VACATION MAN PART II: The Time Traveler's Situationship
German supermarkets, vacation and the distortion of space-time, cooking & falling in love, massages (overrated), petrichor and the Presence Effect, marriage—what is it good for?
This is Part II (of Three?). You can read Part I here, Part III here, Part IV here, and Part V here.
MONDAY
L was busy that morning dealing with various administrative tasks: seeing to a shipment of paintings from his NYC gallery, which had recently closed; lesson plans for the school year; the sale of the house he lived in with his ex-wife. Having just returned from a trip with his children to an Eastern European Country, where he grew up, his fridge was empty and he needed to go grocery shopping, so I accompanied him.
I love going grocery shopping with men—so much can be gleaned from their consumption habits, their behavior in queues, their decisions when confronted with choice. L shops very slowly and without a list. He strolls through the aisles and picks up whatever strikes him as necessary, or occurs to him as something his sons—or I— might need or would like to eat. I always shop with a list. Without a plan, I have a tendency to buy stuff I don’t need, like extra snacks, which I end up consuming within a day.
Since I’d planned my visit at short notice, I wanted to show a little courtesy, gratitude, so I offered to cook a meal, pick up the tab at a nice dinner. I suggested soup since the weather was cool. And I offered to make a side, a salad or something, to accompany meals taken at his house. He requested chicken soup—not in my repertoire, but easy to make—and I went about gathering ingredients in the store.1
After L spent at least ten minutes trying to decide what laundry detergent to buy (how does one not know what laundry detergent they like?), finally settling on a bottle with a balsam scent, we went to checkout. The cashier worked quickly, and the area at the end of the conveyor belt rapidly piled up with groceries.2 This seemed to fray at L’s nerves. As I helped move items from the checkout counter back into the cart, L instructed: “put the heavy, less-fragile things on the bottom of the cart,” as if this wasn’t exactly what I was doing and I hadn’t packed a grocery bag or cart in my life. I wasn’t sure if he was addressing these instructions to me or if saying this out loud calmed him somehow. Yes, I KNOW, I thought, while carrying on, pretending not to hear him.
****
Back at the apartment, after we’d put all the groceries away, L wanted to have sex again. L, it turns out, is a Daytime Sex person—mornings and afternoons are best. At night he is too tired, which I get, and usually too stoned from his nightly spliff. Pre-pandemic, when I had to go to the office every day, I would occasionally spend my lunch breaks in midtown hotels with people from out of town (not unlike my first meeting with L), random finance bros, married men. But now I mostly work from home and don’t live in an area with many such opportunities for casual sex. Sex in the middle of the day is a vacation luxury, an activity for a rainy afternoon with nothing planned.
L likes massages as a pre-sex activity, and since we had plenty of time, he’d asked for one this afternoon. I indulged him. A massage seems transparently erotic, but doesn’t do that much for me. Even if I’m on the receiving end, a massage doesn’t turn me on; but it does relax me, make me sleepy. The appeal is more spa-like, health-adjacent for me. And if I’m the one giving the massage, I’m too concerned about giving a Good massage to truly enjoy the touch. By the time I’m done, I’m usually tired, my fingers achy from kneading flesh.
I worked on L’s back for a while. His arms and shoulders, I realized, had an overall sculpted quality that I hadn’t appreciated before—they were nice. Was L actually Conventionally Hot and not just Weird Hot? Oh no. My overall sense of control and autonomy in this situation was now under threat. I could see myself becoming infatuated, start caring too much, if I didn’t start pumping the brakes now.
A dangerous situation, this, since L seemed unlikely to reciprocate any unmeasured expression of desire, especially given his preoccupation with the Younger Woman (and, as I would soon learn, many post-divorce love affairs). But it was only Monday and I had an entire week ahead; I already knew I’d lose this battle. It was, after all, a battle I didn’t want to fight—not on vacation! I’d been waging this same war in New York between me and my feelings for Third Beer Man, for several years now. I came here on leave from the battlefield, not to expand combat operations.
What I wanted: to stop holding back my feelings, express them without fear of getting hurt, and for my feelings to be accepted, reciprocated. I had hoped, fantastically, to find this here in Germany with this man, and had failed—refused—to account for the fact that L was also a person, with a full life, with his own desires to sort out, and that an eventful year had transpired since our last meeting. The consequences of such emotional recklessness hadn't crossed my mind, seemed unnecessary, as vacations always seem to exist out of time—or rather, in an alternate timeline. The magic of vacation: the ability to experience an alternate life for yourself, a path not taken. I am less risk-averse because anything undertaken on vacation (cf. “what happens in Vegas”) seems like it should have no bearing on my Real Life.
My fantasy: I admit that I imagined some cross-timeline contamination. Wanted to swap one object of desire for another. Perhaps L would fall in love with me and maybe I could finally leave New York, move to Europe. Leave the burnout, the disappointment, the stagnation on the American side of the Atlantic. Or perhaps it would be long-distance—L and I could spend extended periods of time with each other in Germany and NYC, flying back and forth—and my life would be girded by this cycle of travel. While it is a mistake to expect a man, a relationship, to imbue my life with direction and purpose—that only I can reliably and meaningfully provide these things for myself, as every therapist has insisted—my yearning for partnership has always been difficult to overcome.
When it was my turn to be massaged, L used a very gentle hand. In keeping with my general masochism, perhaps, I like massages that incorporate a strong grip and are painful. But I did not feel like instructing him; the endgame here was sex, not a good massage. Indeed, L did not massage me for very long before he started kissing me, transitioning the activity into the marquee event. Reader, the sex—for all its normalcy, its vanilla-ness—was good and I came quickly, in no small part due to the fact that I’d spent the last half hour coming to terms with my growing attraction / attachment to him. There’s an ecstatic quality to letting go, temporarily, of one’s inhibitions.
****
TUESDAY
We had sex in the morning, as L is wont, but I was not able to finish—he came as I was giving him a blow job. While I was satisfied by the success of my handiwork (mouthwork?) I was vexed that I would have to wait until the afternoon session for another chance to come.
As we drank coffee and ate toast at the kitchen table, L retreated into his phone. He frowned at it, scrolling, sporadically texting. Given his responsibilities as a parent, the general complexity of his financial obligations, it didn’t seem unreasonable for him to be so absorbed in his phone at the table. I decided not to take L’s distraction personally—I may be living in an alternate timeline, but L was still very much living in his Real one. So I dove back into Homer as I finished my coffee: Odysseus finally made landfall on the shores of Ithaca and shit was about to go down. I’d hoped it didn’t look standoffish, deliberately aloof, reading at the table as if no one else was sitting there. L seemed not to mind.
The weather had improved that day—still drizzly but dry enough to walk around. L still had admin stuff to finish and asked if I wouldn’t mind exploring on my own. We agreed to have lunch together after my morning out, and that I would cook the chicken soup.
That morning I walked to the Fuggerei, the oldest extant social housing project in the world, where rent has not been raised in hundreds of years.3 I like walking because it brings me into sync with the present—this is its principal benefit as an activity for vacation, during which the present easily escapes me. I tend either to drift ahead, worrying about my flight back, all the shit I have to do when I return, or I feel sad about how quickly everything is becoming the past. The Presence Effect on this day was heightened by the scent of petrichor—the smell of rain on the ground after a light rain—a fugitive effect that leaves an outsized, indelible impression on one’s memory.4
*****
When I returned from the Fuggerei, L was on hold with some government agency. He grinned as I walked in, quipping that the hold music—a synthy, ambient loop—was kind of good. I started cooking while he wrapped up his business. As I prepped the vegetables and browned the chicken, I felt very happy—cozy, almost at home. Because I felt comfortable: I know my way around a kitchen, can improvise if needed, and have a bit of muscle memory when it comes to prep work. And importantly, I wasn’t just cooking for myself. I always fall in love, a little, when I’m cooking for others because it’s a way of spontaneously creating a sense of home and sharing it.
After his call ended, L seated himself at the kitchen table and chatted with me distractedly, doing stuff on his phone. I’d turned around, partially, to face him while he spoke. He would pause for long intervals before responding. I didn’t want to keep guessing if he wanted to chat or not, so I turned to face the cutting board.
“Hey!” L said, looking up from his phone, “I found you!”
“What do you mean ‘I found you,’” I asked, turning back around.
“On Tinder! Look…” L said, holding up his phone to show me my own profile.
“Oh my god. No, put the phone down” I said, shielding my eyes. I hate looking at my own profile the same way I hate hearing a recording of my own voice. Perceiving oneself as Other? Always an appalling experience.
So! L was sitting there openly swiping on Tinder the entire time. In front of me. Or really: with my back turned, as I was chopping radishes and falling in love.
I’d logged into Tinder that morning, while waiting in line for tickets at the Fuggerei. I’d felt miffed about the Younger Woman / colleague with whom L was still infatuated, and wanted the endorphin rush of a match. And importantly: I thought I’d secure back-up in case my time with L started really going off the rails. But L seemed unconcerned by my presence on Tinder, apparently looking for other men while staying with him. He took this discovery as a matter of course.
Trying to match his indifference, I asked, “did you swipe right?”
“I did, I did,” he said, amused, continuing to swipe.
I turned away, trying to find something in my soup that needed urgent attention so I could look busy while sorting out my thoughts. But the soup was essentially done; it just needed to simmer. I busied myself skimming the scum and fat off the top of the soup, stewing.
L proceeded to tell me that he’d recently rejoined Tinder, as he’d deactivated his account when he started seeing the Younger Woman in the spring. It didn’t work out, he said, because their needs didn’t align. She wanted to get married and have children; L was done with all that, but he briefly reconsidered both, he said, for her.
My jealousy blazed anew.
There were other issues: the Younger Woman suffered from depression, felt that she smoked too much weed, and seemed to be ailing from a litany of illnesses that required frequent visits to doctors. L thought she was a hypochondriac, over-treating minor issues. Just this morning, he said, she’d sent him a long text explaining that she was having a doctor examine a bump on her face to see if it was cancerous.
“I don’t understand how she can be so pretty, so young, and so talented—she has everything—and be so depressed, suffer so much,” L wondered out loud. He continued musing, as if I wasn’t there: “my ex-wife had a nice body, but her face was not as pretty. Not like the Younger Woman.”5
Sometimes, it’s thrilling to hear what men think about women, sans-filter, to get a peek into the lizard brain. But it sucks when what emerges confirms my most ungenerous assumptions about what men think. In a way, it’s a relief—vindication?—to know that one was Right. But it also has a sad, admonishing effect: why did I hope or think otherwise? His remark pierced me and I wasn’t even the subject of his observation.
Would I like, L asked, to see a photo of her? He held out his phone and showed me a photo. “She’s very pretty,” I confirmed. A Nuremberg ten, I wanted to add, but thought against it.
******
We sat down for lunch. “This is delicious,” said L, “you’re good at cooking.” Yes, I know, I thought, temporarily back in love with L and pleased that my entirely antiquated approach to pleasing a man was successful.
L was less inclined to be on his phone during this meal, but not because the soup was good: he was on a roll with the dating stories. He told me about his exploits on Tinder and (chaotically) within his own network of friends over the last year. There was a dramatic run-in at the town spa between his ex-wife (with their children in tow!) and this “Chinese Lawyer” who introduced herself as his Girlfriend; his ex spent the remainder of the visit glaring at the Chinese Lawyer and later made an appearance at L’s house to kick in the door, literally, and give him a piece of her mind.
L had an affair with one of his married acquaintances, as well as with this same woman’s sister (also married). It was unclear if either woman knew about their shared lover.6 There were several Younger Women about town whom he’d met on Tinder but with whom it never worked out because they, too, wanted to get married and have children.
“New York must be better for dating,” L opined, “because there are more women who aren’t looking for marriage.”
“There are certainly more women in New York than in Ulm,” I offered.
****
After lunch, L wanted to have sex. We kept it simple, no massage. No blow job either; I wanted to come first this time.
“I’ll miss this sex-twice-a-day when you’re gone,” L said. I agreed. I wondered if I could ever tire of this twice-a-day routine. Impossible to imagine—one only has the state of mind for this kind of sexual schedule while on vacation, when everything else one must worry about has been put on hold, temporarily. It was in fact wrong to qualify this twice-a-day thing as a routine at all; it was quite out of the ordinary. The impracticality of it depressed me.
“This,” I ventured, “is the problem with my current situation.”
Being single and living alone, I had to wait for my weekly dalliance with Third Beer man for sex, and or fill in the gaps with others, I explained. But I’m tired; it takes work to find other people and the chase is becoming less fun, more exhausting. Almost habit.
“You are, perhaps, a little in love with Third Beer Man,” L teased, “but marriage is not the answer, Marisa.”7
Annoyed, I insisted to L: he didn’t have to ward me off marriage as I had doubts myself about the Purpose of Marriage—what use would it do me?8 I could not afford to have impractical, romantic ideas about marriage: divorce, if I wanted out when the scales inevitably fell from my eyes, would be an expensive endeavor. The very idea of staying married just because it’s too expensive to divorce chafes at me. Tax-wise, I didn’t have much to gain: I do not plan to have children nor buy property. Indeed, my tax burden as a graphic designer is already quite light.
Historically, I continued, feeling myself getting heated, marriage was an investment opportunity, a way to consolidate power, or, at the very least, honor a religious sacrament. The idea of marrying for “love” is a modern idea, an immaterial ground for marriage that leads many to fail. The modern state (/ “capital” lol), I contended, has a vested interest in sustaining marriage as an economic organ. But one doesn’t require marriage to affirm love—I certainly don’t need the state to co-sign my feelings—and I simply did not have the budget to indulge in what amounted to a symbolic gesture.
I was admittedly, at this point, starting an argument to distance myself, my feelings, from L and by proxy, Third Beer Man. Deep-down, I know I’m a deeply impractical person who would risk it all for a mostly imaginary relationship, spend it all on a symbolic gesture. But I also wanted to know what L thought, freshly emerged from the other side of his marriage. This summer I’d spent a lot of time talking about marriage with my married friends, as well as with friends who would like to be married—I was seeking a reason for marriage that was satisfactory to me, wanting to be persuaded of its importance, its meaning. I wanted to know what making a commitment to someone might look like with or without the formal structure of marriage. Me? The woman who doth protest too much.
“You have given this a lot of thought,” L said, impishly, before attempting to disprove my claim that the state/capital had a stake in preserving the institution of marriage, child-rearing, by railing against the amount of paperwork—prohibitive—the German government requires for the redemption of such benefits. L ranted about how he could never get married again because he, too, could not afford it; in fact, there was a beautiful old flat in an Eastern European City that he wanted to buy as an investment—if he got married, and then divorced, his hypothetical wife would get half. “Yes,” I said, staring at the painting by the bed, admiring the highlights—yellow-white stipples of paint—upon the lavender tree branches, daubed in generously with a palette knife, “but that’s not my point.”
Sensing a lack of engagement in his rant, L quieted down, changed the subject. What did I want to do tomorrow, L asked: he would be free of admin duties in the late morning and, happily, the weather would be sunny. I suggested a trip to Munich to see the Alte Pinakothek. L approved. He lifted his arm for me to nestle under.
We lay there for a while and L asked, “have you seen me on Tinder yet?”
“No,” I said, “not yet.”
Would I mind showing him what Tinder looked like on my end?
I obliged and opened the app. I assured L: in terms of options, it’s not better here than it is in New York, though I found it easier to match with people in Ulm. (Probably, I thought, because I’m Exotic here.) Swiping through the profiles with me, L seemed reassured by the general lack of competition. I was starting to zone out a bit, barely glancing at photos before swiping left—I wasn’t about to examine a profile closely with L looking over my shoulder.
“STOP!” said L, “that’s me!”
It was, indeed. Here was a tired-looking photo of him sitting in the garden of his old house, the one he lived in with his ex. There was a slightly blurry photo of him at an exhibition, in front of one of his paintings. And finally, a photo of L squinting into the sun—a selfie—taken in Beirut.
“The Younger Woman says none of these photos are good,” L remarked. I had to agree with her.
Hold up, I said, scrolling through the photos on my phone until I landed on one I took during my last visit to Ulm. We were having dinner outdoors; the lighting was beautiful. L was looking at the camera but did not seem to know he was being photographed. He looked younger without the mustache he has been sporting during my visit.9 But he also looks less tired, slightly less thin.
“You should use this photo” I said, texting the photo to him, “it’s my favorite photo of you.”
I swiped right on his profile before closing the app. It was, of course, a match.
NEXT WEEK: THE THIRD AND FINAL (?) PART. Munich, the Alte Pinakothek and the English Garden; the dinner of no return; sex in public; a long bike ride and a discussion about prostitution; a gift from an admirer, discarded; still life paintings; nightclubbing; L’s Children make a surprise appearance (??); a Jackie Chan movie alles auf Deutsch; pressed flowers falling out of my book upon my return, a wave of melancholy; habit as heartache relief.
********
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
— On Tuesday evening, I suggested going out to dinner on my dime. L chose one of those ubiquitous Japanese-Chinese-Thai-Vietnamese pan-Asian restaurants that are everywhere in Germany?? Went all the way to Germany to eat overpriced vermicelli noodles that would have been better and cheaper at Pho Grand.
— For a song about being reminded of someone, falling in love with their memory (and then getting horny) while cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping: Little Annie’s “I Think of You” !!
—The chapel at the Fuggerei has a sundial installed on its tower, with the Fugger family’s surprisingly bloodless motto inscribed upon it: “make the most use of your time.” You don’t have to tell me, Fuggers!
I live alone so I buy the same things over and over again as I tend to eat the same thing every day. It’s easier to budget this way, and I am a creature of habit. This is why cooking with or for others is such a treat—it’s fun to make something beyond the usual, prepare something together that requires a bit more effort.
This seems to be a uniquely German type: the cashier who processes groceries at the speed of light.
Rent at the Fuggerei is about 88 cents annually, plus prayer three times a day for the souls of the Fugger—originally spelled “Fucker”—banking family. The cost of living? Low if you Pray for the Fuckers.
The scent of petrichor, which can be location-specific, never ceases to jolt me with hits evocative properties. Petrichor in Hawaii smells different from that of Bavaria. Sometimes, if I’m in Central Park during the spring when it’s raining, I get a whiff of San Francisco, where I used to live. It’s evocative enough to thrust me into rumination mode, disrupt my entire day.
Memory: last year, when I visited L, he still had a family photograph up in his bedroom. He took it off the wall and placed it face down before we had sex. But I’d already studied the photo when I’d arrived at his place. His ex-wife was, contrary to L’s estimation, quite pretty. A waifish brunette.
I was, admittedly, enjoying the dating stories. L puts my chaotic dating stories to shame.
I admitted that I was in love with Third Beer Man, “perhaps,” but that it was hardly reciprocal and that I was struggling to free myself from this one-sided relationship.
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR??
According to L, the mustache was a style suggested by the Younger Woman, whose father also wore a mustache. This fact disturbs but apparently does not deter L from sporting the same style.