QUIET QUITTING ON LOVE

Sometimes he’d squeeze my lower back in just the right way, and it felt like intimacy. I swore it was intimacy.

I was leaning against the armrest in a secluded area at the park, mindlessly getting my face eaten by my boyfriend of three years at the time, Daniel. He was pushing himself closer to me, grabbing, grabbing, grabbing at my neck and curves while I floated above myself. I was pondering the length of this whole endeavor and the smell of the trees, until I heard a sudden noise or something resembling laughter around me. I jerked my head around, my heart quickening and my mind melting with shame.

I couldn’t let anyone see the public nuisance I had become. I have destroyed my good-girl self, and for what? I wasn’t even really enjoying it. Or was I? Sometimes he’d squeeze my lower back in just the right way, and it felt like intimacy. I swore it was intimacy. Sometimes I’d return to my body, and feel the tingling on my lips at his mouth sucking on mine like a baby sucking its mother’s nipple for nourishment. Sometimes he’d aimlessly thrust his tongue between my teeth, and mine would involuntarily lurch back in disgust. It felt hungry, and to me, a little bit sick. I had never been close to someone in this way. I wondered when it would be time for lunch.

This whole thing started the very second our surroundings got quiet, and the busy atmosphere of the city faded away behind us. We didn’t really have anywhere private to make out, so every time we were alone in public he’d move closer and look at me with those big, expectant, desperate eyes. He looked like a puppy, whining and rolling around in front of me, laying his head on my lap. I grew to hate playing the role of the desperate teenage delinquent enveloped in uncontrolled passion, and I prioritized not getting caught as though my life depended on it. I felt like I’d die if some mother and her children scoffed at me—and worse, I felt like Daniel didn’t really care. As soon as I pulled away to look around for spectators, he’d pull me back in as though there was nothing to be concerned about.

All of a sudden, I heard that traumatizing sound: the thunderous barking of a German Shepherd in the background breaking the silence that protected and haunted me. I jumped away from Daniel, pushed him off, and stood in the middle of the sidewalk. I must have looked so awkward and guilty. I wanted to die. Daniel’s face was totally neutral. 

I ran away to the nearest bathroom, refusing to look Daniel in the eye. Instead, I stared into my own pathetic eyes in the restroom mirror, praying that the people with their dog would go away, that I could pretend the whole thing never happened. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to rip my lips off and never kiss again. How did I get here? 

For the next hour of our day together, I mostly kept us walking and looked ahead. When he grabbed my hand, I’d find some reason to grab or touch something nearby so that I could divert the attention away from my physical body. Eventually, he touched me less and less, until we were sitting around waiting for the bus to come, and he collapsed onto my shoulder crying. My heart sank. Of course.

“Do you still love me?” He flashed his puppy dog eyes again, wet with tears, completely vulnerable. I couldn’t bear the pain.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Of course I do.”

I scooped him up in my arms, and rocked him a little bit. I patted his head, and squeezed him, and rubbed his arms. It felt like I was betraying myself, comforting and assuring someone else when I was breaking on the inside. Why wasn’t there anyone to take care of me? Why wasn’t there anyone to make sure that I was doing okay? 

This had happened a million times. It felt like any time I had any sort of complaint for Daniel, any time I wasn’t totally happy with him, he’d break down in my arms and I had to comfort him. Because I did love him. Because we were childhood friends. Because he knew me better than anyone else. But little by little, I began to feel more like a caretaker, like this  relationship was all work, all one-sided emotional labor. 

So I just sucked it up, like any good lover/mother/woman should, and I performed love. Because loving is an act, isn’t it? And if so, it can become performative over time. I knew there was a deadline on our relationship, and so really, if I kept my act together, I could convince him that I had loved him the whole time and that we were broken up by outside forces.

But if I could, I would tell him to shape up. I would tell him that, as an adult woman, I would never accept anyone who refused to get to know my family like he did, or who broke down when I expressed my emotions. I would tell him that, for the sake of his growth in future relationships, there was so much that happened between us that was not okay. 

Unfortunately, though, I was too weak for that. I was afraid I would destroy him. So, I left him with that beautiful narrative: two lovers separated by distance, forever tethered by their shared childhood and trauma. Until that deadline, it was my responsibility to sit around bored in prison and sleep in my cell as if it were my own house. 

AUTHOR: Catherine Du
ARTIST: Madeline Kim