[...] I’m not saying he was possessive—he was the opposite, almost too laissez-faire, rarely expressing anger or frustration or any other negative emotion about me saying I was having drinks with an ex-boyfriend or spending time with someone he disliked—but rather that I interpret boyfriends’ silences and noncommittals as masculine efforts to conceal themselves and the fact that they are feeling more than they say. I try to assume everyone is working with an inventory of emotions identical to mine, and since I couldn’t help taking it as a tiny betrayal when I heard about a boyfriend’s plans made without me, particularly if he brought up said plans nonchalantly several days after making them, as if having plans were not important, as if our two lives were not an intricately woven tapestry but merely two lines sometimes intersecting, I imagined men suffered the same pinpricks of disappointment when I did the same. This was delusional, I knew, particularly because I obviously liked to maintain my own independence and should theoretically be able to rationalize another person’s desire to do so. Nevertheless I preferred to think of everyone I’d ever loved or gone out with as existing in a constant state of devotional pining for me, sexually and spiritually, ideally not even leaving the house except to pick up necessities, and I assumed they liked to think of me the same way.