"But I'm pretty sure I don't want to," I said.
Later, when Mr. Ambition mentioned that he doesn't usually know how he's feeling, he added: "My friends can often tell more about my own emotions than I can."
"So you basically outsource your emotional processing to your friends?" I asked.
He agreed.
Perhaps the worst omen was when Mr. Ambition told me, "I've never been hurt by love." "Never?" I asked.
"Never," he said.
His certainty was so great that, in itself, it made me uneasy. Because I have definitely been hurt by love. And my greatest wounds were dealt by men who seemed sure they loved me. A man who seems sure might actually be sure, but he may simply fail to understand himself... So these days, it's always men who seem certain that make me most uncertain.
There's another great quotation from that Monica Ali novel, Brick Lane. Here it is: "The thing about getting older is you don't need everything to be possible anymore, you just need some things to be certain.”
TK OK ok
I often felt like I was watching the relationship from a distance. I tried to resist thinking of our relationship using cold, manipulative pickup artist terminology and tactics, but sometimes I couldn't stop myself. I'd rather not talk about that.
I found more and more ways to manage my incentives. I noticed that one of my methods was telling friends and parents that I liked Mr. Ambition a whole lot. I think it was even true.
Most of all, I told myself that the lack of natural chemistry was a good thing, and not a bad thing; the lack of natural chemistry was why this relationship could last.
I was quite calculating about it, really, and maybe that was why he broke up with me. On the bright side, I kept my head during the breakup, which was nice, because I didn't keep my head during my last breakup. With Mr. Ambition, I didn't feel like my self-control slipped at all.
"We need to talk," Mr. Ambition said without preamble, when I met him in the foyer of his apartment building. "I'm having some concerns about our relationship." Once we were in his apartment, he said, "To be honest, I don't know how attracted I am to you.”
I tried to measure his mien. I got the feeling, again, that energy was coiled tightly inside him. Like a dragon. "Are you breaking up with me?" I asked.
"We're just having a conversation,” he said quickly.
We talked about sex for a while. Chemistry. "I don't think I like S&M, to be honest," he said. "I don't feel affected by it.”
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