I didn’t see him for weeks. It crossed my mind that he was avoiding me after pulling a no-show that night in Portland, but ultimately that was his call, not mine. I had other things on my mind, like “was I going to have to replace two of my sales people?” and “was my wife going to divorce me?”
The answer to both was yes, and dealing with the first, while unpleasant, was better than thinking about the second. Neither of these sales people had families and their hearts were not into developing the relationships they needed to develop. We had an open spot in marketing for one of them, but even then, it sucks getting let go.
The marriage was another question. Not only was my wife going to divorce me, she had already chosen who she was divorcing me for. The thing is, I’d sucked cock while we were married, so I couldn’t really blame her. The other thing, the more important thing, was I stopped trying and so did she. When we got married,I told myself I was lucky and I meant it. She’s amazing. But when I allow myself to be honest, I haven’t looked at her thatway for some time. And I didn’t want to any longer.
These one-night affairs I had on the road taught me a couple of things about myself. Or rather, those hours on the airplane flying home from some strange city allowed me to stop rationalizing what I was doing and admit to myself what I really needed. Her divorcing me was only the kick in the ass to get me to wake up.
I realized women were nice, but that they didn’t really do anything for me anymore. I’ve had my chances and always turned them down, gently. And then said yes when a guy would message me on the app.
The other thing I realized was that I wanted my coworker. This was problematic, as he was married and already rejected me. I made all the excuses for him I could but in the end him not coming up to my room stung.
Deciding that my desire for him was probably closer to bounce-back feelings than anything genuine, I determined I’d be the professional about things and not make a big deal of it when we saw each other next. There was an all-staff meeting in a couple of days at a big hotel downtown, so I braced myself for seeing him there and putting these feelings to bed. I let