Real love

The next day, I had a long bus ride, followed by a long train ride, and an interesting thing happened: my fantasies became more realistic.
Yep, I have fantasies. I make up stories about myself and other people only, they're real people, people that I know. But usually, when those people are in my fantasies, they're way better than in real life, and so am I, and so is our relationship. (Actually, our relationship is usually a little strange. I often meet a guy, we fall madly in love, I accidentally get pregnant, he initially wants to stay with me and then something awful happens in our relationship and we end up splitting up and I raise the kid alone. My friends have pointed out that this sounds more like a nightmare than a dream but for some reason, it's my fantasy).
So, I'm on the bus, making up a fantasy and this time, I'm at the movies with a guy. It's our first date, he's picked the movie, and it's some artsy film that ends up having several scenes involving violence. When we get to the violent parts, I cover my eyes and wait for it to be over.
In my normal fantasy, the guy would put his hand on my leg to comfort me and sweetly whisper to me 'the bad part's over' with an affection in his voice.
But in this fantasy, he turns to me and says, "If I had known you were going to cover your eyes in the violent parts, I wouldn't have invited you to the movie."
To which I respond, "If I had known it was a violent movie, I would have asked that we see a different one."
To which he simply grumbled, and turned back to the movie.
As we walked out of the movie, we discussed what had happened- he pointing out the ridiculousness of me covering my eyes- it's just a movie after all -and me asking him why it was a problem for him for me to cover my eyes. This made him think, and then he said, "I felt bad that you had to cover your eyes. I didn't know it would affect you that much."
To which I said, "It didn't affect me- my eyes were covered, that's why I do it." And then I added, "I know you didn't take me to a violent movie on purpose. I know you like artsy movies and that's why I came to this one- to kind of see your kind of movie. I wasn't expecting it to be violent either."
And then we went on with our night.

In that same fantasy, when I tell him that I am pregnant, and ask him what he thinks, he says, "Well this is a huge inconvenience. The plans I had are impossible now. I can't possibly do them- this changes everything."
I am devastated by this but explain to him that it doesn't have to be that way, he doesn't have to take care of this child, that I am just fine taking care of this child on my own and he can move on and get back to what he was doing before he met me.
This infuriates him. "How could you suggest that I don't want this child? How could you suggest that I would leave or that I wouldn't want to be part of its or your life? All I said was that it was an inconvenience and that it changes everything, because it does. I never I said I wanted to leave, I never said I didn't want this child."
And then I'm speechless and we have a really long awkward silence and several awkward weeks as we navigate this confusing part of our relationship.

Later, in that same fantasy (it was a long train ride) we are intimate...in a clothing free way. In this encounter, I remark upon the solid form of his butt and explain that I too am capable of having such a butt, but that currently, it is in a less than solid form.
He responds to this by saying "Your butt is fine," and walks into the bathroom.
I freak out, because I know my butt isn't fine.
"Why are you saying that?" I ask him.
"Because your butt is fine," he calls from the bathroom.
But this really freaks me out because I know that my butt isn't fine.
I don't ask him again, because I know he's going to have the same answer, but I immediately picture him, drifting away from me. His response, that my butt is fine, signals to me a removal from our relationship, an apathy, a carelessness of response, an unwillingness to tell me the truth because of the consequences of it.
I go to bed instead, with my back to his side of the bed, and curl up into the fetal position, isolating myself from his impending separation from me; fearing that he has lost interest and is ready to move on to someone else.
He climbs in to bed, notices my back turned and asks what is wrong.
"I just don't understand why you're lying to me," I say. "I don't want you to lie to me," I explain.
He heaves a frustrated sigh. "I'm not lying to you," he says through clenched teeth. "Your butt is fine. It's not the butt of a twenty- five year old, it's the butt of a forty- two year old. I don't expect it to be anything different than that. That's why I said it was fine, because it is."
And then he turns his back to me.

And it was at that point in the fantasy that I realized that I actually did want a real relationship. That what I liked most about this fantasy was that it was real- that we were honest with each other and that I was myself. I discovered that honesty was more appealing to me than easy praise. I saw that I could be myself, my quirky and maybe less than beautiful parts of myself, had a place in relationship too and that I wanted these to be accepted too and that they could. I saw how much openness and willing to stay in conflict made me trust this person's love for me- made me believe what he said, made me want to bring my whole self to our relationship.

The fantasy went on. We continued to have a life together in which our differences frequently caused conflict and in which we discussed our disappointments in how things were working out. But we also talked openly about what we could do about it, making changes as we could, accepting things that we couldn't, and working our way through it. It wasn't always pleasant but I learned a lot about myself: that I had a lot to offer to a relationship, as who I am. I also saw that I want someone who sees all of me, who knows that I'm not perfect but who helps me to see who I am, by being honest with me about who we are together.