The Time My Neighbor Asked for Sex

“I wish some cute, friendly, warm guy would just walk up my driveway,“ I whined joking to a friend about a month ago. Discouraging dating, superficial men crawling through the ether and a persistent loneliness had gotten a piece of me. A big one. Having deleted every potential online avenue for dating, I was resolute to connect with a real guy, in real life or none at all. Ruminating in the glass half-empty marinade, I wasn’t feeling optimistic about ever finding another interesting man to connect with. On the entire planet earth. I know, a bit hyperbolic, but also a genuine sentiment.

One month later, a cute, friendly and seemingly warm man walked up my driveway. I kid you not. As the sunshine entangled with his curly tendrils, the only distraction from the warmth of him was a ginormous dog keeping pace by his side. Greeting both man and dog, I was able to suppress my excitement over what seemed to be a fortunate turn of events. Ever the pessimist, I consciously observed him like a detective throughout the time our dogs mingled.

He was unmistakably brimming with sunshine. I liked him immediately. This is something, a phenomenon that occurs so infrequently in my life that I couldn’t believe my own reaction. Tempering it with explanations about pervasive loneliness and pathological aloneness, I wanted to believe it had less to do with him than simply being around another human my own age. Another human who also somehow instantaneously conjured a sleeping corner of my heart to re-open. Who was this guy?

He was the neighbor. He was a total stranger. As I would soon find out, a stranger even to himself.

Over the next few weeks, we exchanged the kind of text messages I’ve never sent before in my life. Although they began with small chat about our dogs, the neighborhood and gentle flirting, everything changed one night after he confessed he was drunk. As somebody who doesn’t consume alcohol, at first I marveled at the loosening of his tongue, the mangling of his words into nearly indecipherable strings of words.

It was in the first round of drinking that he abruptly asked me if I wanted to come over and “suck his dick.“

At first, I believed my eyes were deceiving me. He didn’t really say that, did he? Maybe I was the one drinking. Please, tell me I’m imagining this. I felt a visceral punch; my education in sociology, history in women’s studies and general equality screamed with rage. And then, quieted.

My loneliness, my history of feeling dismissed prematurely by men because of my disability spoke up. He knew I had a disability. He was not dissuaded. He did not make assumptions that I could not have sex. He did not find me unattractive, he was objectifying me like every other woman. In this moment, in this quiet moment alone with my thoughts, I felt as though I had won some tiny, paradoxical but very substantial prize.

He would jokingly tease me about coming over to cuddle and for more explicit sexual activity, at which time I would feel that intoxicating cocktail of flattery and disgust. True, he was a objectifying and reducing me to a sexual toy, somebody conveniently located just a few steps away to scratch his unabashedly sexual itch. But he was objectifying me like any other woman, like a woman who didn’t have a brain injury, who hasn’t been prematurely rejected by men for superficial reasons.

I sheepishly admit that I considered the possibility of at least having a makeout session with him. Perhaps this seems rather juvenile, but it would personally shatter ethical and physical boundaries I had installed over a decade ago. It would be the liberation of compressed shame and humiliation that I couldn’t even understand myself, related to my body. I wanted to do it.

I also did not want to do it. He abruptly informed me that he would be moving home in the next couple of weeks. This admission seemed to intensify the ardor of his sexual invitations as well as the frequency of his drinking. As I continued to attempt to make sense of his fragmented text messages, he threw another curveball at me.

He asked me for drugs. Again, I felt sideswiped, overwhelmed by my persistent attraction to the man who had seemed so endearing in person juxtaposed with this intoxicated neighbor wanting to use me sex and now, drugs.

Despite my hope this was an aberration in his behavior, a one time “bender“ as he called it, I could not commit to that depth of naivety. I knew he had a problem. My suspicions were confirmed when in fragmented conversation he admitted to me that alcohol and substance abuse had been a part of his history. He assured me, or attempted to reassure himself more likely, that this escapade was merely a slip up, not a reoccurring pattern. I wanted so fervently to believe him.

When I saw him again, I expected my previous attraction and endearment to have fizzled all together. How could I still be interested in somebody who had blatantly wanted to use me merely for sex and drugs? But as he again approached, looking slightly disheveled and nearly imperceptibly humiliated, the strangest thing happened. My compassion won.

It’s been over two years since I’ve hugged another human, let alone another man. When he casually but unexpectedly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and then my waist, I instinctively leaned into him. The combination of human touch, attraction and even confusion made my head spin while my heart sang.

Although I would later contemplate how every move he made most likely was related to his unquenchable thirst for more drugs, more alcohol, more escape, I let myself enjoy this momentary sing song in my blood. I allowed myself the indulgence of believing if not in the reality of long-term connection, perhaps in the presence of present camaraderie.

I allowed myself the temporary delusion that maybe, he really did like me. Perhaps all of this intense flirting and sexual appetite was born from something genuine and tender, despite the overlay of addiction and desperation.

For a day.

When I could no longer convince myself that there was any true kernel of interest in me as a human, when his rude texts asking for drugs I didn’t even have became the only topic of conversation, I snapped. The cultured patience I had been whipping around for the past three weeks dried up and I expressed my distain. I offered him the opportunity to listen to my perspective about how he had hurt my feelings when he was sober, if the day ever came.

I expected him to ignore me, the way he had so many other times when I tried to suggest other ways to spend time together that did not involve drugs or alcohol. Instead, he told me he wasn’t interested in hearing my perspective and essentially told me to get lost. Oh, and he was drinking again and he wasn’t going to stop until he left town.

Now, as I count down the days for his car to disappear from my neighborhood, I hold onto the saddle of the wild pony emotions that bucks this way and that. I’m angry at myself. I’m disappointed, sad, hopeful, grateful, wistful and even delusional.

I cling to some shimmer of possibility that he will sober up, find his way to my doorstep, apologize and greet me with a level stare and a listening heart. I know, Hollywood has done a number on me, along with every other female in this country. The truth is, Prince Charming doesn’t have to be perfect, he can be broken and afraid, lost and flawed. He should be.

He just has to care.

My penchant for composing long-winded, theoretical harangues when I feel like I’ve been wronged beckons me. I know there are no words that could win against the booze, though. As much as I want to give him a piece of my mind, it seems even more that I want to give him a piece of my heart. I sit in temptation, knowing neither can infiltrate the wall of chemicals cocooning him.

My hardwired proclivity to try to make this pretty, to attempt to festoon my disappointment with togetherness calls to me at all hours. How easy it would be for me to approach his doorstep with reassurances and wishes for a happy ending. How characteristic of me it would be to attempt to build a bridge over tempestuous waters. I cinch the reins of my patterned behavior tighter, tighter still.

Instead, I imagine reversing the giving of my words, the extension of my heart to myself. As much as I extend the tendrils of compassion to him, I decide also to entwine around me a golden halo of sunshine.