“Just get it.”

I stared at my phone with what must have been a shocked expression at his nasty shift in tone.

“You’re a smart guy. Please, just get it already.”

I felt like I was being spoken to by an exasperated school teacher, calling my attention to something that was just beyond my nose but that, for whatever reason, I wasn’t seeing.

And yet, I did see. I had seen. I’d gotten it months ago. I’d also seen something I thought I really wanted, so I was willing to look beyond the ugly it he was hoping I’d just get already. Apparently, my approach had backfired.

Over five months, our sporadic correspondence had amounted to about 40 emails and well over 200 text messages. Our interactions held lure, and despite the fact that our plans always mysteriously fell through, I repeatedly let him command my attention.

I also gave quite a bit of thought to what might be wrong with this guy, because something definitely was. Just what was his “Ugly It”? Is he a drug addict? Is he mentally ill? Does he have HIV and is—understandably—troubled about admitting it to prospective sexual partners? Is he in the closet? Is he in a relationship and this is all directionless flirtation? Or maybe, I wondered with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, maybe he’s just a selfish prick with no mitigating excuses. The Ugliest It of them all.

In this season of renewals and new beginnings, I’m never one to make hard promises to myself. New Year’s resolutions seem like a great way to set yourself up for failure. But one thing is certain as we move into 2016: I will not be tolerating this kind of bullshit again.

Problem is, I come from a bygone era wherein people gave each other the benefit of the doubt. As a result, the cut-throat maze of online introductions, flirtations, and cyber courtships seems unusually bizarre to me. It’s a world that’s taken me years to navigate, a secondary system I’ve had to learn that’s vastly different from what I knew growing up. Fifteen years on, I can’t claim there’s a whole lot of finesse involved.

But for the most part I can hold my own. Usually, I don’t let situations get quite so complicated. Something about this particular conversation, however, held great promise…an unusually charged degree of sexual chemistry. There seemed to be a deep-seated, mutual physical attraction.

And now, on the flipside, it felt like this man was talking to me like a dog. See the ball? SEE THE BALL? GET IT? Good. Heel. Sit. Stay. Maybe it’s not all that surprising since it’s when we feel that very high-test combustible lust I’m referring to that our inner animal takes the lead. Base instinct runs amok and logic is quickly rendered a buzz kill. It’s a cartoon image of a German shepherd dragging its comparatively wispy, confused-looking owner along the sidewalk, galloping after some shapely poodle with a fancy haircut. You really don’t have much choice but to just ride it out.

Somehow I’d convinced myself this was worth getting dragged a few blocks.

Suddenly, things you might not otherwise tolerate become forgivable in scenarios like this. That the poodle might be insufferably selfish or emotionally unavailable wasn’t much a consideration when your lower self went galloping down the street. With the realization that you’re really just dealing with a run-of-the-mill bitch, you then kid yourself into thinking each ensuing disappointment is an isolated incident. New boundaries are set, and then reset when the poodle crosses them. Patterns develop and you pretend not to see them. The bar just gets lower and lower.

We kept running into each other in a certain online spot. Call it the big dog park in the sky. Each time, the fire got fanned all over again. Some fervent butt sniffing would occur followed by an intense chase…and then, like clockwork, the poodle would flake, always with the false promise of a rain check. And each time, I fell for it, wagging my tail all the way home.

But in the end, what upset me the most about this overlong, fruitless exchange wasn’t the loss of a hot sexual prospect. It was more about the way I’d hung in there despite not being treated very well. It was about the wasted time and energy, and the way I’d let him toy with my transparent enthusiasm. It was about repeatedly buying the lie.

Throughout our correspondence I was constantly told what a great guy I am. Cool guy, good guy. Hot guy, cute guy. I’m awesome. I’m a mensch. Yay me. But these compliments were always delivered with a lilt of regret that I couldn’t hear in his printed words. What he apparently meant to say was “You’re such a great guy, in fact, that I can’t let myself beat you up and treat you like shit the way I want to.”

Perhaps I’ve been lucky. Nobody has ever rejected me for being ugly, too fat, too thin, stupid, a lousy lay, or any of the other superficial things we tend to fear most when we put ourselves out there. That one time when some Bostonian buffoon told me my teeth weren’t white enough for him to kiss me in the bathroom of The Eagle doesn’t count.

But rejection just gets more complicated and difficult to dismiss from there on out. In this instance, I was essentially being rejected for not being trashy enough. I lack the fuck-and-run quality he requires. Telling someone they’re “too nice of a guy” to bed down the way you want wreaks an inner havoc all its own (and you might not want to make such sweeping assumptions, either). Getting rejected because of your physicality is, of course, awful. But in the picked-over world of gay hookups, most of us have found ways to tune it out. Getting rejected because your psychology isn’t sufficiently warped is much harder to grapple with. And trust me, when I was getting dragged down the sidewalk, a mind-fuck wasn’t quite what I was after.

“It’s the hand of god save,” he chirped at me in the ensuing fallout. Really? Is that what it is? Because I could swear it’s just the sound of you being an insufferably selfish, emotionally unavailable toy poodle, I thought to myself. “I hope you understand that, for you, it is most likely best not to get involved with me. You dodged a bullet, friend. Pat yourself on the back and go have a beer.”

The patronizing arrogance astounds me still. The hand of god helped save me from your potent bullet. Are you really going to imply that your selfish, shitty behavior is actually related to some sort of divine intervention, FREIND? I do believe that is the only time a gay man has ever posited that god stepped in to save me from the fate of having sex with him. It’s most definitely one for the scrapbook. Sure, I’ll pat myself on the back and go have a beer, even though you know damn well I’m sober, you sanctimonious schmuck.

For the record, being sober also means that there’s no magic off button to relieve tricky feelings like anger and hurt. I no longer have the luxury of using anything to take the edge off when I’m at a breaking point. I get to just sit with negative energy until it passes. Yay for awesome me, The Mensch, toughing it out.

The man on the other end of this conversation, also in his 40’s, seemed genuinely surprised by my upset, as if he’d barely been paying attention during the five month chase. This might be the most infuriating aspect of the entire shebang: the startling difference between the amounts of energy expended. In truth, I felt winded—like I’d been punched in the stomach.

It should have been a validating moment when he finally apologized, but really it just felt empty. He only wanted to shut me up. Sometimes there’s no satisfying end to be had. Losses must be collected and the sooner you walk away, tail between your legs, the better.

Not a full 24 hours later, as I sat in the drug store parking lot pouring over emails on my phone, he backed into the spot next to mine. I’d been seething all day, parodying the phrase “hand of god save” with the most obnoxious voices I could muster. Apparently, turning our exchange into an SNL skit was providing me some comic relief. On his way out a few minutes later, he recognized me and shot me a smug, bushytailed grin, as if he’d conveniently forgotten how annoyed I was. The look I reflected back surely reminded him.

I never did find out exactly what his problem is. I have my hunches. But more importantly, I realized a good chunk of this charade could have been avoided if I hadn’t left myself open to it, if I’d let the mere existence of his non-specific Ugly It be reason enough to back away.

I hope in the coming year that I’m better able to shut people down who have no place in my life…to protect myself from men that don’t deserve my attention, my generosity, my good will. In this case I let a funky mixture of morbid curiosity and lust get the best of me, fortified with some of that aforementioned benefit of the doubt. After all, being misunderstood sucks. And don’t we all have Ugly Its? I try to give people fair chances to clarify their intentions, so they’re not left feeling like I somehow got the wrong idea about them — so that worthwhile opportunities aren’t missed because of failed communication.

Have we reached a point where we can no longer afford that allowance for one another? Maybe meeting men online is one area where such leeway simply doesn’t belong. The world is full of sociopaths, many of whom are charming and have impressive penises. Only divine intervention can save us.