I Miss Jay
Like in many friends-to-lovers situations, fear was holding me back. Now I wish I had another chance.
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Jay and Rejection
I’m on Grindr a lot. I like the high turnover. I like experiencing rejection. It prepares me for the world of work and writing. It prepares me for the reality of life.
Part of me wonders if the reason that Jay no longer wants to be friends is because of my Grindr addiction. Maybe he hates the fact that I come on strangers all the time. Maybe he no longer wants to be on my call list every time a random guy disappoints me.
Jay was my best friend.
He’s queer and Kenyan (like me), plump in the cheeks, very conversational and obsessed with brands and catchphrases. Nowadays, he pops up on my Snapchat memories a lot. None of his clothes are ever frumpy. Unlike mine.
The last catchphrase I remember him using was the word “men.” He would say it in cheeky disapproval. I could almost see his eyes rolling as he said it.
We were at a friend’s hangout following a graduation ceremony last year. I left the party sober. Jay was there with his newest confidante, Derek, the boy with the thin, jet-black locks and puppy dog eyes. They smoked a little reefer on the balcony. Inside, the party was slow, so I joined them for a chat.
Smoking weed used to be our thing, me and Jay.
Jay always laughed at all my jokes, right until the very end when he asked that we no longer be friends. I told him I respected his decision, and I advised him to stay off the weed. It was over text, but I was envisioning it kind of how they say it in the animated movie Entergalactic: “STAY OFF THA WEEEEEEED!” He laughed at that, which comforted me.
As we sat on the balcony telling jokes, one of the Arab neighbors took out the trash. He’s gorgeous, I thought.
It reminded me of how, a year ago, Jay had posted an infographic about Palestine on Instagram, which might have alarmed his many Jewish friends. I wondered if they felt sort of rejected by him. The whole situation had come down pretty hard on our school in the Midwest. Not as bad as Columbia University, which was constantly on the news during those days because of the protests, but bad enough still. A lot of op-eds were written by both the Jewish and Palestinian sympathisers who were feeling rejected Meanwhile, I was out on medical leave after officially being declared sick in the head. Depressed and hallucinating, I could barely function most days.
Jay came by one evening during this time and found me on my balcony meditating and my roommate cooking steaks. I said I wanted to talk, so we went to the living room, away from the kitchen smoke, which had set off the fire alarm twice already. That’s when I sprung it on him: “I’m in love with you.”
He laughed his way through my confession. I insisted I was serious.
“Men,” he said.
That was Jay.
Jay and Food
I had an obsessive relationship with food when I first got to America. I was addicted to Pop Tarts for a minute there. Same thing with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—I would eat the whole tub at once. My favorite one will always be Strawberry Cheesecake. It is hands down their best flavor. I also love that they’re vocal about Palestine. I eat a lot of ice cream so, in a way, it feels like I’m doing it for a good cause.
In a way, ordering junk food reminds me of the quickness and efficiency of hookups. There may not be nearly as much rejection (although I’ve had a Jamaican restaurant cancel on me before), but the rewards are pretty similar.
Jay is into junk food, too, but he savored everything. He often kept his ice cream and chicken tikka masala for the next day, whereas I binged on it immediately. On random weekends, we would get high and order a lot of Indian food from a place called Mumbai—although I swore it was run by Nepalese people. He’d make me get the tandoori chicken, in addition to two chicken stews. It was usually enough food for two people on munchies.
We also really loved Chick-fil-A and would Uber there from school for those chicken sandwiches. So yeah, we liked to eat.
Jay’s excessive weight was an issue for him. He didn’t like the rest of us seeing him shirtless. Before a shower, he’d wrap his towel all the way to his armpits. Now that we’re broken up, I’ve also become weight-conscious. I’ve started dividing food into good and bad depending on calories. I think a lot about these lyrics from the Charli XCX song “Girl, so confusing”:
‘Cause for the last couple years
I've been at war in my body
I tried to starve myself thinner
And then I gained all the weight back
I was trapped in the hatred
And your life seemed so awesome
I never thought for a second
My voice was in your head
I wonder how much of that he could relate to.
Carbonara was the first Italian dish I wanted to cook well. I attempted beef ragu for a Kenyan hangout once, but only two people showed up, so I guess it doesn’t count. The carbonara experiment was during Covid season, our first year of school together, and Jay and I were living in close proximity to each other.
After studying Econ together, we headed to his room. Jay pulled out the bacon and chopped it up, placed it in the pan and waited for it to render. He then put the pasta in the boiling water, and we waited for it to become al dente. Once done, he put the pasta on a pan and added the mixture of eggs and cheese. Before the eggs could cook, he added the bacon and served hot. I loved when he cooked. I wish I could have his carbonara right now.
The very next week—after Jay made carbonara for me—I lost my virginity to a guy on Tinder. He was a professional chef. He made me a fruit plate after we finished fucking.
Jay and Sex
I had sex with Jay. Once.
It was the weekend, and we’d gone to a different nightclub than our usual one. Normally we went to Le Nocturne, which is in the Uptown area of Chicago. This time, we found ourselves west of the city, at Bureau Bar. This was our opportunity to get hammered. We danced to our favorite Afrobeat songs. It was a crew of maybe six people; Jay and I paired up and left together. Jay was on PrEP. So was I.
I liked kissing Jay. I liked his body. It was different from the guys I met on apps. Sex with a friend was different—nice and slow. Afterward, we curled up and fell asleep naked under the covers, our bodies always almost touching.
The next day, while still hungover, we talked about whether our roommates should find out about it.
“I’m pretty sure RJ could hear us through the walls,” Jay said.
Three days before, I’d been contemplating whether or not I would have sex with Jay should the opportunity present itself. My answer had been inconclusive. Now I hoped we’d have sex again.
Like in many friends-to-lovers situations, fear was holding me back. Fear of what would take shape once we took a stab at the romance thing. There was some immaturity too, I guess. I was afraid of being held back by a romantic involvement. Deep down, I was afraid of commitment, and the fact that I wouldn’t get to meet other people, which sounded crazy considering the fact that I really got around. I was quite the slut. I can’t really be certain, but maybe I was the first one to reject Jay? I never said anything overtly, but maybe he saw my hooking up with strangers as my way of saying he wasn’t good enough. Or maybe not.
In our early clubbing days as the Covid rate died down, Jay and I found ourselves at Charlie’s in Boystown. It was our first time in a gay club. The music was exhilarating. Fluorescent lights bounced off the walls. The divas had wigs. The jocks were fucking. The floors were sticky with liquor and God knows what else.
We made out in the bathrooms. “Remember to stay safe kids,” one of the drag queens reminded us. We didn’t stop kissing and groping until the show started. Then Jay switched from me to another stocky dude (a bear), and I found myself getting jealous. We didn’t talk about it. That night was one of the best nights of my life, regardless.
On our first Spring Break living together, I fucked an old guy on a friend’s bed who wanted Jay to join us. He said no. He couldn’t believe that I’d fucked someone on our friend’s bed. He kept saying, “If I ever found out that you’ve done that on my bed, we’d be over!”
Jay and Music
Our first vacation together was nearly four years ago in Sacramento. We were there for Lost in Riddim, a two-day Afrobeats music festival. The lineup was pretty incredible for a first time concert—Burna Boy, Wizkid, Tems, Rema and Shenseea—all for the price of one.
We stayed in a seedy motel. At midnight, we ordered Taco Bell. After we ate our chalupas, I waited until Jay had fallen asleep before sneaking out to hook up with a guy from Grindr. He was Latino. He had no face on his profile—but his torso seemed promising. He was also willing to let me fuck him, which was rare. Most people liked me as a bottom. He made me walk six miles before picking me up. His car smelled nasty, lived in. Halfway through the sex in his car, I felt tired of waiting to cum. I thought about Jay. I just wanted this to be over with. I made this stranger drive me back to the motel and snuck back into the room stealthily.
The next day at the concert, Jay developed some nausea while standing at the food line, probably from the midnight Taco Bell. Rema was about to perform. I waited for Jay to feel better and missed the entire set.
Two weeks after the festival, I developed a UTI infection, probably from the late-night sex. I stained most of my underwear. Surprisingly, it felt good whenever I jerked off, like someone had inserted a urethral sound into my penis. This was my first gonorrhea infection. Two years later, I developed another one.
Our next vacation together was in Puerto Rico, for Afronation, a three-day music festival. The line-up was pretty much the same. The show turned out to be a complete disappointment despite the fact that I’d paid for VIP.
Unlike Sacramento, which was hot and dry, Puerto Rico was humid. The seedier parts of the city reminded me of Nairobi. There was also an encampment of protestors who were mad about the tourists, which made me feel like I’d crossed some sort of a picket line.
On day three, Jay came to me crying, saying something about not trusting people anymore. Turns out Ben, the boy he was into at the time, had gotten a blowjob from our mutual friend Luke on the first day of the festival. Betrayal aside, a blowjob sounded like such an oddly specific, and minor, thing to be mad about.
Jay, Luke, and I had flown into Puerto Rico together. Ben showed up later. That’s when the trouble began. We’d missed our initial flight, which had forced us to spend an extra hundred dollars. This enraged Luke, who blamed us for being late. Jay tried to calm him down, but received a hearty “fuck you” in response.
I guess, in retrospect, he really meant it.
Our last music festival as a duo was Pitchfork in Chicago two summers ago.
I had bought some last-minute tickets to see Kelela and managed to convince Jay to come with me. It turned out to be an amazing day. The festival goers were all dressed in ethereal outfits. A lot of them were smoking grass. Someone passed us a blunt right as Kelela walked on stage dressed like a GTA character. The experience was sonically transcendent.
That’s where we met Victor. I was panicking because of the weed, and Victor gave me a big hug to calm my nerves. He turned out to be quite the tour guide, taking us to our first gay strip club. He was also really generous, providing us with ones and fives for tipping.
Later that fall, Jay left for Paris. Victor tried to get me to come to a party filled with gays on a Thursday night, but I felt disinclined. Jay had expressed concern; he felt that Victor was kind of shifty.
I felt loyal to Jay, so I didn’t text Victor anymore.
Jay and Work
Jay is not much of a reader. It took him three years to (not) finish Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji. I try to read a lot, everything from Alice Munro to Garth Greenwell. Last year, I took a class on Ulysses. I managed a C, but I was so proud of myself for sticking through it. All of my friends had to sit through me gagging about the book repeatedly. For that alone, I should’ve gotten an A.
One time Jay said, “I’m so glad we can get to talk about intellectual stuff together.”
Deep down, I was secretly thinking, I’m better than you, because I read more.
To give him and myself credit, I’ve thought the same thing about many people before. Like my parents, who recently moved from Kenya to the U.S. and still aren’t conversational in English. My siblings, who are screen zombies. Everyone in STEM.
When Jay left for Paris, I transformed into a crazy, caffeine-addicted worker bee who spent his days in the library. Before, I was more likely to be hungover in class and sleep until noon. During this period, I managed to snag a few interviews for marketing jobs (I didn’t end up going with any of the companies, but I was on a hot streak for a minute there). I kept up with my classwork, handing in papers well before the due dates. I also went on friend dates to try and keep up with my social life.
Derek, that boy with the puppy eyes, and I ended up going on one such date. I invited him to see Ziwe who was touring for her new book.
As a Pisces, Derek is a shameless flirt, the type to compliment my most normie outfits. After the show, which had been tepid, we played video games at an arcade on the opposite side of the street. We then smoked a joint together, and I ended up telling Derek to stop reading white male philosophers. I’m still not sure why I said this, as someone who likes Foucault.
Much later, Jay would reveal that he’d confessed his feelings for Derek during a smoke sesh. I’d think about that night we went to see Ziwe, and how I should’ve probably hit on Derek. I found myself feeling jealous that I didn’t get to Derek first. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t like Derek the same way I did back when Jay and I had sex.
Guess that’s how Derek ended up losing my number.
Jay and the End
I started to realize that when things were good with Jay, he was the best. When things were bad, shit tended to hit the fan. I remember unironically telling one of my friends, who is an Aquarius, that Jay was a Capricorn and therefore a bully and that it took some getting used to. I should have taken that as a sign.
We also would fall apart during some of the most important moments in our friends’ lives, such as when our two Virgo friends graduated, or when our Indian roommate Sam was supposed to take us to a Reggaeton club for the first time. Or when RJ, the guy from the night Jay and I had sex, moved out. Talking to him was the hard part. We were both social science majors; all we wanted to do was talk about our feelings.
Things could get heated. At that point, usually one of us would leave. No matter how far things went, though, we had always found our way back.
Until we didn’t. The breaking point between Jay and I happened two years ago when Sam first moved in. Sam would constantly put me down in front of Jay, accusing me of little things like leaving dishes out and refusing to communicate. He thought I was irresponsible. I was convinced that he had it out for me.
On one of those warm summer nights, I escorted Jay to the store. He was high out of his mind, and he kept getting paranoid. I held his hands tightly, protectively.
This is nice, I thought, regarding the feeling of responsibility. Reveling in the possibility.
In a huff, Jay eventually moved out that summer, leaving me and Sam to our rivalry. He had finally had enough of me and my issues. It felt like betrayal to me. I kept wondering what I’d done to upset him. Was it because I was constantly depressed? Did he finally get tired of me having sex with other guys instead of choosing to commit? Did doing drugs make me unrecognizable? Was I no longer the ideal life partner?
I guess I’ll never know. But I miss Jay.
Jay and me.
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