Day 2 after the break-up is not so much misery and despair as numbness and disappointment. Yesterday I spent much of the day crying on my couch and occasionally saying "No no no no". Today, the tears didn't quite make it out of my eyes. They stall in my throat, and I would hack them up if I could.

I'm disappointed so much promise and excitement just fizzled. I saw Ari and me, maybe not growing old together, but being a big thing, for a while. We could be everybody's favorite adorable gay couple. I felt beautiful at his side, and when I didn't really know him, I knew everything would fall into place and we would ascend to glory.

From here it feels like everything that would fall into place did so in the first few weeks, and then we stalled, perhaps around the time I claimed to be falling in love with him, and he said, "really?". I know it was early, but the words were in my mouth, and I had to let them out. It was hard to just be with each other after that. I wanted proof of my hypothesis, and it became more of an experiment than an experience. I was gathering evidence.

Was I fooling myself into thinking it was love, because I wanted to have the most handsome boyfriend in the world who loves food, spliffs, walks, and oldies as much as I do? Did it just seem too perfect not to be love? I don't know. Would it have blossomed had Ari no been afraid of it? Would he have been afraid of it, had he been in love with me?

I don't know. But I know, and he knows, that ever since the weeks leading up to India, our relationship has not fit well. But we kept wearing it anyway.

So now, I am not so much yearning for him to call and ask me to come over. My sadness is about myself alone, how scared I am that I will never find what I'm looking for, that I will just get older and crustier and less interesting and less attractive and turn into the loveable gay man everyone roots for but nobody dates.

Silly, sure, but that's really what I'm scared of. I'm terrified that true love is for people in their 20s, and after that you just do what you need to do to get by. I already had Robert. I kind of had Joe. Apart from Ari, I have just been doing what I need to do to get by, tired and out of hope.

So I am sad because for a moment I was energized and full of hope, and now it's gone for no good reason.

I am just glad I have friends who love me.