Forensics. (Part Two.)
Who I really want won't have me.
My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names and some details have been changed, all the stories here are true.
To read Part 1 of this essay, click here.
This is where I’m supposed to say that Adrien’s cringe-inducing, star-fuckery about Trevor Noah turns me off so much that I send him packing. Except I don’t. I’m still focused on finding out what he looks like naked (fine!), and what he feels like inside me (also fine!). Joke’s on me, however, because I am mortified to discover, as I’m riding him, that the slow, rhythmic smacking I’m hearing is not the sound of my ass on Adrien’s thighs but the fat on my lower belly slapping his hips.
Ugh.
After we finish, Adrien expresses concern that I didn’t have an orgasm. I explain to Adrien that I don’t come from penetrative sex and that I’m not in the mood to pull out my vibrator. (I note that he makes no attempt to perform oral sex.) Also, can’t he tell I enjoyed myself? I was making lots of sounds! “Men never really know,” he says. He has a point.
We lounge around on my bed for the next hour or so. Adrien tells me stories about some of his tattoos: When he got them, and why. He doesn’t say much about one of them, just that it has something to do with a bad moment in his life. (“Don’t worry, I didn’t kill anyone,” he laughs.) After we get dressed, I walk him to the front door and I give him a big hug and a kiss. “I hope you have a great trip back,” I say. “It was wonderful to meet you.” Adrien tells me to let him know the next time I’m in Paris. I promise that I will.
It’s been a few weeks and I haven’t heard anything from the director in Santa Barbara. I haven’t thought much about him either, which is interesting because we had such a lovely time together. It’s hard for me to reconcile how acutely triggered I was by Adrien’s temporary disappearance with feeling unbothered by the fact that the director hasn’t said a word.
Sitting next to me at the nail salon, Olivia says it’s simple: Adrien and I made follow-up plans. The director and I did not. This rings true. Except: the level of intensity at which I took things with Adrien personally gestures, yet again, at something inside me that’s in deep need of healing. But I don’t know exactly what. Is it insecurity? Fear of rejection? Abandonment? All of the above? The director and I shared many intimate moments and yet his silence does not sting. It has not left me feeling stunned, or confused, or humiliated, or even a little bit sad. It just is.
I mention this in my next Zoom session with my therapist, Dani. I’ve been seeing her for a few years — since 2020 — but we’ve never met. She lives in the Bay Area and is now in Spain with her two daughters for a year. Dani is privy to all of my online sex and dating adventures, and is always understanding and nonjudgmental, even when she thinks that my assignations with a certain individual (Nico) aren’t serving me well.
I tell Dani about the discrepancy between my reaction to the disappearance of Adrien and that of the director. Dani doesn’t seem surprised. She points out that my level of investment with Adrien was more significant. I matched with the director the day I met him. With Adrien, there was weeks of buildup, not to mention the fact that I met him in person twice before his sudden, albeit temporary, disappearance.
“There was a lot more of you and therefore more to feel rejected,” Dani says. There’s a pause.
“The other thing I’d say is that, knowing you, it probably hits more on your fear that you can’t have what you really want, or that who you really want won’t have you.”
Who I really want won’t have me. Story of my life! It started with my first crush in 7th grade — a boy named Edward who was tall, and smart, and good at theater — and went on from there. In high school there was Brian. Then another Nico. (If you can believe it.) And, of course, John, who went with me to the senior prom where he promptly ditched me for a younger, blonder, wealthier model. (This was a drama on the scale of a John Hughes movie, which felt like shit at the time but now makes for a good story.) In college, after the end of my abusive, years-long relationship with my college boyfriend, there was Dylan. Later: Jake. (He’s famous now.) Stephen. Kurt.
Some of these guys I actually had a thing with — the feelings weren’t always unrequited. But, consummated or unconsummated, what these experiences had in common is that the guys involved didn’t want to take things further. They didn’t fall for me the way I fell for them. And the boyfriends I did have over the course of my 20s and 30s were often men I was settling for. They either weren’t that smart, or that attractive, or that emotionally intelligent, or even particularly available. Not even Colin, the man who would become my husband.
Who I really want won’t have me. Describes Nico perfectly. We’ll flirt and engage and sext, often for hours or days on end, and sometimes we’ll approach what seems like a semblance of emotional intimacy or vulnerability. But then he puts the brakes on and changes the subject. Or pulls away altogether. It’s not that I want Nico to leave his wife. I just want something more. As for what that is? I honestly don’t know. Which is another story. A long one. Maybe an interesting one. It’s just not a story for right now.