Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [82]
But later that day at the horrible Japanese ad agency where I was working, I got an e-mail from Dennis. The subject line read “Confession,” and it went on to say that he was actually still mad about the lotion and felt I was being controlling and manipulative and that it really hit a nerve because he can’t stand to be controlled.
I was furious and wanted to leave him immediately, find myself a much younger boyfriend who did not have fine lines and wrinkles but, more important, wasn’t so averse to change. I’d read somewhere that one of the signs of aging is a resistance to new things. I have worried myself by losing my interest in contemporary music. Whereas when I was in my twenties, I bought twenty new CDs a week, now I buy maybe five a year. I don’t listen to music on the radio, only NPR. So when Dennis expressed his own lack of willingness to embrace the new technology, I felt very strongly that maybe it was time to leave him and open myself up to the possibility of dating a twenty-yearold.
Instead, I wrote back a confident I Will Make You Seem Crazy e-mail that read: “Wow. I didn’t realize you were so upset over the lotion. I never intended that. I actually thought it was kind of funny to hide your lotion and get you all ruffled. But I never imagined that you were truly upset. It’s almost like I bought you a new color television but you like your black-and-white because you’ve never seen color. So all I wanted to do was turn you onto the new and better color.”
He wrote back five minutes later saying “I am embarrassed now and feel like a fool.”
I was immediately distressed; I’d gone too far. I never wanted him to feel embarrassed, because I wanted him always to feel he could tell me anything, no matter how seemingly small. So I wrote him back and said just this, adding “I felt so close to you when you told me you were still mad at me. I smiled, fell asleep instantly.”
He wrote back and said he knew what I meant, he felt it, too.
Then, on the way home, I thought about taking the new lotion and throwing it into the trash, all three bottles. I thought maybe he would finally acquiesce and look for it to at least try it. And it would be gone and he would be puzzled, and I would say glibly “I threw it out,” and this would build into a fight.
Or perhaps I would stop at Saks on the way home and buy two thousand dollars’ worth. I would fill the medicine cabinet with these lotion bottles as a statement: “Not only do I embrace change, but I finance it.”
I was mad walking home, making myself even madder by thinking of possible scenarios involving Dennis, myself, and bottles of lotion. What if I emptied his own lotion bottle and then replaced it with the new, technologically superior lotion. And then when he commented “See? My face looks great, my lotion is fantastic,” I would reveal the ruse.
Who, but two gay men, could possibly have a fight over moisturizing lotion?
But as I passed Lincoln Center, I decided that it wasn’t as shallow as it seemed. There was the very real issue that ten years come between us. That Dennis is much more conservative in many ways than I. He is averse to change and slow to make decisions. By the time I made it to the Tower Records a few blocks from our apartment, these seemed like insurmountable obstacles.
Until I imagined him being hit by a Honda Accord while he crossed the street, distracted and feeling bad about my manipulative e-mail. I saw him lying on the sidewalk, sliding into unconsciousness. And here, I nearly heaved a sob. I was overcome with a powerful feeling of utter devastation and loss. A door opened a crack, and I was able to see that I was now far beyond the point of merely being able to throw in any towel. Clearly, I was no longer dating somebody or living with somebody or in a relationship with somebody. I was married to somebody. I was merged with somebody.
Truthfully, if Dennis wanted to moisturize his face with mayonnaise, I would be in the kitchen cracking jumbo