Sir Has Been Almost There for a Very Long Time

Some relationships do not end so much as become increasingly difficult to locate.

Sir still calls, still talks about seeing you and every so often produces just enough warmth to stop you from calling the whole thing over. So you remain in that strange little place where you already know something is fading, but Sir has never had the courtesy to say so plainly.

Perhaps the easiest way to show what is really happening is to take this vague, half-alive relationship and put it somewhere impossible to ignore: a weekend away at a cabin in the mountains that you and Sir had planned together.

You are there, and Sir is coming. At least, that is the general understanding.

A fire is burning in the fireplace, dinner is nearly ready and outside the mountains are disappearing into a snowy evening. It is a perfectly lovely romantic scene apart from the minor inconvenience that half the romance has failed to appear.

Sir Is Almost There

At first, nobody is concerned. Sir calls to say he is running late, which seems ordinary enough. People run late. Roads happen. Nobody is throwing the relationship out over twenty minutes.

A little later he is still coming, and after that he is almost there.

Ah, almost there... One of Sir’s more spacious locations. A man can remain almost there for hours without technically having arrived anywhere.

Meanwhile, the cabin is doing a much better job of showing up for the evening than he is. The fire is warm, two glasses are waiting and Sir’s dinner is sitting across from you with the quiet loyalty of something that still believes in him.

Eventually you eat because starving beside perfectly good food would be an unnecessarily grand gesture. His portion stays where it is for a while longer—first because that seems reasonable, then because taking it away begins to feel oddly final.

By now, Sir’s dinner has been waiting for him with more patience than he probably deserves.

Outside, the snow thickens, and inside Sir has been reduced to a voice that appears periodically through your phone to report that he is still almost joining you.

Seen all together, the evening has taken on a rather ridiculous shape: you have brought the cabin, the fire, the dinner and your actual self; Sir has brought “soon.” He is not quite absent—absence would at least have the decency to be clear. Instead, he is hovering just outside the evening, keeping one toe in the romance without troubling the rest of him to arrive.

The Phone Call Does Not Improve Matters

When Sir finally calls again, there is that tiny lift of hope. Surely now you will get something useful—an arrival time, a clue about where he is, possibly even a man?

Instead, he asks what you are doing.

You look at the fire, the cold dinner and the empty place opposite you and resist saying, “Hosting your absence.”

When you ask where he is, Sir gives you a long explanation without ever quite managing to place himself anywhere. Something came up, things ran late and now the weather is getting worse.

“Are you still coming?”

There is a pause before Sir says, “I think so.”

Goodness. Nothing calms an anxious woman quite like “I think so” several hours into a plan.

The conversation wanders on, looking for something interesting to do with itself and not having much luck. Sir has been busy, you have been fine, and when you tell him something about your day, he offers an “Oh, nice” that does not exactly send the evening soaring. Before long, somebody mentions the snow, mainly because the weather seems to be putting considerably more effort into the conversation than the two people supposedly having the romance.

Romance, having run out of things to say, has moved on to precipitation.

And this is where the evening plays its slyest little trick. You had been waiting for Sir to call because surely hearing his voice would make you feel better. Instead, the call ends and you feel lonelier than before.

The trouble is that Sir still has not quite said, “I’m not coming.” He leaves that useful little sentence unsaid, and your imagination immediately begins being helpful on his behalf. Maybe reception is bad. Maybe the snow has slowed him down. Maybe something happened.

Before long, annoyance has quietly turned into concern, and the man who failed to show up is now the man you are worried about.

Goodness. Sir has gone from late boyfriend to endangered traveler without even leaving home.

By Morning, Sir Has Made Excellent Time

Morning, however, is rather less imaginative. There is a message waiting on your phone, and the good news is that Sir is perfectly fine. Extremely fine, in fact, because while you were picturing him battling snowdrifts, blizzard conditions and, by the time your imagination had really settled into the evening, possibly a mountain bear with territorial concerns, Sir had never actually left.

Something came up, he explains, and by the time he was free the weather looked bad, so he decided not to make the drive. He meant to tell you, of course.

Ah.

And just like that, the entire evening starts feeling different. You had gone to bed worrying about what might have happened to Sir on a journey he had never even started.

And unfortunately, that may describe the relationship rather well.

He never quite ends it. He gives you a call, a vague plan, a little affection, another promise to see you soon, and that remains just enough to keep you believing he is still making his way toward you.

So you give it another hour, another explanation, another chance for almost there to become actually here.

Except Sir has been almost there for a very long time.

And once you see the whole picture, it becomes almost embarrassingly simple: for a very long time, you have been keeping a place warm for two while Sir has been somewhere else, letting you believe he was still on his way.

In truth, Sir seems to have made himself quite comfortable in almost there.