Pickles

It all started when I invited you to a pickling group on social media. Whilst we had known eachother for sometime, lockdown gave us the chance to converse on a different level. To realise that our similarities did not stop at our mutual love for fermented foods. We joked many times about how we had more similarities then we had realised in three years of knowing one another. Were we actually the same person?

Regularly we checked in with one another. Shared thoughts, feeling and ideas. Listened and shared in equal measures.

Then lockdown ended. No longer were we both stuck inside pickling anything and everything as a way to try and silence the anxieties of our minds. But now we could finally share that hypothetical meal together that we had discussed so many times. Yet despite all my offers to cook for you you never turned up.

Conversation died off, but hey we were both busy navigating the real world once again. So I took it for what it was. Delighted that I had a new friend in my life with a shared understanding that cooking distracts the mind and nourishes the soul.

Then one night, which seemed to come out of nowhere, you kissed me. Over a few weeks we kissed a lot more. I still laugh at the date we went on where we turned up wearing the same colour and ordering the same thing off the menu (with a side of pickles).

We finally shared that meal together on your birthday, I cooked 7 dishes from scratch and watched you smile as you ate each one. You told me I was a huge light in your life and that you were grateful for me and how special I made you feel. But strangely that night you abruptly left.

Whilst you explained you just wanted to take things slow, for me nothing about our interactions had been slow or steady. That left me in a pickle. My mind went off into a perfect little spiral. All the traumas of the past started telling me just like every other man you liked the idea of me, but the reality would not stand up to the picture you had painted in your mind.

So I pulled the plug. Then tried to retract it. Then tried to explain. Then went on some god awful dates to distract myself.

Somehow we ended up sharing two more nights together. Pickles were no longer the basis of our discussion. Instead we talked about all the complicated stuff in the world, in deep eye locked conversation, which we both usually avoid with other people. Eye locked conversations lead to intense all night sex, with a physical compatibility that both of us acknowledged had been lacking in recent lovers. But still something wasn't right, as in-between these nights I got radio silence.

As we went into another lockdown, I briefly thought it could be a good excuse to spend 5 days together pickling up a storm. But you were indifferent to the suggestion and told me "you don't need to check in on me".

So now it's me, my jars, a heap of vinegar. Still in a bit of a pickle about what exactly happened but coming to terms with the stark realisation that for a while there I let you have your pickle and eat it!