The Ramen King and I Read Free

this is the only way. The problem is that I don’t remember many details, especially about the first time it happened. Matt says I should start with that first time and tell you what I remember, even if it’s not that much.
    I don’t know what else to do, so I am following his instructions.
    So what I remember is that I was twenty-five years old and that I was living with my girlfriend in a garden apartment on a pretty street in Brooklyn. Her name was Maureen. I don’t remember being unhappy at the time, though I don’t remember being happy either. You would think I would remember more details, given that we lived together for two years, yet the sum total of my memories of those years comprises around five minutes. I remember a scene in which Maureen and I are cooking something in our kitchen—a soup maybe—from a recipe in a Gilroy Garlic Festival cookbook. There was a well-attended party we hosted. Once, we went for a hike in the woods with our friend Mike, who along the way began identifying trees just by smelling them. “Cedar,” he said, sniffing. “Hemlock.” I remember Maureen being impressed by this, and that I got jealous.
    Maureen was five foot two and had a bob of blond hair, and I met her after college, when we both signed on for the Long Island Youth Orchestra’s summer tour of Asia. I remember that when the group arrived in China, the banner that greeted us said, “wELCOME WRONG ISLAND YOUTH ORCHESTRA!” The first time I kissed her, in a hotel in Malaysia, I imagined a future together in which we would get married and have beautiful, musical children. After that summer, I worked as a computer programmer in Chicago, and Maureen would tease me about the large number of condoms I always purchased in anticipation of her visits. When she was hired by an English-language magazine in Tokyo, I quit my job and enrolled in the intensive course at International Christian University, a popular place for foreigners studying Japanese. I did this partly to pursue my interest in the language ( which I had taken briefly in college ) , but mainly to be with Maureen.
    We didn’t live together in Tokyo, but one night, when I was staying at her apartment, I peeked at her diary and discovered that she had slept with her ex-boyfriend. Technically, it had happened during one of our many breakups. I remember feeling that I should not be jealous or angry because during a breakup people can do whatever they want. When we returned from Japan, we moved in together in Brooklyn.
    I just called Matt and told him that writing this letter is too painful and that I don’t want to do it. He said it’s natural to feel that way, and to keep jotting down what I remember. OK.
    After six months of living together, I stopped having sex with Maureen. I’m not talking about a drop in frequency or the occasional lack of interest that my friends who were in couples experienced. I mean stopped, as in altogether. The disappearance of my desire was especially puzzling given how attracted I had been to Maureen previously. I began making up lies about being tired or sick. The truth was that, more and more, whenever Maureen touched me, even if it was just on my arm or my neck, I would experience a physical sensation that I can only describe as repulsion. It was as if her fingers suddenly began emitting a tiny electric shock from which my body needed to protect itself. Confused and frustrated by my disinterest, Maureen asked what was wrong. I didn’t know what to tell her because I didn’t understand it myself. I remember that she developed many theories. “Are you just not interested in sex?” she would ask. “Are you gay?”
    The first time it happened I was visiting my parents.
    They still live on Long Island, in the house I grew up in. I spent the afternoon with them, and then I heard about a party in a nearby town. I drove over, and when I saw the woman hosting the party, do you know what I wanted to do? I remember this part very well,