You are not my Adam

So I love the HBO show "Girls".  I know it is a very polarizing show, and people either love it or hate it.  I find it awesome and obnoxious and maddening and amazing.  Sometimes I really hate the characters, and very often I cringe at the things they do and say and feel.  But that's also why I love it.  In real life, people do and say and feel cringe-worthy things, and in some boiled down way, Girls captures that....the awkwardness of life.  The awkwardness of friendships and relationships and sex and jobs and figuring out who you are.  Sure, the main characters are twenty-somethings, but I identify with some of these things as a thirty-something, too. 

There is a character on the show named Adam, and he is Hannah's off and on love interest.  Hannah is the main character, played by Lena Dunham.  She is spectacular and talented and crazy and wonderful, both in character and in real life, I think.  Anyway, Adam.  He's an oddity.  He's off the wall and crazy and charming and disturbing and he has some very specific sexual proclivities that he can't seem to escape on the show.  He likes dirty talk, he likes things rough, he likes to dominate.  Some people watch Adam and think "OMG, what a scary, screwed up guy!"  Other people watch it and think, "Holy shit, that's hot."  To each their own.  I fall somewhere in the middle of that continuum.

When I started watching the show in the first season, I realized that the character of Adam resonated with me because he reminded me of Artboy.  Artboy is a real life version of Adam, though not as extreme in any of the capacities demonstrated on the show.  But he is an odd sort, with an unusual personality, and people either love him and get him or hate him and don't.  Thusly, he's Adam-like.

However, in spite of the similarities, I've also realized the difference between the character of Adam and the real life person of Artboy.  Deep down, Adam wanted to love Hannah.  He tried.  But she was just as screwed up as him and they imploded together.  Artboy?  Not so much.

Artboy is dating someone. 

I found out late last week from him.  He had contacted me and I didn't do what the general universe would have wanted me to do, a la shut him down.  I talked to him.  And it came out that he is dating someone.  I won't lie, it felt like I got kicked in the stomach.  I'd had a feeling something was going on, as he'd been so MIA for a few weeks.  I had a suspicion, and it was right. 

There are many weird technicalities to it (Ex. I asked if they were dating, he said no, she's been very clear that we're not dating.  So you're just sleeping with her?  No, it's more like dating.  OKAY.), but bottom line is that he likes this person, and it's very obvious that she's the one driving this car.  He's the me in this dynamic. He's the one who cares more.

I don't know why I never seriously thought about how I would feel if this happened.  I guess I just got complacent, and since I knew he wasn't online dating anymore, I figured that his difficult and divisive personality may keep him single for awhile.  Besides that, he really just didn't seem to give a damn about dating.  And yet now he is.  He is dating one person, labeling aside.  Weird. 

In the season finale of Girls last night, Adam, who has been estranged from Hannah for awhile, reappears in her life in a time of need.  He swoops in when she needs help, wants help, but is afraid of help.  He comes through for her, in spite of all of his faults and eccentricities and failings.  And she lets him, in spite of her wariness and fear. 

Artboy is not my Adam.  He is not my anything anymore.  During our conversation wherein he disclosed the dating, I asked why he was contacting me then.  "Because you're my friend.  I like talking to you."

Right.  I really wish I believed him when he said that.  I really, really do.  For a long time that was what I wanted from him.  Validation of our friendship.  I've considered him a friend since we stopped dating, but I never really felt like it was reciprocated.  I felt like I was a convenience, an easy outlet, a constant to take for granted.  And now that he's dating someone else suddenly we're friends?

I want to buy it, but I don't.  Not at this point, anyway.  Maybe he will prove me wrong.  He is reaching out to me a lot more now since we had that convo.  Maybe he'd backed off because he didn't know how to bring it up, didn't know how I would react, and now that I didn't explode/have a breakdown/freak out on him, he's back.  I don't know.

I know that no one in my life likes his presence in my world.  I know that everyone thinks he's the devil and a manipulator and holding me back and everything else.  I don't know what he is.  But I do know that he is not my Adam.  I thought he was.  I hoped he might be, but he's not.  I'm better off watching the fictional Adam in Hannah's fictional world, and knowing that I do not have that kind of person in my world.  Reality check:  complete.

No Artboy lectures here please. I hesitated even blogging about this, but ultimately it is my blog, and I needed to put this out there. I am just doing my "Girls" thing....saying, doing and feeling sometimes cringe-worthy things.  It happens.  And I'm okay with it all.  I hope you'll keep on "watching", anyway.  :-)