Hurt People Hurt People

life

Feb 8

Yes, I know this title is very Tumblr-esque. But I have recently had the misfortune of experiencing this first hand. And let me tell you: it fucking sucks. I struggle to write these words, but I am in desperate need to put pen to paper and purge out these feelings now or I won’t know what to do with them. I hope that for anyone reading this you will take away something much in the same way I learned about the cycle of pain and how insidious it can be.

To those of you who know me well and are very much in to my inner circle, you will know that I have been seeing an escort named Dan for the last four years. He and I have a very unorthodox relationship in the sense that we grew from being client-escort to close friends. The lines of our relationship can be quite confusing. The boundaries between having sex for business and having sex for pleasure are blurred more and more but for some reason this works for us. This has been our arrangement for the last four years, and it has been great.

In the time of a pandemic where we are told to keep our distance, Dan and I grew closer. We became more intimate with each other and telling each other the deepest secrets of our lives that we don’t normally tell our loved ones. I remember one time where we were in bed together after a session, and we exchanged stories about our coming out and our struggle with gayness and how both of us were sexually assaulted. There’s a scent in the air when you’re both covered in cum and saliva after several hours of fucking each others’ brains out and it’s immediately followed by tears of trading traumatic experiences. This routine would continue almost every time we had sex. Fuck, talk, cry, eat, repeat. It may not seem like much, but when the world and its leaders tell you not to get close to another person, moments like that are so much more valuable.

For many of us the pandemic has taken away a lot. Whether it be our loved ones, experiences, jobs, or mental fortitude we have all experienced a loss of some kind. In my case, it’s my ability to maintain composure. I am currently fighting depression and anxiety at levels I have never faced. When I thought therapy was enough to get me through the day, being away from my friends and working from home where the borders between work and personal lives have greyed have plunged me in to a state of severe mental illness where I am now on medication to complement therapy, something I have never done before. I will admit that this is scary, and I am trying my best to get through the days when they’re at their darkest. More on this as time passes. In the case of Dan, he lost his father.

During one of our sessions he seemed more despondent and gloomy, more than the usual recounts of trauma processing. As a tear slowly rolled down his face, I wiped it away and asked him to tell me what’s wrong. And with belabored breath he told me that his father died and that he has been diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t know what to say. I have rarely ever had moments of when I’m left genuinely speechless, but this was one of them. We just sat in silence. Neither of us knew what to say after that. I didn’t know whether to kiss him on the cheek or hug him or say I’m sorry because what would I be sorry for? What do you say to someone who has lost a loved one and lost a will to live? I simply told him that I’m gonna be there for him no matter what and told him to let me know if there’s anything I can do for him. We spent the rest of that evening naked in bed, in silence, staring at the ceiling holding each other’s hand trying to find some sense of comfort.

Pain has a really odd way of making its way from our body and in to our relationships. I went to his father’s funeral to surprise him. He was pleased to see me, but seemed like he was in a rush to just get it over with. It hurt being dismissed like that, but I tried my best to empathize with a man in agony from losing his father. Months would pass after the funeral, and our sessions would become less and less frequent to basically few and far between. It wasn’t long until he started ghosting me. My messages would be unanswered no matter what platform I tried to reach him from. Facebook, Instagram, Rent Men, WhatsApp. I tried it all and nothing would get a reply. This was starting to worry me as months prior to his announcement, we made a plan to go away to the cottage on the weekend of my birthday. I had rented out the cottage for a few days, rented a nice car so we can drive there in luxury, arranged for a fireplace to be lit at our arrival, and I came up with this fantasy where we would just be two lovers leaving the world and disconnecting for just a few days. So when I didn’t get any sort of reply or confirmation from him in the days leading up to our departure, it hurt me to cancel all my reservations and not get any reply back.

I was angry, I was upset, and I wanted to burst out in to tears because I started to wonder if I had done anything wrong to be ghosted like this. I decided to visit his house uninvited and hope for the best because I wanted answers. What did I do to deserve this treatment? Was there anything wrong that he wasn’t telling me? After four years of friendship, you couldn’t even greet me happy birthday? I needed some form of closure or security. I made my way to his house with his favorite sandwich in hand as some sort of peace offering. Fortunately he was home, but he did not look well. The light in his soul was no longer there. He had that kind of look where all hope is lost. There are bags under his eyes, his hands rough to the touch, and a limp that’s hard to ignore. This was not the Dan I connected with. I hugged him and he hugged me back with almost no effort. I can’t find any other words to describe his appearance other than really fucking miserable.

I asked him to tell me what was going on. I asked him to explain to me why he didn’t respond to any of my texts. He couldn’t even look at me. I was trying to tilt his chin to make him look at me in the eyes and see the pain I was in. He kept turning away. He had his arms crossed the entire conversation as if to say he did not want to be touched and wanted to tell everyone to get away from him. After a few moments of silence and quiet sobbing on both our parts, he told me how sorry he was for not getting back to me. He told me how miserable he was and how angry he was at the world, at God, at himself. He distanced himself from me because he knew my ongoing battle with depression and anxiety and he told me how his presence would not make my battle any easier. I told him that the lack of his presence was just as difficult because he was one of the few people I let in my inner circle. I told him how much pain I was in when he ghosted me and how it felt like physical pain, like a punch in the gut. I said that I felt like I lost my friend, and he said, “Yeah, look at me. You basically have.” He told me how much he was in literal physical pain and how I’ll never understand what he’s going through. His doctors told him that there was no way to cure the cancer due to its inoperable nature, and the best that they can do is to make him comfortable. When he did receive the news it seemed like nothing mattered, not even me.

When someone tells you that you don’t matter, it’s a different level of pain. It’s pain that’s made worse when you’re already clinically depressed and those words come from someone you love. I know he didn’t mean it in the way he meant it because we love each other. He meant it in a way that nothing else in the world mattered more than his health. But the fact remains that he said those words and it hurt me. He told me how much he needed to focus on himself, and I told him that I understood. I’m giving him space, but I want him to know he can come to me whenever he wants and when he’s ready.

He’s hurting and in that pain he hurt me as well. How do I begin to grieve the loss of a person who’s still here? How do I just take a person’s pain away from them so that they’re no longer hurting? How do two people who are drowning save each other? When people are in pain, they can say and do hurtful things to the ones closest to them. Dan is in pain and he pushed me away. He need his space, and I’m willing to give that to him. I just wish that he didn’t do it in a way that hurt me too. If there’s any way of saving our friendship, then this is what I’m going to have to do no matter how much it hurts me. I know this isn’t goodbye, but more of a “see you later.” I just don’t know how late. Hopefully it won’t be too late.

Dan, if you ever read this, I love you. Even if you hurt me, remember that I will always love you.