Juice with Junior

Editor's Note: I really hope you guys read the Re-Post from last week because we are diving head first into the hot mess that is my "love" life again. Please put on your life preservers and hold your breath, cause I can't save you. Do I look like a lifeguard?

Let's begin.

Remember, back before I took my extended life-falling-down-around-me vacation from the blog, I told you about a guy I was flirting with who I couldn't figure out if he was gay or not named Charlie, because of his resemblance to a one Charlie Brown?

You do? Great. And do you also remember how, after I told you guys about him, the collective response was that it was useless for me to pursue a sexually-ambiguous man?

Just in case there was any gray area about this, Allan actually wrote in saying "My golden rule about men with ambiguous sexual orientation. I stay away from them." See, that was easy, Junior. You have clear cut documented proof that it is better to let this man go and cast your net back in the sea. Okay, so, um, yeah. I listened to your advice. I ruminated over it. I pondered it. I drank tea while sitting on window benches watching the rain softly fall while thinking about it.

Then, I sat up and made a decision. I decided to fall in love with Charlie.

It seemed like a good idea at the time! And, just so you don't think me frivolous, this was not a puppy love or a friendship love or a "you're the only hot guy I see everyday so I pick you" love. I was in love with him. He could do anything and I thought it was the cutest, most bestest thing in the whole wide world. He could talk about his bowel movements and I thought it was simply adorable!

He Could Talk About His Bowel Movements And I Thought It Was Adorable.

Yes, I fell in love, which was dumb, you told me so, but we're not at that point yet. Let's go back to the winter. Back then, I was employed someplace where I am no longer employed and Charlie was employed there too. We saw each other all the time. I'd asked for rides home every once in awhile and he always said yes. I didn't pry about his personal life. I wanted him to be gay, but I didn't ask. He didn't to me. I thought he was cute. I didn't press the issue only because I am sexually attracted to most people on the face of the earth. I'll just get over this Charlie thing, I thought.

That's when Charlie and I started to become friends. We were a part of a larger group of people who all worked together, so at first I hung out with Charlie in a group.

Then, we started getting lunch at work together (he usually paid until I felt guilty, then I paid until the feeling went away). Then, we'd see each other on the weekends. Then, we started seeing each other before work, during work, after work, and on the weekends, etc. There was a point when I saw Charlie more than anyone else I knew. For example, I may have seen any of my other friends, let's say, for 7 hours a week back then. In comparison, that same week, I was probably around Charlie for 60 hours. I was always with him. People at work were starting to think we were roommates. Then, after some time, people at work were starting to think we were a couple.

Let me explain. The reason I fell in love with Charlie was because, while everything in my life at the time was so difficult to handle, falling in love with Charlie was so easy. It was so natural. He's such a sweet-natured, lovable, considerate, warm-hearted guy that I urge anyone to try to not fall in love with him. I'm still a little in love with him, but it's over. Again, I'm getting to it. Anyway, I just slid into the love like I hit the crest of a water slide. It felt nice. He was so kind to me, attentive, always complimenting me, being affectionate, paying for things, going out of his way to tell me about something funny that happened to him to try and make me laugh.

Because of all this, I got wires in my brain crossed. Instead of processing Charlie's behavior as a guy who's really nice, my brain started processing his behavior as "he is your boyfriend."


This caused me to act flirty and giggly when he was around. I would wait anxiously for him to show up if he was picking me up (which he always did, imagine for a second a guy you like parked in front of your building waving you into his car, yeah, I fell in love. Sue me.) and I would be so open when I was with him. I have always thought of myself as pretty guarded until I get to know people, but I guess, I'm more transparent than I think.

During this time, we had a new guy start working with us. Nice guy. Nothing really to mention except that one day, he walked up to me and started talking about Charlie. Oh, here's the other thing: I would often talk about Charlie to other people. Like he was a college class and I was the best student, and it was my responsibility to share my class notes. We were talking and the new guy looked at me and asked "You and Charlie are just friends, right?"

"Yeah, what do you mean?"

"Oh," the new guy said bashfully. "Every since I started, I always thought you two were a couple."

WTF.

(Side note: the new guy wasn't asking me this because he himself was gay or into me or anything like that. He had a girlfriend who came in to the store a lot. He was asking because he's a nosy person.)

So people were assuming that Charlie and I were a couple. Before I could even figure out if Charlie wanted to be coupled with a dude, I had other people doing the pairing for me.

At least they weren't like "I always thought Charlie liked you, but was a couple with Frank." That would have hurt my feelings. If any guy was gonna be maybe gay with Charlie, it was gonna be me!

I was the one he'd wrap his arms around when he'd get too drunk at parties. I was the one who'd spend all day talking with him and driving with him in his car or talking about movies or music or... HE'S NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND, DUMBA$$!!! This realization would hit me at sudden moments when I would realize that Charlie wasn't kissing me (ever) or hugging me (when sober) or telling me he loved me (when sober or drunk), and he certainly wasn't sleeping with me (never ever ever). I was living in a fantasy world, but I was around him too much and I liked it too much to breakout.

That's why I never asked him point blank if he was gay. Saying "yes," would mean new possibilities that maybe in my current state, I wasn't ready to handle. Saying "no," would mean devastation and possibly admitting I was attracted to him, which is something I fiercely didn't want to do.

I was stuck. Except not. Remember last time I blogged, I told you about a girl who kept popping up in Charlie's orbit? Well, if this was a sitcom, she was becoming a recurring character, and I, as a lead, was not happy about it. Rumors were abounding that she was his girlfriend and in his eminent Charlie Brownieness, he was too shy to tell anybody about it. Shyness and sexual ambiguity were starting to get all jumbled up. One side of the coin means this is just a straight guy who doesn't like talking about his sex life (which is perfectly reasonable).

The other side means that this is Junior's boyfriend.

Which did you think I preferred?

***
It all came to a head one night when a group of us went to a bar. It was pretty late at night, like 2 AM. I was sitting on a stool, falling asleep because I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and Charlie was standing right next to me, like usual. People were milling, but no one was leaving. I wanted my bed so much I was actually muttering "must go to bed" to no one in particular.

Charlie looked over at me, put his hand on my shoulder, squeezed it a little, and whispered "You're falling asleep, aren't you?"

"Yeah, it's really late."

"You want to leave?" he asked.

"Yes. I'm really tired."

"Okay," he chugged the last gulp of his beer. "Let me just pay my tab and I'll drive you home."

Now Charlie hadn't even driven me to the bar that night. I came with someone else and was fully expecting to leave with that person, but my not really boyfriend was gonna drive me home so there.

I watched Charlie walk over to the bartender and hand him his debit card. I then did this thing that I do sometimes, which is look at someone when they're not looking at me and pretend what if this guy was really my boyfriend and he was gonna finish what he was doing and give me a big kiss?

Wouldn't that be nice?

I guess I was so tired at the bar because as I watched Charlie and thought this, I burst into tears. Charlie walked over like what's wrong.


"Nothing's wrong," I yelped. "I'm just tired, I guess. I don't know."

He drove me home and as we traveled along in silence 'cause I was inexplicably mad, I decided that I was gonna stop all this foolishness and straighten up and fly right. As I still had to see Charlie a lot, what "stop all this foolishness" meant to me was to "treat him like an a$$hole."

I don't even know why he was still my friend. I would alternate between being the way I was--sweet, flirty--one minute to realizing I had to stop flirting the next to treating him like a d!ck the third minute. I would say the things he said were stupid. When other people joked about him, I would join in and even extend the joke. He'd try to talk to me and I'd give him one-word answers or not return his text messages for days. I was awful. But he was persistent. He kept asking me if I was OK. He kept buying me lunch (which I kept taking because there is no way I can say no to free food).

He hung in there. Eventually, I broke and stopped treating him like a d!ck. I wasn't flirty, but I wasn't mean either. I thought this stalemate could work. I was wrong.

***
The last memory I had of being totally ridiculous over a guy who was not my boyfriend was one day when Charlie and I were working together during the day. He had been particularly all over me that day for some reason. He was doing a lot of finding me in a room, leaning against a wall, and looking moony that way that guys get when they want to look deep and aloof.


Think Jared Leto (above) in every scene of "My So Called Life" he was ever in. I was basically ignoring him. Around lunchtime, he mooned over to me and asked "Would you want to drive my car to the Chinese food place and get us food for lunch? I'll pay for both our food, if you go." I should also mention that I had begun driving his car to do my errands on my own pretty regularly, which was a privilege he bestowed to me that I assumed meant that we would be getting married any day now.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" (I was back to the treating him like a d!ck phase of my plan).

"Please. I'm hungry," he said, rubbing his belly.

"Fine."

So I'm driving to the Chinese food place, feeling like if I were a woman I'd be the worst feminist in the world, concurrently feeling like a crazy person. See, by this time, that girl I mentioned, well her name was in the opening credits of our little show now. Something between her and Charlie was definitely happening. I was still in the mix, according to the rumor mill, but I was the Mom to his Dad or maybe vice versa. I was his Work Husband. I don't know.

All I knew was that I wanted a real boyfriend and this sh!t has got to stop! But first, does Charlie want egg drop soup? I should text him to see if he wants egg drop soup. I know he likes it. Long story short, I get the food and bring it back, but Charlie is busy so I call his extension.

"Hey, I got your Chinese food," I say.

He says, "I'll be right there." But then he wasn't right there. He wasn't anywhere.

I was sitting in the lunch room eating my food looking at his full containers wondering why he wasn't eating with me. The tacit agreement for my getting the food was that we'd eat it together and I'd get to pretend for a little while longer that you were my boyfriend, but you're not even here! So after like 20 minutes, I call his extension again.

"Hey, are you gonna come eat your food? It's getting cold."

"Sorry, I got sidetracked doing something. I will in a minute," he says. "What'd you get me?"

"I got you some General Tsao's Chicken and brown rice."

"Mmmm. Can you heat it up for me? I'll be there in like 2 minutes."

"Fine."

I get up, futz around the kitchen looking for a paper plate, find one, open up his containers of food, and start forking what I consider to be adequate servings of chicken and rice on the plate for Charlie to eat at lunch. Because I know him so well that I know exactly how much chicken and rice he'll be able to eat in the 20 minutes left of his lunch hour. I put the plate in the microwave.

Two minutes go by. I take the hot plate out of the microwave and I sit it next to my plate. While I'm doing all this, a girl we both worked with named Jen (whom I adore and should hang out with at some point this summer), walks into the lunch room/kitchen. She sees me organizing the plate and takes the scene for granted. She says something like "What you having for lunch?"

I look back at her. "It's not my food. This is Charlie's food. I went and got it for him and now it's been sitting here for like a half an hour. He said he was coming, but he's not back here yet. I don't know where he is."

Without missing a beat, Jen smiles and says, "Well aren't you the dutiful little wife" and walks out of the room.

Oh I don't f*cking think so.

(Side note: Charlie did eventually show up and eat his food. I did sit with him for 30 minutes longer than my lunch allowed, and that weekend we did see a movie in a group, but that's it, just to keep it honest).

***
After that, things cooled between Charlie and I very quickly. The next season of our show was beginning and that girl would be billed first, with Charlie second, and me at the end like James Eckhouse (Brenda and Brandon Walsh's dad fyi) except instead of grinning wryly, my eyes would be cutting daggers into that girl. The jury was back, Charlie was is and will always be straight.

He's just a brand of straight I have never encountered before: straight and so shy that being thought of as gay is better than having to be outgoing in any way.


That's why when he finds that he could connect with someone he clings on and loves that person to pieces. Which is a beautiful trait. It was confusing as hell for me, but beautiful, and I'm glad I got to experience it when I did. He really didn't mind what anyone thought of him; he was happy to have a friend. And that is The Truth About Charlie. I have since stopped working with him. We see each other occasionally. I'll text him occasionally. He rarely if ever texts me. And I'm back to Square One.

Although, I guess I never left Square One. We'll put it this way. I tried to redecorate Square One before realizing that the space is so unforgiving that there's really no hope. French Country. Metropolitan Modern. Southern Contemporary. No matter what you do, it's always gonna be Square One. So I finally broke down and did it; I went speed dating and I will tell you about it next time.

What are your thoughts about Charlie? Want to say I told you so? Have you said I told you so like 1,000 times while reading this? It's OK. I understand if you have...