I told Fred a few months back that he's not allowed to disappear on me. I'm just not built for being okay with that. Due to some b.s. I encountered in my past, you just can't do that to me. Because when someone I talk to routinely disappears, it does something to me. I internalize it. Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me? Did I hurt you? Am I the jerk? Are you the jerk? I'm not ego driven at all, so I'm not at all above apologizing for a slight and talking through it. But please God, whatever you do, just don't disappear.
Fred has, quite a few times over the last few years, simply fucking disappeared. And he pops back up as if all is good. And every fucking time he does it, I have an internal meltdown. Fred and I are, and have a thing. It has no name. We're not "friends with benefits" because that cheapens the way we feel about one another. But nor is he my boyfriend. And for years, this arrangement worked. I'd always been a bit afraid of relationships, and while he'd never admit it, he is too. So we've been able to exist in this bubble of extreme closeness and familiarity, while granting one another the freedom to do whatever outside of one another. But as I've remarked throughout the second half of 2020 and on, I'm shifting.
Anyway, I told Fred late in 2020 that he can't just disappear on me. That it legit fucks me up. I said "look, if you're going through some shit, just check in so I know it isn't me. You don't have to tell me when or why you're disappearing. You don't have to give me a return date. Just let me know so I'm not worried and personalizing your disappearance." Fred, being the nonchalant son of a bitch that he is, blew off such a "wild" request. And I was okay, as long as he was around. I even snuck off to L.A. to see him for a few days before I started my new job. It was nice.
Things were good. We talked fairly regularly, 2-3 times a week. Calls scaled back as he'd started a new job. And then, like clockwork
I was PISSED. I couldn't believe he did it again. 'He thinks I'm a fucking joke' is all I could focus on. I lay somewhere between angry and heartbroken. I did everything I could to move past it. As 2020 came to a close, I'd decided that I was done with dating. I just no longer had it in me to do this. To give so much, and to constantly be treated as though my heart and feelings don't matter. But through it all, occasionally, my mind would shift to him. While in L.A. with Fred, while driving around, he kept an 80's pop radio station dialed in on his car radio. So we rode around Santa Monica, listening to Journey in the background. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed the music, but I went home and made a playlist of many of the tunes from that trip. That playlist both reminded me of Fred everyday on my way to work, and broke my heart all over again as it played.
As I enjoyed the freedom of not dating, I also found that my creative juices were now in full effect and I finally started working on the book I've been wanting to do for years! Got a cute book title and everything! On top of that, I decided that I want to create a lifestyle brand. I was no longer being stifled creatively by whatever jerk I was dealing with. The freedom from the bullshit had me ready to fly and live my best life. But the truth is, while I was living my best life, Fred continued to haunt my mind, as much as I tried to fight it off.
I wanted nothing more than to separate myself from him and from this. I was over it. Done. Fourteen years with this man. I'd text my best friend about how much I wanted to call him. I knew I wasn't going to. Those days are gone. But it didn't stop me from thinking about him, from looking at his social media on occasion. I missed him terribly. But I knew that it needed to end.
So lo and behold, he called me. I was- well, shocked. I wasn't angry, although I should have been. I was just genuinely shocked. I was in a space of grieving him and grieving our friendship. I didn't think I'd ever see him or hear from him again. I told myself day after day that this would eventually get easier. And now he's back. He immediately apologized and explained that he didn't mean to disappear the way he did, he'd simply gotten caught up with his new job. What?!
I had an impromptu meeting with my best friend last night and we talked about this new thing with people where they just disappear and reappear as if all is well. I'm all for mental health and taking needed breaks, but when did people not worrying their loved ones and giving no notice became a thing that people do?! People have become so self-aware, that they now believe that they operate in some kind of vacuum, with little to no regard for how their actions impact the people that love them the most.
I'll be honest though. I'm torn. I love this man. I know him better than he knows himself. I recently realized that as many people I know, only 5 of them know me deeply at my core. And he is one of them. I occasionally think about how he happened to be in town immediately after Pete died, and he offered me comfort. How I had zero appetite, and he took me out and he made me eat. How he escorted me to the balloon release in Pete's honor and when I was too distraught to write anything out and declined, Fred took my card and said "I'll write something for her." It really is the little things that let me know that he loves me. And I love him.
But yo, this is getting old. I've dated men over the years, some more serious than others, and I've maintained that if a man was serious, Fred would no longer be in the picture. He's my kryptonite, so I already know that he can't be around if there is a man that I'm seriously dating. But I'm now in a space of really just doing me, and writing and being creative in a way that I have not explored in years. I like this side of Malika. I like being business minded. I like being excited about the future. So that leaves me with wondering if, or where Fred fits?
Last year I started to feel that if I was to enter a serious relationship, it would interfere with my relationship with Fred. Like how could I tell a serious suitor that I want to continue to have a "friendship" with this dude over here? I wanted to keep my potential relationships open, just because I never wanted to sneak around to maintain things with Fred. I guess it was just pure, dumb luck that none of the men I dated ever progressed like that, so it never became a serious issue.
But now that I'm in this space of moving forward, I wonder how he fits? It isn't even about sex. I love this man. But I've done so well without the distraction. It's not that I want to get married and have the house, car, dog, and picket fence. It's more so that if I'm not going to be moving toward a healthy relationship, a half of a relationship is no longer fulfilling to me. For the first time in my life, I want all or nothing.
The strange thing is that I don't want to marry Fred. I envisioned how I would act if he proposed to me and I literally froze in my vision. There was no tears of joy in my vision. It was confusion. Like dude, why the hell are you proposing? Get up, this ain't that kind of party.
I guess right now, I'm just trying to figure out if and how he fits. I don't want to end the friendship. But the fact is that after a decade and a half of spending time with someone in a sexual and intimate manner, they become a large part of you. I'm trying so hard to make sure that he does not begin to distract from my current trajectory. I love him. But I'm no longer that Malika. I just want more. But I guess not from him?
