The Aftermath: Labels of Love

The end of a relationship -- no matter how early -- is always disappointing. While I had managed to maintain my own sense of self separate from being with Max, I had started to grow accustomed to his presence in my life. I had looked forward to getting to know his boys better, meeting his sister -- officially -- and getting to tell his mom that she reminded me of a slightly thick, gothic Laura Prepon, at least in the pictures I'd seen of her. I had even gone so far as to gear myself up to battle the baby mamas if need be. As soon as I'd processed that Kimber -- Vaughn's mom -- had not seen him in three years and yet had the audacity to accuse Max of influencing him to cross dress, I decided that should Max and I work out, I would not put up with her ignorance.

When I was five, my aunt Julie -- my favorite aunt -- met a wonderful man named Tony. He had two kids from a previous marriage, aged four and three; we hit it off immediately. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of us four boys (my cousin Alex was four years younger than me, creating a perfect year age gap between all four of us) -- hanging out. We were the best of friends. I fell in love with Tony, too. He never gave me a hard time for liking musicals or being flamboyant; he always accepted me for who I was. Unfortunately, his ex-wife was a vicious, bitter woman who was not happy that he had moved on; she made it her mission in life to sabotage their relationship. Once or twice, she manipulated him into thinking she wanted to get back together so that he would dump my aunt. Years later, after Tony and Julie got married and had a son of their own, the ex-wife continued to meddle as much as she could. One year, on Julie's birthday, the ex-wife called and left a vile message on the answering machine, just to ruin her special day. I vowed that if I was ever in a relationship that involved a baby mama, I would not be as reticent as my aunt was. She's a very sweet woman, timid at times, but she has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met. She deserved a long, happy life with Tony; all she got was about fifteen. Tony passed away from cancer in June of 2011, leaving Julie not only a widow, but the sole breadwinner in a house that she could barely afford, and an eleven-year-old to care for. Tony's passing had been horrible for all of us; he had been like a father to me, the only one that accepted me for who I am and loved me anyway. Thirteen years later, I still miss him; I often asked the universe why my own father -- a narrow-minded, homophobic alcoholic deadbeat -- couldn't have gotten cancer and died instead of Tony. Whenever something bad happens, the first person I want to tell is Tony, because even if he couldn't fix it, he was the world's best support system.

Seeing how much of Julie's happiness had been impacted by the ex-wife's insidious machinations, I refused to let the same thing happen to me. I decided that if Kimber wanted to start shit, I'd end it immediately: what's your Halloween costume going to be, a mom? How bad of a mother do you have to be to not only not see your five-year-old for more than half of his life, but also not get even partial custody? I'd throw that in her face and shut that shit down right out the gate. As for Christine -- Lenox's mom -- she had tried to hit Max with a car when he'd ended their relationship, and she only had partial custody, so she was far from Mother of the Year either.

The first few days after Max told me he wanted to just be friends were hard. I was disappointed more than anything. We hadn't been official, but I had thought that that's where we had been heading. I'd even gone so far as to spend $40 on a 3D printed Princess Peach figure for Vaughn's birthday; I had planned to find something for Lenox, too, so there wouldn't be any jealousy.

I didn't that Max was a bad guy. Deep down, I knew that the real reason he'd ended things was because he'd known that it was unfair to keep feeding me breadcrumbs. I would have stayed and broken my fast for those crumbs, happy with whatever time and attention that he could give me, but it wasn't fair to me. How could we have a relationship when he was always one bad day away from isolating? What Kimber had said had really upset him; I felt that that had been part of his decision as well. After all, if she was already that upset over a Halloween costume, how would she react when she found out that Max had a boyfriend -- who wore makeup and designer clothes -- around her son? It seemed as though the cards were stacked against us from the beginning.

I vowed that I would not allow myself to be mad at Max or speak ill of him, nor would I sit and wallow in self-pity. At thirty-five, I was used to life not always going the way that I wanted it to, but instead of focusing on the disappointments, I focused on the things that brought my joy: all of my wonderful cats, my fabulous designer wardrobe, my decent health, the fact that people often thought I was ten years younger than I actually was.

I knew that I could find a partner if only I could get over my agoraphobia and anxiety and branch out of Pinconning. Midland had a more upscale population as well as a gay bar; if I could just get over my own barriers, I could go out and meet people. Things never seemed to work out when I talked to guys online, but of course they didn't. Grindr and the other apps weren't designed to help you find love; they were meant to get you laid. Sure, sometimes that would lead to a relationship, but the chances of that happening were very slim for someone like me. On the rare occasions that I did hookup I was always so awkward that it was usually only ever a one-night stand. There had been a few return customers, but even those fizzled out after a few times meeting up.

I coped the best way that I knew how: retail therapy. While I had begun my pursuit of labels at Macy's, eBay had become my sanctuary for discounted designer goods. Sure, some of the Versace shirts I'd bought had questionable authenticity, and the new tariffs were costing me sometimes $37 extra in import fees, but I had managed to find some really cool designer pieces without maxing my credit cards. One particular Versace shirt -- verified authentic -- had cost me around $90; it retailed at around $1700. How could I resist a deal like that?

My obsession with Hugo Boss had evolved to Karl Lagerfeld and Versace, but I wanted to branch out; there were so many labels that I had yet to explore: Prada, Gucci, Christian Lacroix, Dior...I managed to find a few Dior items, but I wasn't exactly sure that they were a fit for my style, plus they were coming from overseas, which potentially meant more money spent on top of the $20 shipping fees. The Prada and Gucci shirts I was able to find were all more expensive than I was used to, and I couldn't really find anything that I loved. When I tried Lacroix, I hit the jackpot bigtime.

My mother was constantly chastising me for spending so much money on designer clothes; she pointed out that I had too many clothes to begin with, and that I never went anywhere and did anything so why did I need them? My answer was always: because they make me happy. They make me feel successful and powerful. They feed my soul. She always tried to point out that it was a waste of money because I had cats and cats were known to piss on things without provocation; I had thought ahead and invested in plastic covers for all of my designer pieces. I tried to explain to my mother that a designer piece is forever: unlike a relationship. If you took care of your designer clothes, it was a life-long commitment, whereas with a relationship, you could work yourself to the bone nurturing it and taking care of the other person's wants and needs just to get cheated on or dumped. I wanted my relationships to be long-term.

I was about to give up on acquiring any new pieces that week when I decided to try Lacroix, a label that always made me think of Edina Monsoon from Absolutely Fabulous; every time I even heard the word, all I could hear in my head was Edina saying, "Lacroix, sweetie!" I wasn't overly familiar with Lacroix; I had managed to find a t-shirt and a sweater at the local Marshall's, but I rarely wore them. Some of my Versace pieces were a little over the top, provoking my mother to declare that I was not Liberace; I wasn't sure if Lacroix would be as flamboyant and grandiose.

Almost immediately after starting my search, I was rewarded with a few options. The shirts were labels as "Hawaiian," but they didn't give off that vibe to me. Two of the short-sleeved button ups were floral printed -- one a deep indigo with purple flowers, the other a light grey with indigo flowers. They were both extremely cheap, especially for a label like Lacroix; I added them to my cart and kept looking. The third shirt that I found was a long-sleeved dark blue pin-striped Lacroix with white flowers and leaves on it. At $19.95 it was a deal that I could not resist. I ended up buying all three shirts that night.

The truth is, I hadn't really needed those shirts. For my birthday, I'd treated myself to three Versace shirts, an Armani shirt, a Lagerfeld shirt, and a Roberto Cavalli shirt, not to mention the Parisian themed Lagerfeld shirt that my aunt Julie had said she would buy me. Maybe I was greedy, but I wanted them all. I figured more designer pieces were better in the long run than bringing home another cat or two.

It was easier than I had thought it would be to avoid texting Max. I was sure that he already felt awful about hurting me; the last thing I wanted to do was add to his stress. As the days ticked by, it became apparent that he was not going to text me. To make matters even worse, he hadn't even opened the picture I'd sent him the day before he'd ended things, until a week had gone by.

When Vaughn's birthday present arrived at my PO box, I debated what to do. Obviously, I was not going to short a child a present I'd bought for him just because his dad had let me down gently. Would it be okay to just leave it at Max's door -- with no forewarning? Or take it to the gas station where he worked and leave it with whomever was working that night? I didn't want to seem cowardly, or like I was actively trying to avoid Max, but I also didn't want to make awkward small talk and act as though everything was great, which it wasn't. I knew that he was usually off Tuesdays and Wednesdays, possibly even Thursdays, so I decided to wait until Friday afternoon when I knew he would be at work to just run in and drop it off. I had to go to the post office anyway, and the gas station was on my way back.

That day I struggled to find an appropriate outfit. I didn't want to look like I was grieving or sitting shiva, but I also didn't want it to look as though I was going out of my way to look great, or as great as I can look. My hair was at that stage of growing out where it was too long to leave it, but too short to really do anything with it. I tried my best to cover up my forehead, because in the past few years my eczema or psoriasis -- whatever it was -- had gotten worse. All along my already high hairline, the skin was red and flakey. I tried putting concealer on it, and while that masked some of the redness, it only make the scaliness look worse. My bangs were too long to try to cover it up, so I was forced to resort to pulling them back into a ponytail and combing them up and over; both options exposed one of the areas of my body that I am the most insecure about. In the end, I settled for a ponytail and my merino wool Lacroix sweater.

Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous at all as I pulled into the gas station parking lot. What had happened between us definitely sucked, but I was mature enough to not hold a grudge against Max. I knew that I was doing the right thing -- however uncomfortable it would be -- in making sure that Vaughn got his birthday present, which I knew that he would love. After all, it wasn't the boys' faults that things had not worked out as I'd wanted them to with Max. I told myself that it didn't have to be a full-blown, drawn-out production; I could just go in, give him the present, exchange a few pleasantries, and be on my way. Obviously, he wouldn't expect me to stay and chat like I had before, and even if I'd wanted to, I had to work in twenty minutes anyway.

As I walked into the Marathon, my eyes immediately fell on the cute guy with the ponytail, choker, and black nails; I couldn't quite remember his name, but he was definitely cute. I hoped that he wouldn't have to bear witness to this uncomfortable exchange. I looked to the right -- the other register -- expecting to see Max's black curly hair, but Max was not there; it was an older guy with gray hair and a moustache. There was customer at both registers, and I hoped that Jordan, or whatever his name was -- the guy with the black nails -- would be free before the other guy; at least Jordan had seen me in there talking to Max before.

The person in front of me finished up and I heaved a sigh of relief. "Hi, this is for Max," I said, holding out the bag with the Princess Peach figure in it. "It's for his son's birthday."

"Max is sick today, he called in... but I'll make sure he gets this," Jordan assured me, taking the bag from me.

"Thank you so much. I just didn't want to show up at his house," I explained, knowing that the more I said, the more I was making the interaction uncomfortable. I wasn't sure if Jordan knew that Max and I had been in the beginning stages of dating, or if he even knew that Max was into guys, too. As hurriedly as I could -- without being weird -- I thanked him again and left.

Later, at work, I told my friend Mariana that I'd gone to drop the present off and that Max hadn't been there. "What a bitch," she said, rolling her eyes in disdain. Did she think that Max had called in to avoid seeing me?

"He didn't know I was coming, so it's not like he was intentionally giving me the slip. It is cold and flu season," I pointed out.

"Do you think he'll actually text you to thank you for getting his kid a present?"

"I don't know. I mean, I hope so; that's the polite thing to do, but I also understand that things are complicated between us right now.

"Watch him not even text you."

I didn't want to admit it, but the chances of that happening were actually pretty high. When Max had gone AWOL during the summer when we'd first started talking, I'd gone into Marathon one day to get a Vitamin Water, and he'd been there. I'd tried to be casual; he'd acted like he had no idea who I was. I think that he was so used to conflict and he hated hurting others so much that that was his way of coping. I could be wrong; maybe he was just a selfish asshole.

My friend Allison and I were catching up on Snapchat that night; when I broke the news to her, she said, "Honestly, he doesn't sound very emotionally mature." My mother called him an ugly chud, and said he should have been grateful to even be in my presence.

While I was grateful that my friends would automatically take my side, I didn't want anyone badmouthing Max. I knew that he felt bad about hurting me; I didn't think that he was emotionally immature. The root of our problems, I felt, was that he had so little to offer anyone at the moment. So much of his time and energy was devoted to his sons; when he wasn't working or being a full-time parent, he wanted to relax and have a few drinks, game, and see his friends. I didn't begrudge him any of this; honestly, I understood it more than anyone else seemed to. Max was not a bad guy; we were just in two very different places in our lives.

The next day, I still had not heard anything from Max. The part of me that was my mother's son, wanted to text him and be confrontational, but the logical, emotionally mature part of me said that it was better to just let bygones be bygones. In the end, I opted for the latter.

Later that day, there was a slow period at work; I happened to check my phone to see that Macy's was having a killer sale. I knew that for the sake of my bank account I should just clear the notification and go about my day, but I figured I'd handled things very maturely with Max, so I deserved a little treat. I wasn't committing to buy anything, but it wouldn't hurt to just have a look. $170 later I would soon be the proud owner of a pair of sequin flip top gloves, a fringed St. Tropez wrap, and the fabulous Adele bucket bag -- in fuchsia; all from Karl Lagerfeld. I knew that I didn't need them, but what can I say? I love a deal!

In the end, it was nice to be able to relax. It wasn't until things were over with Max that I realized how much time and energy I'd been putting into him. I'd spent so much time trying to let him know that I was genuine and sincere, stressing when I didn't get a reply. I had wasted precious time fretting when he went silent, all for nothing. In the end, it hadn't gotten me any closer to a relationship. If I had been more chill, it would have had the exact same outcome. At some point, I needed to learn that it was best to breathe, relax, and not stress over every little thing; what's meant to be will be, and what isn't, won't work out. Just because I wanted something didn't mean that I would get it and, at the end of the day, was having a partner that important? If you take the sex out of a relationship, a partner is just a very close friend; I have friends who would cuddle with me and support me when I was having a bad day. I didn't have to chase them to get a response, either. Maybe, all I needed was what I already had: friends who would be there no matter what. If I focused on finding a guy to just take care of my sexual needs, I might be able to actually have it all.

At the end of the day, my happiness has to depend on me. It isn't fair for me to pin that someone else, nor is it healthy. Sometimes my customers drive me crazy, and I want to hit them with a bus, but I really do love my job; I have worked my way up from scut boy to manager. I have wonderful cats who bring me limitless joy every day. I have friends whose loyalty was unwavering. I have a killer wardrobe that is so out of touch with the small town I live in, but it makes me feel fabulous. Despite my stomach issues, I have great health. Maybe if I spend more time focusing on what I do have instead of what I don't I'll stop feeling like I'm lacking in life. After all, the greatest relationship you can have is the one you have with yourself.