Three months ago, I fell really, really hard for someone that I’d never even met before.
But before I go into that, I want to talk about a term that I’ve coined in reference to the said someone I fell for:
A Something Else, with a capital S and E.
A Something Else, with a capital S and E.
My Something Else
The way I see it, almost everyone’s got a Something Else; something other, that helps keep them sane. Because let’s face it, life has this amazing tendency to get shit-boring when you’re not paying attention (and sad, and sucky, and a fuck-ton depressing). If you DON'T have a Something else, then you're either lying, or are an insanely content and well-adjusted person and seriously man, what is your secret?
For most people, their Something Else is a hobby, or music, or a television show, or getting high off weed – Anything to take you out from whatever mental jail you’ve gotten yourself into.
Before I met Lyle*, my Something Else was writing, and then, Doctor Who. That overblown sci-fi about a mad alien man (with coincidentally sexy hair and an equally sexy Scottish accent okay, no, I know all of them aren’t David Tennant but let’s stick to the analogy) and his mad alien spaceship – slash – police phone box.
I don’t have to go into how unhealthy having another human being as your Something Else is.
(But I will anyway)
Because god knows how many TV writers and Michael Bay won’t.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Sidekick Ex-Machina, Blithe Spirit, call it whatever you want but the trope’s still the same. As is the idea that some magical OTHER individual can come into your life, chase away all your demons, rescue you from whatever depressive funk you’re in, and take you on life-changing journeys to the opening track for New Girls.
I guess that’s why I called it off.
And partially why I wish to hell I hadn’t.
Because now that even though I’ve found someone else who lives in the same country, has a decent, stable job, is inhumanely considerate and annoyingly caring, I kind of, sort of, wish he…wasn’t. Does that make sense?
If you could hear me right now, I’d be talking in a mortified whisper, because that’s just how disgusted I am at myself. Like CLARISSA, you’ve got someone who’s willing to drive – and has driven – you to SP and back again, willing to take you out on romantic dates, spend his time, energy and money on you even when you tell him -
Oh my god Alvin, not again. I’m not fucking broke. I can handle this.
- to stop.
Like, what is wrong with you? And what’s so special about this old-looking, posh sounding Brit guy?
This old-looking, posh-sounding Brit guy
I met Lyle on Tinder.
Okay, haha, laugh all you want. I could show you all the charts and statistics and graphs that point to the fact that online dating is not only for losers and lonely single balding men with slight paedophilic tendencies, but then I’d have to explain myself.
He had on this pair of glasses in his profile pic that I found kind of hot. His other pictures were okay, but it was his DP that really got me to swipe right. There was this intense sort of look in his eyes that I really liked and a scruffy almost-beard that bordered on Hipster, but didn’t really fit the bill either.
Lyle sent the first message.
There was no “Sit on my face and I’ll eat my way to your heart”, no ‘’Hey cutie, wanna drop by my place tonight”, no “I’m 8.3 inches”.
Just “Hey :)”
Things started getting real Hallmark Original Movies real fast.
I found out that he was a 29 year old English lad who hated England but couldn’t really leave because of – surprise, surprise – his job. I found out that he loved gaming, had a bit of a geeky WoW phase and was more than addicted to Skyrim. I found out that he brought his Xbox to work when he had night shifts because “There’s practically nothing to do anyway’’. I found out that he loved reading just as much as I did. I found out that he loved spicy food, and I found out that he had this weird thing going on for –
You don’t have, like, yellow fever do you?
Oh my god, you’re a fucking otaku.
No haha shh, I’m not an otaku
- Asian culture.
Then he asked me something–
What gets you excited?
- that no one else before had , and to give in to horrible clichés, it completely blew my mind. So I told him the truth – Nothing, for the time being, but that it was so weird because I was usually the kind of person that got excited over almost anything, and now I felt so empty without it.
Understanding Lyle
For the first month, it was like meeting my soul-mate. We talked about anything and everything. The two of us were lazy when it came to Skyping so instead we sent voice-notes back and forth over Whatsapp. He was in his office working past 2am; I was just waking up in bed. He was in the tube waiting to reach home; I was in the neighbourhood Starbucks calling up potential buyers. We sent each other pictures of the food we ate and the surrounding scenery we were in. When he showed me City and Colour, I swallowed up his entire album, listening to him as I fell asleep, imagining Lyle's body behind me, just inches away.
When he was out with his friends, I’d get an occasional text or voice note, telling me that he missed me, wished I were there, what they were doing. For the first month, he was perfectly imperfect – I thought he was kind, straightforward, understanding, chill as fuck and deep, like woah.
His friends knew about me, and mine knew about him. We made plans about flying over and visiting each other.
We had weird, awkward phone sex.
And then, like the water on a badly placed floor in a high-dense, low cost apartment, it started to trickle out.
He’d go missing mid-conversation because of work or friends or bad connection or sleep, and I’d find myself waiting hours – sometimes days – till he-
Sorry, got so hammered last night
Nothing’s changed about the way I feel about you.
You’re the one that’s changed
- Woke up or found connection. I got paranoid; he got irritated. And the more Luke pulled away, the more paranoid I got.
Pro tip no. 3: If someone you’re falling in love with starts to withdraw back into the normalcy of life, smother them. They’ll love it.
A lot more happened in between that I thought seemed important back then, but don’t really seem as much now. We argued, we made up, we argued again. Everything was my fault and I was the unreasonable one and I was the offensive one and it was my fault I got upset and it was my fault that he got upset and (this was his piece de resistance) it was my fault he stopped talking as much and then I met someone else.
No, that’s not exactly how it happened either. I lied; I met Alvin way before I ended things with Luke. He was a good friend, a guy I found cute at first but then boring as hell after. Someone who was easily satisfied and raring to please. Someone who brought me strawberries when I was waiting for the next Luke-text or who listened to me freak out when I didn’t hear any Luke-word for two days straight (surprise, he was hungover). In short, Alvin was the perfect, stereotypical “Nice Guy” with a capital N and G.
I was exhausted trying to feel wanted again. I was tired of feeling discredited or being gaslighted.
And then in the most logical move of my entire life, I told Alvin – transparent, loving, sensitive, understanding, considerate Alvin – that I couldn’t see him anymore, and that I had to focus on working towards making things work with Luke.
He said okay.
He said Lyle sounds like a great guy and that he hopes I’ll be happy and that he was really happy being friends.
He said I’ll miss you.
It took a single day – of non-Lyle-ness – before I broke
My tipping point
Here’s the thing: you can change who you choose to be with, but you can’t choose who chooses to be with you.
So I took the safe route, and stopped seeing Lyle too.
For, like, two weeks. And then I got together with Alvin because bloody hell, I missed that guy.
Which brings me to why I’m writing all of this down in the first place – It’s my confession page (or pages, 5 to be exact) and my confession is this: Now and again, – mortified whisper, here we go, everyone together now – I miss Lyle too.
It’s not that I don’t love Alvin; I do – every second, every minute, with every bit of my soul.
But sometimes, when I get home to an empty apartment, with the floor grimy and dusty – because that floor ain’t gonna sweep itself – and my clothes hanging off the arm of the couch like mementoes from a late night lover, and the room covered with an almost tangible sheen of darkness and gloom, and no work left to do but to lie down and stare at the ceiling, I find myself almost unconsciously reaching out for my Something Else. Another place, another life, another string of possibilities.
I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve spent all your new possibilities, and like whatever’s left is the change you’ve got to keep in the bottom of your jeans pockets, next to the dusty infolds and pocket lint. But I also know this: that you can always find another Something Else, but you can’t always find someone who will understand and stick by you unconditionally. Someone that’s so deeply ingrained in your life you don’t even want them to be a Something Else anymore, but a Something Familiar, Something Old.
Since then, I’m pretty glad to say that Lyle's found someone new. It’s a little disarming sometimes to see their pictures on Facebook. I occasionally recall our old texts
I want to take you out on a nice date. Let’s go to a fancy restaurant.
There’s a cave underneath my town, you’ll love it.
A new bar just opened
And thought –
That should be me
- about all the plans we’d made and how weird it was, seeing someone else acting them out. Maybe she’s his Something Else now, and maybe they’ll end up Something More, but none of that’s my business anymore. I can hardly remember Lyle now; all that’s left are the Lyle-tropes and the Lyle-isms. The memories I have are all overplayed and smoothened out by time, it’s like looking into the past with rose tinted glasses. I wasn’t infatuated with Lyle, I was infatuated with Something Else.
So if you're someone who's starting to get bored of their partner,
And no judgement, it happens to anyone,
Then, ask yourself if it's because what you're looking for is a lover, or Something Else. Because you can only be with a person for so long before the novelty fades, and Something Else becomes Something Old. Something Else exists for a reason, it's what gets us up in the morning with that sliver of possibility that something new might happen. It's why we push our boundaries and rock the boat and reach past what is familiar and safe.
But don't go looking for it in people. They're people, not teacups.**
 |
| I like this one. I think I'll keep him |
*I actually DO know someone by the name of Lyle. (Hi Lyle!) Rest assured that this is not about him.
**Because you can pick those up and put them down whenever you like. Get it? GET IT??? I'm so fucking deep.
