’s really not because of the money. But because all you cared about was yourself and you weren’t willing to trust anybody.

This is why we are here tonight at this dinner. My invitation. So I can sit here and look at you and realize that you would not be there for me if I became ill. You would not take care of me if I showed my most vulnerable self and fell flat on my face. You would arrogantly look at me as someone who was weak and couldn’t get up. You would pass me by if I was somehow a failure in your eyes. You would forget me as soon as I didn’t win awards or rise to fame for show business.

Though you may feel confused and unsettled of how this could happen, of why another woman is dumping you, I just can’t find the words to actually say because I know you wouldn’t get it. How could I explain that I’m dumping you because of $4.95 without you saying I’m reading into it too much.

But it’s the one thing that draws the line to all the other times when you just showed you really didn’t care about me in the first place. I was all for your enjoyment. And as much as I tried to turn the topic to our feelings, you were a wizard at changing the subject to the intellectual parts of human history, showing me that you really had no interest in getting to know me.

I eat the last bit of the strawberry soufflé and put my spoon down gently on the side of the plate.

“We’re done.”

I push myself up off of the cushiony chair, place my cloth napkin on the table, get up and walk away, leaving you with the bill.