Hey there Julie. It’s been a while now. How are you?
It’s been five years since you and I first met in that one-week long meditation workshop.
We were sitting just a few meters away, blissfully unaware of each other. You had gorgeous short hair and a soft face that suggested meekness. Your face would light up with energy when you spoke.
At first, we didn’t speak much. We didn’t even introduce ourselves. But when we were paired for the breathing exercises with our eyes closed, I knew that it was you.
There’s something about touching the hands of a stranger and feeling an urge to recoil, but there was no such impulse when your digits touched mine. I could feel the warmth of your hands like an electric fire against mine.
A couple days later, as the meditation workshop came to a close, we finally spoke. You showed me pictures of your paintings and sculptures and told me stories about them. You then asked for my number on the spot.
How cheeky! I thought that was the bravest thing I’d ever seen from someone I’d just met. As we parted you hugged me, and that was when I felt your frail frame for the first time.
It felt like I was hugging a teacup, and I felt the need to protect you.
We had our first date at a mamak stall
When we met up a week later, that first date was at a mamak stall. You had specks of yellow in your hair and t-shirt from painting your uncle’s shop. I laughed, because you didn’t mind me seeing you all messy and raw and honest.
Shortly after our date, you left for Penang, and then we texted for the subsequent months that we were apart.
I was teaching in a middle school at the time. Even in the classroom, my mind and heart were drifting towards my phone, where I got your texts every hour or so. I felt as if I’ve known you for many years.
I told you about the funny things that went on during the school day, which kids worked hard and got a better grade, and that one time when Timmy vomited in the sink.
You told me: “Kids with potential sometimes come from broken homes. It makes me sad and helpless to see them suffer from difficult upbringing.”
You said you wanted to change the lives of the unfortunate children who are already in the world before raising your own. You loved and cared for education and youth as much as I do.
With every text message we exchanged, I came closer to the realization that I was smitten.
We didn’t say that it was a relationship, but I think we both knew what we were doing. We were helplessly in love with the person typing on the other side.
But you lived far away. A 4 hour drive between Penang and KL, and you were a frequent traveler. Your soul seemed naturally drawn to faraway places, and your love of life had no boundaries.
You were in Taiwan for a little bit. I missed you. We texted often.
And then I remember, almost two months after we met, one day you texted me out of the blue:
“I wanted to tell you for a long time but I don’t know where to start…”
“I need to tell you, even if that means you don’t feel like talking to me anymore.”
I waited with bated breath, hoping it wasn’t the one thing I dreaded to hear.
“I’m in a relationship with a girl… for about 3 years now. We’ve been through a lot… And you’re the first person I’ve ever told.”
I was… flummoxed. But I did my best to listen and respond without judgement.
“Are you a lesbian?” I asked. You didn’t say.
Instead, you said that you were not attracted to women in general, but you did have feelings for your partner, who is a woman.
You told me it was fully within your human rights to define your own identity, or even to leave it undefined. Simply put–you fell in love with the person, not the gender.
I was surprised at my own acceptance of your sexuality
Was I surprised to find myself, a straight man, dating someone who was not defined by heteronormative standards? Suffice to say, I was not expecting it.
But it didn’t bother me as much as I thought. My previous relationship was with someone straight, and it ended badly. I don’t think heteronormative relationships are any easier than non-heteronormative ones.
You didn’t say much more, probably figuring that I need time to digest. But I knew there was only one way I could respond.
“Thank you for opening up to me, I know it’s really hard to do… and I don’t judge you.” And I knew that you would understand my sincerity.
We didn’t talk much more about it, and things went back to normal for a while. We kept texting.
There was a little bit of a language barrier since I wrote very little Chinese, but you seemed to understand me all the same. I played guitar, which you seemed to like a lot. I’d send you voice memos of me playing, as a lullaby for you to fall asleep to.
We continued to see each other as if nothing had changed
We were far away, but the feelings were close. Soon, you were traveling again, but you would be in KL for a day. And even then, there was only a small window of time when we might meet.
But fate intervened. You lost your keys, and while waiting for your friend you had a few hours to spend around Chinatown. I drove over to meet you.
We went to a cafe in a part of town I’d never been to, and I wouldn’t have ever gone there by myself. But with you, anywhere seems like an adventure.
We walked around the streets of old KL and talked about everything. We stopped under the streetlights, you saw me linger and waited no more.
The flowers I bought you were yellow. Your shirt was sky blue. And my cheeks turned rosy red as we wrapped our arms and shared a kiss on Petaling Street.
You told me you were going on a trip, and she was coming along.
You flew off the next day. I said goodbye on my balcony, sitting with the vase of yellow flowers. You said I should keep them. I watched a plane and its contrails snake slowly by… Were you on it?
You were on a flight to India, where you would be spending two weeks traveling with your roommate, through Delhi, Chennai, then onwards to Kathmandu.
It was shortly before you left that you told me, your roommate was the girl you were in a relationship with, your now-ex. Knowing you were traveling with her was a complicated feeling.
Did I feel jealous of your ex? Yes. Honestly, I would have been equally anxious about the tenuous nature of our relationship when you revealed that you were traveling with your girlfriend, regardless of her gender.
The next two weeks passed slowly. Every day I waited on the balcony, watching the flowers slowly wilt and turn brown as they reached the end of their short lives.
I felt sick waiting for you to return, so that our life together could resume. And I couldn’t know if there was a possibility that you’d get back together with her and leave me.
I had no way of knowing the outcome, but there was nothing I could do, except wait for the return of my beloved adventurer.
I wasn’t sure if you were still my beloved
Every other day, you’d text me pictures of your food. The colorful people you’ve met. And the interesting things that you saw on your journey. You even wrote a letter to me, and texted me a picture of it. But I never got it; it must’ve been lost in the mail.
When you finally returned, I greeted you in text. I wasn’t sure if you were still my beloved, but I was going to accept any outcome, even if it meant we were to stay as friends instead.
Writing this from the future though, I know that we did continue as lovers for a while. We had many little adventures of our own, and we even traveled together for a while.
It was some of the best months of my life, it felt like a dream. Me on the beach, sitting next to you, playing my guitar. And your head leaning on my shoulders as the cool breeze and the tide rolled in.
The tune of Don Mclean’s Vincent playing as we watched the birds return to their nests, and listened to the sound of cicadas as the night approaches. It was fleeting and ethereal–yet I remember every grain of sand that touched my feet on that beautiful secluded beach.
Just because something is beautiful, doesn’t mean it lasts.
Just because you click miraculously well with somebody, doesn’t mean you can stay together forever. Romance is often tricky and, even without gender preference in the mix, it’s not easy to sustain a long-term or long-distance relationship, and not for lack of effort.
You wanted to study and live abroad and I wasn’t in the right life stage to follow you. We had other clashes of opinion that had nothing to do with any past relationships.
But in the end, we both approached the breakup conversation maturely and were able to part on amicable terms. The night we broke up, there was no anger. Though there were definitely tears.
It’s been a few years since… and our little chapter has come to close. The night we ended things, you gave me a gift with a goodbye note attached — my last birthday gift from you. We hugged, and I cried on your shoulder.
You were starting a new life in a new place, and I had a gut feeling that before long, you would be with someone else.
How I told my friends about you
It feels funny recalling this story, since it was so many years ago.
Whenever I tell this story to my friends, I get the same questions, and each time, my answer has remained the same:
“Weren’t you angry that she hid this from you initially?”
I’d reply: “Actually, I thought she was going to reject me and I was trying to let myself down easy. Now, in hindsight, I’ve realised that people usually have good reasons for keeping some things to themselves. And in this case, I didn’t feel the need to disagree. It’s her right to privacy, and her right to decide when and if she would be ready to tell me these things.”
“Did you feel like your relationship with her “turned” her straight?”
I’d say: “I think this is a misconception. Just because she dated someone who was of the same gender, and then dated me, a person of the opposite gender, doesn’t change how she identifies herself romantically. And throughout our time together, there was no change in her personality or character, or the way we treat each other.”
My biggest takeaway from the experience
Julie — You were a positive presence in my life. You were who I needed at a time of emotional brokenness after my previous experience in love.
It was wonderful while it lasted, but eventually our lives pulled us in different directions, and we chose to cut the thread and move on peacefully. We’re both with different people now.
I haven’t spoken to you since a year after our breakup, and it was only to wish you the best in the new life that you are leading.
I have no regrets for everything that transpired, just the good fortune to meet and spend those extraordinary eight months together.
I had, and still have, nothing but blessings in my heart for you.
For more stories like this, read: Here’s What Happened When One Malaysian Couple Experimented with Polyamory.
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