Buying tickets to the reunion tour

I have this ex-boyfriend who lives in Boston, and who is the only really serious ex I have kept in touch with. We dated for a year in college, and then after we broke up there was a period where we didn't really have any contact, which I think is the best way to do it, and then eventually we got to the point where we would email every few weeks and talk on the phone for big events. Like, when I got into grad school this spring I called him right away.

(I remember that he was "surprised" I got in. Heh. I didn't take this the wrong way, because he's an architect and a really talented artist, so it actually made me feel proud that I had been accepted to a place that even he felt was really competitive.)

I haven't seen him too much since we broke up about four years ago, but I did actually stay at his apartment for a weekend last fall when I was looking at a school in Boston. We had been maniacally emailing each other for weeks when he invited me. That was a great time, and we actually got along better than we ever had before. What was funny was that the first night I got there, we had this huge talk about how neither of us had had a big relationship since we'd broken up. I had been going on a lot of dates, but they were (and still are) mainly first dates, and he is just really shy about approaching girls and hates the meet-market bar thing, so he hadn't really been out with anyone. We kind of bonded over that. I thought something might happen that weekend between us, and I even sort of wanted it to, but nothing did. He slept in his bed and I slept on the couch. In a studio apartment, which was surreal, because we were four feet apart the whole time. I could have stretched my arm out really far and jiggled his foot. But anyway, nothing happened, and I realized that even though we had a great time together and I still found him attractive, he obviously didn't feel the same way. And I was okay with that.

And since then, we email every few weeks, and talk about what we're working on art-wise, and we talk about our jobs and stuff we're doing. Sometimes I will relay the details of my last horrible embarrassing date, and we will laugh about it, but when he talks about his social life he always mentions going out alone, or with his guy friends.

Until now! He had emailed me last month that he was moving into a new apartment that coming weekend. This is exactly what he said: "I am getting ready to move... again. Staying in Boston, but moving to a new place. I am tired of moving. I haven't stayed in a place for more than one year for the past 6 years. Oh well."

Sounds pretty routine, right? I wrote back and asked about his new place, but coincidentally at that time my work email system went crazy and some messages I sent didn't go through. I forgot about him until this morning, so I wrote him and asked about the apartment again. This is what I got back (after a paragraph about a drawing class he's teaching and asking about my painting class): "My new apartment is fantastic, thanks! It's actually only 5 minutes from my old place, but it is still better location and the rent is much cheaper since I am splitting it with my girlfriend. One of the walls in our kitchen is made entirely out of glass block. It is hot."

Holy crap! You could have knocked me over with a feather! I almost thought he was just kidding at first, because the word girlfriend came out of nowhere, and also it is totally within his sense of humor to say something like, "I am living with a girlfriend. She is smart, but sort of messy. That is because she is a Golden Retreiver puppy." He writes a lot of odd little dry one-liner-type jokes like that. (Such as his reference to the "hot" new glass wall in the kitchen: it's his nerdy-architect humor.)

But he was not kidding! Or else he would have finished the joke. And he did not finish the joke.

So, I wrote him back and said, "Dude! You never mentioned that you even had a girlfriend, let alone a moving-in-together one! Whoa, when did that happen? You always say you are no good at talking to girls or getting dates, so you must've gotten over that really fast. Anyway, that is great. How did you meet?"

And he responded, "hmmm... Don't worry... I haven't gotten any better at anything, we work together (in fact sat next to each other for the first couple months she was working) so talking was unavoidable. I don't know, things just sorta started happening and now we are living together." And then he asked me what was new for me.

Dude, that is crazy. How long must they have been dating in order to be now moving in together? I mean, a while, right? I am kind of weirded out that he never mentioned her before. Maybe he thought I would be hurt by it? I'm not, but I am sort of shocked. I mean, we broke up 400 years ago and I have been with other people, so I expected him to date someone else. I guess I am weirded out by how he brought it up, how very matter-of-factly and unemotional. If I moved in with a guy I would want them to be really really happy about it, and talk about how great it was going.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is pretty much why I broke up with him. The unemotionality, I mean. I don't want to be dating a basket case or anything, but I do want someone who is going to be expressive about his feelings toward me and about his life in general. I do like stoicism in a man, but a little goes a long way. I guess I am getting a glimpse of what he would have been like had he and I kept dating, and this was us moving in together. He would have sent an email to an old friend, three weeks after the fact, in which he was like, "Oh and by the way, supine and I moved in together. Yep, we have a great new apartment, and only half the rent! And a hot kitchen wall. How did we get together? Well, things just sorta started happening." Wow, how romantic. Not.

God, I kind of dodged a bullet on this one.