How I Spent His Time

This title just came to me last night. I realized that when we lived together, I spent his time. It wasn't a traditional romantic relationship were two people comprised likes, dislikes, feelings, humors, etc. He was quiet and discontent with life. I was energetic and eager to please him. At the end I realized I was just occupying space in his life for a short time. It would never work between. I picked him, but he did not pick me.

During our time together my main focus everyday was how I could please him. Whatever he took pleasure in became my new passion. Camping, football, animated off-color cartoons on Comedy Central, mountain pies and indie-music. It wasn't so much that he adored these things, they were just items that passed through his life that he participated in, but the fact that he participated in them when he was such a non-participatory person, made me develop an allegiance to them. I felt that if I made them important to me he would translate my devotion to him. This is never happened. I eventually told him how I felt: blessed that he had provided me with so much pure, yet mixed-up pleasure and distraught that he never gave me the affection or consideration I deserved.

I changed. Oddly, while trying to compliment him and make him love me, I learned difficult and ugly lessons about myself. Pitiful and heartbreaking to friends and family members that saw the change and didn't accept it, but nothing felt more right than making him sandwiches at 6:30am and watching football all day while he explained the responsibilities of a QB. The smell of Suave Cucumber and Melon bodywash can still wrench my heart.

In the end he became more moody and silent. I would ask questions in a format that was reaching, and strained for some form of acceptance. And I would receive answers accusatory in manner, as if the question were not only rude, but stupid as well. The sting of one conversation would make my stomach clench. I would wait for some kind of acknowledgement and wonder whether he was playing a game with me, or whether if was possible everything was okay. As it turned out it was neither.

And that was how I spent his time.