Attraction

I admit to actual full-on teenage crushing when I saw Joe, before I even spoke a word to him, or he to me. He was beautiful and I wanted him, even if I didn’t really know what the wanting was all about. Perfect curly blonde hair and a beautiful, blinding smile and biceps. Yeee-ah. The butterflies were definitely happening.

attraction

Weirdly, I got butterflies with Luke, too, but they were different. With Joe it was all about the teeth and the hair and the muscles, but with Luke it was about the laugh and the way he could tell a joke with only body language and how he never failed to laugh at my jokes either. And instead of, “God, I’d like to bite those biceps,” it was more like, “I would hang out with you so hard and then I would enjoy the shit out of you.”

So attraction: It’s weird. Of course I was attracted to Luke. There were still butterflies. There was still delicious anticipation when I knew I was going to see him soon. There was still electricity between us. But it wasn’t so… visceral? That’s the wrong word. Because it was still a physical reaction– actual sensations of tingling, people, I’m not kidding.

It wasn’t more than what I felt for Joe, because there was exactly none of the desire to, you know, mark him with my teeth or anything, but it wasn’t less either. It was about connecting and loving and being delighted to find out exactly what he would say or do next.

I’ve said before that maybe Luke and I should have stayed just friends, and that his declaration of lurve sort of hit me from left field, but I’m not sure the Just Friends thing would have worked either. It was too much. It was wanting to know literally everything about him, and that would be creepy for a friendship, right?

Anyway, maybe it was the inevitable that happened with Luke. We couldn’t be Just Friends– well, firstly, because he was in love with me, and secondly because I guess I was in love with him, too, in a way. I think I was his biggest fan, and if that’s not happening in an actual fan-to-star relationship, or a lover-to-lover relationship, maybe it just doesn’t work.

In Sickness

I don’t think you should commit to someone, really, until you’ve seen them at a low point. Morbid as it seems, low points are what define us.

in-sickness

Joe didn’t get to see my low point until he was about to head off to college on the other side of the country. The second day of my sophomore year of highschool,  I stepped  out of the minivan to walk into the building and stepped off the curb and right onto my ankle. I was wearing adorable little canvas sneakers and little bitty khaki shorts– I remember because I never wore those shoes again and I wore jeans for weeks afterwards to cover the ace bandage. (Good thing flare jeans were in back then.) My ankle swelled up and turned purple by the end of the day. It hurt like a bitch.

Joe didn’t make much of it, good lad. He must’ve realized that attention-seeking was not my bag and a softball-sized purple ankle was doing nothing to help me blend in, and I hated the whole situation. He just checked my ace bandage to make sure I wrapped it right and then chivalrously carried me up the front steps of his parents’ house so I could come in and see their new kittens later that week. So I guess I passed that “low point” test… except that he was gone about a week later and we sort of broke up by default just because we stopped talking to each other. Hrm. I’ll not blame that on my low point, though.

The first time Shane came to visit, I was on my period. He was staying in the den in the basement on the pull-out couch, just next to the downstairs bathroom, which happened to be the one I stumbled to sometime in the wee hours of the morning in search of fresh feminine hygiene items and Midol. There may have been quiet whimpering, but I tried not to make too much noise.

The next day he admitted he’d been awake for the whole thing. I was mortified, but explained the situation as delicately as I could and then blocked it from my consciousness by sheer force of will. Later that day we played some badminton in the yard and he kept asking me if I was ok, and I kept assuring him that I was fine, and I didn’t realize until much later that it must have been the midnight whimpering that set off his concern. Oops.

Still, I think I passed that one, too, because I ended up with an awkward kiss and a fantastic tickle fight.

Luke probably saw more of my lows than any of my other exes, by virtue of the fact that we spent the most time together, by far. He came to visit me once when I was sick. My mom ushered him into my darkened bedroom and he sat on the edge of my bed and murmured platitudes while I prayed to God he wouldn’t look at my hair and I wouldn’t throw up on him. He didn’t stay long and I think we were both fine with that. But he never shied away from my sickness or tears or even my foul, horrible moods.

I’m sitting here wracking my brain for a low that Matt might have seen, but all I can think of are the tearful, screaming fights and I guess that’s enough of a low. Maybe the phrase should be, “in sickness and in health, and also in snotty, red-faced rampages.” (Of course, he’s the only ex I ever rampaged at, so maybe some of it wasn’t me. Just sayin’.)

I’m glad they stuck with me through my lows– gross, bloody, and hateful though they were. Anyone who manages that gets some hindsight props from me. Hear that, boys? Fine job.

What I (Don’t) Remember

For a while when I’m in a new relationship, I remember every interaction. It sounds a little stupid to say that I guess– probably everyone does that. But I’m talking in the range of 6 months to a year before I start forgetting fights and conversations and kisses and day trips here and there.

But everything fades with time, I guess.

dontremember

I don’t remember much of what Matt and I fought about, besides the old stand-bys of, “You are not being supportive,” and, “You don’t pay enough attention to me.” (Both of those were Matt’s complaints. I don’t remember what I picked fights about. Probably about how he picked fights too much, because I wanted to be able to look back on that period of my life and appreciate the irony. Yeah.) I’m sure they were world-stoppingly important at the time, but hey.

I don’t remember the middle names of three out of the four exes. I only remember Shane’s middle name because he signed it on his letters all the time and it was as much a part of his name as his first and last.

I sure as hell don’t remember their birthdays.

I don’t remember Joe’s favorite food or Luke’s favorite song or Shane’s favorite book.

But I remember the way all of their hands looked– the color and texture of the skin, the shape of the thumbs. I remember what Matt smelled like. I remember how Luke liked to be touched. I remember the cadence of Shane’s voice. I remember Joe’s laugh.

And maybe it’s not that important that I can’t remember all the little things Matt and I fought about, or the name of Shane’s sister, or Luke’s GPA. Because I’d rather save room in my brain for their hands and their scents and their laughs.

The Other Woman

You already know about Bianca. Bianca was the other woman before I really put the pieces together, and before Joe said the worst thing he ever said to me. This was mostly because I hated Bianca.

otherwoman

I have reserved my hate for a very small number of people in my life. Others have earned my stink-face and my dislike and my annoyance, but never my pure hate (partly because hating takes so much energy). One former supervisor and one former coworker have earned my hate. (And they were truly horrible people and totally deserved it.) And the only other one I can think of is Bianca.

Anyway, Bianca was always the other woman because even before I saw her dragging Joe off for heart-to-hearts and trying to flirt her way between us, I identified her as my competition. My much skinnier, smaller, cuter competition, damn her. It didn’t matter that she was grumpy and whiny and generally unfun. She was little where I was distinctly large, and her hair was flat and straight where mine was poofy and disobedient, and she was always the damsel in distress where I was always Cinderella smirking from her sooty corner. And sometimes Cinderella doesn’t feel like singing duets with the goddamn little birdies anymore. Sometimes Cinderella wants to kick fireplace ash in Bianca’s stupid face and then yank on her dumb, perfect hair. (Very mature, Cinderella.)

Shane’s other woman was Sarah. He told me about Sarah immediately. They were best friends, and they had a relationship that went far beyond any stupid boyfriend-girlfriend stuff (like what we had). She was his sisterly soulmate or some crap. Sarah was beautiful. Sarah was smart. Sarah hung the stars in the freaking sky. I never met Sarah, but I bet she had wings and a halo.

Perhaps most dysfunctional of all, Matt’s other woman was his mother. He’d hoisted her up on a pedestal from his earliest childhood, vilified his dad (who honestly didn’t seem all that bad to me), and would only claim his mother’s heritage (she was half Irish) and not his father’s (he was first generation Cuban-American). Everything he did was in tribute to his mother. He was chivalrous because his mother would be ashamed if he wasn’t. He butted in to everyone’s business because that’s what his mother did. He worried and fretted over her constantly (not that she didn’t perpetuate it by flipping out about everything).

After we broke up, he called me for some reason or another and in the course of conversation told me that our break-up had made his mother cry. Then he paused dramatically, like I was supposed to say something like, “Well in that case, maybe we should try again.” I didn’t. Neither did he. We just let the dramatic silence linger for a minute and then mutually decided on a nope. Or maybe mutually decided that Matt was better off with his one true Oedipal love.

So, I guess sometimes the other woman wins.

Joe the Wrestler

I mostly managed to avoid dating jocks. Or they managed to avoid dating me. Whatever.

But Joe was a wrestler.

wrestler

If the only thing you know about high school wrestling is that Emilio Estevez was supposed to be a wrestler in The Breakfast Club, you may wish to turn away now. Because wrestling is sort of gross.

Over the course of the year, someone on the wrestling team got some sort of worms and everyone had to be treated for it. Boys frequently contracted a condition called “cauliflower ear” which is just as nasty as it sounds. And let’s not even talk about making weight. Ew.

Additionally, I’m sorry, but they do wear tights, and have their faces in each other’s junk all the time, and generally look like mating beetles during nine out of ten matches.

It’s not a glamorous thing.

Mostly, I managed to avoid the whole situation, but one Saturday, I had the pleasure of going to a meet with Joe’s dad. I had to make awkward conversation with the dad in the car for an hour on the way to the out-of-town school. (Joe rode on the team activity bus, of course, not with us.) Then I had to wait around all day for Joe’s 5 minutes of fame. Then I had to hug him after. (Blech.) And then I had to make more awkward conversation with Joe’s dad for another hour on the way back.

The next morning, I woke up with a bruise in the middle of my back from leaning back on the bleachers too hard, and a hate for wrestling that has never truly left me.

I suppose if I’d been a better girlfriend, I would have cheered him on at more meets and stuff. I would have been more sympathetic about the making weight rituals and the disgusting injuries.

Lucky for me, I was fourteen and could plead complete ignorance on what a good, supportive girlfriend was supposed to do. I’m sure it saved me from at least a few parasites.

Build and Destroy

builddestroy

Matt was maybe the best at compliments. He had a way of knowing what would make me glow.

“God, you’re so beautiful it hurts sometimes.”

He would take my shy insecurities and neatly squash them without my even asking.

[hitting Repeat on the CD player] “I just want to hear you sing along again.”

He didn’t worry about the right words so much– just the right sentiment.

“Do that twisty thing with your hair today. It makes you look like a princess.”

He knew how to boost my confidence when I was unsure of myself, with just a whisper.

“Does it make you crazy that every guy in the room wants you right now?”

Of course, the flip side of that coin was that he could crush me with equal force and precision, and occasionally did.

He would lord his older-and-wiser status over me.

“How can you be so naive?”

He would accuse me of hurting the people I loved the most, unintentionally or not.

“I would never do that to my mother.”

Every time I disagreed with him, I was unsupportive, argumentative, and wrong.

“I’ve never argued so much with anyone in my life. You are so difficult.”

But I guess that’s what comes with seeing someone’s soul the way he saw mine. You get the ultimate power– to build or destroy. And no matter who you are, sometimes you decide to destroy.

The Worst First Date

In between Luke and Matt, I had a few months of singledom. Not many, but a few.

In one of those months of singledom, I met a dude online. I can’t really remember how, but we struck up a conversation on AIM (which was the texting of the early 2000s, I guess) and chatted for a few weeks.

He seemed nice. He was funny. He was smart. He told me he was a little nerdy, but I was ok with that. He told me he’d been friendzoned by lots of girls. I felt sorry for him. He told me he’d been on dozens of first dates and never heard back from the girls afterwards. He theorized that they just wanted a free dinner out of him. I was indignant on his behalf.

Then he asked me out and I said yes.

worstfirst

In a fit of online honesty, I admitted that it had been actual years since I’d been on a first date, and I had no idea what I was doing, and I was currently freaking out about what to wear. He talked me down and we decided together that we would both wear jeans– and my heart rate went down to something resembling normal, and I thought this might possibly be a good thing.

The first time you meet someone, you’re supposed to notice something about them, I think. Their smile or their eyes or some shit like that. I noticed this dude’s smell, and not in a nice way. Presumably he had showered, but I guess I just wasn’t used to the smell of a new guy, after my years with Luke. Of course, the offending stench could have been coming from his jeans, which were only jeans in the sense that denim material was holding together the holes. They looked like they should smell. We sat outside, so that helped, but his malodorous pheromones kept putting me off my dinner.

Dinner conversation was awkward and banal, but you know, I wrote it off as first date jitters. My first date with Joe had been seriously 5 years earlier, and I never really had a first date with Luke since we were buds before we dated. Maybe all first dates sucked. That had to be it.

After dinner he decided that we should go back to my dorm room and watch a movie he’d brought with him. In my defense, I would never agree to such a thing now, but back then I was somewhere between teenager and adult and I didn’t understand what adult things were supposed to happen when you brought someone back to your dorm room with you. I thought we were going to watch a movie.

He thought we were going to make out. He immediately copped a feel– like threw his arm around me and grabbed a handful of breast. I would like to say I kicked him out right then, but I didn’t. I sort of sat, paralyzed, like a possum playing dead, until I could slide away carefully and pretend to be engrossed in the movie (which I cannot remember at all).

When the movie was over, I somehow managed to get him to leave without going in for a kiss, which I might have returned with a dry heave because the strange man smell was totally getting to me by then.

He IMed me when he got home. I shoved down the guilt of being one of those girls who only wanted a free dinner, and ignored him.

He IMed me the next day. What could I say? How could I explain that I thought he was a nice guy, but then he grabbed my boob and smelled weird and I wasn’t into that? So I ignored him.

He IMed me the next day, and I could tell he was getting mad. He said I should at least tell him if I was going to stop speaking to him. But I didn’t. I just ignored him.

So I’m on that long list of his, I’m sure, of girls that only wanted a free dinner out of him and never spoke to him again. Hopefully one of them was less of a chickenshit than me and told him to work on his first date etiquette, especially about the holey jeans and the smell and the boob grabbing.

So the worst first date I ever had was also our last date.

High Fidelity Matt

Before I even start my High Fidelity talk with Matt, I know it’s one he’ll relish. If there’s anyone from my past who likes to rehash things and feel all the feels, it’s definitely Matt. As for me, well, our break-up is one I sort of don’t want to talk about. But this whole High Fidelity thing was my idea, so here we go.

hifimatt

I scowl at him with my arms crossed until he can’t take it anymore.

“So… What’s going on?”

“I’m supposed to talk to you about why we broke up. It’s a thing. Don’t ask.”

He just shrugs. He’s used to this sort of crap from me, I guess. “What about it?”

“Maybe start with why you cruelly dumped me over a damn seatbelt.”

He looks pained. “A seatbelt?”

“You don’t even remember, do you?”

He shifts his feet and won’t look at me. “Well… not exactly.”

“HA!”

“But it doesn’t matter what we were fighting about right before we broke up.”

“You dumped me.”

“Fine. Right before I dumped you.” He makes a face like he just swallowed a toad. “It matters that we were fighting too much in general.”

“You started it.”

He laughs. “Very mature.”

I stick my tongue out at him, only sort of ironically.

“You have to admit, we argued a lot.”

“Oh, and that’s somehow MY fault?”

“At least partly.”

“Go to hell.”

He sighs and pauses for a minute to let our last interaction sink in. “Do you see why it wouldn’t have worked?”

I grunt in an unladylike fashion and restrain myself from kicking him in the shin. We sit quietly for a while, me glaring, him looking at me with fake, condescending sympathy. Asshole. “You’re right. It wouldn’t have worked.”

He smiles, all simpering sweet. I might have to punch him. “Yeah, I think it was all for the best.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t want you to be stuck with a fixer-upper or anything.”

“Huh?”

“Guess you don’t remember that one either.”

His eyebrows come down. I’m pissing him off now. Good. “What is this all about anyway?”

“It’s supposed to be about closure, I guess. But I’m not going to get any because you only remember the shitty stuff I did. I will never hear an apology from you for anything.”

“Like you ever apologized to me, either.”

“I did!” I rage at him. “After we broke up I made a point of telling you that I was sorry I wasn’t more supportive of you while we were dating. That’s what you were always picking fights about, and I realized I could have been better about it and I told you that.”

“Oh. Yeah. I remember that. I thought that meant you’d gotten over it and we could be friends again, but then you kept ignoring me.”

“I don’t want to be friends with you, Matt. I will never want to be friends with you. I will never want to visit your family or stay in your house or exchange Christmas cards or go on a double-date with you and your wife. Never.”

“Hold a grudge much?”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose and attempt to count to 10. I get to 5. “How ever much you think I was wrong and needed to apologize to you, there are things you did wrong, too. There are things you said that wounded me deeply. I loved you and I believed everything you ever told me, even when you told me I was horrible. And DON’T say you didn’t tell me I was horrible, because even if you didn’t mean to, that’s what I heard. I can’t be friends with you because that would mean being ok with that stuff you said, and I am not ok with it, even if I do forgive you.”

“But I didn’t–”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to argue about it. I’m done arguing with you. That’s why we broke up, remember?”

He scowls and squirms, unsure how to react. “So… goodbye I guess.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Listen,” I sigh, and try to be a grown-up about this. “I might not want to be your friend, but I wish you the best. You know, health and happiness and all that bullshit.”

He pouts. “I don’t really believe you.”

“That’s on you then.”

He leaves, but he’ll probably go home and tell his wife in great detail about what a bitch I am and will commence to spitting after mentioning my name for the rest of his life. I don’t care because I never mention his name to anyone, ever. I am done with him and his manipulations and digs. I wasn’t lying when I wished him the best– I really don’t wish head-colds and penis rashes on him (much), but I do wish that the best for him will be far, far away from me.

High Fidelity Luke

I am dreading my High Fidelity conversation with Luke, mostly because it was a one-sided break-up, and the side doing the breaking up was mine.

hifiluke

“So… what’s going on?” he prompts.

I sigh and shift uncomfortably. “I wanted to talk to you about why we broke up… I guess.” I breathe through nerves and nausea. “So, um. What do you think?”

He stares for a minute, then gets flustered too, because he can see I am. “Uh, er. Well, I don’t know. I guess it just wasn’t working.”

“Oh hell,” I grumble. “Just say it. It was my fault. It was all me. I dumped you and broke your heart. I am a horrible human being. There. I said it so you don’t have to.”

He’s quiet for a minute, then says softly, “I wouldn’t have said that.”

“Gah. I know you wouldn’t because you’re nice and I’m mean. We have established that already.”

“Hey.” He tentatively touches me on the shoulder, and then pulls back. “You’re not horrible. You’re not mean. You broke up with me, but that doesn’t make you either of those things.”

I give a wobbly smile, though I’m dangerously close to tears.

He makes a noise half-way between a shriek and a laugh. “Do not cry. I mean it,” he says. “Listen, why do you even want to talk about this? We were so young, and we’re both happy now. We obviously turned out ok.”

I turn around for a second to compose myself, then back to him. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. You have your wife and the boys and you’re happy now.”

He grins. “Darn tootin’.”

“Darn tootin’?”

“Oh sorry, I forgot you like to swear… um… Fuck yeah.”

I laugh, then am sober again. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

He sighs and hugs me. “We really don’t have to talk about this.”

“I want to,” I say, lying through my teeth and into his shirt.

“Ok then.” He pushes me back so he can get some eye contact. He never does that. Shit. “Why?”

My stomach drops. It’s the question I could never answer for him, and the one he kept asking, over and over. My ears ring and the room tilts. There’s not a good reason. There never was. I tell him, “I don’t know,” on a hoarse whisper.

His eyebrows knit. “You don’t know?”

I swallow hard and will myself to fucking DO THIS. It was my idea, after all. “I was unhappy with everything. With my whole life. School, living away from home, not being smart or likable, having no friends. It really was the worst time in my life, and I just needed to change things.”

“You were unhappy with me?” he asks. He’s not looking at me anymore.

“No!… I mean, well… Yeah, kind of, I guess. I just felt… stagnant. Like maybe the reason I was so unhappy was that I couldn’t grow up or something. And you were part of that. You made me feel young, and naive, and like I’d never get past the horrible in-between-ness of teenager and adult.”

“Whoa. Deep.”

I giggle-snort. “Yeah it was, I guess. Sorry.”

“You know what I think? I think maybe you were just growing up a little too fast for me.”

“You never grew up,” I tease with a grin.

“Well. True,” he admits, and pushes his Gothy dyed-black floppy hair out of his eyes. “But maybe you wanted to and I didn’t, and I was holding you back.”

“Not on purpose.”

“No.”

We sit in companionable silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The only tears so far have been mine, and that’s a switch from when I broke up with him. I decide to tell him everything. “I wish you had been my first,” I say.

He chokes on his own saliva. I thump him on the back. “Like first time? For, you know, sex?” he manages.

“Yeah,” I laugh. “The thing I regret most about us, I think, is that we didn’t sleep together. Is that horrible of me?”

He considers for a moment. “Weird. Not horrible.”

“I can live with that.”

“So… you broke up with me because you were really sad and life sucked, and you wish you’d slept with me when you had the chance… Did I get that right?”

“Oh don’t gloat.”

“I’m gonna gloat.”

“Fine,” I say with mock annoyance. “But don’t you bring it up ever again. I just thought you should know.”

“I will take it to my grave,” he promises. “Thanks for telling me, sweetheart.”

“Anytime.”

And we never talk about it again, but I’m glad he knows. It’s something I never wanted to take to my grave.

High Fidelity Shane

“So, Shane, what would you say went wrong between us?”

“Are you pulling a High Fidelity on me?”

hifishane

“Yeah. Answer the question.”

“Well… I think what went wrong is that I voiced a concern and you jumped all over it, like, ‘Whew, glad you brought it up, I feel the same way, ‘bye.'”

“Harsh.”

“True.”

“Wait. True that you’re being harsh, or true that’s how I was?”

He laughs. “Maybe both.”

“I was a teenager. It was uncomfortable for me to be weird.”

“I get that. Why do you think I brought it up?”

“Huh. Guess I never thought about it like that. You sure were upset that I agreed with you, in that case.”

“Well I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

“I should have.”

He pauses, then sighs. “Me too.”

“So what about in college, when you told me what we had didn’t really count anyway?”

“God, you remember that?”

“Broke my heart.”

He winces. “Sorry.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“You confused me. We confused me. You know? I’ve never had a relationship like the one we had. You already admitted it was weird. It was way weird. So maybe I just couldn’t reconcile what we had with what everyone else seemed to have.”

“You didn’t just say it to hurt my feelings?”

“Maybe a little.” He grins sheepishly. “You broke my heart, doll.”

“Guess we’re even then.” I smirk and smack him lightly on the arm.

He headlocks me and gives me a noogie for that, then releases me and kisses my cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I pat his knee and we’re cool again.

I Wish I’d Said

I wish I’d said…

wishsaid

To Matt: “I’m not broken. Go find someone else to fix.”

To Joe: “What the hell are you doing with Bianca? Tell me the truth.”

To Shane: “I’m scared. I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what my friends think. I’m scared of what my parents think. I’m scared of what this could end up being. I’m scared of how much I love you.”

To Shane: “We should probably kiss right now, while we have the chance.”

To Joe: “Too much saliva, buddy.”

To Luke: “If you stick your tongue in my ear one more time, I am not responsible for the damage I inflict upon your person.”

To Luke: “Thanks for being my best friend. Really. You are my best friend.”

To Matt: “I actually don’t like any of the Saw Doctors’ songs. Not a one.”

To Don: “I love you.”

To Shane: “I’m sorry.”

To Luke: “I’m sorry.”

The Love We Deserve

When I was in high school, I didn’t much like coming of age stories. They seemed overly dramatic to me and I always wanted to respond, “Oh quit your whining. If you think that’s bad, you should see my angst.” So I guess it’s sort of hard to relate to someone else’s coming of age drama when you’re in the middle of your own.

I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower the other day. Turns out I don’t mind coming of age stories as much anymore, I guess because I came out of my own story relatively unscathed, and now I can see the commonalities of experience. I haven’t read the book (and I probably won’t because 2 hours is about all I can give to a coming of age story without getting sympathy angst, even still), but the quote that stuck with me is in the book, too:

We accept the love we think we deserve.

It’s not an easy concept, but I wish someone had tried to explain it to me during my coming of age story.

lovedeserve

My freshman year of college was one of the worst years of my life… actually, I’ll go ahead and give it the distinction: the worst year of my life, thus far. I had made good grades and been in the top 15 or 20 percent of my graduating class in high school because I studied hard, did all my homework, never skipped class, blah blah. I thought that meant I was smart. I felt invincible, like I could conquer the world, and I went after a full ROTC scholarship for college and won it.

And then I started college and everything was shit. I hated living in the dorm and having a roommate and sharing a bathroom with 20 other girls. ROTC beat the living hell out of me– I was abysmally bad at everything. The memorizing, the marching, certainly the physical tests. My grades were mediocre at best, and my second semester, I flunked the first (and only) class I ever flunked in my life (Chem 2, in case you wanted to know). At the end of the year, I quit ROTC and applied for a position as an RA for the next year to replace my ROTC scholarship. I didn’t get the job. They put me in the “alternate pool.”

Sometime around then, I broke up with Luke. My whole life felt so rotten, and that was one thing I could change. I couldn’t make myself smarter, or a faster runner, or a better job applicant, but I could break up with my high school boyfriend. It sounds mean, but I wasn’t really thinking it consciously. I just knew I wasn’t happy, something was wrong, and Luke was part of that wrongness.

When I met Matt, I was still broken. It was my second semester of sophomore year, so I’d picked up some of the pieces. I’d gotten selected out of the alternate pool and actually got to be an RA. I’d managed to claw my way back to a decent GPA. ROTC was a thing of the past (although I still had nightmares about 5 a.m. battalion runs). But I was a little fish in a big pond– insignificant in all the ways that mattered, and so much less “gifted” than I always secretly thought I was in high school.

And I wonder, in hindsight, about what kind of love I thought I deserved. Was part of why I broke up with Luke because I didn’t deserve to have someone love me when I felt like a sorry sack of shit all the time? Did I start a relationship with Matt because he saw me the way I saw myself (sort of dumb, immature, gullible)? Did I stay with Matt, even after the worst thing he ever said, because I sort of believed him?

Maybe. Maybe. And I wish I’d been able to figure that out then, but maybe you have to have the vision of hindsight to make a leap like that, or maybe you have to– you know– actually like coming of age stories to glean the lessons from them when you need them.

Or, maybe, you just have to be an adult before you can tell a really good coming of age story.

High Fidelity Joe

I read High Fidelity for the first time after I got married and was done with the whole dating scene. If you’re not familiar with the book or the movie (featuring John Cusack), this dude has a crisis of faith or something after his long-term girlfriend dumps him and decides to find all of his exes and talk to them about why their relationships didn’t work.

I cringed mightily at the thought of this. I would, for one, not like to go back and hear from my exes why they decided I was messed up enough that it wasn’t going to work between us.

Besides, I pretty much know the answers anyways. Here’s how Joe’s would go.

hifijoe

“So, Joe, why would you say it didn’t work between us?”

Joe shrugs and looks disinterested. “I dunno. Because I moved I guess. You were a pretty cool girl, though.”

“Um, thanks? But we could have tried to make it work, right? I mean, if we really wanted to…”

“Meh, maybe. Remember, though, back then we would have had to call each other long distance.”

“True. And you were broke, Joe.”

“So broke. I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to go to a private college across the country without a single scholarship.”

“So would you say you were under too much stress to commit to a girlfriend back home?”

Now Joe gets uncomfortable and starts hedging. “Stress? Maybe. Well… it was just a different world out there, you know? Different things and people and home was so far away and…”

“Out of sight, out of mind?”

Joe cringes, but nods sheepishly. “I guess. I’m not the first guy who’s ever gone off to college and decided to… er… sow my wild oats, you know?”

“Ew, Joe.”

“Don’t be mad,” he says. “I would have gotten back together with you when I came home if you wanted.”

“But by then I didn’t.”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t seem too broken up about that, buddy.”

“Well, you had a new boyfriend. I wasn’t going to mope around after you.”

“Fair enough. So… I guess we can blame lack of interest from both parties for our break-up?”

“When you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad.”

It’s my turn to shrug.

“Hey,” he says with a grin, “It all worked out for the best anyway, right?”

And then he picks up his toddler who immediately barfs on his ill-fitting polo shirt and jorts and I silently agree. Yeah. It was all for the best, really.

Things I Loved About Them

iloved

Joe:

  • His hair — that beautiful, beautiful curly blonde hair
  • His lovely smile
  • His shoulder rubs
  • The way he kissed the back of my neck so very softly

Shane:

  • His love letters
  • His love poems (He wrote really good ones. I’m picky about love poems.)
  • His slightly bawdy sense of humor
  • His stories (fiction and non-fiction)

Luke:

  • His reactions to everything — I always knew just how he felt
  • His floppy hair
  • His love notes, always featuring cartoons
  • That he was friends with all of my friends

Matt:

  • His openness
  • His concern for his family
  • His car (shallow, but true)
  • The way he held me, like I was cherished