My Kind of Love Story

Here's a love story.

Believe me, I wanted to write about something else. (The editors at POPSUGAR can attest to earlier drafts of this piece having nothing to do with love.) When you have an opportunity to speak about qualities that make you feel marginalized, it's instinct to direct a reader's attention towards the glass-half-empty stuff. That being said, this love story fulfills and inspires me in surprising ways every day, so maybe it's one that's worth the click.

Before I begin, some things you need to know about me: I write and draw comic books. I watched too much Sex and the City growing up (still do). I wanted the specific kind of Lana Del Rey "American Dream" that's fed to young girls: if you suffer enough and yield to the endless ups and downs of romance . . . you'll get the guy and have a true love.

It was a late afternoon on a workday when I met Him. I still have the palpable softening in my gut when I think of this random hook-up's big blue eyes peering from behind those librarian specs. I won't go into the particulars of what happened next; instead, I'll tell you about when I was in high school and my friend Dee Dee Levine recounted her excellent prom. She spent the majority of the evening making out in the back of the limo with her date, trading off kisses for swigs of champagne. "Have you ever spent like three hours straight kissing, and just celebrating how fun it is to make out and discover this other person?" she asked.

I didn't understand that sentiment until the afternoon I met Him.

It was lovely that our romance began in the Spring. Warm days were spent finding adventures along the beach, taking advantage of outdoor concerts, going on hikes to the Observatory, and even making a trip to the batting cages! At night, we'd hunt for the darkest corner in a bar with a jukebox and strong servings of old fashioneds (his were so strong they tasted more like paint thinner). We were endlessly fascinated by each other, and there never seemed to be an end to long bouts of talking, and kissing, and hanky panky.

We had chemistry, but he had a boyfriend. Open relationships — there's still a way to cheat, folks! Suffice to say, we could not survive the consequences of being impatient and jumping into our romance before the ink on his previous relationship's death certificate had dried. I was too high on feeling like he'd made a huge sacrifice to be with me, but insanely insecure because I couldn't trust if what we had was an undeniable, force of nature love, or if he was just a listless cheater. In less than eight months, we had changed each other's lives, traveled around the country, broken up, gotten back together, and imploded on Christmas, when the pressure finally won and we both couldn't fight for the other's hearts.

I've been sad before. I've been heartbroken, too . . . but the weeks after our final failure helped me see that a black void of despair can get deeper and darker. My then-therapist explained this massive sadness to me: "You see life as a story. He slayed the dragon to be with you. And he left."

Thanks, doc.

We got back in touch two years later. First, a chance run-in at a Cibo Matto concert. Then, the "let's meet at the park and randomly apologize to each other and avoid intense eye contact" talk. Then, the "why not mix alcohol with a social interaction?" meet-up, until we progressed to a pairing of convenience. At this point I had left my day job and was making a splash with Self-Obsessed, a psychobabble memoir using comics to confront identity. He'd pop up in random strips, and I even have 50 pages of a graphic novel in my Google Drive called He & Him (guess who it's about?). Whenever I picked up the guitar, new songs would end up being about Him (Example: "Wink-Wink," a soon-to-be classic about giving a beej in the bathroom at a boring art show), but for a solid year and a half I was able to not let this person affect me negatively. Hanky panky and good times!

It was a nice arrangement, until I messed up and got tipsy drinking alone while visiting New York. The warm summer air filled my lungs with an urgency to ask the question (via email): What are we doing? Why not try and pursue each other? We're homies who still like to bang after several years . . . how many couples — straight or otherwise — feel that way? He wrote back almost immediately with "I've been thinking the same thing," and by the time I got back to LA, the tipsiness faded and I opted to protect my heart and not deal.

Right around this point, I needed surgery for some issues in my esophagus. I couldn't have sex — of any kind — for a few weeks after, and I took that as an opportunity to give myself a fresh start. No Ex Sex, but we worked on this Just Friends business. Do you know how difficult and confusing it is to spend half a day shopping and going to the movies with a guy and not even end the marathon with so much as a "thanks for the memories" handy-jo? I put this guy through the wringer. He wanted to be with me the way I'd been dreaming of for years, and the scar tissue almost kept me from letting him back in. Why build something back up that is historically so good at crumbling apart?

There are times where I stare at some of the decisions I've made, and think, "Oh, dear." It's pretty much how I have felt with every new release that gets increasingly personal. The nervous "I'm embarrassing myself" pit disappeared after I made a killing off a zine called The Nine Weirdest D*cks I've Sucked. I gave the middle finger to others' judgment after releasing the first season of a web series called Self-Obsessed, and had that finger raised higher up after shooting the series' second season, wherein my character gets a love interest — sex scenes and everything.

Using the DNA of the relationship you're reading, I created the Self-Obsessed character Ash. We cast Bailey Godfrey for the part, a guy with little acting experience and a bigger build than the other potentials, but he was the only one who made my heart melt when he'd say lines that melted my heart four years prior. A web series about a gay cartoonist trying to find himself by way of punk rock and gay bears isn't exactly the stuff of viral media, but so many worries went away the minute I started seeing comments online from complete strangers thanking me for showing a love story that looked like theirs. It puts a smile on my face to type these words, because I never thought in a million years I'd be validated for being emotionally honest about material that makes a number of people uncomfortable. To them I say: sorry not sorry.

For the longest time, I thought I was an idiot for pursuing the person I'd relegated to "good sex bad boy." It took me months before I could let my guard down and say, "Okay. I'm in." Maybe I needed Him to break my heart to toughen up and take bigger risks. I can't change that my #LifeGoals start and end with "finding a love for the ages" and "making comics," so to explore and challenge myself in one arena has made me stronger in the other. In a sense, his decimating my preconceptions of love allowed a space for me — and us — to define it in a manner that satisfies and humbles. As a person who tries to live with no regrets, I'm proud that I opened my heart to this guy — proud that I was so earnest in wanting the kind of love story you see on TV. More than anything, I'm proud to own this entire process as my love story and to put it out there in the world as pop art. Love is love, so Ross and Rachel: eat your heart out.