TNG reader Eric Jost submitted this post.

Last week, after nearly a year together, my boyfriend broke up with me.

Not only did he rip out my heart and stomp on it, but he dropped a bomb on me: He is straight and he’s married. Not only had I been laboring under the pretense of a future together, I came to discover that it had all been a lie and I was the other woman.

We first met in July of last year. Having just moved back to DC, I located a Starbucks close to my house where I would spend the weekends writing and editing. I remember the first magical words he said to me, “Can I use your outlet?” After realizing that I misinterpreted his request, I quickly got off my back and stood up, laughing off my faux pas and graciously plugged in his laptop power cord into the nearest socket.

The next few months were spent exchanging smiles and knowing glances. I noticed that he would position himself at the closest counter to me, even once asking to share a table with me. We finally began chatting, discussing the weather and plans for the rest of the weekend. It wasn’t long before love blossomed and I knew that this was the real thing.

Over this past weekend, I headed back to Starbucks to half-heartedly work on my writing while I anxiously awaited his arrival. An hour passed. Then another. Finally, wondering where he was, I looked at the table behind me to find him sitting there, his face buried behind his laptop’s monitor as if he was avoiding me. Why didn’t he bother to say hello? I began to stand to get his attention when a frumpy woman with a bad haircut and a pink t-shirt that was two sizes too small joined him at his table. Well, who is this?!

I continued to stare longingly as this stranger engaged my man in conversation. Not only was she robbing us of our afternoon together, she clearly only had one thing on her mind. I noticed her place a hand on his thigh, and then rub his forearm in a playful manner. Who was this bitch and where did she get off hitting on a taken gentleman?

A half-hour went by and then the two of them got up to leave. They held hands and laughed as they exited the Starbucks, seemingly mocking the poor young boy they had left in their wake. As my love walked away without a second glance, I noticed the wedding band that had seemingly gone unnoticed for so long. And with that, my world came crashing down around me.

Pulling out my phone, I called the one person I knew would help me through the grieving process.

“Hello?”

“Leo?”

“Hey baby, what’s up?”

“I think it’s over.”

“What? What’s over?”

“My Starbucks boyfriend is straight—and he’s married.”

“Oh for the love of god, I thought it was something serious.”

“It is serious!”

“Well I’m sorry for your loss. I will talk to you later,” and with that Leo hung up, apparently unsympathetic to my plight.

My Starbucks boyfriend wasn’t my first imaginary boyfriend, but he was the most significant imaginary relationship I’ve ever had. I guess my real boyfriend—who is aware that he is competing for my love with half a dozen men scattered throughout the DC Metro area—was no longer amused by my unrequited love. Leo would listen patiently every week as I described my most recent encounter, like the day we both ordered the exact same drink and laughed about it for at least seconds.

“Well maybe next week he’ll ask you out,” Leo encouraged me. Or, “He’s a fool not to get your number.” All the while taking solace in the fact that my cowardice would keep me from ever pursuing one of the many relationships that existed only in my mind.

What’s interesting is that most of my imaginary relationships end about as successfully as my relationship with my Starbucks boyfriend. Although I may pine after these men, never does it occur to me that I might actually ask any one of them out on a date. And since high school ended, rarely do I use them as masturbation material. No, these boyfriends are less fantasy lovers and more husbands whom I’ve been married to for twenty years.

I actually didn’t even find my Starbucks boyfriend particularly hot—he was merely cute. Possibly adorable. And while I, at first, might have pictured one or two sexual scenarios between the two of us, I was more preoccupied with what it would be like to have dinner with him. Or what type of flowers he would bring me when I was sick. Or the inevitable fight we would have when I discovered that he was a cat person, when all of my life all I’ve ever wanted is a little Pomeranian.

That’s the kind of imaginary relationship I want.

Perhaps that is why I was all the more devastated to learn that my Starbucks boyfriend was married—his wife was living the life that I had been dreaming about. I bet after they left Starbucks they headed over to a Barnes & Noble to find a new cookbook, having recently decided that they go out to eat too much and should start cooking at home more.

No, I will never have that. All I have is emptiness and a real boyfriend who will almost certainly do any of the things with me that I imagined myself doing with my Starbucks boyfriend. What good will that do me?

I guess there’s always my other imaginary boyfriend who I see at the Starbucks near my office. But it’s just not the same.

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