This profile is the hardest of the three because I am still actively grieving my relationship with Jeremy. Near when we first started dating, I would tell people: "I met someone in the middle of the pandemic... figure that out!" It was 2020; I was back in Toronto finally after sheltering in place for about six months at my parents' after escaping Covid in Italy. I was doing my job on my departmental committee when I met Jeremy. I was still confused and hurt about Charlie no longer talking to me, and still in the process of trying to get him out of my system. I had decided there was no way I was touching a relationship with a ten-foot pole. I was just doing my job. Life had other plans for me, I guess.
Our first conversation was three hours. I had thought to myself: is this guy giving me his number? Funny how intuition is sometimes. Jeremy is deaf, so he communicates primarily in writing. He gave me his number so that we could actually chat (i.e. via text.) At the time, I stubbornly had an old Italian SIM in my phone, and no Canadian number, so at first, I was like: that is that. I can't text anyway. Then he suggested to me and my colleague on committee that we might chat on WhatsApp. Well, I reasoned, I had that, and it would work with vifi, despite the non-functional SIM in my phone. We talked for three hours, so we obviously hit it off. If I had this funny notion that this was pretty much the first guy to give me his number, well, at some point he said, "Come with me to Paris!" I was drunk on it for days afterwards. It seemed a totally cool thing to say to me, a first. I had to explain to him how it might have come off, especially out of context, but reassured him that I understood what he meant: he had been regaling me with his European travel stories, and also explaining special treatment he's had in places like museums, where they let him in for free, give him hours beyond closing time, or exclusive access to certain art, like being able to go beyond the red velvet ropes to see the Mona Lisa up close. "Come with me to Paris!" he said enthusiastically, as in, I could get you access to some amazing experiences too if you are game to travel with me one day. It was just such a beautiful phrase, and had my head turning with beautiful thoughts.
I was resistant, though. I talked more and more with Jeremy and really enjoyed conversations, but I did not want to admit that I liked him. I was very ready to ignore how I felt and deny it to myself or to him. I would have gone on that way in perpetuity, I am convinced. Funny how feelings have other plans for you sometimes. One day in October, I basically showed my whole hand. Jeremy had told me how isolated and lonely he was, something not uncommon during the pandemic, but this was more acute for him given that when you are down a sense, your other senses become more important. He explained how he was touch-starved, and I felt for him. So one day when we decided to go for ice cream (not our first outing, nor our first trip for ice cream), I told him that if it would help him, he could hold my hand. Hands could be easily sanitized, I reasoned. Hugs were more risky, so was the wisdom at the time, but hands could be washed. He had also talked to me about how a blind person memorises faces; so while I didn't give him permission to map my face, I thought hands were innocent enough. How we justify these things to ourselves... anyhow, we found a quiet place in an abandoned foodcourt, where you were not really supposed to sit, since Covid made Toronto absolutely hostile to people doing anything other than passing through, and I let him hold my hand. He mapped both my hands. He wrote me a note saying, "Are you sure?" but I told him I trusted him. He cried when he touched my hand at first, and I was upset, because the point was to cheer him up, not make him feel sad. For someone who wanted to pretend she didn't like him, I was not playing this smart letting him hold my hand. "Every man who is in love is crazy" - a quotation whose author I do not know. I had clearly taken leave of my senses that day.
We got kicked out of the foodcourt eventually, and ended up back outside in a pretty chilly October day. When Jeremy cried again holding my hand, I just broke. I pulled him close into a hug, something I said I would not do because of the Covid risk, and I just held him. I wanted him to feel better, not worse. But then I didn't let go. It rained on us. I still did not let go. He felt puzzled. He knew I didn't want to date anyone, but clearly I was sending a mixed signal here. He went back home after this outing we had, and he poured some wine talked to his sister, screwed up his courage and wrote to me: I don't know all of that was entirely platonic. I did not lie to him, but I would rather have not told him for the world. "Now what?" I asked. Mr. It Takes Me at Least Four Months to Have Feelings for a Girl told me that he liked me, though I had suspected and so had some friends. He wanted to date me. He didn't ask me then, but he definitely did. I was terrified. I did not want to be with someone after Charlie, a lot of which had to do with not trusting my own judgment. I suppose it became really apparent to me, in case it hadn't be obvious before, that a lot of times my fear masks a lot of how I feel about a guy, and that I have to look to my actions instead. They seem to bypass the fear if I like a guy enough, and serve as a pretty reliable indication. I offered for Jeremy to hold my hand. I let someone inside my bubble. That means I liked him. But it would be awhile before the rest of me would catch up.
Jeremy was patient. Jeremy was gentle. He waited for me to feel less afraid. He supported me through tough times, like the first time I encountered Charlie in person and came back from the library shaking. He made sure that I knew, regardless what I decided, what a special person I am and how much I was worthy of love, something I had never been told before. I agreed to go on a date with him. We were getting into the colder months, which meant that your tolerance for being outside was definitely under an hour. I realised the only thing we could do was to book a hotel room. It seemed crazy for a first date, but I didn't see how else people from different households could be together indoors. We booked a room with his points. I took him to the Christmas Market, now called the Winter Village after how it had to shift during Covid. There were no booths of artisans selling their wares, but the Christmas tree was up, as were the lights in the Distillery District. It was pretty, and I felt warm and fuzzy with Jeremy. I felt safe with Jeremy too; I would never have suggested a hotel date with someone I did not trust implicitly. It was also the first time we were alone not in public. Our chemistry just continued to develop so naturally. Though we had avoided it at first, again due to Covid concerns, our first kiss was just right. Jeremy knew that my brain tended to block out any feelings on first kisses, and even for awhile afterwards, so he said: I want our first kiss to be mutual, not the first one, but the one where we both feel something. That was pretty much from the very first kiss. It was like relearning how it was to feel loved in a touch, and to feel physically safe with another person. Our chemistry is still unmatched for me.
After that first date, I had agreed to a new one in January when we would both be back from being home with our families for Christmas. During that second date, I told him I wanted to date him, go steady. Slowly but surely, I was gaining confidence with Jeremy. By February, it felt so nice to have a Valentine. I didn't call him my boyfriend yet, but calling him my Valentine felt very meaningful. I signed for him the Sharon, Lois & Bram song "A You're Adorable", at least to the best of my ability. I didn't know many signs at the time, so my rendition was not totally accurate, but it was comprehensible enough. I also learned how to sign: Yes will your Valentine will. It was one of my first fluent ASL phrases. Slowly but surely, I felt safe, and I allowed myself to feel happy. Whatever happened, I was sure that Jeremy was there for me.
Then came the time where I needed to be there for Jeremy. My department, being particularly brutal as it is, fucked him over. It was not the first nor the last time they would do so to students, or to Jeremy in particular. He was in crisis, and understandably. I was empathetic and supportive. I had been through similar trials at the beginning of my degree. The problems persisted beyond a year, because sometimes it doesn't take much in a PhD to have a snowball effect on your progress. For my department's screw up, Jeremy was working overtime for over a year. Slowly but surely, I was losing him and I didn't even know it yet. But by the next Valentine's Day, he was telling me that he wasn't sure he could maintain a relationship at the same time as his studies. I was on probation from that moment forward, and it was okay to try to ignore for a little while when putting one foot in front of another during the semester, but it came to a head during the summer. I could not live that way indefinitely.
The problem was that Jeremy was legimiately burnt out. This included decision paralysis, something I didn't realise at the time. Trying to think about what to do about our relationship was like pulling teeth or worse; he couldn't decide anything, including what to wear in the morning, let alone something so important as what to do about our relationship. So during my research trip in the fall of 2022, he told me the night before a big presentation in Berlin that maybe we should take a break. That was one of the worst days of my life, because on 4 hours of sleep after this sudden announcement (though part of me tries to tell me that I did push for it, because I knew something was wrong, and I didn't take "we'll talk about it later" for an answer), I had to give a 45 minute presentation, the longest presentation I'd ever given, and sit through the feedback that said my research was pointless and unlikely to yield any tangible results. I held it together that day, and for the rest of the trip. When I got back, he ripped the bandaid off and said he wanted to break up. I didn't accept it the first time. Suddenly, I thought to myself: why make a big life decision when you are clearly depressed and burnt out? You are not going to make a sound decision in that state. I held on because he had supported me so much in the beginning, and I wanted to reciprocate. It is also not in my nature to quit when things get hard. I held on because he is special and was worth hanging on to.
We persisted till April of last year, but only on fumes. For about six months, he was living at home with his parents post surgery. That meant we were long distance, and I had hoped that this idea of breaking up with me was because we were not in the same place, and he was feeling bad. But when he came to Toronto in January, it was just as hard, if not worse. He started seeing less and less of me, and he didn't really want me to touch him, beyond a hug here or there. Finally, unlike with Charlie, I managed to get him into therapy for some help. The first casualty of his therapy, though, was me.
Two separate therapists had evaluated him and said the same thing independently of one another: the relationship has to go. Or, more specifically: you are burnt out and trying to keep too many plates in the air, so something has to go. Let's take the problems with the department off your plate by appointing you some kind of advocate; you do not have the energy to dot his work. Then you have to choose between your PhD program and your relationship. You cannot keep doing both poorly. Come to the next appointment with your decision: the PhD or your girlfriend. Then we'll work on whichever you've decided.
Like with Amin's family, I could never have asked him to give up his career, his dream. I didn't understand why that meant he had to drop me. I tried to listen to what the therapists had said about this being mutually exclusive. I tried to understand. He was also told that he had a unique opportunity of pulling out of his burnout faster by getting rid of the relationship. If he stayed with me, not only would he not recover fast, he would deteriorate faster. He would bring me to rock bottom, they said, and did he really want to get there himself, or to bring me with him? No one wanted that for him, least of all me. This convinced me to let him go at last. The other thing which was convincing was the theory that, perhaps hidden trauma from his first relationship had been triggered. I had been trying for such a long time to support him, but if a girlfriend was part of his trauma, I was literally the last person who would help solve that. This helped me let go too.
It was still hard, because here I felt like I had to let go of the love of my life. It hadn't felt it so hard since Amin. I was determined to do better this time, so I tried new strategies. I know how long I tend to stay attached, so I pushed myself to try to let go. I went on dates even though I didn't want to. I worked really hard on myself, especially on my thesis, but also personal projects like the CN Tower Climb. I set new goals all the time. I have done better. Part of me is still attached, though, and I am still fighting to find a life without Jeremy. I'm sure I'll get to elaborate more on this in further posts. I have also gained a larger perspective on how things went between us. I've presented here the view I had at the time, which was informed by what I knew then, but as is usually the case, there is more to it.
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