Love, Actually

"You would've broken my heart if you'd said yes." -- Juliet 

This is, I think, the last in my series regarding The Things I Have Learned From The Boys I Have Kissed. I've been considering posting this for the past month or so as I have evaluated my short-lived relationship with Jacob Buss. I am going to lose friendships with five or six people because of this post, and that is the primary reason I have tried so hard to not post a continuation of this series. As always, there is a story here but it is relatively short, compared to the previous stories I have told regarding the boys I have kissed.

For those unaware, Jake is a college student at Peru State College, in Peru, Nebraska. At the same time that I was getting to know him, I was also getting to know two other guys, Derek and Joseph. After several months, Jake and I ended up solidifying our relationship as something more than casual and vaguely similar to dating. It was an alright relationship. I escaped the clingy obsession that every previous relationship had been tarnished with because of the distance. I maintained a close connection to him through texting and constant conversation. On the surface, an ideal relationship. under the surface though, the duck's legs were going crazy.

His mother loathed me with a passion heretofore reserved for terrorist bombers. He, being a slave to his mother's whims and being a full-time student had little choice but to endure these things in their entirety, which results in a strain on our relationship. Eventually, I realized that to continue our relationship would put unimaginable strain on him and his life. So, I took an opportunity to break up with him, while creating in his mind the idea that he had made this choice instead of me, thereby sparing his heart from turmoil and sadness.

In case it wasn't obvious, Jake was a virgin when he met me, and had never been in a relationship with another man. I didn't want his first experience loving another man to be as heart-wrenching as mine, or Aaron's had been. I wanted him to have the chance to know that he had determined its outcome entirely, so I worked with his best friend to ensure that when the time came he would make the move that needed to be made. I pushed him gently, and then she pushed him a little more.

My brief relationship with Jake taught me three things that have since been empirically proven beyond any doubt. First, nothing long-distance ever works. Second, nothing can escape the wrath of a woman who does not want her son to be openly gay. Finally, the best way to break up with somebody is to have them think they were the one who made the decision, and to let them believe it until the bitter end.