Speak by Tunde Oyeneyin

Author:Tunde Oyeneyin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

Empathy

EIGHT The Mirror

Relationships are about seeing others and feeling seen. We give and receive, and it is love that enables this mutual generosity of spirit; we have to nurture our empathy and take care of our needs at the same time. When I moved to New York, my boyfriend Johnny and I split up. It was a hard decision, but I had learned and earned my sense of when I had to prioritize myself. This lesson didn’t come easily to me—it came from experiences that, layered on each other, taught me to value self-preservation alongside empathy.

Four years before I started dating Johnny, I’d broken up with Brian. For the first few years that Brian and I dated, we were very much in love. He was a charismatic, likable guy. He was the first guy I introduced to my family, and when he came home with me, I thought he was my person. When I got myself my own apartment in North Hollywood, he moved in with me.

Brian wanted to be an actor and had just signed with an agent. But in the third year of our relationship, I started to see red flags. When his agency dropped him, he was at loose ends. Sometimes he had a job waiting tables, sometimes he didn’t. One day I came home from work early, and he was home playing video games. There were dishes in the sink. The trash hadn’t been taken out.

“What are you doing home?” I asked.

“I’m off today,” he said without looking away from the TV.

“You were off Monday and Tuesday,” I said, confused. “They gave you three days off?”

He continued to stare straight ahead. “Yeah, I got fired. I didn’t want to tell you, but I got fired two weeks ago.”

I was shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I knew you’d flip out.” There he sat in my living room playing video games. I felt like he was a stranger in my house. Had he been pretending to go to the restaurant? What else had he been lying about? And how had I missed it?

Before Brian, I’d been in a relationship with a guy who had been in love with his work. That was his priority. His dog came second, and I was pulling a late fifth place after his family and his friends. I had sympathy for Brian because I thought he had a very difficult childhood. It seemed to me he was abandoned by his parents and stuck in difficult foster placements. He’d been through so much. It was a miracle that he didn’t land in a world of trouble. He emerged as such a sweet person. He didn’t have a temper or any bad habits. He had come from nothing and had nothing, but he had always made me feel like I was important to him. Brian put me first. After my last boyfriend, that was all I thought I needed. Beyond his lies, I only let myself see what I wanted to see. There was a lot that I was missing.

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