Chapter 20 in R.M. Dolin’s novel “The Dangling Conversation“, June 7, 2023.
ISABELLE: “It’s over, simple, complete, and what really sucks, is with no explanation. We haven’t spoken in forever and Henry doesn’t appear to care if we do or don’t. Now before you get philosophical on me, I know stuff like this has its ins and outs but trust me, I’ve come at it from every possible angle, and they all converge to the same sad end. I can get emotional and cry rivers of tears over the tragedy of it all just as easily as I coldly acknowledge all loves, even great ones destined to be profound, have their natural end. I need to be realistic about who I am; a bound-up mess of emotions bouncing around like a pinball on the edge of tilt with smatterings of everything that can be said in such situations.
“At the end of the day, the thing pinning my ponytail is I don’t know where we go from here. He doesn’t call, doesn’t text, doesn’t like my posts, it’s like he’s ceased to exist. I know he’s in some far away world, just no longer in mine. It’s not like he’s gone off-grid; he’s updating locations, commenting on mimes, bragging about his new position, and doing stuff with friends. You’re gonna say something about how couples always have their silos of silence, but Henry and I always leave breadcrumbs. That’s the difference this time, I don’t know how or why, and there’s no hope of explaining it, but it really is, really over. I get you got troubles, but I got troubles too, guess that’s our shared simpatico.
“Everything’s fine until I got back from Margo’s funeral; I sense right away something’s off. Of course, Henry denies it, says everything’s fine, but if things are so damn good how does he up and leave? That’s what paints my post; either we’re lying to each other or lying to ourselves, and in relationships, people tend to believe both on the hope they outlive their truths. That puts me in a rather precarious pickle, do I continue perpetrating my well-worn lie, or face the ugly truth straight up? Either way, I’m pretty sure it’s the same damn purgatory so does it even matter; unless it does, which is why I’m caught in this quandary.”
KYLE: “Mom’s smiling down at us saying, as she always does, “trouble travels in pairs.” Here I am, on the precipice of the same predicament. Maybe there’s something about this park bench; more likely it’s that we’ve fallen in love with people on separate pages. You and I can’t be more different, yet we’re caught in the same downward spiral. One thing’s clear, there’s no roadmaps navigating the space between thinking it might be over and knowing for sure.
“You probably assume I know about such things or am at least hardened enough to not have it matter. Truth is, I’m just as lost as you, but as much as I hate having emotions rubbed raw, I’d still rather have these feelings of manic loss than go through life feeling nothing; so, we at least have that.”
ISABELLE: “I oughta confront him, ask him straight-up if it’s over but the question’s fraught with danger. It’s unhealthy to be with someone and afraid to speak your truth; I can’t decide if it’s because I fear knowing, or because I love him so much, I can’t fathom what it’ll do to my heart to hear him say, “I don’t love you anymore.” Stuff like that can’t be unsaid ya know.
“My mom’s afraid to talk to dad and I’ve never understood why. Sure, he’s a bit controlling but she knows that going in. I think she even likes having someone make decisions, even those she doesn’t like. Dad isn’t mean or even really domineering, he’s always asking mom for input; always trying to make her happy. Her continual acquiescence though, makes it impossible for them to reach nirvana, which frustrates them both, only at different ends of the spectrum. Over time, like any couple I suppose that became their deal; the older I get, the better I see both sides of their dance and the recursive loop of despair and frustration it causes.
“I vowed to never be them, even managed to convince myself the reason my marriage ended has nothing to do with their conditioning. If you ask me for an honest assessment, I’ll say the demise of my marriage wasn’t my fault, but if you hit me up on a rainy night after too many bourbons, I’ll quietly concede my fingerprints contaminated the evidence. I think about the cause and effect of divorce when I come here on lonely rainy nights. You’re a no-show, but I always hope you’ll come just to keep me from facing that kind of crap on my own. Cause is directly related to effect, but most times, it’s way more subtle. Is the fact you slip on ice because someone failed to salt the sidewalk, or because the warmth of the sun you cherished earlier in the day, melted snow that drains across the concrete and turns to ice after things go cold?”
KYLE: “Nadia’s been a part of my life for more than twenty years, even when she wasn’t. Through all my mistakes and missteps, I’ve always been falling toward her, only each time we grow close, fate intervenes, never enough to completely close the door, just enough to keep us apart. The thing terrifying me like nothing before is we’re running out of time. You’re in your thirties and can recover from miscues, there’s room for you to wander in and out of someone’s life. You’ll reach a point though, when you realize this is the last dance, the final time you’ll start over, the last time you say goodbye and walk away. After that, the sun sets on the road meant to bring you together with your one true love. It’s utterly the saddest thing anyone can endure.”
ISABELLE: “Just because it was me who ended things doesn’t mean it’s my fault, or that failed relationships are my deal. But what if they are, that’s what scares me; what if I’m the one sabotaging things with Henry while blaming him because I can’t see I’m the cause of our effect? I don’t want things to end, I can’t become a repeat offender, unless I already am. Even if I wait for his clarity, how do I know it’s him? Mom never changed her dynamic, she talks incessantly about wanting to, but in the end, she’s as predictable as a record stuck in a groove and you know what they say, “An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
KYLE: “Nadia and I bounce emails and text messages; at first multiple times a day, but then she starts tapering off until we reach a point where it’ll be weeks between messages. Her in France and me here only exacerbates my sense of disconnectedness. I’m not needy but need some sort of connection through our distance. I’m at the point where I send messages then wait like an over-zealous puppy for any sign of affection camouflaged in a cold response.
“I’m slowly being conditioned to her silence; every day the withdraw worries me less and I fear I’m approaching the point of not caring. She says her silence is because she has nothing to say, but that’s a poor excuse, if you can even call it that; it’s also pretty damn cold, especially for two people who don’t have to reach too far back to find a time their love was profound. With frustration mounting, my need to do something escalates to the point I send an email declaring my need for more; I bare my soul hoping it’ll foster a like response. If nothing else, at least compel her to tell me where I stand.
“After waiting for what seems like eternity, she finally replies with a letter, well, more a meager message that quite frankly shocks me; not with what she says but in everything she’s omitted. Does that make sense? I bare my soul and she offers nothing toward knowing whether we stay together or grow apart. I’m just blank about how to respond to her non-response; or if I even should.
“We’re a curious pair, lost romantics placing faith in something that may not exist; consumed by not knowing. Perhaps Henry and Nadia are saying the same thing through their silence and we’re just not hearing it.”
ISABELLE: “Henry loves me, even if I don’t get how. My Ex and I bounced in and out of love for years, well not really, we were always in love; at least until we weren’t. We bounced in and out of romance, played with passion like a dog tarries a bone. We could be so right for each other one minute, and so wrong the next. Is that love’s dynamic; in and out like a sewing machine needle stitching together the fabric of a life?
“Sometimes, while sitting here alone, I watch couples walk by and wonder how they define love. Sure, they stayed together but did they stay in love, or did they simply reduce expectations to just staying regardless of how empty things became. What’s worse, living absent of passion and romance, or ending things in the hopes of finding that special spark with someone else? We only get one chance to live our most precious life, so I say forget vows, nowhere do they mention the role of happiness or passion, or the responsibilities to each other for both. When things ended with my Ex, we weren’t even good roommates; I do wonder though, if we’d found our roommate groove, would we still be together, and would that be a blessing or curse?”
KYLE: “It comes down to being satisfied, an overlooked but essential aspect of happiness. My case is convoluted, Nadia can be incredibly passionate and just as easily, tender; that is until she reaches saturation and then in the snap of a finger, she’s done. If we’re in bed when saturations reached, she’ll roll over with no need to cuddle or even say goodnight, if we’re in the middle of a walk she’ll stop talking; it’s like being halfway through an ice-cream cone and tossing the rest. Who does that?
“She loves me, but it’s a bizarre love. For me there’s never a point of saturation, we’ve never been together with me not wanting more; more talking, more tenderness, more connection. And not only more, more deeply, and this difference leaves me constantly feeling rejected, which cascades into all kinds of unfortunate reactions; foremost is a consuming need for reassurance, which makes me needy. I don’t like being needy, it’s embarrassing. My recursion may be different than your mom’s, but at the same time, it’s the same,”
ISABELLE: “I wander in and out of romance after my Ex, but not like they show in movies, its lonely out there. A girl gets past college and her friends are settling down; starting families. I never made it that far. Where does one go to meet people, it got to where I sort of just quit looking, quit trying. Henry and I weren’t supposed to meet, but we did. Mom says fate has things mostly figured out and we’re just filling in details as long as we color within the lines. Henry wasn’t looking for anything with anyone either. I remember the first time he leaned in to kiss me, it was after our third date. I expected him to try on the first, thought for sure he’d go for it on the second, by the third go-around, I didn’t even see it coming. It’s very romantic in an old-fashioned sort of way. Henry’s that way and its sweet, even charming, most men are way more direct about expectations.”
KYLE: “I’m not pathetic; at least I hope not. But it begs the question, who’s healthier in our relationship? In my defense, what I feel for Nadia I’ve never felt before; that’s gotta count for something. I loved Maggie until I didn’t and Olivia until I couldn’t, but the love I feel for Nadia’s in a completely different realm. I’ve always been a rugged individual; got no qualms about being alone and don’t define myself in terms of someone else. I don’t have rejection issues, but a guy doesn’t get to be me without enduring his share of disappointments.
“What’s weird is I’m far more likely to be Nadia than me, which throws me into a tailspin because if my usual role in a relationship is now reversed, does that mean in my ripe old age I’m finally learning how to love, to be vulnerable and exposed? It matters because if I’m being pathetic, I need to be more like Nadia, who’s being more like me; but if I’m evolving, I must face the ugly truth that Nadia may not love me, at least not as much as I love her. What’s it your generation says, “she’s maybe just not all that into me?”
ISABELLE: “What if Henry’s not into me? When I think back to the things he’s said I believe I’m just not reading him right. We do together amazingly, it’s being apart we don’t navigate so well. It’s the conflict of our time, couples need to be together but society’s evolved into a dangerous isolation; we’re more comfortable building pretend lives on social media geared to make everyone envy us and along the way we’ve somehow managed to eradicate humanity from our souls, our hearts, and our loves.
“I dread performance reviews because the first question is always, “what have you done for me lately?” That’s the essence of love in the post-human era, we’ve all become mimes pretending we don’t need the rise and fall of emotions, the passions and drama, the tenderness of touch, or the comfort of embrace; and somehow in this madness, we’ve decided its optimal; my question is, what in God’s name are we optimizing?”
KYLE: “Of course I’ll respond to Nadia’s anemic response even if I am being pathetic; I’m just not sure what my tone should be; do I subdue emotions, lower my level of love to match hers hoping it places us on a more tranquil equilibrium? Or should I boldly press this opportunity in the hopes of raising her level of love to something more profound, something I truly believe it once was, and can be again. Those are my only options; her heart wants what it wants whether it wants me or not, no amount of persuasion can alter that. I’m left with one out, lowering my level of love to match hers; problem is I don’t know how. The thing I’ve come to recognize, having been on both sides, is love isn’t linear, it ebbs and flows in chaos, and just because I’m the one with all the angst right now, that’s not to say that either previously, or at some point in the future, it won’t be Nadia struggling to place me in her life.”
ISABELLE: “I don’t know how to love, that’s the page I’m stuck on; and history proves my point. Either I dive in too deep or pull back in preemptive fear. One minute Henry’s the one, and the next I never want to see him again. Half my time is spent worrying while the other half’s moved on. Love’s like this giant revolving door and the only way to maintain any sense of sanity is to never enter. That’s what Henry’s doing, stepping aside to avoid dangerous drafts.
“The thing about relationships is someone always wants more, while the other’s comfortable in their steady state. It’s mostly men who reach steady state first; why I don’t know, maybe they love less, maybe they get to the place I’m traveling faster, maybe I don’t know what it means to be satiated. It doesn’t much matter, only why should I always be the one feeling like shit? Is the heart prone to sadness, or is it just me? Henry says everything’s okay because for him it is; when I tell him I need more, I honestly believe he doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”
KYLE: “I’ve started my response but it’s hard; how do you explain to someone who may no longer love you how much you need their love. It should be easy, if you can’t be open with each other, it already tells you something. It needs to be a letter; you wouldn’t understand, not in your era of instant messaging, but there’s a profoundness in a well written letter, an intensity that can’t be equaled in phone calls or even face-to-face. The danger lies in its definitiveness and the likelihood of things imploding in unintended ways; when you dance along the razor edge of vulnerability, you can’t walk words back. Each time I start to write, I get this overwhelming feeling I’m someone who can’t swim about to jump off a cliff into the ocean.”
ISABELLE: “Henry and I communicate in short bursts, which is probably why I’m in this predicament. Messaging offers hidden mimes, maybe something intentionally masquerading as shallow when just below the unsaid surface is a profoundness we don’t dare share. I wouldn’t even know how to write a letter conveying in any way what I feel or want to say; that could in any way illicit the response I need. I admire how easily you peel back nonsense and get right to the heart of an issue. I envy the way you filter the world and make sense of things that for me are so hard to comprehend. Maybe you should write my Henry letter?”
KYLE: “I seldom showed emotion as a young man, by middle age I was too caught up in being the man everyone expected, as we grow old though, we jettison filters. Things got rather confusing for a while as society canceled strong men and the metro-sexual came into vogue. I couldn’t be that, but at the same time wasn’t allowed to be me. By the time all that horseshit got sorted out I realized I no longer gave a rat’s ass what society thought; only my me had moved away from who I was. I’m still a stoic cowboy, but willing to express emotions more and be vulnerable with the right person. I’m more vulnerable with Nadia than I’ve ever been; and I only say vulnerable because I can’t bring myself to use words like fearful or anxious.”
ISABELLE: “Anxiety and fear, that’s me in the morning preparing to masquerade my day. Good days let me say to hell with it all, bad days leave me wondering how the hell I wound up becoming mom when I had a front row seat for who not to be in a relationship. Sometimes I practice all the things I want to say in front of the mirror; only I seldom find ways to actually say them. It’s good therapy, verbalizing emotions is a first step toward conquering them; I just need to find the courage to carry them onto the battlefield.”
KYLE: “I sometimes watch the sun set on an otherwise spectacular day processing her last letter, trying to sort my way through its fog of confusion, including the utter devastation and debilitating disappointment. I’m uncertain of her intent, but the best way to describe my reaction is to channel the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who famously said, “Tonight I write the saddest words, I loved her and sometimes she loved me.”
“What caused her heart to shift away from us; has she always held reserved trepidation that only now found its voice through the absence of words? Perhaps I’m dramatic, but my heart shifted along with hers; only instead of moving away, it cascaded deeper into love. While she questions if or even how we might evolve our relationship, I think only in forever terms, which I guess makes me the greater fool.”
ISABELLE: “Henry says I’m foolish; says I act like a schoolgirl. While his condescending crap is offensive, his being correct really pisses me off. Is it wrong to want more, will he grow deeper in love over time or is this his completed self and is all that can be expected? What if I drive him away and then the future him becomes who I need him to be; then his future me gets all the benefits of my suffering and I’m left out in the cold. I’m not here to be his guide, but isn’t that what people do in relationships, help each other be better?”
KYLE: “What’s scary and striking in Nadia’s letter is its sterile indifference, a resonate, “C’est la vie,” of stoic apathy toward whether we move forward or never see each other again. And the thing is, at the risk of being the greater fool, it throws me into an unsettledness I’m ill-equipped to navigate. I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong or offensive because she never says anything. What scares me is wondering if the me she’s come to know since we reconnected is divergently different than the me she remembers from all those years we were apart; if true, it’s fair, but far from final. If there’s something lacking in her expectations, something that can be fixed, we should work on it; it’s too easy to just toss in the towel and move on, love requires rolling up the sleeves and doing the necessary work, whatever the hell that might be. What can’t continue is silence building each day into an impenetrable wall of separation.”
ISABELLE: “I told Henry his ghosting wasn’t healthy for either of us, but he says nothing in response. What’s worse, Nadia’s indifference or no response? I’ll give you that you’ve got way more invested in her than I do in Henry, but does that even matter? Is that what love reduces to, an investment? I took some of the money from my divorce and bought a nice car thinking it would help me recover and move on. I liked the car, but never loved it; not like I loved the first piece of crap car dad gave me on my sixteenth birthday. It was ugly, unreliable, and drank gas like a sailor but I loved it with all my heart, so no, love’s not about investment, and one shouldn’t hold on after all the reasons to stay have washed away. Sometimes when watching couples go by, I wonder how many are still in love and how many are just running out the clock on a passionless marriage because of their investment; makes me wonder who’s really the greater fool. Since investment doesn’t matter, it puts you and me on equal footing; won’t change our predicaments or advance our understanding, but it helps were both in the same sized raft floating the same torrid waters.”
KYLE: “Beyond Nadia’s words, both spoken and unspoken, lies a far greater sadness, one from which suffering becomes absolute; she doesn’t yearn for me, at least not in the all-consuming way I do and that’s the harshest hurt. I yearn to be near her, to feel the warmth of her breath, the softness of her smile; I think about her all day only to invite her into my dreams at night. I plan around a future where she’ll be here, or I’ll be there, but either way, we’ll be together; only it doesn’t seem that way for her.
“She dodges my phone calls because in reality, she doesn’t want to talk to me. She’ll ghost me for days, even weeks, then offer nothing but superficial idioms. She refuses to invite me back to France even though when I left, we agreed she would, and I have numerously stated my eagerness to return. I don’t know if it’s a French thing or a her-thing, but two people in love should yearn for each other; willingly express themselves with both tenderness and passion. Two people building a future, regardless of how long they’ve known each other, should yearn for connections on any and all possible levels; a short message to say you’re thinking of them, a funny mime that made you laugh, a struggle you want to discuss, or a tenderness you wish you could say in person but begrudgingly settle to express on the phone, or in a small text or email. Two people in love should yearn for ways to connect; I’m consumed by a need to constantly connect, but Nadia lacks reciprocation. Is what we had, what I dreamed we’d have, lost forever, or is there hope it can come back?”
ISABELLE: “My Ex and I had our moments, but we also had days when nothing meshed. After a while, the time spent out of gear dwarfed whatever moments we could muster and one day we just knew. I can’t recall who spoke first because it doesn’t really matter, not when divorce is on the tips of both tongues. By the time things finalized, there was plenty of anger, the lawyers made sure of that; but it wasn’t that way at first. When we agreed to end things, it wasn’t because of his latest betrayal or irreconcilable differences, we’d just become too exhausted to continue, two fatigued hearts who could no longer gain strength from the other. When love dies, there’s only room for sadness.”
KYLE: “She’s afraid of me, an indelible scar left from her Ex; a fear of intimacy that’s grounded in her reality of repercussions. She’s afraid to be open, to be honest, to express her wants, desires, and frustrations. She’s reluctant to expose her doubts, hopes, and apprehensions because I might later use those vulnerabilities against her. She’s afraid of love, afraid of being loved; of being in love. I chase myself in circles trying to ascertain if I’m anywhere close with any of this or am I foolishly floundering in the wrong ocean? I even find myself questioning whether the stress of my troubles is causing me to seek shelter for my tormented soul in her; my last remaining refuge?”
ISABELLE: “I carry scars. My Ex never physically hurt me, but love is war, there are battles, victories, and defeats, and through all that, wounds that never fully heal. I’m not the person I was, and I’ll never be her again, which in a lot of ways is good, and in others maybe not. With the distance of time, I allow myself to think of him, mostly about what was good. That’s how we deal with emotional scars; we focus on the good while the brain blocks the painful parts. I did love him, and he loved me; until we didn’t. We could spend a month on the “this” and “that’s” of that, but it wouldn’t change our outcome.”
KYLE: “I read a paper on dating French women; it’s pathetic, but when you’re grasping at straws, any straw will do. According to the article, French women never say, “I love you,” which based on my experience, is absolutely true. She never has, at least not to me. Two people in love should say that, not in the superficial way you see couples do when they say hello or goodbye, but in meaningful ways that seek connection. Couples are never at the same level of affection, passion, or emotion; I get that, relationships build on a mutual give and take.
“Perhaps I’m the one out of step, the one traveling too free and fast down the relationship highway ignoring all the cautionary signs she’s been trained to heed. It’s analogous to the difference between how her and I drive; me recklessly cruising down the road with little regard to speed limits and dangers, or the consequences of what can go wrong, and her, ever mindful of every potential calamity, cautious to the point of being frozen.”
ISABELLE: “I’m not frozen, at least as far as I know, but I am cautious. I dip a toe in the water then try to read the rings before deciding if I should take the plunge. When we started out, Henry accused me of being frigid. Men rely too much on the physical parts of romance, certain it’s the only way to unlock their emotions. He was patient; I’ll give him that. He never pressures me, which makes my feelings toward him compound at an accelerated rate. Where things went off the rails, where we now are, is once I gave myself to him, I expected his emotions to unlock, and they haven’t. It frustrates me that I’ve given myself completely to him and he’s holding back.
“I shouldn’t pressure him, I at least owe him that, but I can’t help myself. He said and did all the right things to get me to fall in love, only now he doesn’t seem willing or capable of doing the things to maintain that love and I just don’t know what my takeaway is supposed to be. At the very least, running off halfway across the country isn’t the answer.”
KYLE: “Nadia and I have been dancing around our issue for some time; multiple months by my book, maybe even longer in hers. It’s time to put our cards on the table, I need to know what’s in her head, in her heart, and how she sees our story playing out. I need to understand what’s driving her behavior to understand what, if anything, I can do. If she needs limits and boundaries, I understand; I just need to know the “what’s” and “why’s,” because to me it feels like we’re playing a bizarre French dating game that I fear is on the precipice of not ending well.”
