Finicky Creative- (n.) a man who is by nature unable to make decisions, who will always say maybe, and who will chalk it all up to his artistic temperament.
I spent some time with the finicky creative recently, and I still can't quite place my confused feelings about him. While not exactly a date, we had a lovely night of drinks, dinner, more drinks, and ultimately time on my patio.
He's someone I've known for years (~3 to be imperfectly exact) and someone who seemed to come onto me with a bit of frequency. His demeanor is equal to that of a cat- unreliable, narcissistic, and overall focused on what I could provide him, rather than having an equal friendship.
Most of the time we spend together consists of too much drinking and fantastic conversation. In those moments of raw honesty it felt like something built up between us- the reality of knowing the best, bad, and utterly ugly of another person was a draw I wasn't accustomed to. After years of thinking I had been shooting him down, and some very obvious efforts that I had killed (I have a scar from his cigarettes from one night of ill-fated attempts), the build up was enough to blossom.
Many many drinks into a night together in Columbia Heights, we started the descent back towards our respective places. Awkwardly holding hands, and flirting like our lives depended on it- he extended an offer to go back to his place. I accepted, but with one caveat: we would not be sleeping together. I had confided in the finicky creative about all the gory details of Ben, and had no desire to increase the messiness.
When we got back to his studio we kept up the drinking and he handed me a change of clothes to get more comfortable. Trading tales and continually grazing each other- it became clear that something would happen that night. We climbed into bed a couple of hours (& many cigarettes) later and commenced making out. FC informed me that I'm the queen of mixed messages, which I agreed with and then proceeded to make his case for us continuing the connection.
Weeks went by, and in a whirlwind of excitement, I felt the shift. The subtle move from "friend" into someone I really care about. We started sleeping together, and while it was never perfect, I thought we were finally finding our rhythm.
As I noticed my feelings changing, I also noticed his behavior shifting. He pulled some classic moves and gave me a lot of "definite maybes" to spending time together. All internal alarms going off, I started to pull back. A couple of days later, he swung by after midnight to deliver a message: he didn't think we were physically compatible enough.
The crushing feeling and weight of his words wasn't something I was prepared for. He'd quickly become my confidante as well as one of my favorite people to spend time with. The twisted nature of our relationship kept me under his spell, and this communication was no different. I felt tortured, unattractive, and entirely undesirable. Simultaneously, I didn't want to let go of the friendship we'd cultivated for years, so I kept up our one-sided friendship.
With time and additional (painful) chats, the weirdness persists, but so does our friendship. I don't know that I'll never fully understand our disconnect, but I'm grateful for his presence in my life, so I hold on. He's moving to another city soon, so I'd like to not over-think things. Does it matter if he's moving? We spend plenty of time together one on one, in deep conversation, but all of that will soon come to an end. Our patio parties with excessive alcohol consumption will remain a temporary summer thing, until one day neither of us will remember what we discussed in them at all.
Toxic? Maybe. Fun? Frequently. Weirdest friendship ever? Consistently.
Love & Affection
