Love in the Big Smoke - Part One

“But it’s my family thing” She screamed as she stood there looking at me, her face bright red with fury. Tears were streaming down my face, yet I knew I had caused this fight, just another fight. The thing was it always felt like there was some reason why I had to be hidden or not invited. It was a family thing or a friend thing or a work thing, the list of things never seemed to end. 1

Now maybe I was too clingy and relied on her too much, that I couldn’t discount. But maybe she didn’t include me enough. She said to me “There has never been one thing that I’ve gone to that we haven’t had a fight about”2

And I retaliated with “Well maybe that’s because there’s never been one thing that you’ve invited me to. I always have to ask if I can come to things”3

Of course mine was a slight exaggeration, but I’m not sure if her’s was. She was very right about how needy I was of her and how every time something came up, I wanted to come. But from the word go, the minute we started dating she always had something else to do, somewhere else to be and someone else to see and it never seemed to include me. 4

I have been told so many times by her that she’s had that group of friends for five years and of course she would want to spend time with them. I get that, but I could never quite understand why she wouldn’t want me to come along. Even in my clingy, needy state of being I can understand that people like to do things with their friends on their own, I get that! Well halleluiah, praise the lord! But what I don’t get is why she claims that she never has as much fun when I’m there. Why, whenever anything comes up that involves her friends or family, she always tells me about it, but never seems to tack on a “And I’d love it if you’d come” or “I’m so excited for you to come along too”5

I don’t know, but personally it begs the question did the chicken or the egg come first? Do you think I would be so insecure in the first place and always ask to be invited to things if she had made me feel welcomed and secure in the first place, or am I just utterly needy and totally dependent? I’m guessing the answer is somewhere in the middle. A little from column A and a little from column B, as my friend would say. 6

So now as we sit in the Laundromat and I write this, like it’s something top secret, knowing full well that tomorrow when hugs and kisses abound, I’ll read this to her and we’ll laugh. We always do, laugh. But we always seem to fight too. Sometimes she says that our chemistry just doesn’t match up and sometimes I say that it’s just because we’re in a gay relationship and it’s hard. But the fact is that it comes down to people. Two different people, sure we’re alike in a lot of ways, but there are things that are very different about us and that causes us to fight. I’m guessing that a truly successful relationship or marriage is when those two people learn how to cope with those differences and accommodate them. I think we’ve learnt a little how to do that, but at the moment it still seems to be each man batting for his own team, even if we are batting for the same one. Will we ever bat for the same team together? I guess time will tell.7