I Can't Date Jesus Read online

  I do not always need to be right. I don’t like to argue. I won’t necessarily back down from a given stance, but I do not have a problem being wrong. Being told you’re wrong means you’re being given an opportunity to better yourself and be more knowledgeable. I try not to speak without an informed opinion, but if that opinion can be shifted, if not flat-out discounted, for the sake of enlightenment . . . proceed, motherfucker, proceed. It’s fine.

  In other cases, weird circumstances got in the way of dating. As in, We click, but you’re moving to Los Angeles next month, so this is a waste of both our time. Or there is a vibe, but then you find out your friend blew me two years ago, and while that should not matter, it does to you, so fine, cancel the wedding I’m already planning in my head.

  —

  I’d always been wary of talking about this out loud, but I did make an attempt to address these issues in a piece about single life for a major newspaper’s online vertical. I wanted to write a nuanced piece about dating outside your immediate pool. I wanted to make clear that I was not a social studies failure, so I was fully aware of the differences between nationality, race, and ethnicity. Being Black and growing up in this country often requires you to explain yourself in ways that you shouldn’t have to. I wanted to make sure my piece didn’t mirror any of the essays that I’d read from Black people complaining about other Black people who didn’t want to date them, essays that fell into familiar tropes like “I was told I wasn’t Black enough because I grew up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins” or some bullshit like that. Same goes for people who were obviously dealing with self-loathing. I didn’t want people thinking that I hated myself, or that I hated Black features, or that I found certain ethnic groups to be superior. I didn’t want to be lumped in with folks who thought that way. Those types tended to have Black Republican hairstyles: for Black men, a cut that lacked a proper lineup, or for Black women, some dry-looking ball of hair tied together in a way that screamed, “Help me find a hairdresser, my Democratic sister.”

  My intent in the piece was to convey that I used to feel it was important for gay Black men to be seen to be romantically involved with other gay Black men. However, as someone who wrote so much about gay Black male representation in mass media and what was lacking in it, I might have been seen as a hypocrite, because my own life didn’t reflect this line of thinking. When I told a heterosexual friend of mine who was dating a white man about this, she told me, “I feel like that daily. I’m in my first healthy relationship, and it’s with a white guy.”

  My goal was to write something that essentially said I had to learn to stop thinkpiecing my life and to stop clinging to ideals that didn’t matter so long as I was happy. That was all I wanted. And I thought I had accomplished this until the editing process started. With all due respect, I do not ever need a white woman to tell me, a Black man, that I might sound “a little stereotypical, like a caricature of a person” because I mentioned a crawfish boil, Hennessy, boudin, and Abita beer. I am from Houston, Texas. My last name is Arceneaux. My entire family was either born in Louisiana or was the first or second generation out of it. And Houston ain’t that far from Louisiana anyway.

  Worse, the headline that the publication chose made it seem as if I never dated Black men. After I complained about this, it was changed to imply that I didn’t date Black men most of the time. I never told my editor any of these things. I am always very clear with my words and intentions. She saw what she wanted to see anyway. She tried to make me into the very stereotype I was trying to avoid. I already knew that close-minded white editors needed to learn how to let nonwhite people control their own narratives and stop pathologizing us, so the only lesson I took away from that experience was that I didn’t need to explain myself to begin with. Now, when my friends crack their lil’ jokes, I tell them, “I respond to the market,” and extend them the invitation to shut the fuck up and mind their business.

  —

  The market led me to Adrián twice. The first time was via Grindr, a forum in which I never anticipate meeting anyone who will end up being of any significance to me. I downloaded the app because I was bored, horny, and needed a distraction. It was the summer of 2015, and after moving to New York and doing well for myself work-wise, I faced a common problem but under dire circumstances. A Black media outlet that I was contributing to both in print and online stopped paying me. Because my relationships with many of the staff members had turned personal, my usual “bitch better have my money” stance subsided a little bit and I gave the accounting office, stationed outside of New York, more time. That was a mistake. They ended up owing me several thousand dollars by then, and I was devastated. I used Grindr to pass the time and get a release, but that was also around the same time said app produced the guy who brought fleas and/or bedbugs to my goddamn apartment. I wasn’t really using the app to have sex anymore. Just to pass the moments between sending increasingly aggressive emails about my state of pay while trying to get work elsewhere.

  Still, Adrián and I chatted for a bit. We exchanged numbers. We texted awhile. I could tell he was smart because he, like me, wrote in complete sentences. Some folks don’t care for formalities in such settings. I respect everyone’s lifestyle choices, but I prefer to write in a way that would make my old English teachers smile.

  We were supposed to hang out but never did. I wasn’t in the mood to be around people back then. Adrián did hit me up out of the blue one time to let me know he was right by my place if I wanted to hang or chill out. I brushed him off. I told him I was going to see Nicki Minaj in concert—a purchase I had made for myself and dré before this Black media outlet decided to enrage my Black ass by owing me all that money. I could have followed up with Adrián, but I didn’t. I felt too much like a loser in those moments and was paranoid that the next time I invited someone over, they might bring rabies with them.

  The following January, I recognized his face on Twitter after he tweeted me. I was better off by then and had a clearer mind, so after recognizing him, I slid in his DMs like a thirsty thot who knew he had made a mistake. I had a new phone, but I still had his number. He reminded me that I had ignored him for Nicki Minaj. He let me know exactly what I had missed out on. I was hoping for a second chance, so I asked him out.

  We met at some Italian restaurant on the Lower East Side that was full of white people but that blasted a whole lot of Future. When we were texting each other, it was flirtatious, and I got the sense that we were going to hit it off.

  We did not hit it off. When I arrived, he was waiting at the bar, wearing a black sweater and black-framed glasses that perfectly fit his face. He was beautiful but cold. He went from flirty and suggestive texts—and even a tweet about what kind of underwear he was wearing—to greeting me like I was the archnemesis on Real Housewives that Production forced him to sit with to film a scene that everyone knew would end in explosive confrontation.

  It wasn’t explosive, but it turned contentious when politics came up. We were right at the point of the Democratic presidential primary at which people were starting to vote.

  Picture it: me drinking brown liquor and hoping to come across as charming when the conversation shifts to politics. I explain that while I am not especially fond of Hillary Clinton, I do feel that after the New Hampshire primary, she was most likely to win the states and delegates necessary to become the Democratic nominee for president. I add that Clinton is more likely to accomplish her agenda given that, months ago, she unveiled a plan to capitalize on Obama’s use of executive power. I said that unless President Bernie Sanders tramples Capitol Hill like Godzilla, killing everyone in office so that we can start over in some politician-less paradise, chances were slimmer than a Bad Boy royalty check that homeboy would get much done as an executive.

  You’d have thought I said, “Fuck Bernie Sanders, fuck you, and fuck you hippy-dippy assholes standing in the way of reasonable pragmatism with your strain of idealism that should be rolled into a big-ass blunt.” Sure, whe
n the Sanders insurgency campaign started to ramp up, I had found myself liking him enough to make a campaign donation that could have otherwise gone toward the purchase of a catfish dinner with two sides and peach cobbler for dessert. Did I think he was going to win the nomination? Hardy har. No. But Adrián did, and considering he was a politically informed social worker who loathed most American politicians (as someone from Puerto Rico, one can see why he would loathe the government of a colonial power), it made sense that he was one of Bernie Sanders’s most ardent supporters. We had a heated back-and-forth about it, and despite his attempts to get me to Feel the Bern more, all I could feel was myself going flaccid. It didn’t help that he started talking about how much he hated people touching him.

  In my mind, I was like, But you said . . . and you showed me that . . . and you . . . He smiled a lot during all of this. I’d never seen a more beautiful smile on a man (my nieces win for best smile ever, FYI). But beyond that smile, he was trolling the fuck out of me. Enter Beyoncé, whom he trashed to get a rise out of me. I told him that I didn’t partake in Beytheism, so I would not engage in this and I’d pray for his taste levels, but he kept pressing, and eventually I went back and forth with him about that, too.

  We took the same train back uptown. It was crowded. We didn’t even get to sit down. We just stood near each other. He reminded me how much he hated to be touched. So, I barely touched him when I got off at my stop and let him go to the Bronx. Of all the strange dates I’d had, this ranked high. But I somehow remained curious about him.

  dré was puzzled by my lingering interest. “Wait, you still want to see him?” I said yes, and so Adrián and I ended up grabbing drinks again. And then again. And then again. And we texted a lot. We communicated a lot on Twitter too. He wanted to read my writing—which was new—and he continued to troll me as a Hillary bot while I encouraged him to enjoy the ride until Hillary slapped Bernie back to the Senate. After a while, he did let me know a few things. One, he was purposely fucking with me on date one: “I’m a lot, so I need people to prepare for that.” He also casually let me know that he was HIV-positive.

  For a subject that had scared me for so much of my life, by the time he made that disclosure, it didn’t alarm me. Before I met Adrián, I was interested in someone else who I knew was positive. Someone “regular Black,” if that matters (it does not). I thought that thing was going somewhere until he suddenly flipped the script on me. He was now celibate and wanted to know if we could just be friends. I didn’t know why people bothered saying that. There are some people who can meet others under nonplatonic circumstances and go on to forge a lovely platonic relationship. I am not one of those people. I have friends. I don’t want to have sex with my friends; therefore, you’re not my friend. It’s bullshit.

  To wit, days after that guy gave me that speech, I saw him on Tinder. Just say you don’t want me and leave it at that.

  It’s sort of funny how all of your life you have this great fear of something, only when you confront it, overcome it, and shake off those stigmas, you end up being told, “Eh, I don’t want you.” Life is funny that way. But that dude turned out to be someone whom I liked the idea of, versus who he actually was. This was not the case with Adrián. I found him to be gorgeous, smart, hilarious, and challenging in the best way imaginable. He constantly told me things that I needed to do or even write about. He was usually right. I hadn’t known him that long, but I did feel that he was the sort of man that I needed to be around. He made me want to be better. He once invited me to Popeyes! Do you know how special it is to have a beautiful, intelligent, funny man hit your text like, “Wanna meet at Popeyes?” Bitch! That is how my ideal romantic comedy begins.

  Unfortunately, we were both dating other people at the time, and as I would soon learn, it was more serious on his end than on mine. He invited me to a restaurant called Angel of Harlem, where he was having after-work drinks with his friend. After a while, he randomly inserted that he now had a boyfriend, but that we could be still be friends. I downed my drink, asked for the bill, paid, and turned to leave.

  “Don’t be a brat,” Adrián said.

  My response was that I wasn’t being a brat, I was being an adult.

  I had already been here before. I was not about to allow yet another person to know that I was interested but also allow them not to commit to me. I felt like I had already wasted so much time trying to make something of a situation that was clearly not meant to be. Additionally, I had already messed around in the past with someone who had a boyfriend. Living life like an SWV song was not the way to be. No, I needed to find something that was mine. Adrián had made a choice and it was not me, so I wanted to get away from him before I ended up getting hurt.

  When I left, I thought that would be the last time I saw him. He didn’t stop hitting me up, though. I didn’t stop responding either. Soon, I was back to hitting him up. It proved all too easy for me to break that pledge to myself. He came to my birthday party, and I took him out to a Puerto Rican restaurant for his birthday fifteen days later. Still, I made it clear that this was going to have to end. The plan was for him to take me to some Puerto Rican restaurant in East Harlem that he loved for what was essentially a farewell dinner. But that dinner never happened. It kept getting pushed back. Instead, we met weekly for drinks. We texted nearly every single day. He sometimes called me out of the blue. He warned me that even if I blocked him on every social media platform and on my phone, somehow, he was going to show up to something I was doing and roll up on me like, “What’s up?” I never tested him on that because I kept engaging him. While all of this was going on, I was actively trying to date other people. None of them were like him, and even when I tried not to compare anyone else to him, anything that lacked that same spark led me to do so.

  He was different from me, but we had more in common than I initially assumed we would. What I came to learn dating men of Dominican or Puerto Rican descent (or, in his case, someone born in Puerto Rico) was how much they reminded me of country Black people in the South. I have joked that most Dominicans and Puerto Ricans are just Black people who order pig’s feet in Spanish, but through Adrián, who did acknowledge his African lineage, I got a better understanding of why older Black women always gravitate toward Latin men. I was tickled that he had learned English in the 2000s from, like, Céline Dion, and didn’t watch Black Americans on screen until TV shows such as The Parkers and films like Two Can Play That Game made their way to PR. He obsessed over both of those things. However, he clapped his hands when he was mad like every hood Black girl I’d ever met. He grew up playing dominoes with his dad the same way I had played with mine. I learned that when he said, “Pero, like . . . ,” he was doing his equivalent of every Black girl and gay who loves to begin statements with “BUT I MEAN . . .” in an elevated voice.

  He loved his dad the way I loved my mom. Once, he compared me to his dad while we were at a bar, which somehow led to us both tearing up in front of cat daddies in the middle of a Saturday. What I liked most about him and what kept me so close despite my misgivings was that for the first time, I felt as if I was being seen without having to tell so much. With Adrián, there was a level of comfort and ease that I’d never experienced with anyone else. I didn’t have to say much, which was fine because, by and large, he had such a big, magnetic personality that I relished consuming him and all that energy. I learned all this in the months we spent together—which turned into a year, then longer.

  We did differ in some ways. I tried to control my anger while he was a bit of a hothead, ready to go at a moment’s notice. He thought Britney Spears’s In the Zone album was her finest work and trashed me for liking Blackout so much. He only pretended to loathe Beyoncé, whereas I thought anyone who even pretended to entertain Beytheism needed psychiatric treatment. We’d each endured our fair share of trauma, but despite our both having a fair share of cynicism, I tried to fight mine off, whereas he mainly gave in.

  He told me the story of how he ha
d contracted HIV: his live-in boyfriend cheated on him with his best friend. A best friend he shared a tattoo with, sleeping with a man I assume Adrián thought he was going to be with for the long haul. I knew the betrayal bothered him, but I didn’t know the extent to which it did.

  As for why he didn’t eventually choose me, he gave a number of different reasons. The first was to note that he was dating someone else and it was someone he felt was going to be his boyfriend. To me, he shouldn’t have bothered dating anyone if that was the case, but such was his right. In any event, as he pointedly said back when he first told me about this boyfriend, “When I wanted you, you rejected me.” When he told me that he had a boyfriend, I did wonder if the way he behaved on our first date wasn’t so much about testing if I could handle him as much as it was having me feel bad about making a mistake. He admittedly liked attention. That didn’t seem right. Neither was the other excuse: “I have to be the star in the relationship, and I wouldn’t be that with you.” Or that I was “annoying.” Adrián annoyed the everlasting shit out of me too, but we both cared about each other, and we each enjoyed each other’s company. That wasn’t it either.

  It wasn’t until we decided to spend a little of the Fourth of July together that we ran into a few of our friends. Again, Black women love this DeBarge-looking Rican, so my friend Sade and her Virginia Black mannerisms meshed swimmingly with his PR-produced theatrics. Sade had already heard about Adrián. All of my close friends had. They remembered seeing him at my birthday party. People who worried about my feelings were not in love with this predicament that I had placed myself in, but they were more or less letting me cook in a mess of my own making.

  As I got up to talk to some other friends I saw, Adrián and Sade had their own conversation. I wasn’t sure how he decided to pour out to her about us despite not knowing her well, but she circled back to me about something he had hinted at but had never completely explained. He often joked about having the “kitty” and dying, but I didn’t feel he truly believed that. However, it was clear to me after talking to Sade that the manner in which he had contracted HIV may have permanently altered his outlook on love and relationships.