Eventually, I began to wonder if the strength of our friendship was the thing undermining our romantic relationships. Countless self-help books on our respective night stands counseled us to break free from our toxic patterns if we wanted to find lasting love. But what if our toxic pattern was how well we got along and how much we loved each other?

Marisa rejected my toxicity hypothesis, insisting that we both had other friends and passions, lives that were enhanced, not dominated, by how close we were. I tried to believe her, but it became harder and harder to accept. As the years passed, I was still the guy alone at holiday parties and alone in my bed — or the random beds of others I had met in bars or online.

Ever the analyst, I grew concerned that we were addicted to the sugar that was our dynamic in order to avoid the protein of “true intimacy.” During Christmas with her family, I would flee to where her baby was sleeping and pummel myself with questions: Was I with Marisa because I was too lazy and scared to put enough effort into finding a partner? Were we using each other as place holders? Was I afraid to grow up and love myself as a gay man? Was I just broken?

Too many questions to answer in front of a baby monitor.

At 37, I decided to leave New York and Marisa, the two things that seemed to keep me stuck in boyhood. I left my job as a high school teacher and moved to Thailand to teach ESL, live cheaply and get the space I needed to figure myself out.

I meditated with monks and cried on motorbikes. I began to see that I was more stuck than I had even thought. I had no idea who I was without my old crutches: Marisa, my various dating apps and my romantic delusions.

It was a lonely time. Every friendship I made was a faint shadow of the magnificent supernova that was my relationship with Marisa. And the dudes I met were increasingly older and hardhearted after their own years of romantic frustration.