Those of you who’ve been reading my blog since the beginning, as well as those of you who have joined late in the game but who have read back through the archives, may remember E.S., a man whom I dated for about six months before breaking up with him. He thought we were something serious and I thought we were something casual—so casual, in fact, that, while dating him, I slept with half of Manhattan, singly and in groups, on film and off, and blogged about it all. (Those of you curious to know the full backstory can peruse the archives from February through September of 2002; they’re rather sparse, as I wasn’t posting daily then. Those of you interested in the short version or a brief refresher can look here, here, here, and here.)
In any case, after we broke up, E.S. and I remained friends. He was in Boston for much of last school year, getting yet another graduate degree; he came back to New York in June. Upon his return, we started hanging out again, this time platonically. Every once in a while, I’d think, “Gee, maybe I made a mistake breaking up with him—he’s a great guy, I have lots of fun hanging out with him,” etc., etc., but I’d always return to knowing that I’d made the right decision.
So a little over a month ago, we made the terrible mistake of going to see Underworld, which I knew would be bad but which I didn’t expect to be nearly as bad as it was. Furthermore, it was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, on which we traditionally fast from one sundown to the next. So I had to watch the damn thing without any candy or popcorn to distract me from its awfulness.
In any case, after the movie, we wandered around Union Square, talking about this and that, generally having a good time. Eventually I started getting cold, so I turned towards the subway. He said, “Actually, let’s sit down for a while, ’cause there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Now, there is absolutely nothing that strikes more terror into my heart than hearing the last nine words of that sentence. So I sat down, quivering now both from the cold and in anticipatory dread of whatever awful thing he was going to force me to deal with.
In the event, I wasn’t quivering nearly enough.
Because what he said was, “I read your blog. All of it.”
To be continued.
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