Slow Fast Men
Part One
do not date a man who’s in a hurry. remember this. do not date anyone in a hurry, but much less a man who says, as you grind fresh coffee for him, your body still warm from bed, turning the metal handle once, twice, ten times, thinking to yourself, how nice to finally have someone to care f — do you not get the ground coffee beans from the store? that’s what i do. so easy.
listen. romance evaporates instantly at the mention of an alternate, faster way and there is no coffee good enough in this world to keep you alive in such stale, stale company. you too will become stale. i am proof. this is proof. do not date in a hurry, do not hurry. unless it’s to end things with the man who tells you it doesn’t matter that you can’t remember the name of your friend’s cousin. it’s on the tip of your tongue, all you need is a similar sound, or a moment, both which he could easily grant you. it’s not vital you think, but it’s definitely import — just go on with the story. it really doesn’t matter. what happened to her?
then do hurry. do leave.
S and R never met. in the year and a half i dated S, no one ever met S, but because R and i live together, it is very important for you to know that R has only seen him in photos. five photos to be exact. unfortunately, as is the nature of taking photos of someone who is both part of your life and so separate from it, i could never quite frame his face right.
god, it does look like you dated three different men. how bizarre.
i agree with R and instead show her a screenshot of his dating profile.
this is exactly what he looks like i say.
she takes the phone from me and inspects him.
oh, yeah, that’s more so how i imagined him.
she gives me my phone back and i stare at his face, zooming in and out of it. i was hoping for some sort of satisfaction, a relief that R finally had an exact image of him that i was happy with, that matched mine, but in that moment i felt small, like a little picture of myself lost among thousands of screenshot conversations, dating profiles, memes, articles, S and his height, location, profession and what he’s looking for.
no, of course this is not good. how could it be? i am not stupid. yet, at the time, it didn’t seem so strange. it was just how it was. and to be clear, i could never describe S as a man in a hurry. even if he was always very busy with work, he borrowed from the hours after midnight and had two long blacks upon rising to make himself right. so this is to say that nothing is ever how it ought to be and not much can be trusted out there in the world. S was always at least 15 minutes late, and though i never questioned why, he always said,
i am so sorry my dear, i lay down, fully dressed, and couldn’t seem to get up until it was too late.
and so it was. he was tall, large — in a big boned sort of way, and so very slow. we would always meet closer to his side of the city and i would always carry a book.
right before and somewhat during dating S, i also dated P to fill in the gaps. P is the man in a hurry and although we haven’t spoken in a long time, i suspect he will always remain this way. he was quick to criticize, interrupt, and complain. so often i would do my hair, get dressed up and make myself more welcoming only to spend a mere half an hour matching P’s speed as he inhaled his pasta and asked for the bill as i was still mid-bite. somehow this was always funny to me. it was funny to R too. i would come back home and she’d be watching the same movie i left her with.
the only thing i suffer from with P is indigestion i say as i sit down on the couch and unbutton my pants.
R is still distraught by the fact i’m back home but laughs lightly and pauses the movie.
it was true. i was never on the verge of anything with P, never overcome with emotion. it didn’t seem that there was ever the beginning of a new feeling, or even the ending of an old one because of him. everything was somewhat the same. and this is to say that some things happen so slowly you don’t notice them and others happen so quickly you stay in them for longer than you would like. with P, i was quickly becoming stale. but S, S was slowly making me insan —
i still can’t believe you’re already back from your date.
yeah. neither.
isn’t it maddening?
when it feels like you can’t continue on, that this whole silly thing is not only a complete waste of your time, but is also deteriorating the small and very few parts of yourself that you’ve manged, through the years, to feel quite chuffed about; even when you cry for two days straight (or at least try to) and turn this feeling in your head over and over again, trying to see it, name it, place it; for goodness sake, you are seconds away from thinking that you’ve finally had enough and three days ago you started cursing him in your sleep, in the shower and on your walk to work. can you believe, that even then, when all of that happens — he still doesn’t text back.
and that is just how it was. always on the verge of something with S. mostly on the verge of tears, insanity, anger, but also, as you might suspect, on the verge of what felt like a grand grim love that was only on the brink of becoming anything very late into the night when we were both tired, giddy, drunk and dancing, unaware it was 3am on a Wednesday, or that anything outside of his room existed at all.
in the morning, however, but closer to noon, the disarray and repugnance for my now bland life begins as i close the door behind me and take a few steps out of his apartment complex. no one is safe from a spell of total humiliation i think to myself, hungover and puny, hollowed out by desire. how unlucky. i walk the bridge over the motorway, wishing there was some sort of second place i could go and lay down before facing the city, to prepare myself for the intensity of the outside world that only feels unbearable on days like these. instead the 440 bus. all seats taken by school kids. i stand grabbing the handle and lean my head on my shoulder.
i arrive home. it’s 4pm. purgatory hour i think. the hour in which i make a tally of every wrong thing in my life, including how quiet it is here as i sit on the balcony, the sky slowly losing light, the apartment becoming gray, what an awful time to sit. yet, i have no desire to busy myself either. what do i usually do on a Wednesday afternoon? my god, no one is safe from the disdain brought upon you by someone you now think is a limp, boneless, worm. it’s one of the biggest cruelties we have to face so often. too often.
and then R gets home from work. the only good thing i think to myself. she sits right next to me but not before turning the lights on and offering me a drink.
it started like this, or very much like this. three days of torrential rain makes us cancel on drinks not once, not twice, but three times consecutively. when i think of a higher power i no longer think of god, i think of the weather. i think of the river behind our house, growing with power after every weepy night; the flooded street in Stanmore, six strangers huddled under the roof of a closed bar, holding tightly to their umbrellas, wondering what the next move is and who’s going to make it first. every year the weather becomes more unstable here and i’m fearful of what that means for my daily life and how carefully i like to structure it. but then the rain stops, and something awakens in me. i text S — i’m on my way. my cheeks are pink. don’t mention it. i’ve been running around.
we sit in a dimly lit bar in Newtown. my hair is slightly wet. i tell S that i have lost faith in the weather app as i take off my coat thinking it’s a fine way to start a conversation. he grabs the drink menu.
i’ve lost faith in absolutely everything he says.
i laugh and he’s grinning. i didn’t know him then, but if he were to say the same words to me today i’d trust him and leave. but you can’t hurry the future.
he’s a slow talker with a deep voice. at first i find this ridiculous, it seems unnatural.
are you from around here? i ask as he sits down, sliding the second glass of wine my way.
i’m unsure of whether he’s what i expected or not. am i what he expected? i fix my posture.
where did you grow up?
a couple hours north he says.
i don’t say it but i thought he had an accent, a peculiar way of pronouncing certain words. as soon as he goes to the bathroom i text R — i’m not sure. not bad though. he speaks so slowly. but then the barman calls final drinks and i’m abruptly made aware of where we are and what we’re doing. i look at the time on my phone. 3 text messages from R. i realise i’m not ready to leave and this makes me suddenly shy. if he says goodbye now, i would walk home deflated, this much i know for certain.
should we go somewhere else?
yes i say. yes, yes.
don’t we all end up doing the same things in bed, whether we love them or not? whether they love us? it’s all so confusing. aren’t we ordering the same drinks, telling the same stories, making the same Thursday night plans? they always stand taller when you first meet them. this is why no one is safe at all. how could anyone ever know not to start a wrong thing, when the wrong thing starts as everything else? a little new, a little exciting. maybe, finally, a different way of doing things. how is anyone to know?
I loved this so deeply. When someone shows you who they are, trust them the first time.
"we sit in a dimly lit bar in Newtown. my hair is slightly wet. i tell S that i have lost faith in the weather app as i take off my coat thinking it’s a fine way to start a conversation. he grabs the drink menu.
i’ve lost faith in absolutely everything he says.
i laugh and he’s grinning. i didn’t know him then, but if he were to say the same words to me today i’d trust him and leave. but you can’t hurry the future."
i loved this. you have such a way with words. thank you for sharing.