Conversation:
Her: “I’m really glad we got to spend this evening together.”
Me: “Yes…”
Her: “Do you like this dress?”
Me: “Yes…”
Her: “Are we going out? We’re going out right?”
Me: “Well, I’m off in a minute.”
Her: “You’re off in a minute?”
Me: “Yes, I’m going downtown to a gay bar.”
Her: “Really? I mean… really?”
Me: “Yes. A gay bar.”
Her: “Why?”
Me: “I’m hoping to get laid tonight. They’re meant to have a good selection of hot stuff there.”
Her: “Oh yeah?”

I could tell she was getting uneasy, didn’t want to ask why the hell I would go off to a gay club to get laid when I had her, but I hoped this would spark an entirely different conversation. The one where I would actually tell her that I couldn’t be with her because I slept with men. She looked at me for a long time, opened her mouth to ask, but changed her mind. She said nothing in the end, we parted outside my apartment building and I thought that was it. Hurrah.

I went to said gay club and actually found a nice piece of hunky meat. We went home in a cab, we were already well into it by the time we got to my flat and exited the car. The guy whose name escapes me pointed out that there was a woman standing behind us. I already knew it was Mary. Why oh why did she have to stand outside my flat at three in the morning when I brought a date home?

Conversation:
Her: “Listen, Mark, I’ve been thinking and it’s ok! You can have sex with men if you like, it’s fine by me!”
Him: “Is this some weird fetish thing?”
Me (to him): “No it’s not.” (to her) “What are you doing here?”
Her: “I had to tell you that you can do this if you want, I’m not threatened by it, it’s fine, it really is, I just want to be with you, Mark!” (her voice going high-pitch at this point)
Him: “She’s your girlfriend or something?” (not impressed)
Her: “Yes, yes, but it’s ok by me that he wants to go with men for some fun and all that.”
Him: “Right… I don’t know, man…”
Me (to him): “Don’t go anywhere.” (I threw him the keys) “Go upstairs to the third floor. I’ll be right there.”
Him: “I won’t be part of a circus show, so she can’t watch!”

Both she and I looked at him in disgust. I didn’t want her to watch and she sure looked like she wasn’t interested in watching either. Good. I felt I was winning, that I was getting through to her.

Me: “You do realise I can never be what you want me to be to you, right?”
Her: “That’s fine, Mark, but I want to be with you still.”
Me: “We can be friends, I love you as a friend, but this isn’t a relationship.”
Her: (crying)
Me: (feeling bad, as you do when you make someone cry)
Her: “I love you, I just want to be a part of your life.”
Me: “You can be, just not like this.”
Her: “You can do everything you want, and I’ll be your companion. Like, like, like, Freddie Mercury and that woman. Mary! See, it’s even ironic that we share the same name! What have you got to loose?”

I thought about what I had to loose. We did get along well, I didn’t want her out of my life as such, I just wanted her out of my lovelife. I thought, in a weak moment, that if she was serious and just wanted companionship, I could give her that. I thought I had proved my point that I didn’t want to be with her sexually or romantically by bringing other men into my life, so I ended up saying something like fine and went upstairs to have sex. With what’s-his-face.

Turns out, as you might have guessed, it didn’t quite work out the way I had thought, wished and planned.

Imagine this for a moment:
You’re a guy, a friend’s getting married, you decide to bring a friend of the opposite sex, romance is in the air and you inject/inhale a few dozen glasses of Champagne (and various other alcoholic beverages of various unknown brands). At two o’clock in the morning, what do you reckon will seem like a really good idea? That’s right, to have sex with said female friend you decided to bring with you to said ceremony. Fast forward to the morning after; You wake up, your head is pulsating, your breath smells like death, your stomach feels like you’ve been on a boat for a week during the storm of the century, you turn around and you realise that what had seemed like such a grand idea only hours earlier suddenly hits you as a really bad idea.

Only, you don’t really realise exactly how bad an idea this is until some time later.

Conversation:
Her: “Good morning!” (cooing)
Me: “Morning…” (insert slight panic)
Her: “What do you want to do today?”
Me: “I don’t know. Go home, I guess.”
Her: “We have hours before we need to leave. Now that we’re together, I want to celebrate.”
Me: “Hm.” (choosing to ignore what I just heard her say)
Her: “Breakfast then shopping?”
Me: “Great.” (thinking I could have the ‘listen…’ conversation during breakfast)
Her: “First I’d like a repeat of last night.” (at this point, purring in my ear)
Me: “We need to be out of the hotel in fifteen minutes.” (thanking God)
Her: “That’s too bad, but at least we have the rest of our lives to make up for that.”
Me: (a deafening silence, wondering whether we had actually got married the night before and I just didn’t remember)

It was indeed a bad idea to let King Alcohol do the thinking. A really, really bad idea. An mistake I’ve spent the last five years trying to undo the damage of. Without luck.

Until now – I hope.