Arthur
Arthur was Steven’s boyfriend from approximately October 2020 to May or June 2021. They met at an after-party on a Saturday morning in late October 2020, three weeks after Steven started his Séroplex treatment. Steven was at Guillaume’s apartment. Arthur was there. Steven later described the attraction as immediate and partly shaped by projection: “amoureux de lui, et de la projection d’une image de power-perfect-couple-mirage.”
Living situation and lifestyle
Arthur owned his apartment and did not work. He organized long apartment parties, called “afters,” that sometimes lasted several days. The core substances were 3-MMC and GHB/GBL. Those gatherings became the social and material setting of Steven’s life during the relationship.
Steven moved in with Arthur quickly. The relationship coincided with Steven’s introduction to regular 3-MMC use, and also with his most sustained periods of work on personal projects. He would sit at his computer during afters, using the stimulant residual to code. He later identified this as a form of stimming, using the computer as a buffer against social overstimulation in an extreme social environment.
Problems and patterns
Arthur’s GBL use was a problem Steven explicitly notes he did not share. Arthur “ne savait pas se contrôler.” Steven later treated that as a warning against his own overconsumption of G.
A later incident clarified Steven’s sense of the relationship’s limits. Arthur had Clément write an apology message to Steven on his behalf without telling Steven. When Steven discovered this, it sharpened his disillusionment with Arthur’s circle and its lack of transparency.
Separation
They separated after approximately eight months. In Steven’s April 2021 journal entry, they still spoke every day but “god, ce que c’est compliqué.” Steven said he had spent more emotional energy on the relationship than it merited. He chose not to write extensively about it: “j’ai besoin d’avancer et l’expérience de cette relation fera son chemin par elle même dans mon esprit.” He resolved to act in his own way going forward, not in Arthur’s, Mateo’s, or society’s.
The relationship is followed directly by the Barcelona solo trip in April 2021, which Steven frames as the start of a new phase.
Legacy
Arthur introduced Steven to the Parisian queer after-party scene and to 3-MMC as a functional tool. The relationship modeled both the appeal and the risks of that milieu. After the breakup, 3-MMC use continued independently and eventually moved beyond the social and festive context it had in Arthur’s apartment.