The Other Streets Of Love — Part II: Exchequer Street
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I met Mario at work through a dear soulmate. The first time I looked at him, I could see stars around. Think of this person with a warm smile, a lovely and passionate gaze and welcoming hugs. That’s Mario.
It was all quick. There was a first date with coffee, then us killing time at Dublinia, meeting for dinners, and breakfasts, sending cakes to him after work, buying soup for him when he was sick, meeting my friends, spending the weekend in my place, and helping him to move out from his first accommodation. Until he was looking for a place to move in and there was the statement:
I was thinking that we could move together.
Never, in my short life, I would think someone would make this kind of proposition to me in such a short term. Do you know what? Fuck what I think, yes, let’s move in together. When I get invested in something, I invest my time and energy in there. When it’s about relationships, I go in and give myself entirely for whatever goals we are sharing.
Looks like it was too much as five or seven days, after finding some kind of solution about moving in together, I had to listen:
I think you are moving too fast.
When I step back, I truly step back. And got anxious, and frustrated, and disappointed. Not with him, with myself. Because, well, I believed more in the words of others rather than my judgement of the situation. (And I will leave this and the next ones for you, dear reader, to judge by yourself too.)
Anyway, we moved in together thanks to a situation that required quick solutions. We were sleeping in my living room with a mattress and a half (which we folded to not take up too much space) until my room was completely vacant for us.
Then, our situation unfolded (Not like the mattress) in a series of moments which hurt both in many places. I won’t start with the argument: “He started”. I will start with a thing that I learned about watching him:
If you don’t want a relationship, don’t start one.
Now, if you are looking for a relationship, there are a few points I would highlight from our time together:
If you want a relationship (a closed one), don’t have a profile in a hookup app saying you are single and looking for an LTR. (And that doesn’t mean friendship, alright?)
Mario and I were completing four months together. We were living together for one month then. I arrived from school and went to bed with him before having lunch. He starts to fiddle with his phone in front of me. (as he would do anytime I would lay down with him.) A notification from the hookup app came across in front of me and I don't remember if he tried to hide it from me or show me what was happening.
You might know me as non-monogamous today but back in those years, I was not into it and our relationship in any moment was meant to be like that. I got flustered. This was never discussed, or mentioned, or agreed. Mario tried to make it up and tried to explain to me, but I am a person who dislikes half-answers and empty sorry.
Instead of the romantic and pompous dinner I was thinking of, we sat at a burger place in Parnell Street for the celebration. I started saying how offended I was, for how I felt disrespected and so on. And the answer that I had was something like:
That's your problem and you should deal with it.
We stepped into a conversation about how unconfident I was in him, how I didn't trust the relationship, how I was silly and too jealous for a simple thing like that. All of that was because he only used a hookup app to make friends and he was shy enough to talk in person with new people. He questioned how the relationship could work if I was going to be that jealous and he wouldn't be able to live his life, going to festivals, or clubs with his friends, if I was going to be mistrusting him all the time.
My answer was:
Okay, I can trust in one way. Show me what you show them.
I remember a pale face. A hand trembling getting the phone to show me the chats he was having with other people. I refused. I wanted to see the profile and, as mentioned at the beginning, he was single and looking for an LTR. The last one was not a long-term relationship (Kind of what we have, living together) but a really good friendship, according to Mario.
Then, you can say: Alright, Sergio leave it. But no, I was like a child who loved to put my fingers in a power outlet until my hair started to steam.
If you want a healthy relationship, don’t just buy a blender as a gift for your “husband” to make your smoothies in the morning. Be a healthy person and look for help whenever possible.
That truly happened. He bought a blender for me, specifically, to prepare his smoothies every morning as I liked to wake up early to go to school. So it was convenient. We set up an agreement and the agreement was never carried on by him. Still, I made his smoothies every morning until I blew up.
If you want an honest relationship, commit to honesty and openness. Don't simply leave your partner with loose ends of indirect messages.
Following the above fact, one day I arrived home and one more day I had to stretch my one hour of break to run after things that he agreed to do. I was studying from 8 AM to 12:30 PM and working from 1:30 PM to 9:30 PM. I was doing everything for two people, for weeks now. He says he might be depressed. I understand but tell him we need to have a chat about all of it. Then, in the middle of my shift, I received a message on my social media from him. A post stating Love Is To Be Free. I ask him about it and he says it was a mistake. I doubt it. He says I am looking too much into things.
I blew up. I get tired of all the harassment, the "you are too young to understand it", the "this is your fault as well", the "do this, do that for me but don't ask me back because I am a free Libra person", the "this is all in your head". I brought that big dog's fight that night. I never screamed in that way with someone. I was never that infuriated, damaged and exhausted emotionally. But I couldn't take it anymore and I felt that all those weeks needed to be confronted.
We didn't get to the point of being aggressive physically with each other. There was a small membrane that was still holding that part. However, psychologically… Then, I saw my power with words and having a really good affective memory of everything and I saw another side of me that I nicknamed The Archivist.
Then, you say that's enough. I evicted him from the house and gave him one week to leave the room and one month to leave the house. I asked for forgiveness and to come back after one week.
Yeah, I know…
If you want a good balance between your relationship and your work, don’t mix them. Mainly, don't involve your managers and supervisors.
In the beginning, Mario would tell me about his experience dating other colleagues. He said he wouldn't like to repeat those mistakes involving other people in our work.
Well, after that big fight, on the next day, I had supervisors and managers looking me down, supervisors harassing me, other people whispering behind my back, bets about our relationship, and being refused in some works and schedules.
I don't make him accountable for those behaviours as they came from other people.
If you want to be free in a relationship, don’t try to hold the other person.
Mario and I got involved in a place where each day we would be confronted by our differences, our missteps and our love for each other. He represented, for me, the first person who considered sharing space and time with me. My mistake was to think that it was sufficient to keep going, taking the harassment, the judgment and being submissive to him.
Our time together after many fights was basically with me breaking up with him each week and coming back on the next one. I would call my friends, go for coffee and everything just to repeat the same problems and complaints again and again. Everyone was tired of it already. I couldn't listen to myself. My therapy sessions were exclusively about him.
Until the day he found a new place and he moved out of the house. There was a thread there that we were trying not to cut out, trying to save the relationship in some way and maybe with the distance, we could step back and restart one more time.
I got home with a different feeling that evening. Dany, one of my soulmates, opened a bottle of wine with me and after a few minutes she told me the following:
I haven't seen you smile and laugh like this for months. Just now, you look different.
Then I looked at her and understood what I was doing with myself and Mario.
Three days passed. He invited me for lunch in the park during our work break. As soon as we sat, I said I was much better in those last three days than in the last six months.
I won't say things got better after I broke up with him. I would say that things got interesting.
