When Did You Stop Seeing Me?
As I sat on the bus, I observed my favorite bus lady. She wore a faint smile as New York got larger in the driver’s windshield. I hadn’t seen her smile in a long time, maybe ever.
It had been months since I really observed her. For more than a year, Sam and I had been texting. My bus rides were consumed with waiting for notifications of her messages, reading her messages and writing replies. Over time, these messages ranged from platonic support to hardcore sexting — a sort of friends with benefits for the digital age, with the caveat that we often consummated our thoughts in the real world.
That morning however, was about a week into a messaging drought. Relationships that rely on digital communication become dependent on a constant flow of content back and forth to assure each party that the other is still interested. There’s no capability to put you hand on theirs quietly or to simply be together. You need a measurable, a sliver of text, a selfie. I could sense Sam was growing more distant.
When a woman tells you, “things have gotten really busy” that’s a nice way of telling you that she’s met someone else. Unmentioned busyness means you get fewer messages, but when you do get them they are usually in the vein of, “OMG I’m so sorry! Things have been crazy,” followed by a longer-than-you-asked-for explanation of what happened. But if she mentions being busy, it’s because she’s busy with another man.
I suspected this was the case for Sam, but opted not to say anything to her. The pain of her cutting things off completely frightened me more than the pain of her fading away. Like any good addict forced into detox, I struggled to not text her in every gap of my day. The first week was the hardest.
I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but without an object of sexual pleasure and desire sitting on the other end of my phone’s screen I wasn’t holding my phone as much. I wasn’t randomly checking it while I was sitting in the yard as the kids played, or while I was cooking, or watching TV.
Even work, which was going through a monotonous streak, was more engaging when I didn’t have a ready escape. At first I found myself glancing at my phone constantly, swiping down to see if there were any notifications. After a week or so, I was prepping more and giving better pitches. I was engaging more with clients. I stopped rushing back to my phone.
My wife and I talked more and even TV time was better. I found myself suddenly conscious of how often she was on her phone, playing games and reading Buzzfeed. I started to wonder how we both became so disconnected from one another.
I started purposely leaving my phone in my bag when I got home. It felt good to exert that kind of discipline over it. I felt like I was asserting control over my life and not just a device. I soon took over the bed and bath routine. The kids and I had fun from dinner to bedtime. Everyone was a little less frazzled.
After a month I took pleasure in saying things like:
No, I hadn’t seen that thing on Instagram.
No, I don’t have Snapchat.
Me? No I only check Facebook once in a while from my computer.
I assigned the evils of mankind to the smartphone — an addictive device designed to make us stupid. I used it less and less which imbued a sense of superiority over my fellow New Yorkers. I looked on smugly as they wandered the center of the modern roman empire like broken neck zombies staring at a screen as their thumbs mindlessly scrolled.
I found myself in a Starbucks between meetings. This particular Starbucks was bustling, a solid mix of tired tourists looking at their cell phone selfies and professional New Yorkers looking at their email.
In Manhattan, the Starbucks coffee is merely the prerequisite purchase of the mobile professional. Having fulfilled my obligation, I was now entitled to free Wi-fi and a little table space.
My temporary office staked out, I opened my laptop. It awoke and resumed the activities of a few hours prior. My messaging app opened to my conversation with Marcus. I was about to let him know that I was putting the finishing touches of a deck for him, when she popped up.
Hey you!
You there?
Message back when you can.
The site of her name and her words on my screen stunned me. The dependency I had thought I’d shed returned to hollow out my gut. I wanted to just click the X and move on, but I couldn’t do it.
M: Hey
S: Hi!
(Long Pause)
S: It’s been awhile.
M: Yeah…it seemed you got busy.
S: I’m sorry, just the craziest things have happened at the agency. I’m an account manager now!
M: That’s awesome!
(Pause)
S: I met someone.
M: I know.
S: You know?
M: I figured.
S: I thought you might.
(Pause)
M: I get it.
S:?
M: You don’t need me anymore.
S: What does that mean?
M: You needed a job and a fill-in cock and I was there to provide both.
(Pause)
S: That’s not what it was and you know it.
M: OK
S: I just thought I should say something.
M: OK.
S: Look, you’re the one who’s married. You’re the one who couldn’t handle anything more serious.
M: Like I said, I get it. I’m sure I’ll see you at another conference.
The app pinged with messages from Marcus, he’d become one of my closest allies at work over the last year. Funny how my change and his had such different effects.
I found myself sitting in a fucking Starbucks alone with tears in my eyes. I watched mom’s of the 1% push their 8x10 color glossy children in eight thousand dollar strollers. I watched friends hug, and lonely people like me sip coffee and stare at screens.
The next few weeks felt empty, like a very strange breakup. It had become clear to me that everything in life was a transaction. We all use and get used and we all love it.
For Sam, I was the bridge that she could tread from a sad past to a promising future. For me, Sam was the reminder I needed that I was a man, that I was good at sex, that I was more than a paycheck and a diaper changer — more than the guy who mowed the lawn. Sam no longer needed me, but I needed her. The loss broke open a cavern, and all I could do was work, come home and see the kids.
I had taken a client out for a drink. I had a beer and he had a whiskey sour. I’d known him for years. I got back to Port Authority in time to catch a later-than-usual-but-not-very-late bus. I followed the usual steps. I got home.
The house was quiet, a plate of food sitting on the stove. My wife sat at the table looking vaguely in my direction.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“I told you. I was with Mike.”
“OK.”
“What, you don’t believe me?”
“No, I do.”
“OK,” I replied shaking my head.
I slid the plate into the microwave above the stove. The plate spun slowly while it was bombarded by whatever mystical energy gives the food it’s false warmth. I touched her shoulder.
The electronic beep screamed into the room. I plucked the hot plate from the not hot box and set up across the table from her.
“How were the kids today?” I asked before inhaling shovels of food.
“Fine.”
I looked up. It was clear she’d been crying.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“OK?”
“When are you going to see me again?”
“What?”
“You haven’t looked at me in a longer than I can remember.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t. Somehow… I just became this, this thing, this thing you had to deal with like a job or a chore or something.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“Jesus Christ! This is because I came home an hour later than usual?”
“You haven’t been home for a year.”
I drew a deep breath. She continued.
“I knew it would be hard, the kids, the money, the commute, everything. But I didn’t think I’d disappear.”
“You never disappeared!”
“Oh stop it. Of course I did. We haven’t had sex in months.”
“You don’t want that from me! You haven’t since Jacob was born! You disappeared? I’m just the asshole who commutes 3 hours a day to bring home a paycheck and clean the house!”
“I don’t want to have sex with you when you feel that way about me!”
“So I’m supposed to do what with that? Make myself feel better?”
“You’re supposed to tell me what you feel as it happens, not after you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. You just don’t give a shit.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Ever since the kids, it’s been about what you need from me. How many times am I too tired to do something? How many times do I just need a break? Never. You always do, and then there’s me to pick up the slack. Then I’m supposed to thank my lucky stars that you want to fuck occasionally?”
“Stop.” She started back quietly.
“No, you wanted me to tell you how I felt, here’s how I feel. I’m just a motor around here. I keep the machine going and everyone hopes I just keep working.”
“Stop, please.” She started to cry.
Her tears put out the fire. I was hot coals now, no longer a blaze.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. That’s how you feel.”
“I was angry. It’s just so hard.”
“You think it isn’t hard for me. Home with the kids? Trying to start this business in my spare time? What spare time?”
“All I did was try to support that.”
“Support it? By hating me?”
“I don’t hate you. I just don’t know what you want.”
“I want us back.”
Her tears became my tears. All of the quiet indignities of the last few years, all of the compromises, all of the negotiations it takes to have it all, all of it finally drained out of me, first in rage, now in brokenness.
“Me too.” I sad through painful sobs.
We didn’t sleep that night. We moved to the couch. We poured wine. We talked. We laughed about the insanity of parenthood. We laughed about money. I held her.
I wish I could tell you we finished the night making mad passionate love, but we didn’t. In fact, we didn’t have sex again for another few weeks. Each night of those weeks was spent without screens. It was spent just her and I talking. We dated every night at home in our living room and kitchen. Eventually her smile returned, in her smile I saw my daughter’s smile.
I wasn’t ready to dispel my theory that life was a series of transactions, but it did have a serious flaw. This woman, this wife of mine, gave me an entire life. If life is a series of transactions, how do you pay that back? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now.
I think it starts with seeing each other.
