"Really? It isn't a problem. I was planning to take the metro. I can take a cab."
"No. I'd like to do this. Will you e-mail me your flight information?"
"Sure."
It took an extra 45 minutes to get out of the airport because he didn't show up, didn't answer his phone or text messages, and I didn't want to be an asshole and leave if he was waiting for me. He wasn't waiting for me. Instead of going nicely home on the metro as I'd planned, I went home on the metro feeling punked and disappointed.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I have a fairly low opinion of men these days. I've noticed that they like to get credit for what they've promised before they actually deliver. This trait, I think, is a symptom of laziness or moral cowardice. As a person who tries to not promise what I cannot deliver, I find it repellent. Also, it is a nasty, damaging trait. It can inflict great harm.
More than a year ago, I attended the high-school-graduation of my friend's daughter. JK is a sweet kid and she was excited to have her father fly to Italy to attend the graduation. Also, for nearly five years, he'd promised to buy her an Apple Laptop when she graduated. So it was a pretty nasty shock for JK when, weeks before the ceremony, he hadn't gotten a passport, a ticket, nor did he intend to buy the damned computer. Of course, he'd spent years feeling self-satisfied every time he saw her excitement or implied that she would have a nice computer.
This pissed me off. She had never asked for the laptop - she would never have expected it on her own. But he had suggested and promised, and so the consequence of his neglect or stinginess was that she was destined for pain and disappointment. I started a fund-raising effort among JK's relatives and friends, including JK's dad on the invitation. Together "we" bought her the damned laptop.
When I was visiting Corinne last week, she suggested that the worst thing Sjors ever did was to mislead me about his marital status. He let me fall in love with him, knowing that he was married and telling me he was single. To my mind, this was only one of the terrible things he did.
I should not have expected a life with him. When he told me he was married, it was over for me. I had lost him and I should have been allowed to grieve. But he told me about his plans for us. He talked about the children we would have. I would never have asked for those things on my own - I would never have allowed myself to hope. Not while he belonged to someone else. But he plead with me to stay and wait for him. To have faith. He raised expectations and hope for a future. He said we would be with me until we were 85. When he begged me to take the morning-after pill he said, "It isn't as though I don't want to have children with you. I do. Lots of them. We will have lots of kids. Just...not now."
It was the loss of that future with the man I loved that nearly killed me. Even now, I sometimes forget and the hope edges in and threatens to sink this boat.
And now I know the truth about men. And the world is a darker and sadder place than it was when I didn't know.
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