Disconnected
I had been talking to Jake for 10
minutes before I realised he wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on his
iPhone, his thumb in the customary position, flicking across the screen. He was
on Twitter again; checking out what the rest of the world was up to and paying zero
attention to me. I was actually in the room with him, though I might as well
have been a ghost. What a great way to represent the state of our relationship.
I had been due to civil partnerise (or whatever our verb is for putting rings
on each other’s fingers) Jake in December, after finally wearing him down just
five years after moving in together. I had been looking forward to the big day
for some time, and Jake professed the same. In recent days I had begun to
question Jake’s commitment to both the inverted commas marriage and our future
together.
Our relationship
had always been fun, and there were hardly any fights. We were both either too
lazy or too laid back to get angry which each other. If we did have a
disagreement it would be about something as petty as doing the washing up and
the correct way to stack the pots. I’d get passive aggressive and grumpy, he’d
clam up. Then we would both end up fuming until we naturally gravitated back
towards happiness with a hug. That was the answer to most of the unpleasant
moments that reared their occasional heads. The simple hug – arms wrapped
around a warm torso, maybe draped around shoulders and neck, perhaps even
clasped bear-like, pinning his arms to his chest – this was what life was all
about.
One of the
reasons I thought that the online friendships were harmless was that pixels and
emoticons might be able to express some semblance of feeling, but they could
never replicate an embrace. Digital contact seems to have become the ubiquitous
method of reaching out to people in the twenty-first century. It comes at the
expense of tactile comforts, of real emotion expressed face to face with no
screens involved. Jake’s immersion in this ethereal world of pokes, tweets and
likes was fine. I had been on Facebook too but I refused to buy into the
constant stream of consciousness and inanity of logging my every move and
emotion for all to see. Once you consider how your reactions will be perceived
across the world in type it changes them. Pure emotion is removed when you and
the person you are communicating with are replaced with the judging eyes of
friends, colleagues, and anyone else out there in the global village.
I stood back
from the worktop and looked at Jake perched on top of it. He was wearing denim
cut offs that showed off his strong calves. They were covered in a blonde down
so that from a distance he looked hairless, as if he shaved them. I’m a sucker
for a man in shorts so summer is one of my favourite seasons, when all the legs
are freed from their cloth prisons of the colder months. Jake’s t-shirt,
decorated with an image of one of Rihanna’s many, many albums, fit snug around
his skinny body. Or rather, it used to be skinny, before we moved in together.
Now it was showing signs of contentment and a growing stomach was outlined in the
gentle stretching of the t-shirt’s fabric.
For another five
minutes I stood in silence, watching Jake’s eyes running across the mobile’s
screen. His thumb twitched like a nervous tic, as if he was a comatose patient considering
a move away from the light back to the land of the living. On occasion he would
titter to himself, presumably about some arch comment posted by one of the
entities he was following. He used to read them out to me, tell me what funny
thing Jessie J had just replied to a fan, what his German friend was thinking
about Gaga’s latest costume... All of the updates seemed trivial to me, gossip
between and about people I didn’t know and couldn’t dredge up the energy to
care for. I listened because although I wasn’t into these things, Jake was. And
I was interested in Jake, I always had been, so I wanted to know what was
making him smile, I wanted to keep understanding how to connect with him.
Over time he
could tell I was less and less interested in the revelations and opinions of
strangers I would never know. I failed to laugh at the witty repartee because I
wasn’t in on the jokes, I didn’t understand the references. So now Jake buried
his head in his phone and he was lost to me for large chunks of time.
Entranced, he could spend a solid hour scrolling up and down while I sat
waiting for him to take an interest in what was happening in my world. And now
as I gazed with a longing I felt in my heart and loin, I felt just as if Jake
was sat in a kitchen in Azerbaijan rather than two feet away in our Manchester apartment.
Our relationship
had started on the internet. That was part of the irony. The technology that
had brought us together had insinuated itself into a position powerful enough
to push us apart. I often think about how serendipitous it was that we were
both in the same chat-room on the same evening all those years ago, both aching
from difficult break ups from first loves. We reached out for some comfort to complete
strangers and found future husbands. I wasn’t afraid that because of the nature
of our meeting that I was losing Jake to another man at the other end of a
broadband connection. I trusted Jake with a surety that was unbreakable and
real. He had never once shown interest in another boy, beyond the physical at
least. And one of the joys of a same sex relationship meant that we could share
in the appreciation of a beautiful face, a toned thigh or a hot ass without
recrimination.
We had similar
enough tastes in life’s pleasures to understand each other, but we were
individuals with our own hobbies too. There were plenty of differences to keep
things interesting and prevent boredom setting in. He likes bloody action flicks
that would have me squirming in distress while I prefer romantic mush like
Ghost or Carousel. His taste in music is eclectic to say the least – Marilyn
Manson nestled on the alphabetised shelf near Mika – while I’m a sucker for a
power ballad belted out by a woman with one name like Cher or Barbra. There was
plenty of cross-over on the Venn diagram of our tastes and I enjoyed exploring
new artists and experiences with Jake at my side. Of late he has begun to take
pleasure in constructed reality shows that boggled my mind. If he’s not talking
about some tart off TOWIE he’s name checking some no-mark from Geordie Shore.
It’s beyond me what intelligent person can appreciate this superficial
nonsense.
He watches these
shows with one eye on the widescreen and one on the iPhone screen. It’s
pointless for me to try and interact with him during these sixty minute bursts
because he’s too engrossed in the opinions of his followers. I have fond
memories of when we would just sit and chat for hours about nothing in
particular, playing board games or browsing magazines together. Now I find
myself wondering at his thoughts on the latest cultural output, and because I
don’t read his online utterings I remain ignorant. I don’t know when status
updates began to replace regular conversation between human beings.
Jake continued
scrolling and LOLing, oblivious to my quiet frustration. I had long since given
up getting angry as it served no purpose except getting me het up. A general
malaise had come over my soul and was settling around my heart like cholesterol.
It was a familiar feeling. With a silent sigh I left the kitchen and retreated
to the bedroom. I didn’t expect he heard me leave. There was a time when my
leaving a room necessitated a goodbye kiss, even if I was just popping to the
bathroom. Now he would only search for me if there was no one else to regale
with a hilarious Twitter anecdote.
I sank down onto
our double bed, the duvet wonky since Jake still couldn’t be bothered to make
it in a morning, despite my protestations. I like things just so and in their
place, yet as much as I tried to explain this to Jake he made little effort to
humour me. It always felt better to be able to reorganise a room or put things
away – I could control the environment of the flat even if I couldn’t control
my relationship. I wondered why I used to bother trying to make the place look
nice. There was never an appreciative comment from Jake. It wasn’t that he
didn’t expect me to tidy round like a less neurotic Monica Geller; it was just
that he was so wrapped up in his own world that he didn’t even notice. It was a
quirk of mine that had absorbed into his own routines and thus it failed to
register.
Lying spread-eagled
on the bed I remembered how we used to cuddle spooned up on a night after the
light went off. And further back, when we were just starting to get to know
each other our hands would be roaming free, stroking, tickling, groping,
leading up to a release of sexual energy to send us off to sleep. Now he would
roll over to his own side of the bed, leaving me forlorn across the gulf of the
mattress. I wanted to cuddle up and feel the warmth of his naked body beside me
once more. On the nights when I waited for him to turn to me I fell asleep
before my dreams are made flesh.
The simple
comfort of body contact at night has become a forgotten memory for both of us.
Now the last thing Jake does at night is to have one last flick around the
mobile internet. First port of call on waking picks up where he left off, listening
for the familiar buzz of a new message or email to rouse his interest. No
longer do we wake up in each others’ arms, or roll over for a cuddle to
instigate some drowsy foreplay.
I thought that the novelty of the new
technology would wear off after a while. While I lay on the bed I turned over
recent events in my mind. I wasn’t angry
or upset anymore, and not even sad. Resignation was my defining mood, as if
there was nothing I could do now, short of starting up a Twitter account of my
own, but that wasn’t possible. Our relationship was broken. It had been
happening at a glacial pace for a while. I was now feeling the impact of the
break like a kick to the ribs. The worst part of the dawning realisation was
that I still loved Jake, and I’m sure he still loved me. I didn’t know how to
talk to Jake about how I felt without frightening him and pushing him further
away.
Hiding in the
bedroom was not going to help me work out my next step. Especially since Jake
would not have noticed the emptiness in the kitchen. I got to my feet and
crossed the hallway to the kitchen and found Jake in the same position on the
sideboard, dandling his legs in a staccato rhythm against the cupboards. There
was no indication that he had heard me come in, and as I stooped to lace up my
Converse sneakers I couldn’t feel his gaze shift in my direction. Shouldering
my bag I patted my pockets to check for my mobile and inhaler and grabbed my
jacket from the coat stand.
I wasn’t making
a scene. I was just gathering my belongings to leave the flat, as I used to do
every day. I longed to elicit a response from the beautiful man in my kitchen.
The same man who used to greet me with spontaneous bunches of roses at the
entrance to my office and then walked with me through some of the less desirous
parts of the city was now oblivious to my presence. I yearned to be asked where
I was going. I had no answer ready. I didn’t know. It was a question I
continued to grapple with as I left the room and then the flat.
I had reached
the bottom of our street before I realised that I had nothing with me but an
empty bag and my old Nokia. With no idea where I was going I began to walk. An
hour later I was still walking. I was beginning to get hungry. I had heard
nothing from my phone, which I carried in my hand at first in case I didn’t
hear it ring before pocketing it once more, convinced it wouldn’t. I had walked
and walked with no direction in mind. All the while I hoped and prayed to a
deity I didn’t believe in that Jake would send a curious text my way, but no
call was forthcoming. No text message vibrated against my thigh.
I found myself
looping back to the apartment block, unable to walk further from home. I
slipped unnoticed through the front door. Jake was sitting cross-legged on the
sofa, a microwave meal for one in his lap, tuned into Made in Chelsea. His
phone sat on the arm next to him, within easy reach for those oh-so important
updates. When I alighted on the other end of the red leather monstrosity that
had come with the flat I hoped for a flutter of recognition. There was none.
I cannot
pinpoint when I first noticed the disconnection between us. It might have been
the day he forgot to meet me from work because he lost track of time, busy as
he was in a heated attempt to get ‘Kylie for Eurovision’ trending on Twitter.
Maybe it was during the walk home when I tried calling him for comfort when the
darkness began to close in on the gloomy back street short-cut I’d taken. He
had cut me off when an important text came through that took precedence over
me. It’s most likely the end came minutes later when my attacker’s steel-toed
boot pummelled my chest, cracking two ribs that in turn punctured one of my
lungs – just moments before my head burst like a dream against the kerb.
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