Chinese Wall

I have rewatched Season Four of Mad Men for the twelfth time this week. This time, I saw something in one of the story lines that spoke to me in a new way. I love the show, but I usually look at it as an escape. I don't get emotional, very often, watching it, because it is so far-removed from my life, but now that I've been through the disappointment of losing something I didn't really have, with Mike, I found myself identifying with a character I had never looked at that way before. Dr. Faye Miller, the woman Don Draper is involved with after his divorce, is a character so unlike me, it is amazing I am even making this leap, but heartbreak is nothing if not universal. She is smart, and capable, and challenging, and she is exactly the woman, it seems, that Don should be with if he wants to be in a healthy relationship. She has her own life, her own career, she doesn't live exclusively for him, but he makes the curious choice to end things with her and marry his secretary. Parallels crop up in the most unexpected places, and the look on Faye's face when she calls Don and he tells her that he has to end things with her because he is marrying someone else was a little hard to watch this go-round. It's the look of someone who just felt the floor drop out, who just realized that everything is not what they thought it was. I know that look because I must have had a very similar one on my face when I received the text from Mike that informed me that he was "back on" with the girl he was seeing before me. I have no idea where, or how far, things would have even gone, or if he would have ended up being totally wrong for me, but all I can know is how much that hurt, and how my face must have looked when the floor dropped out for me.
I met up with Liam for a quick drink the other night, and I was not planning on boring him with all my jabbering on about boys. I was really just happy to see him, as I never hang out with him anymore since everything went pear-shaped with Mike. I told him I was happy he texted me, that I missed our Thursday nights. "Me too," he told me, "I haven't even seen Mike in weeks."
I let out a secret sigh of relief over that comment. I have been worried, without even really acknowledging it, that whoever Mike is seeing was going to get slotted right into my place, that she was going to be the girl they both hung out with every week, while I just faded away. I have an ugly side that gets jealous when I feel like I can be easily replaced, and to think of someone else bringing them pie and laughing along with stand-up comedy specials every Thursday, like I had, made my immaturity come up to the surface. Finding out that Mike is still seeing her, but that Liam apparently isn't keeping his weekly "dates" with Mike, with this girl as their new Funny-Girl Barbie, made me feel a little less bummed out. I told him that was too bad, started in on a little monologue about how Gino liked a girl who turned out to be a dick, and then Liam did something I wasn't expecting. He went off on a tangent explaining, or trying to explain, why Mike is the way he is. "Mike is a great dude, I love him, of course, but he will never change. He will be around for a while, and then he gets a girlfriend and he just seals himself off from everyone. It was that way with Liz. Liz was a pain in the ass, but Mike just didn't care was the problem. It was like when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. She just steamrolled him and he just didn't react, ever. And he didn't care- he didn't care about what she wanted, and he didn't care about letting her know. He's not always tactful and he's not always nice."
I wasn't asking for this information, and I don't know exactly why Liam felt the need to offer up this explanation, but it helped. He was breaking through the Chinese wall that is usually up between male friends, letting me know all of the things Mike may have never been honest about even if we had actually made a go of it, and definitely won't tell me now. Liam must have sensed that I needed this, that there were loose threads, for me, that would never be tied up, that I would be wondering forever if it was me that caused Mike to turn away. I've been torturing myself over what I may have done, when all I really did, if I'm honest, was show him how much I liked him. I convinced myself that I scared him off, that I came on too strong, but I don't really think I did. I was simply present, wholly myself, and he pussed out. It's not something I can get angry with him for, it's just what he felt he needed to do. I took Liam's words in, drank more of my beer, and tried to think of something to add that wouldn't make me sound like I was A) bitter or B) too forgiving. "I guess I just psyched myself out, you know? The first person you're with after you've been with only one person for seven years is kind of... a big deal no matter what you do," I said, "And I think he knew that, but he couldn't, you know, stop the train once it was moving."
Liam thumped the pencil he was holding off of the back of my hand, saying, "Hey, sex and cute girls go together, or, they should, at least. Can't blame a dude for that."
I laughed, because I had already arrived at that conclusion, on my own, weeks ago. Mike saw a pretty girl in front of him, he couldn't pass it up, and why the hell should he? He didn't promise me anything, after all, we just had fun together. It was shitty how he acted at the end of it, but I don't want to hold on to that anger towards him. I've forgiven worse things from worse people, and I actually think that it's better for me, even if that doesn't work for everyone. I once had a conversation with Donna, Gino's mom, about holding a grudge. We had opposing views, naturally. After telling her the story about how my father and my step mom eloped without telling anyone, then had a big wedding six months later and told everyone at the reception that they had already been married for months, Donna asked me, "And you're not still mad about it?"
"What's the point in holding a grudge?" I asked her.
"Holding the grudge IS the point," she answered.
This was not the first, or last, time that I realized my values were very different from those of the family I had married into. I let things go more readily than they do, and that is not to say my way is better. There is something worthy of respect in never letting go of anger, large or small. It breeds a certain kind of loyalty in a family as close as theirs is. My family is spread out, the connections between us as flimsy as cobwebs, because we aren't bound by that kind of unifying hate. We don't care enough, and in the process of forgetting about our resentment, we may be at risk of forgetting why we care about each other at all. My father is past the point of caring anymore, floating just four feet above the drama that erupts here and there in our family, simply because he has let go of the part of himself that cares about any of it. He loves his family, yes, but he also seems a hair's breadth away from telling them all to go fly a kite at any moment. At his age, with all he has dealt with, he has run out of fucks to give, and I respect that, even if it scares me a little. We assume our parents will always love us, not matter what we do, but I am worried that I will exhaust him to the point where he just decides not to care anymore. He reached that point with my half-brother, his only son, simply because it just wasn't worth the constant effort on his part to keep the lines of communication open. I somehow want to find a way to attain more of that zen-like indifference that he has.
I still cannot tell if any of this is healthy. That is the problem with blogging in lieu of therapy. No trained professional is telling me if the fact that I am starting to care less is a good sign, or the worst sign. No one with a psychology degree is weighing in on whether the fact that I still want to be friends with Gino, who shattered my world, and Mike, who just kind of dropped me on my ass a little too hard, makes me a masochist, or just ahead of the curve. The jury is out on whether the decisions I am making are good ones. I know I love seeing Gino now, as his best friend, with the freedom to tell him exactly what I think when he acts like a moron. I imagine I would also love seeing Mike again, just as a friend who will watch a Marx Brothers movie with me and cook me a pork chop. Not as someone I am trying to win an elaborate game of emotional chess with, not as someone I resent for being withholding, not as someone I miss getting naked with. Just as someone who makes me laugh, whose company I enjoy. I can get to that place, but I doubt he can. He's four years older than I, but I think he might be a little young for me.