Friday was Jack’s birthday. Exactly three weeks after the loaded conversation we had, initiated by him telling me not only about his sexual attraction towards me but in great detail about his sexual desires & fantasies involving me, despite his still being in a monogamous (& toxic) relationship with a woman that has been making him unhappy for the past two & a half years.
When we had that complicated conversation at the beginning of April, I told Jack that his relational situation, as long as he remained in a monogamous (& toxic) partnership, was a hard line, a “hard no” for any physical or sexual intimacy between me & him. He understood and agreed, and seemed to be determined to finally solve the situation with her ASAP. So the ensuing silence from him for three solid weeks, apart from a generic text exchange around mid-April, was surprising to me. Not only surprising, in fact: it went from seeming weird, to being almost unbelievable, frustrating, painful, infuriating.
I had consciously decided to give him space after that complicated conversation and the radio silence between us was helpful for me, too. In fact, as I processed the events and shared them with other close friends and heard their comments, reactions, thoughts, concerns, my own emotions became more clear, like layers of an onion peeling off: the initial feeling of being flattered by the attention mixed with being thrown for a loop, evolved into frustration and anger at Jack’s selfish and unfair behavior in bringing up his sexual desires towards me while still being in a monogamous (& toxic) relationship with someone else.
Despite my hard feelings towards him, I texted to wish him happy birthday on Friday morning, with the familiar tone we used to have between us: “Happy birthday, brother! Hope you’re having a lovely day!”
His reply came almost immediately and struck me in its apparent dryness, or coldness: “Hi. Thank you :)”
A few hours later, mustering all the compassion I could find, I texted him simply asking how he’s doing. But got no reply.
As I turned on my phone in the early afternoon on Saturday and still found no reply from Jack, I felt a surge of anger come up in me. Red-hot and almost out of control, the anger of a wild beast. I wanted to physically smash some objects, physically grab Jack by the scruff and punch him, man to man. Something I hadn’t felt in over a decade, apart from another, slightly less intense, instance with my European queer ex-lover nearly three years ago. The instance this past Saturday was so intense, it was scary. I went into my bedroom, threw the pillows at the bed to get the hottest steam out of my system, and then eventually was able to self-regulate by putting on some music and dancing and signing to a song that felt perfect for the moment. But still, I was shaken. Where did all this rage come from? Where did this animal fury stem from?
The answer came to me today. It came — comes — from a sense of betrayal.
I feel betrayed by Jack (as I did that time by my European queer ex-lover and as I felt in the relationship I had with my ex in Barcelona).
Jack & I were supposed to be friends. Platonic friends. Is this how one treats a friend? Is this how one behaves in a platonic friendship? There was an agreement between us, wasn’t there, even if implicit for years? We’re bros, we’re buddies. I was there for him, always, when he needed to vent about the difficulties in his relationship with that woman — there to listen and hold space and show empathy and give advice, if required, as a brother, as a platonic friend. Then, all of a sudden, here I am, not his buddy but now the object of his sexual desire? And he tells me when he’s still monogamously together with her (& additionally in a moment when I’m feeling out of spirits for reasons of my own and am thus emotionally vulnerable)?
That’s bad enough. But on top of that, he then ghosts me for three weeks and doesn’t even reply to my text message enquiring after him?
This is more painful than the bailing of a buddy for a trip or a planned adventure. That bailing, which I have experience several times, unfortunately, is terribly painful because I feel let down, abandoned and/or neglected. It’s a sharp, intense pain coming mainly from disappointment. But this pain re. Jack is deeper, more intense, more hurtful, because it comes from betrayal (what to me feels like betrayal).
To me it feels like the violation of something sacred: our friendship. The violation, or betrayal, of the (more or less explicit) fundamental agreements we had as platonic friends.
This is the root of my fury, of my animal rage. And as scary as my rage was on Saturday, as much as I felt like an infuriated beast then, I think it is a very reasonable anger, caused by real facts, by the unfair and incomprehensible behavior of someone I love(d) & trusted dearly. Someone who, I feel, took advantage of my trust.
The Little Prince and the Fox 