I thought he said ‘I love you’ – then came the brutal clarification

Dancing beneath a giant disco ball on a multicoloured dancefloor, I should have been having the time of my life.

After all, I was in LA, surrounded by hundreds of people dressed in 70s attire, at a party designed to transport us back in time to the heyday of Studio 54 – it couldn’t have been a more perfect event for me. 

But, there was one big problem. John*, the party’s host and, coincidently, the man I was dating, wasn’t by my side.

The only reason I’d flown across the country to attend this event was so I could see and spend time with him. 

And yet, it seemed he was perfectly happy without me, partying at the other end of the dancefloor with friends he saw all the time. 

No one warned me that the hardest part of dating long-distance would be the realisation that we didn’t know each other as well as we thought. 

John and I first met through Grindr –  a social networking app for LGBTQ+ people  – last year when he was visiting his mom in Minneapolis.

Our relationship started as an online hookup, but our immediate chemistry prompted us to stay in touch, even though we lived in different cities and time zones. 

John visited town a couple of times in the next few months, which helped solidify the fact we had something special. At least, that’s what I wanted to think, despite him insisting on keeping things casual. 

I immediately recognised the way I felt when John was near me: the sound of his voice inexplicably enamoured me, even the way his lips tasted and his signature smell made me feel like a giddy teenager inside and I increasingly found myself bored by other guys altogether.

When we were apart, we spoke on the phone twice, sometimes three times a day. The strong feelings I developed for him through those conversations caught me off guard.

While visiting me in June, John invited me to the Studio 54-themed party he was throwing in August and how he planned to have ‘all the people he loved most’ over for dinner the night before.

‘Wait,’ I replied, ‘You love me?’ 

‘I have love for you,’ he said, and my foolish ears internalised this as him being in the process of begrudgingly falling in love with me.

Up until this point, John and I had essentially agreed to disagree on our relationship. We joked we were open in his mind and closed in mine – without ever stopping to wonder if us being together even made any sense. 

I had just moved to Minneapolis to help grow my family’s construction business with my quadruplet brothers, and in many ways, had given up dating after a turbulent dating history left me cynical about finding love. 

I wanted nothing less than to fall for Paul so hard. But since our world was limited to just us two when he visited, it made it so easy to think he was the one for me. 

Many queer relationships are open since the LGBTQ+ community don’t adhere to hetero-normative ideas on what a couple should look like, so I was keeping an open mind. 

At the time, I convinced myself that it didn’t seem like a problem that he was sleeping with other people when it was out of sight, and therefore, out of mind. 

We seemed perfect when we were together in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, the rug was pulled from under me in LA.

When I arrived at his four-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills for the dinner before the party, our ambiguous relationship suddenly started to feel problematic. With every room already filled with people staying for the weekend, I felt nervous about how to act. 

I thought being John’s date for the weekend would give me a sense of power. But since he made a rule not to share information on who he is sleeping with, I wasn’t sure if there were any men at the party he was sleeping with. I wondered if any of them were here having dinner with us – if he loved them too. 

Things started to go downhill that evening when a young guy arrived asking repetitively for John and ignoring everyone while he looked all over for him. I didn’t know his name, but I suddenly couldn’t help acting like he was my sworn enemy competing for John’s heart. 

This man’s appearance at the dinner caused my first fight ever with John because I made a snide comment. I tried to explain my jealousy, but he snapped at me to get away from him, which only escalated the fight as I didn’t deal well with people snapping at me in public. 

Regardless, eventually we made amends and I thought we were on a path to working it out. 

Unfortunately, the next day, at John’s humble 300-person party that night, I did what I do best and self-sabotaged.

I invited a bunch of my friends and acquaintances in LA and threw a small party of my own within his giant one. John had told me not to expect for him to be around me all night, so I went the whole night barely interacting with him.

The party emptied by 5 a.m., we kicked out the stragglers and silently went to bed. Part of me knew that this isn’t what I wanted.

The next day, John ended things with me.

‘You’ve stopped loving me?’ I asked, and he stayed silent.

He looked so handsome, his blue eyes beaming at me with care, although his guilty, uneasy smile implied he never really did.

I wish I’d been less naive.

Dating long distance made it easy to ignore the red flags. I conflated his efforts to make time for me with wanting to build a life that worked for both of us. But that’s not what he wanted.

I now know that just because a man was willing to stay romantically in touch, it doesn’t automatically translate into something serious. Life isn’t a romantic film. 

Thankfully the silver lining was that living far away made it much easier to accept the heartbreak and move on.

And if I’m being honest, the euphoria of being head over heels for someone was worth it, no matter how far or brief John was.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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