Missing my complex friend

Jacob presses his fingertips together and leans forward with his elbows on his knees, his white shirt open at the neck concentrating on my story and my face. I lean forward. He is watching me so intently, I see the story I’m telling reflected in the depths of the brown and gold flecks in his eyes. I’m aware of the shape of his lips, the way his short dark hair curls back from his forehead, springs into place after he runs his fingers through it, trying to find the right English word to express himself. I think about kissing him but push the thought to the back of my mind. He is an intent listener and my pulse quickens when I realize my words have the power to take him with me to a far away country. He goes willingly, and suddenly, I want to stay connected to him in this way that transcends physical intimacy and leads to it as well. ‘Don’t play games with me’ he said once, and I’m jolted to know the power I wield in one kiss, one conversation, the vulnerability that he protects successfully—most of the time.

His habit has been to reveal the stereotypical, Middle-Eastern, macho, bullshit male, which is only a small part of him. Small but so strong! He laughed when I called him that once. “Tell me again so I can remember!” He knows I am right and he was both surprised and amazed that I read him well. ‘Tell me about my other self’ he said. Because his ego loves to hear more. The other part is moved by poetry, loves his country, would die for it, misses his family, honors his parents, thirsts for knowledge and truth—that’s the Jacob I love, and that’s the man who struggles within himself, his place in the world, his fears. Does he think he’s so different from everyone else? Life is like an orchestra, he said, with everyone playing one note. We are all looking for the person who plays the same note we do. When we play our own note, we don’t have to worry, we don’t have to look because we attract others to us, those whose notes are in harmony with our own. But if that’s the case, why does he give up first chair so easily?

I will not see him again for some time. I will not call him, and I doubt if he’ll call me again. Last night the idea of a man and woman being friends was unthinkable. ‘No,’ he’d said, ‘Unless I were gay and you were a lesbian, then we could be friends.’ Maybe it is impossible, not because of gender, but because what we want individually and separately is more different than I thought. I believed our emotional and intellectual energy was stronger than our mutual impasse over sex because those are the spiritual manifestations of ourselves, which are much stronger than the body. Casual sex is impossible unless those elements are missing completely or existing at a very minimal level. Not so with us. But I made it easy for him to walk away by confronting his motive: getting beautiful and intelligent women to sleep with him. ‘Is that your game?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘That’s my game.’ But his eyes flickered down and away from me when he said it, caught in a lie, his ego riding herd, once again.

This is not about our cultures, our religions, or the push-me-pull-you nature of sexual energy. He is a coward. Every time we’ve become close, he seems surprised. ‘How do you know these things about me in such a short time?’ he asked once. “No other woman knows me like you do.” But the closer we get, the strong his desire for sex is. He uses masculine virility like a shield when it is nothing more than the grand illusion that he is impervious and in control. I am not asking him to be someone else. I’ve never asked him to stop bringing girls home, just to stop treating me like one of them. I don’t expect him to change his beliefs to fit mine either. He is a fool because a friendship, one which seems easy for him to walk away from, is worth much more than being able to say he had an orgasm with his English teacher. I’m afraid too, but at least I know that I’m alive.