I Meet a Man, and Get Curious

On dough, denim, and mustering prudence.

photo by Bradley West / @caughtbywest

I moved into the house. Though my room is heavily carpeted and lined with immutable masonry, there is a feeling of wildness about the place, like I’ve entered a clearing in a forest. Perhaps it is the grandeur of the vaulted ceilings juxtaposed with the fact that I have no furniture and I am living very low to the ground, writing and sleeping on a 5-inch pad from my van amidst a highway of curious crickets and spiders.

Last night I turned my phone off. I have no interest in turning it back on. Living with others blesses me with the safety to isolate without self-isolating. It feels as though I’ve opened a door that I’ll leave open forevermore. The romance of living alone no longer has a hold on me.

It’s almost the middle of July and I have a crush. I have a crush, but it doesn’t make sense to call it that because “crush” feels like somewhere I’ve been before, and so far, how I am relating to this person doesn’t. T lives down the road, has long strands of salt and pepper hair that curl around his face, and he listens carefully. Tonight, he wore faded Wranglers, Teva’s, and the world’s cutest straw hat which was switched out for a bright pink beanie when the temperature dropped.

I’ve heard people say that it is the unchartered possibility and excitement of a new crush that keeps them entranced with cycling through fresh people. I don’t think it’s the novelty that I like; in fact, I sometimes wonder if it’s the contrary. While I don’t mean to diminish the singularity of everyone, at this point the experience of crushing on someone is familiar, even comforting, despite the changing faces.

On Sunday he came over to help Farmer with a project. I was lost in my own project, crouched on the floor in a ball beside my laptop with headphones in. Suddenly, I looked up and there he was, leaning with his head against the door of my bedroom. It startled me and I rushed to my feet, grateful I had unraveled the Gwen Stefani inspired baby-buns plopped and pinned around my scalp moments before.

“I brought flour to make the dough,” he said, an activity we had discussed casually the night before while watching a local band play an outdoor venue. At the time I had not taken him seriously, but there it was: a cardboard box on the table in the library with yeast and two kinds of flour in it.

“I’ll be back down the hill in a few hours,” he said. “Let’s mix it then.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon in a tizzy, mostly arrested by the idea of our looming collaboration and the possibility that he would surprise me in my room again without warning — while I was dancing or flossing or doing a booty workout.

When it was time to reconvene, I met him in the kitchen and told him I was happy to follow his lead. I did not tell him that I had spent the last two years involved with one of the country’s best pizzaiolos, or that I had my own recipe for dough, or that I was very particular about literally everything. I played dumb for the sake of curiosity, but also because telling the man in front of me that I knew a different man who was inconceivably better at something he was about to attempt would have been lame.

For a long time, it felt like pizza and its prosperity were at the forefront of my life because M was at the forefront of my life, and M is a man of pizza. Watching T open the packet of yeast while reading a recipe from the glow of my computer’s monitor, I assured myself into wiping the slate clean.

I meet a man and I get curious. I share myself — sometimes too much. I tell my friends about them, often too early. Generally, things quickly become physical (usually against my intuition) before our time together has allowed for us to know, and therefore care about, each other. This happens even when I think I’m moving slowly. Usually a relationship is a mutual goal, but lately all my crushes tend to collapse. I’m no longer interested in excavating anyone out of their emotional stuntedness.

Despite my fluency with crushes, I don’t like my version of them anymore. Is this stance a defense mechanism? Is it simply an aversion to the inevitable boredom that punctuates overindulgence in something (or someone)? Again, I’m not trying to underwrite people, but more-so the recurring circumstances with people. I suppose if I am the common denominator in a frequent situation, I might be saying that I’ve grown bored with myself, with these patterns, as though I’ve grown weary of dancing to this song.

~~~

I can’t help being hard on myself, it’s seductive — the way I muster prudence in my skepticism whenever my curiosity peaks over a man. This is probably another reason why I don’t particularly enjoy having crushes anymore. If I don’t believe in the odds but still participate in the game, I am likely sucking all the fun out of it. Nobody likes a jaded lover; I certainly don’t like being one.

With this thought I realize it feels good to be nearing the end of my notebook by filling two pages with a new connection, how they dress, and whether we are astrologically aligned (or not).

“Notice the revelations that strike when you let yourself be distracted.” -Chani Nicholas

After the dough finished, we went to a denim-themed birthday party down the road with the rest of my housemates. When it was over, he came home with us, piling into the back of Ryan’s truck under the sliver of a moon. The next morning as I stood waiting for the water to boil, two of my housemates happened to notice his truck was still in the driveway.

Did he sleep over? they whispered, wide-eyed and hungry for intel. I looked out the kitchen window, admiring the rainbows painted on his camper shell. “He did… in his truck.” We’ve hardly hugged, though he did comb my bangs with an old hair clip just before we said goodnight.