My Story With G.

“Write a story about me! But do me justice!” G. demanded one day.

G. thinks very high of himself and I wasn’t sure I could do him the kind of justice he expected. For instance, one day we were at Second Cup and, while reading La Republica, he decided all of a sudden that he is just like Plato. He said it out loud, so everybody at the café turned heads to see the reincarnation of the Greek philosopher in the Lebanese guy living in Toronto. Then G. asked me to stop disturbing him and continued reading. I also continued reading, thinking I would never be such a skilful writer to do him the justice he thinks he is entitled to.

Later on, I got mad at him and I stopped dating him. At that point, I really wanted to write a story about him. But I was afraid I would kill his character in the end. And that would have looked like cheap revenge. So I decided to wait a little, until he is dear enough to me again, to make me wanna try writing a decent piece of literature, without sudden deaths in the end. And do him a bit of justice, like he demanded, of course.

My story with G. started during my first month in Toronto. G. was a blind date. And he was my third date in Toronto. You know what they say: third is a charm. He was charming, all right! I liked his laughing green eyes and how he found everything so amusing. I will not mention all the compliments and the nice words. I never take into consideration what a man says before he gets me to bed. What he says after really matters.

Anyway…it was a freezing Sunday afternoon and I was waiting for G. at the wrong exit of Bathurst subway station. I was very cold and when I am cold I am cranky. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember what made me come to a blind date, when I don’t like blind dates. Being alone in a huge city and feeling like crying every day because of that, makes you do the craziest things. At that point, G. appeared down the street. He was smiling, even though I was like an hour late and I couldn’t find the right exit.

In the first ten minutes with G. I relaxed completely. It felt like I knew him since forever. Or maybe it was the loneliness…I guess I will never know the origin of the sudden connection I felt with him. There are few other things that I clearly remember about that very first date, except for the wrong exit: the snow, the cold, how G. got mad because he stained his shirt with olive oil and what he told me at one point in the conversation: “It all starts with the choice!”.

This sentence came back to me when I decided not to see him anymore, about two months later. It was then when it struck me: he was one bad choice for me, a mistake. And it was my mistake, because I made the choice. I hate myself for a while when making mistakes. Only after I finally forgive myself, I am able to see their beauty.

Most of the mistakes I have ever made were wonderful. My life wouldn’t be the same without these mistakes. And I would be a totally different person which would be such a shame, really. G. wasn’t exactly one of my greatest mistakes but he was one of the beautiful ones.

Now, that I am not angry with him anymore, I can look back at the good moments and smile. I could have done a lot of worse than G. In these two months, I could have had, instead of lazy weekends at his place, a dozen of first dates with jerks, like most of the girls seem to have here. And maybe I would have ended up hating this city. But of course, I could have done a lot better and maybe I would have loved this city even more. Since what’s done it’s done, I will just focus on the bright side of my story with G. And I will try to do him justice, as requested.

So, during this cold and long Canadian winter, I had good conversations and lots but lots of laughter. I had hours of reading in his living room, feeling completely at ease without talking to each other for a long time. I was introduced to good movies and good music. I had chocolate before breakfast and after dinner and G. was disapproving this unhealthy behaviour while eating Nutella with a big spoon. And Pink Floyd will always remind me of certain nights when time was passing slower than usual and sex was never enough.

Until this very day, I wouldn’t know how to describe G. There were moments when I liked him so much that I wanted to hug him tight. But then, his lack of tenderness always held me back in this impulse. So I never hugged him tight. And there were moments when I wanted to run out of his apartment, which I actually did, one afternoon.

G. kissed me for the first time at the subway station, while I was telling him how he scared the shit out of me by sneaking behind me. One night we spent about an hour in a book store reading different editions of La Republica by Plato, comparing translations, because the people working there knew nothing about it. After that, we spent another hour in a drug store, trying to choose the right condoms.

G. can switch moods faster than I can blink. Now he is angry that the people delivering him the new sofa wouldn’t take the old one with them, the next minute he is happy because now we have two sofas: one for watching TV and one for fucking.

There are many things I don’t like about G. But I will forget about them in time and keep the nice memories in my heart. Like the perfect way he pronounces words in Romanian or like when I scared him to death because he woke up in the middle of the night and found me above him, watching him with my eyes wide open. I just didn’t know where I was and I was trying to figure out who is the guy sleeping next to me. The handsome guy, I might add, in my attempt to do him justice.

G. says that when he sleeps with a girl, he doesn’t get lucky. The girl gets lucky. So I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Lucky me. I must have done something good in my life, that I got G. for a few weeks, until things started to go wrong. And of course, G. decided that things went wrong because of me, because I took the wrong exit from the very beginning. I still don’t know what exit I should have taken in that very day. Every time I go to Bathurst I use the wrong exit. It is the only one I know. So…it must have been me. Even G. says so.