Some time ago, while walking up 8th Avenue in the black night hours, I nonchalantly crossed the empty road, heading for home.  What seemed like out of nowhere, a car came barreling at me. I froze in the middle of the street.  The driver passed so close, the door handle brushed against me. The rear tires locked, causing the car to skid and fan towards the far curb, scratching the paint of a parked Chrysler before careening back across the lanes, swiping another parked car and losing one of its hubcaps.  Without stopping, the huge American-made sedan accelerated and sped out of sight. 

At the time I thought to myself: had that car crashed into me, it would have been a hit and run, without witnesses.  I’d either have been left for dead in the middle of the avenue or been so severely injured, I would be unable to move.

In the immediate aftermath, I felt very lucky. I saw that near miss as a metaphor.

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Labeling it as luck-of-the-draw, I have had some good fortune over the years. Being born to my father and mother is the first thing that comes to mind.  I don’t pretend to be able to calculate how many people grew up between their parents’ unresolved issues, if both were in the picture. Those children, young and often novices, had to navigate that choppy, uncharted territory. I won the lottery on this one. I may not have been gifted with a car when I came of age, but I wanted for nothing important.  Growing up in a privileged neighborhood, I wish I had been appropriately grateful.  And I don’t mean for collecting material possessions. I was safe and cared for at home. And my parents were truly in love, until death did they have to part. 

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On a different trajectory, I’ve also been fortunate with finding affordable housing in New York City, usually with the generous assist of close friends.  And though the Upper East Side wouldn’t have been my first choice for a long term residency, I landed a one bedroom apartment with a rent stabilized lease on the island of Manhattan, thanks to my friend, Victoria.  Even back then, finding an affordable place was nearly an impossible feat.  I may not do very much in my neighborhood, still I am only a two stop, five minute subway ride to Midtown West, leaving me directly under Carnegie Hall at 7th Avenue and 57th Street.  An area I refer to as my “comfort zone.”

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Another near miss has been love.  Last week, at a bar I go to regularly in the theater district, a woman I’d never met before asked me if I was married or had a partner.  I find that question very annoying to address.  Witnessing the reactions to my “dilemma” year after year, it became clear that people often judge another’s happiness by whether they are coupled.  Any time I have tried to explain my being contented or happy as a single person, I seem to come off as defensive or as if I’m preaching some rehearsed Psych 101 statement as to why I’m okay being by myself. 

Borrowing a quote from Joni Mitchell: “Maybe I’ve never really loved.  I guess that is the truth.  I’ve spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitudes.”  (Lyrics from the song “Amelia,” on the album, Hejira)

When pushed to be honest with myself, I have not had sustained and long term passionate love given and returned. I admit the man I thought to be the love in my life, which dates back to the 1980’s, did not reciprocate my deep feelings, at least not with the unquestionable strength I felt.  The same with my first. Though for surprising reasons, I am genuinely grateful to him.  My self discovery was so cathartic, I came out of the closet months before I had any kind of sexual experience with another man.

For as long as I can remember, I have taken stock of a lifetime of perceived failures in all directions.  As part of my therapy, I’ve written about them ad nauseum.  Still I don’t have a true handle on things, and it may be that I never will. 

As to the stranger at the bar, I realized that I was telling this woman about how my great love had died from AIDS.  But I omitted that we had split up well before he passed away.  And though he and I were able to settle things in the months before his death, we were no longer a couple.  Still, I use that relationship to define my history as being shaped by a long past tragedy.  Often finishing these discussions by stoically saying something like, “but it was a lifetime ago.”

The truth.  Before his diagnosis, he told me that he intended to marry a woman and have children, once he entered his thirties.  Back then, it was somewhat accepted by people like me that gay men didn’t have babies.  Coming from a Catholic family, I theorize that he thought he’d get this “gay thing” out of his system, like it was some phase. 

Not long after his health sentencing, he said that I was not the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.  He had had two lovers pre-dating his time with me.  Each relationship lasted a couple of years, morphing into the safety of a platonic friendship as its ending.  I wonder if he took that to confession. I too was under the delusion that having a publicly successful pairing was a barometer for happiness. Often I see the Hollywood smiles of pretense on social media posts. Relatively soon after our split, I rebounded into a serious relationship with someone who, on paper, fit the bill perfectly.  And he was a really good kisser.  Looking back, it all was probably to prove that I could maintain a commitment. We moved in together.  The perception of societal acceptance seemed so important.

As I told the stranger at the bar, I believe at my age, I won’t find something sustainable with another.  In trying to explain, one thing I stressed was that I think intimacy in the long run would fall somewhere between difficult and improbable for me to achieve. I’m pretty much set in my ways.

Compromise is a tent pole for any good relationship. My last commitment was with a Broadway boy who lived 5 blocks from me.  I believed that having a second bathroom three minutes from my apartment gave us a better chance of establishing success.  The complications that brought an end to us had nothing to do with our living situation.  If I took any lesson away from that, I learned I should not date actors: even if they are employed.

I am fine by myself but would hope to recognize something unexpected if he came into view?  The days of hating to sleep alone evaporated years ago.  Though I should replace my lumpy and sagging mattress, sharing a bed is no longer a consideration when assessing what could bring me fulfillment.  Whatever hit or missed over the years is no longer defining.  Even when the past informs the here and now.   

– Andrew Sarewitz