This happened before I was married and I didn't realize it was an affair until it was rather late to call it out. See, I was getting rid of old information the other day (cleaning up skeletons out of an electronic closet, if you will) and the bulk of the relationship was just there. All the emails, the pictures, the promises of meeting, of a future, and... Why not... Of love, too.
I was going into my last year at the University back in Santiago. It was the summer of punk rock blaring out of my speakers 24/7. "Aliens Exist" and "Going Away To College" by Blink 182 made their way through my room every hour. It was also the summer of getting out of a two year relationship (and completely ditching a fresh engagement) where the first year was complete bliss and the second was complete bullshit. My ex-fiance, Kenshin, (nope, not his real name) was a complicated man, and maybe I will write about him someday, but my humility about telling stories of Yani at her lowest hasn't really shown up in a good while, so today will not be that fine day.
Needless to say, I fell so out of love and it was such a sad, gut-wrenching break-up, that I was literally just looking to spend time with myself (as it should be when you get out of a relationship that kicked your ass so hard you'd question your self-esteem for at least the next six months after it). So finding Ethan (not his real name, either) was completely random, unnecessary and yet beautiful in a very unique way.
I'm going to blame my fascination with Ethan on three main facts:
1) He was in a band. Long hair, raised cheekbones, Midwestern hospitality voice.
2) He hit me up. I didn't reach for him. He slid into those DMs before it was mainstream. And boy, could he keep me on my feet. The banter was exquisite. The flow of mutual interest, flawless.
3) I had never dated a white guy, and having just visited Puerto Plata and spent some time on the sand being glorified by the gringos onsite looking for a summer something with my cousins (and the aforementioned Blink 182 obsession), they quickly became my new "type". Although, in the grand scheme of life, I have still never dated a white guy. That's just the way it turned out.
And so the other night I decided to go through all the back and forth with Ethan and just get rid of it. There was no point in keeping it. He had moved on. I had most definitely moved on. As a matter of fact I kept all of it because I held on to hope for so long that I just cluttered the whole thing into a "Hotmail" email folder. That's how old this whole thing was. Hotmail. It was obsolete in more than one way and it was time to just kill it.
Of course, you'd think I would have just checked all the emails and hit that delete button. Like a gambler at the slots, right? Nope. I read all of them, like the utter masoquist I can be.
Looking though our relationship, our full blown gf/bf status while having never met physically, and being an ocean away at the time, several realizations came back that I had forgotten about through what I'm assuming was the kindness of my own brain repelling anything that would make me unhappy. A memory trick which I finally, as the boring adult I am now, truly came to appreciate. These realizations were:
a) Ethan would disappear without a trace for weeks at a time. We would have an amazing conversation one night. Stay up until 3am. And then I wouldn't hear from the guy for the following two weeks at a minimum. I gave him the nickname "Whodini" as a play on words between the magician and the fact that I didn't really know who Ethan was after all. And each time he'd reappear, I would be upset. But he would quickly win me over with his inadequate charm.
b) He shared all his plans with me and included me in them. To the point where he was certain he'd go to Santiago to see me within the year. I secretly planned on packing up and moving to the Midwest with him and making this something everlasting, but since I wasn't trying to be "uncool", I never said anything to him about it.
c) Everyone in his posse knew me, but I knew no one. Yeah, I knew their first names and what instrument they played in the band. But if something were to happen to Ethan, I would maaaybe find out if I looked at the obituaries (which, given Ethan's talent to disappear, I did look at them several times during that whole thing).
d) Ethan would always call from a restricted line. Which meant I never had his phone number, except for one time, when he apparently forgot to *67 prior to the call (or was it *69?). One day he disappeared for so long that I called that number back and, because of that wonderful memory trick I covered a little while ago, I completely forgot what happened. But I'll touch into that in a minute.
I must mention that I talked to Ethan probably a month ago. Mainly because it was his birthday and he claims he always remembers me on his birthday because I was the only person to ever mail him a birthday present. While I'm at it, after all these years, I'm finally going to call bullshit on that, too.
So picture me reminiscing and at one point even getting nostalgic, pseudo-sad and even wide eyed at how bold I was back then. More with words than with pictures. I really wanted to be with this dude. He really grew on me, and I was finally feeling like someone wanted me for all the right reasons.
... And then one email made me come to the conclusion of that mighty first sentence of this post. It was an email I completely forgot about. Short, to the point and completely merciless...
"Don't call my number again. Don't pick up any calls from it either. If you accidentally pick up, don't hang up after. Just say that you have a ton of customers in Illinois and you called that number by mistake."
Then the memory of what happened when I called that number came back like a shot through my right eye. I now remember that no one picked up. But it did go to voicemail. And now I remember quite vividly that the outgoing message said, in a beautiful, FEMALE voice, "This is Ethan and Melanie. We can't come to the phone right now, but leave a message after the beep. Bye!"
I realized that at my 21 years of age, I was still such a naïve fuck! My goodness. It was bad. It was so bad, that I actually almost got into a lot of trouble over this. I almost planned my return to the States to try to live with a guy that was married, or at the very least, living with someone named Melanie. And based on those emails and how ballsy I was being with the attempts to get his full attention, once again with my words, none of that nudes nonsense, I was going to do something insane.
I know I'm letting Ethan get off easy by not calling him out on this. But that's what should happen when things lose value over time and it's not really worth getting aggravated over. I'd be no better than the Twitter community these days belching over TV shows that were not progressive enough 20 years ago.
Rest assured though... Ethan paid. I came back to the States and we talked and I put the whole thing to bed. Mainly because I was in love and in a relationship with someone else, who actually never disappeared. But also because Ethan never really asked me otherwise. Never once asked me to come see him, or to prove myself to him in any way. There was such a specific, limited interest, such as that characteristic of an affair: you're mine, but only as much as I can receive you. I can't really bitch or moan if you move on.
But man, did he bitch and moan. He was actually mad that I was no longer interested in waiting for someone that was clearly never going to be completely and only mine. It was actually funny to me because I had to pretend like I was pissed off while I just described a long distance relationship where no one was really making an attempt to see the other person, but somehow I owed him because he had given me some attention. Yes. I will agree with you. I let him off easy. But remember that this was Whodini we were talking about. I wasn't trying to have someone kill me over not hitting it off. People have gotten murdered for less of a reason.
So that's my emotional affair story. I was young and naïve, and downright bold. And it's one more skeleton I'll have to put up with as long as my memory allows it.
... But coming to think of it, it's one of the safest because, let's face it. We were never close. Not physically and not mutually. I was but one exotic islander he talked to at some point. And he will never know this bold islander once thought of him as more than a skeleton gathering dust in an electronic closet.
Yani DLC
12/05/2020.-
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