Chris' Site

Going back and reading two years ago. The start of our relationship, makes me sad. Us talking about HIV. Me knowing now that in a few weeks he will break my heart and go date Eric. Me saying things like “I’m super excited about things with Charles but I”m trying to keep it low-key and just let things materialize.” – And then knowing that HAD I asked him to be my Boyfriend while we were in Fort Bragg, the whole Eric thing probably wouldn’t have happened. We wouldn’t’ have then started our relationship a month later with resent already from me, fear of rejection and abandonment from me. Thinking back on that moment two years ago… Could have changed our entire trajectory. Maybe, just maybe if I had asked him “be my boyfriend” instead of trying to “let things materialize”… Today we’d be a happier couple.

But then, things happen for a reason. He went and dated Eric for a reason, he came back to me for a reason. We broke up again, for a reason. Maybe eventually he will come back to me for some other reason, or maybe he won’t. Right? I wish those reasons were more clear. To teach me to let people appreciate me? To teach me not to put up with the shit of “I forgot”. To teach me to… I dunno. That I DESERVE BETTER as the note on my mirror says.

Things happen for a reason…

After my terrible date Thursday, I basically just hung out Friday. I did an amazing bike ride, went to the gym, had beers and dinner then just chilled.

Saturday I got up, walked Astra and then headed into the city to spend the day with Jay and James. I’m loving these two more and more as I hang out with them and I really do appreciate everything they are to me. They are the friends that I’ve been needing in my life for a long time. AS I get to know them more, I realize how shitty of a friend people like Jason has been for the last nearly 20 years. How superficial my relationships are with people like Hut.

But of course, hanging out with them and NOT having Charles there, was sad to me. We did spend a fair amount of the day talking about him of course. Before I got there, I told myself to limit it, to not bring it up but it happened. At one point, I messaged Charles on Instagram and said “I wish you could have been here today. Hope your day at work is going well”. He replied “Thanks”. My therapist said, what’s the harm in going for it. Or something along those lines, but basically just do it and if you’re rejected, you hurt for a moment and move on. You live and don’t regret things.

We went and got drinks after the air show and we talked a lot about social media, it’s impact on Charles and how it could be causing more harm then good.

I explained to them that I’m posting stories because this is how I am. Pre-Charles, I posted everything. It gives me validation. I love when guys reply to my stories and chat with me. It’s not aimed at Charles, it’s not posting for Charles. IT’s posting for me, for the attention that I crave I guess.

Jay explained that it could be causing Charles to think that I’ve “moved on”. That I could be nailing the coffin shut. James countered with “Don’t change yourself for him”. I agree with both of them, I see both sides.

I’m a person who NEEDS to know that the coffin is nailed shut before I can truly move on, give myself to someone else again. It took me YEARS to get over Calvin, to really move on and KNOW for sure there was never a chance with us again. I don’t want that to happen with Charles. I want to move on, but I want to leave it open for Him to come back to me. For me to have the upper hand, maybe.

So I made a pledge to them to stop posting, or at least limit what I do post.

I told them if Charles came back to me tomorrow, I would say YES, let’s make it work. In one month, two months, I’m not sure. I love him, but he needs to change. He needs to be Charles V3.0 for me to be able to date him again. He needs to appreciate me, he needs to remember important things, he needs to be more expressive. I also need to improve myself. I need to be Chris V10.5 (or whatever I’m on now!).

I keep day dreaming about when he said to me “I’m going to come over whenever I want”. – I keep day dreaming about the day I’m sitting here on my couch, and I suddenly hear the august unlock itself and he walks in. But I know that’ll not happen anytime soon. I know he’s “happy” alone. I know he’s doing whatever he’s doing. and I tell myself. “I don’t care”

And I’m out here, doing what I’m doing. Trying to be happy. Trying to move on. Trying to find the person who will appreciate me, treat me right, ask me every day “how are you”.

I’m trying to be more positive, more happy, more relaxed.

I need to be way more picky about who I go out on dates with.

When I was up in yuba a few weeks ago, I matched with this guy on tinder and we’d been talking. We did a few FaceTimes and talked on the phone a few days and he seemed nice enough. He’s an engineer, has a PhD, good job, likes to hike, is a top. etc etc.

So I invited him to come over for the night. We were planning to do a hike, eat dinner and then just chill. But since the weather was over 90F the hike was out. So he arrived and he said he wanted to go to some Chinese restaurant in SF. I asked him “what’s the name of it” and he said something like “I don’t know, it’s next to civic center tunnel”. How the fuck do you not know the name of this place you wanted to go. So he takes my laptop and he’s looking on google maps and he finds it, hands it over to me and it was a parking garage! I said “This is a parking garage” and he said, “yeah, I thought that’s what you wanted”. WTF?! I asked where the restaurant was.

We get ready to go and he insists on driving. His car is FILTHY, the window is cracked, he didn’t’ want to use the A/C, he drives like a 90 year old grandma. Any time there was a car next to him he would freak out. He kept mumbling under his breath about god knows what. Needless to say, by the time we got to SF 1.5 hours later, I was PISSED.

He parked over a mile from the restaurant and I asked him why, he said “well there’s never parking near the place, so we can just walk”. I said, “NO, let’s go closer and look for parking”. Sure enough we find parking 1/2 block from the place. Go inside, sit down, and he’s SUPER CONFUSED about the menu. It’s a fucking dim-sum place which he said he was at just one week prior.

Basically we don’t talk through dinner at all, just sit in awkward silence. He goes to the bathroom at one point and comes back with the front of his pants SOAKING wet like he had used his pants to dry his hands or something.

After dinner he says he wants to go take a few pictures of the GGB. So we drive down to the sports basement, park there and then proceed to walk over 1.5 miles. He keeps popping into these little beaches, looking at the bridge and going “hmmm, no, nope this won’t work”. Starts to turn around to walk away, then turns back and goes “yeah, nope”. By this time it’s nearly 7:30 and it’s DARK AF out and we’re walking on this gravel path. Finally we get to a place where he feels it’s “good enough” to take pictures which he then diggs out a tripod and camera from his backpack and proceeds to spend an HOUR taking pictures of the bridge. I’m just standing there awkwardly, texting jay and James about everything that’s going on.

At one point he comes over to me and he’s like “oh are you bored” and I said, “Well, honestly this isn’t exactly my idea of a good date.” He finally wraps it up and we have to walk the 1.5 miles BACK to the fucking car in the DARK. I was basically just begging a coyote to come out of the brush and eat me alive.

Drive back to Concord in silence, at one point he grabs my hand hard and is like “I’m sorry”. But it’s too late to save anything. We get back to my house and I tell him “Look, this clearly isn’t going to work, you’re welcome to stay the night but I would prefer you just sleep on the couch”. He decided to drive home but then it took him FOREVER to pack his shit (barely anything) and go. It was super super awk.

So yeah… SCREEN BETTER!

But otherwise yesterday was a rough day for me missing Charles. Jim from chipotle messaged me and was telling me about shit, I don’t know how much of what he says is true or not but whatever.

Trying to find someone to join me in Portland since it’s clear that Charles and I won’t be back together by then and Jason and I are still not talking.

So, I called Charles on Monday. I told him we need to leave my house between 8:10 and 8:15am. He forgot, thought he means “leave his house” or something? I don’t understand how he can confuse the two. But whatever, we made it work.

He was chatty, but didn’t ask me anything about myself or what I had been up to. I asked him to stay and watch Project Runway, he said “No, I have chores to do”. It was good to see him, but also sucked because it brought back everything.

Chris: HE DOESN’T CARE. He can’t even remember to pick you up on time for the ONE THING.

I ended up sleeping literally the entire day and night away.

When he left, it was kind of heartbreaking. Astra jumped into his car and sat on his lap. Even she didn’t want him to leave. I went to go pull her out and she jumped into the passenger seat. She wanted him to stay. I wanted him to stay. Why couldn’t he just stay.

Chris: You’re amazing. So many people have crushes on you, guys want you. You just need to be happy. You will find someone who FULLY loves you, who fully gives you what you need. You will find someone who you’re not questioning if they love you.

Work is going to suck. We got some really bad news last week.

I just keep thinking back to last thanksgiving, when I caught him chatting with Alex. How flirty he was, how he asked him things about his life, how he asked him about his day, how he was always replying right away.

How he was treating Alex, that’s how I wanted to be treated. How he treated Sergio, that’s how I wanted to be treated. But he couldn’t do that for me. He says “Well Alex and I don’t fight”. So he’s holding all those arguments against me, every small fight we had, he would just hold it against me? Not rebound, not forgive, not move on from them. Every relationship has fights, every relationship has growing pains, but it’s always about how you resolve them, how you move on from them. I feel that because he never TALKED about those things with me, he never moved on. He never forgave.

I keep telling people, if only had had treated me the way he treats everyone else. I know he’s a good person, I know he’s kind and loving and caring. I know he has it in him. He just couldn’t do it for me.

This past week has been busy. I’m pretty socialized out but I also don’t want to just be sitting home alone. Went on a hike with Jay and James which was fun. Did Giants game yesterday and Castro street fair.

Met up with some people throughout the week from Tinder/Grindr. But they were all mostly annoying AF. One guy was WAY fatter than his pics and when we were hanging out he was just mumbling and not saying anything.

Hung out with Marky one night for a photoshoot. IT was a VERY frustrating night and he got to see the bitchy side of me. Ever since then he’s barely txted or called. Which I mean is for the better I suppose. Although, the good thing is that we got to play around for a bit and I got some HOT photos for my dating profiles

Mark (Canada) and I had a long talk a couple of the nights. His marriage is falling apart right now so it’s just been good for both of us to talk about things. He keeps saying though “In another world, you and I would be dating right now”. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind. He’s a super nice guy, very cute. But it also frustating how all these guys are like “You’re so amazing, I would love to date you” but then when it comes down to it, they don’t.

I wish David (LA Boy) didn’t have a bf. I wish we could go back 10 years and I could REALIZE how much he was into me back then. I wish we could have a chance at something. We’ve been talking, he’s trying to make it work with his bf so that he can come to Portland with me. (They are open, FYI). It would be fun to see him and hang out with him. But at the same time, I feel it will just make me even more infatuated with him.

I booked this portland trip in the height of Charles and I breaking up. It was my “I hope we’re back together and we can have a nice trip planned” mind set. Now I have to find someone else to go with or just go alone. I have tickets to JP Cooper up there which was one of Charles’ wish list bands to see.

I want to get a new tattoo. I’ve been thinking for years about a sleeve or something on my side. But I don’t want it to look like I”m getting it just for Charles.

Charles is driving me to my colonoscopy tomorrow. That will be weird. I need to call him today with instructions and I don’t want him to text me. I’m not sure how to tell him that without it being weird. I am also scared that I am going to say/do something stupid while on the drugs. I want to invite him to stay for a bit after to watch the finale of project runway. But I fear that 1) he’s going to say no and I’ll feel rejected or 2) he’ll say he already watched it (like he did with squid games that last time we broke up) and then I’ll feel rejected again anyway. So maybe just let him leave when he drops me off.

It’s funny. 18 years ago today I posted an entry titled “How was your day“. And here it is, one of the biggest reasons Charles and I broke up. Maybe the problem IS me, maybe I do expect too much.

Looking back on that post, It seems that I used to expect it out of everyone, friends, etc. I don’t expect it out of most people nay more. But I do still expect it out of my “partner”.

Anyway, today I’m kinda missing him. I miss his smile, I miss holding him at night. I miss going to the gym together. I miss his sexy butt. I miss making him coffee. I miss making him dinner. I miss holding his hand. I miss going grocery shopping together. I miss the way he says “Christopher”. I miss cuddling on the couch and watching TV. I miss him coming home from work and being so happy to see astra. I miss a lot about him.

But I have to keep telling myself. I deserve better. There was still so much that was MISSING from our relationship. I have to remember those things too. I have to remember that he didn’t provide me with a lot of what I needed.

Had dinner with Thomas last night. That was fun to see him again and chat as friends. We haven’t hung out in long time. We talked about going to the bars together and dressing up in rubber or something. That’ll be fun to do sometime. The last time we did that was march 2020. Seriously the day before they announced all the shut downs.

I left my freezer open last night, everything thawed out and I had to toss it all.

One thing I’ve noticed since I moved out is that I’m much more social with people. I don’t know if it’s just cause I don’t want to be home or what. But I missed this social aspect of everything. I missed planning things weeks/months in advanced. I basically have every weekend between now and Christmas full of stuff. Charles told me once he liked that I planned everything for him. I loved planning shit for him. But then after I planned a few things, asked him to take them off and he failed. I gave up planing. We missed a lot of stuff because I didn’t want to plan and have those plans ruined cause he couldn’t (can’t remember/doesn’t care to) take time off. So I just stopped. But now, I can plan, I can do what I want, I can commit to doing those things with people.

I can go to the gym when I want. I can eat when and what I want (yay bell peppers and tomatoes again!). I can go to bed when I want and sleep all night cause he doesn’t come home at 11:30 and wake me up. I can get up in the morning and lie in bed and just get my day going without having to worry about waking him up. I can watch what I want and not have him sitting at the counter trying to be louder than me.

My colonoscopy is coming up soon. Charles is driving me. I have to start changing my diet as of today. No more fruits/veggies/fiber. Will be interesting to see how the drive goes.