NEVER KNEW I COULD FEEL LIKE THIS

Never knew I could feel like this

Like I've never seen the sky before

I want to vanish inside your kiss

Seasons may change, winter to spring

But I Love You, until the end of time

-"Come What May," Moulin Rouge

Near the end of my Caribou summer, I met Doug when we both went to see Zach in a play. In the theater bathroom, he made fun of the toe rings I was wearing with my Birkenstocks, and I told him to fuck off. Turned on by my attitude, he pursued me that evening. We had drinks with Zach after the show; I was drinking expensive fruity cocktails out of martini glasses, and Doug made sure I always had a full one. He came home with me, where he took care of me as I puked in the bathroom and passed out in the bed. I loaned him a shirt in the morning, and never returned the Abercrombie & Fitch “DUMP HER” t-shirt he had been wearing. 

After morning sex and brunch with his friends at Nookie’s on Halsted, Doug had to fly out. As he dropped me off at home, he said “come to New York with me!” I didn’t work until Tuesday, so he called United Airlines and booked me on a first class flight that night. He met me at LaGuardia with a single stem orchid. God knows how much he must’ve paid for that flight, but I think he had a lot of miles. We stopped by his favorite Chinese food carry-out, where he always got the chicken and steamed broccoli, and we ate it in his Upper West Side two bedroom co-op that was bigger than my whole Chicago apartment. I tried to keep my jaw off the floor when we walked in; everything in the apartment was Ralph Lauren. It looked like he’d gone into the showroom and ordered one of everything (I later learned that wasn’t far off–he’d used the Ralph Lauren designer.) I was working my first ever full-time job at Banana Republic Water Tower Place for $13 an hour, barely paying my rent and racking up credit card debt and this guy wore Prada and lived alone on the Upper West Side. It was surreal. 

We watched Moulin Rouge as we fell asleep, which he told me he did every night. Monday, after he worked for a bit, he wanted to show me the new Soho Prada, his favorite store. When I picked up a wallet I liked, he insisted on buying it for me. We saw Hairspray that night, which was in previews and would go on to win the Tony for Best New Musical in 2002. I insisted he wear a condom to fuck me. I flew home on Tuesday morning and went straight to work, reeling from the incredible weekend. 

One weekend, Doug came to Chicago and drove me to Ohio for my sister’s wedding. I wasn’t offered a guest to the wedding; he just wanted to spend the drive time together. He dropped me off at the ceremony, went to a movie at the mall, and picked me up from the reception. When he called from the parking lot, I started saying my goodbyes and when I got out to the sportscar Doug had rented, I found my brother grilling Doug about where he was from, what he did, etc. These were the kind of conversations my dad had with the guys my sisters dated, and my brother was doing it for me. 

Doug was funny, charming and attentive, and gift-giving is clearly one of his love languages. Every time he visited, he brought a little something. He hated my cheap alarm clock: he bought me a Bose Wave Radio. Then a Prada messenger bag. Then he invited me to a weekend in The Hamptons. My first objection was that I had nothing to wear, so Doug sent me $100 to buy something and I got a pair of perfectly fitted FCUK black pants. That first Christmas we went together to choose a beautiful watch for me. 

Before the Hamptons trip, I went dancing with friends at Charlie’s. Charlie’s was one of only a few Boystown bars with an after-hours permit, so you could dance til 5am. Charlie’s is a country bar, so if you went early to beat the rush, they’d be line dancing or two-stepping. I went home with a hot guy named Christian that night. He was wearing tight, trendy, and expensive Diesel jeans, and I remember his ass looked amazing in them. We kissed and cuddled and it was very sensual, but we didn’t fuck; I left his apartment at 11am on Sunday. That night, I hesitated to answer Doug’s nightly phone call. I ignored the first call, but then called him back. As I paced the street, I told him that I’d hooked up with someone. Doug was hurt, and said that he hadn’t been interested in anyone since he met me. We hadn’t discussed any type of commitment, but I felt bad for hurting Doug. He asked me to commit to dating only him, and I agreed. I guess I was ready to try another long distance boyfriend.

 I flew to New York, and we took the Jitney to the Hamptons. We stayed in a the huge home belonging to one of his teammates and their partner. Every room held huge pots of blooming orchids; when their orchids were not in bloom, they were kept at a greenhouse. The blooming plants were rotated to the house at all times. I’d never seen wealth like this. I swam in the pool while the volleyball team practiced, and that night, we walked to the house next door, where the Dixie Chicks played a benefit concert in a tent on the lawn. 

Doug’s volleyball team played at the Gay Games in Sydney, and we flew business class. His friend Steven housed us in a spare bedroom. Also staying with Steven was a friend in the middle of a messy divorce from a well-known cricket star; her new boyfriend took us out on a boat in Sydney Harbor. We went out to elaborate sushi dinners on the Wharf together, took pictures at the Sydney Opera House (which was not in season,) saw a production of Mamma Mia!, and went to a show at Sydney Theatre Company, right at the base of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, and I did a little too much shopping. We had a layover in San Francisco on the way home; we stayed with Doug’s ex and went out to dinner with him. He was lovely, but this brought up some jealousy in me, and Doug and I had a talk about how his ex would always be an important part of his life. When I returned to work, my manager Mandy said, “wow, your life is divided like B.D. and A.D., Before Doug and After Doug. 

Sometime that fall, Doug asked me to move to New York, and I said no. I never wanted to be a kept boy; I wanted to maintain my independence. So he sold his Upper West Side co-op and moved to a small rental apartment in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, while he looked for an apartment to buy. I told him it was too soon to move in with him, but then Louis accepted a job and told me he’d be moving to Nashville. I figured the stars had aligned, and moved in with Doug. He insisted I pay off my credit cards instead of paying rent. Louis bought my new chair and couch, and I left behind the rest of my furniture; Doug’s Ralph Lauren furnishings would be coming from NYC. All my linens were donated because I had a full mattress and Doug bought a queen for the temporary apartment. One day, Doug’s cat Kahlua tore a big hole in my corduroy duvet, and I cried. That’s the first time I remember feeling that I was losing who I was as an independent person. Doug didn’t understand why I was so upset over something so replaceable. 

On Doug’s birthday in February, I answered the landline; it was his longtime friend Ray calling from San Francisco. He asked how old Doug was, and when I said “37,” he laughed good and hard. “If Doug is 37, I have a bridge to sell you.” I met Doug for lunch at Water Tower Place, and when we sat down, I said “Let me see your license.” “What?” “Give me your driver’s license. Now.” He did, and it told me that he was turning 40 that day. I told him about Ray's phone call and accused him of lying about his age. On the night we’d met, I’d guessed Doug’s age as 36, so I thought this was his 37th birthday. In his version of the story, I had guessed 36, but he had neither confirmed nor denied. We fought over the semantics, and I asked if this meant I shouldn’t trust him. He asked if it really mattered how old he was, and assured me that he hadn’t lied to me about anything else. We had a few uncomfortable days while I wrestled with this. 

We started looking at condos. My credit didn’t hurt, but it didn’t help, and Doug had a down payment to reinvest. He wanted me to be part of the process, so we looked at dozens of listings all over Chicago. I pushed for something more affordable; Doug wanted more space. I wanted vintage; Doug wanted new. He won out in the end. We bought a new-construction 3 bedroom condo in western Lincoln Park, and we agreed that I would pay a percentage of the mortgage and build equity. Everything was in Doug’s name. Because the condo was new, we got to pick out the finishes. I made all the decisions for the second bedroom and second bathroom, and he chose the finishes for the first, mostly duplicating the choices made in his NYC co-op. His friend William, an interior designer/architect, arranged Doug’s furniture, and hung my artwork in the second bedroom over the Tommy Hilfiger bed I’d picked out. My piano got a spot in the 3rd bedroom/Office. He added one of my salvaged frames to the office walls, mixing my things with Doug’s. 

There wasn’t room for my bike at the temporary apartment, so Doug had promised me a new one. We each picked out a great bike once we’d moved into the condo. I wanted to garden, so we went to Gethsemane Garden Center, and picked out any pots and plants I wanted for the huge back deck, including 2 full-sized trees! I got up every morning to water my containers, and then I rode my bike to work. One morning, the bike wasn’t there. I was sure I’d carried it up the stairs, but I must not have locked it. I felt such shame that I’d not taken care of such an expensive gift. The insurance deductible meant we couldn’t claim it, and I didn’t have the money, so Doug bought me another one; it’s the bike I still have today. I lock it up very carefully. 

Doug is the kind of extrovert that I’ve always wanted to be. Like my dad and my brother, he can talk to anyone in the room and be instantly liked. On the way home from a party one night, he told me that he wished I could step out of my shell and have fun at parties, meet new people, start conversations, not cling to his side all night. But that’s never been me, and despite all the ways I’ve forced myself to act extroverted, it doesn’t come naturally. I told him I didn’t know how to change, but I wished that I could. When we were with Doug’s friends, he’d refer to me as “this one.” “This one wants to go out dancing. This one wants us to cook at home more.” I don’t think he meant to be condescending, but it felt that way sometimes, and I didn’t have the skills to ask for what I needed. I don’t think I ever asked him to stop calling me “this one.”

Among Doug’s things, I found a small collection of porn DVDs. Hurt, I asked him why he still had these. I’d thrown out my porn magazines before we moved in together. I thought I should be enough for him. “What if you went away on a trip?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you rather I watch porn and have a fantasy than go out and cheat on you? Porn is fantasy; there’s nothing wrong with it.” I’d never considered it this way, and I masturbated with Doug’s DVDs when he went out of town. (Internet porn had not yet changed the game.)

Doug’s new career in Real Estate was taking off. Of course, he was generous, and gave me a $100 Prada gift card every time he closed a sale. I made friends with one of the salespeople at the Oak Street store, and got invited to pre-sale. I started to build a collection of shoes I couldn’t have afforded, then started spending my own money in addition to the gift cards. Doug questioned some of my purchases, and I told him I needed a boyfriend, not a dad. He was right! But the way he questioned my decisions didn’t help me learn; it drove me to rebel. We were all trying to impress each other with how we dressed for work, and I loved rolling in wearing a new pair of Prada shoes. 

One day, Doug came home with a new 5-series BMW and parked it in the garage. “Why wouldn’t you discuss such a huge decision with me?” I asked. I felt like these were the kind of purchases you discussed with a partner. (My parents discussed any purchase over $100 with each other–that was the model I’d been given.) His response? “It’s my money. I can do what I want with my money.” 

I’d been promoted to Assistant Manager, and I started to get recruited by other companies. Doug helped me prepare for interviews since he had a lot of experience, but I was frustrated–I didn’t want to keep climbing the ladder in retail and abandon my singing dreams. “What would be wrong with having a retail career?” Doug asked. He didn’t get it. 

I started taking voice lessons with another teacher, and she put on a production of Don Giovanni with her students; I sang Masetto. Doug came to see it, and my parents came to see it, but not on the same night. My parents dropped me off in front of our condo and refused to come up. “We want to get back on the road.” Dad liked to drive straight through and get home, even though we had a spare bedroom. I didn’t push, but I was hurt. I wanted us to meet each other’s families. Doug’s sister visited us, but Doug said that I would never meet his parents. They’d never talked openly about his sexuality, and they’d never met one of his lovers. All of my siblings met Doug when they visited Chicago, but my parents never did.  

Doug planned a vacation to Palm Springs. We stayed at a very nice hotel, got massages, laid by the pool. Maybe we went out to one gay bar; we ate at nice restaurants. It was relaxing, but not fun for me. I didn’t complain; I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “I’d rather pay for a vacation and have your company than go alone,” Doug would tell me. The following summer, I wanted to plan a trip to Saugatuck, where Chicago gays go; I’d been with Brent and his Toledo friends. We pitched the idea to Derek and Christian; Derek was the Regional Visual Manager for Banana and we’d started hanging out with him and his partner, Christian. They’d heard Saugatuck described as “the Provincetown of the Midwest”. They all loved Provincetown, but I’d never been. I took charge and chose an affordable rental property from a Realtor’s website. We arrived to find that it was a double-wide trailer, the living room of which looked like it’d been decorated by a Midwestern grandma. I could read the disappointment on Doug’s face, but he did his best to hide it. Our King bed was two twin beds pushed together and topped with a king-sized fitted sheet; we couldn’t cuddle or one of us would fall into the crack between the mattresses. It didn’t turn out to be too romantic, but we had fun with Derek and Christian, playing cards, going to the beach and having drinks at The Dunes, the big gay bar. They laughed at “the Provincetown of the Midwest,” saying that Saugatuck couldn’t even compare, and I kept quiet. I was the Midwest boy who’d had fun in Saugatuck, but of course they’d all been somewhere much better. 

Winter was snowy and slushy in Chicago, and commuting from our new condo involved a bus and the CTA Red Line. Sometimes the bus wouldn’t come, and I had to walk a mile home from the train. One snowy, cold night, I walked into the condo and declared to Doug: “I’m not spending one more winter in this place.” I resented his ability to jump into his car in the garage and go anywhere he wanted without confronting the weather. 

Other cracks started to show. I wanted to go out with my friends; “Why do you need to go to gay bars? Bars are for meeting people. You have me.” He laughed at me when I came home drunk one night and slept on the cool tile floor of the second bathroom; he was no longer interested in those kinds of nights, but I hadn’t had enough. He liked game nights with friends; I didn’t. His best friend William called and needed time with Doug alone: he needed dating advice or whatever, but I got jealous. I didn’t like William, and he was taking Doug from me. I probably also resented that he was thin and muscular and attractive and always seemed to be dating someone hot. Doug made an effort to befriend my coworker friend Aown, but they didn’t have much in common. I complained to Aown about anything Doug did wrong, and he was always on my side. He magnified Doug’s wrongdoings and echoed them back to me. 

Feeling like something was missing, I started to ask Doug if we could talk about our relationship, could we go on dates? Could we get to know each other better? I didn’t even know his middle name (come to think of it, I still don’t). We were on a walk to get ice cream one night, and I tried to start another conversation about our relationship. “Why do we have to talk about everything?” he asked. “Can’t we just have a good time?”

Doug and I were no good in the kitchen, and we relied on take-out restaurants, especially Dee’s Mandarin Restaurant, where we must have ordered once a week. We both gained weight as we grew comfortable with each other and spent less time being active. This coincided with a decrease in sex, until we were having sex once a week or less. This was the first time I’d been in a relationship long enough to experience a slow-down in sex–Eric and Chip had both been young and horny. And Doug and I had a lot of sex at the beginning; I didn’t see it coming. When asked directly why we were having less sex, Doug said straight-up that he’d gained weight, and felt less sexy. I couldn’t control Doug, so I tried to change myself. I read “The South Beach Diet” and started counting my carbs. I joined Crunch Gym. worked out with a personal trainer again, and tried to make myself more sexually desirable. 

I thought we were starting to feel like roommates; there was a loss of intimacy, and the fun and newness of dating had worn off. I’d come home from work and Doug would be reading the New York Times on the couch. I’d go to the office to practice, and Doug would ask me to close the door. I was hurt that he didn’t want to hear me sing. Doug insisted that dishes should always be put in the dishwasher, not left in the sink, so I started to leave dishes in the sink to annoy him. If we were fighting, at least he was paying attention to me. Because I worked early mornings, I went to bed earlier, and Doug always wanted me to give him a kiss goodnight. If I was annoyed with him about anything, I’d go to bed without saying a word, knowing that he’d come in and start a conversation. “What’s wrong? Why didn’t you kiss me goodnight?” I was forcing Doug to pay attention to me, and it wasn’t working, but it felt like it was. I felt like I had asked for what I wanted, and Doug wasn’t giving it to me. 

I decided that maybe Doug wasn’t able to give me what I wanted, and the relationship wasn’t growing. I thought I should have my own apartment and we could go back to dating. I wanted the attention he’d given me in the beginning, the questions, the getting to know each other. If we didn’t take living together for granted, I thought, maybe we’d have to work for our relationship. I chose an apartment in Boystown with a Realtor, and put down a deposit. Now I had to tell Doug. I waited a couple days, and I went out dancing at Charlie’s with Aown. A boy gave me his number that night, but I had a boyfriend. Now that I’d decided I was moving, I called him and hooked up with him at his apartment, but this saddled me with guilt. I wasn’t going right by Doug, and I had to tell him. 

“I’m moving out,” Doug was incredulous. I told him I’d already secured an apartment, and that I wanted to go back to dating, but I thought we could also see other people. “I had just started thinking I was going to spend the rest of my life with you.” He asked me to delay this by another month, to give him more time. Thinking that fair, I released the apartment. We lived a very awkward month. Broken up, but living together. I cruised a guy at Nordstrom and brought him home to our condo, knowing Doug would be at work. I took him to “my” second bedroom, where I’d never slept. The risk of getting caught made for a hot hookup, but I felt guilty as I laundered the sheets. Doug crawled into bed late one night and bottomed for me, which he had almost never done in our 2.5 year relationship. 

I could afford to move out, but I had no furniture, so Doug insisted I take the second bedroom furniture, and he paid for movers to take the massive furniture to my new apartment. Through the whole process, Doug was generous and not unkind. He must have been hurting, but for the most part, he kept that from me. The first night I slept in my new apartment, which felt so impersonal with its white walls, empty of artwork, I burst into tears. What had I done? Had I fucked up something really good? Had I made a huge mistake? 

I answered a phone call from a guy I used to hook up with before Doug. I’d been ignoring him for 2.5 years, though he kept reaching out. He was married now, but he wanted to hook up, so he came to my new apartment before my furniture had even arrived, and we hooked up on the hardwood floor. I asked if his wife knew that he liked guys. He said she wouldn’t be able to handle it. I felt so empty when he left. I was never going to be more than a hook-up for him when he wanted to get off with a guy. I never saw him again. 

Doug picked me up for dinner a few days later. I was hoping this dinner could be a reset for our dating relationship. We went to a nice sushi restaurant downtown and Doug told me that the day I told him I was moving out, his heart had started to rearrange. He’d settled into the idea that our relationship was over, and he couldn’t undo it. It wasn’t going to be a fresh start. This dinner was the end. Doug dropped me off at my apartment and kissed me goodnight, and I entered a period of great depression. I lost my appetite, lived on string cheese and yogurt, and lost 15 pounds in the next month. When I walked into a district meeting, Mandy, who hadn’t seen me in a while, exclaimed: “You look fantastic! What’s your secret?!” I murmured “I broke up with Doug.” My favorite band had just released their album “Drunkard’s Prayer,” reportedly written during a crisis period in their marriage, and I put it on repeat in my new apartment. I cried myself to sleep at night to their melancholy. 

"Little Did I Know," Over the Rhine

Little did I know that I almost let you go

Until I caught a glimpse of life without you

Little did I know how deep these roots had grown

Until I felt the earth quake here without you

And this ache is gonna break me, love

Until you come back home, right or wrong

There is no home without you

And these eyes are never gonna dry

I never knew how I could cry

Until I thought I'd really lost you

Little did I know that I almost let you go

Until I caught a glimpse of life without you

And this ache is gonna break me, love

Until you come back home, right or wrong

There is no home without you

And these eyes are never gonna dry

I never knew how I could cry

Until I thought I'd really lost you

Little did I know that I almost let you go

Until I caught a glimpse of life without you

The day before Thanksgiving, I was walking down Chicago Avenue on my way to work when my dad called. When he asked how I was doing, I couldn’t hold it together. I started crying; I was falling apart and he could hear it in my voice. “What’s wrong, David?” “You don’t want to hear about it,” I squeaked out. “It’s about my personal life. The part you don’t want anything to do with.” He assured me that he and my mom wanted to know all about my life, and I told him that Doug and I had broken up. “We may not know much about gay relationships, David, but we know about breakups.” 

The next morning, they drove to Chicago to take me out for brunch. I chose The Sofitel, where the chic brunch offered an incredible box of pastries. I told them how sad I was that they had never met Doug, that he’d been an important part of my life, and it felt like they only wanted to know about my work. I reminded Dad how he’d told me that “no man you date is welcome in this house,” and how unfair this felt. My siblings’ boyfriends and girlfriends had always been welcomed by my family. I set a firm boundary: “If someone I’m dating is not welcome in your house, I’m not coming home. They will be my family, and you can accept that or not.” My parents expressed an openness to meeting someone, but suggested that the holidays might not be the best time to bring someone new home. Given that the holidays are already a stressful time, and that it might involve the introduction to our huge extended family, maybe I could bring someone home another time? It was all theoretical, since I wasn’t planning to date anytime soon. Then Dad drove 5 hours home to serve a turkey for the rest of my family. The best thing to come out of my breakup with Doug was the way it opened the door to talk with my parents about my relationships. And my dad demonstrated that he would drop everything and drive 5 hours to be by my side if I was hurting.