The Nice Guy

That whole “nice guys finish last” thing makes me want to vomit, just so you know. If any of you dudes say that, you need to stop it right now. You are not “finishing last” because you are nice. You are blaming it on “nice,” when really it’s probably because the girls you are going after are too polite to tell you that they are just not into you for myriad other reasons.

Also, we need to talk about your definition of “nice.” “Nice” does not mean “pursues relentlessly even though the girl has made it abundantly clear she’s not interested in being more than friends.” For some reason, guys think that’s acceptable, and even romantic. It’s not. It’s creepy and manipulative.

All this is coming out now because I recently listened to a podcast about the dreaded “friendzone.” And the whole thing resonated for me because I’ve been the pursued.

I’m not going to say that Luke was being manipulative on purpose. We were very young, for one thing, and when you’re 16, you kind of get a pass if you are manipulative, because you probably don’t realize you’re doing it.

But I was not really interested in him like that. In fact, I made a half-hearted attempt to set him up with my sister. (And by “half-hearted attempt,” I mean I lightly teased both of them about liking each other. Hey, it’s what you do when you’re 16.)

I honestly, sincerely thought we were just friends at first and there was nothing more to it than that, and I was wrong (and probably stupid) because he was pining the entire duration of our friendship.

I guess I never really felt weird about that before now, but you know what? That means our friendship was a lie. That means that the boy who was my best friend was not really my best friend. He was some-guy-who-wanted-to-date-me. If I’m being honest, that sort of pisses me off.

What I Did For Love

Over the years, I’ve done many things in the name of love…

  • Took an astronomy class just for an excuse to be on the football field in the dark with the boy I liked
  • Grew out my hair
  • Dyed my hair
  • Cut my hair
  • Permed my hair
  • Hung out the passenger side of a pick-up truck shouting non-sensical phrases about chickens in Spanish
  • Bestowed sexual favors outdoors in plain sight of a military helicopter (In my defense, I didn’t actually know we were in plain sight of the helicopter until it buzzed us at low altitude with its spotlight turned on. Oops.)
  • Gotten piercings
  • Listened to many hours of crappy 80s rock, crappy Irish rock, and ska
  • Made friends with many a mother, younger sibling, and cat
  • Written copious amounts of letters and emails
  • Cancelled plans with friends so I could wait by the phone
  • Cried myself to sleep
  • Learned a strip tease routine
  • “Forgot” my underwear
  • Prayed so hard my whole body shook with the effort
  • Forgave embarrassing public drunkenness (not mine)
  • Forgave embarrassing public weirdness (also not mine)
  • Forgave back-handed compliments
  • Went on road trips
  • Made mixed tapes
  • Wrote terrible poetry
  • Yearned
  • Pined
  • Moved on

My Four Avengers

I do have other loves besides revisiting past relationships over and over again, and one of those loves is the movie The Avengers. There’s a lot to love about it, particularly that it features like eleventy hot super heroes. I mean, come on.

So, I thought I’d combine these two loves and tell you who my exes would be, if they were one of the Avengers.

Joe would be Thor. No question. In fact, the minute I saw Thor, I thought about Joe. It’s the hair mostly. And the biceps. And, truthfully, the fact that he seems a little dumb. But hey– sometimes great hair and some muscle are really all you need to get the job done.

Thor

Shane is Hawkeye. There’s really no other place to put him, either. Here’s my caveat: I don’t read comic books, so I don’t know anything about these guys outside of the movies… but Hawkeye seems like the strong, silent type to me. Shane wasn’t exactly silent, but he was definitely deep.

poster-of-hawkeye-in-the-avengers-2012

Luke has got to be Agent Coulson. I really wanted to assign him a superhero, but the things that made Luke himself also make Agent Coulson himself: genuinely a nice person, and funny. Also, he’s a hero in his own way, so there’s that.

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Matt’s a toughie, but I think he’d be The Hulk. Mostly because he was moody. I’m sure he’d protest and want to be Captain America. Sorry, Matt. I calls ’em like I sees ’em.

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Easier

Mental Floss put out a list of their favorite words from the happiest words in the English language. I love this– lots of the words bring out good memories for me.

The top word, “easier,” makes me think about Luke.

Now don’t be like that. I don’t mean “easy” in a sex way. I mean it like Sunday morning. Luke was always easy like that.

And he was certainly “easier” in the sense that it was much easier to have a boyfriend who actually, you know, lived in my town after the weirdness of the long-distance thing with Shane.

Luke was definitely a people-pleaser. He wanted everyone to like him, and most people did. He was a pleasant guy, if a little goofy.

He was never cross with me, even if I snapped at him or said something mean. He agreed with me on every opinion I ever had. He would sometimes admit that he didn’t like someone, but only well out of earshot of that someone, and only if no one else in the room liked that someone either.

Getting toward the end of our long relationship (we dated for three years), this started to annoy me about him. I think, subconsciously, I was looking for a reason to justify breaking up with him, and he never would give me one, and it pissed me right off.

I couldn’t even pick a fight with the guy. He’d just back off and apologize.

In the end, Luke’s being “easier” made it way harder for me to break up with him. I hung on to the relationship probably nearly a year longer than I should have because he was a good guy. I knew he wasn’t the one for me, but I couldn’t make myself break the heart of a boy who had only ever been good and easy… until I did.

He made no secret of his devastation when I did the deed, but he still never got angry with me– just pitifully, woefully sad. I know the dumper always claims that her heart is breaking, too, and most of the time that’s bullshit, but when Luke and I broke up, my heart did break too, because I knew I’d dealt a blow to a boy who deserved more– someone easier than me.

I hope he’s still easy, and I hope his “easier” makes him think of someone, too– maybe just not me.

Time Heals All Exes

I showed a friend this blog last week and she laughed and said she’d never do something like this because she does all she can to forget her last relationship.

And I totally get that.

In fact, it’s much harder for me to write about Matt than the other guys because Matt is the most recent. Doesn’t matter that it’s been almost eleven years since I’ve seen him.

Of course, it matters less now. I can think about him without slamming into a wordless purple rage, which makes the writing part easier. I can even remember the good times without feeling like someone is driving an ice pick right through my chest. But that wasn’t the case even a couple of years after we broke up.

So I guess this post is less about Matt and more about you. If you have some exes in your life that still cause hot rage and heart palpitations, don’t feel too alone. I’ve been there, and I’m willing to bet lots of people have.

And that thing about time healing all wounds? Super cheesy, but totally true. Someday, you’ll probably be able to say your ex’s name without spitting afterwards.

Worlds Collide

When you’re a serial monogamist like I was, sometimes your exes meet your currents, and world collide. I have never had one of these meetings go well.

When Shane and I broke up, we were still long distance. We’d only met once during our courtship, and then only for a couple of days.

A few months after we broke up, I started dating Luke. We’d started off as friends and we weren’t much further along in our dating relationship than burping contests and one-armed hugs when Shane came by during a college visit. Shane and I were still friends, so we ended up hanging out… all of us.

It was me, Luke, Shane, and a few of my other high school girl friends, and we were pretty much doing nothing in the basement/den of the house, as teenagers are wont to do. Shane and Luke both felt awkward, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more awkward in my life, so there was plenty of awkward to go around.

Apparently Shane’s way of dealing with awkward was to make marginally inappropriate jokes.

“So what’s new with you?” I asked, nearly choking on awkward.

He responded, “Why don’t you come sit in my lap and we’ll talk about the first thing that comes up?”

And the awkward spread like an airborne virus. Nervous giggles all around. (From Luke, too.)

There may have been more penis jokes, but I’ve blocked them from my memory. These were traumatic innuendos for a 16-year-old girl desperately trying not to think about penises, especially the penises of ex-boyfriend and current boyfriend both in the same room, but not being able to not think about ex-boyfriend’s penis (or imagining it, as I never did see it) and wishing I could flirt with ex-boyfriend, but feeling horribly guilty at even the thought. It’s a distinct possibility that the portion of my brain that was hearing penis jokes literally exploded, which is why I can’t remember any more of them.

I do remember that eventually we ordered a pizza and went to go get it. I was driving, and Shane called shotgun, which caused a pained expression from Luke. Shane gracefully (I thought) gave in and decided Luke should sit shotgun, but as we were pulling out of the driveway, he let loose with more awkward.

“Thanks for letting me sit shotgun,” said Luke, who was always nice to a fault.

“No problem,” Shane returned. “I figured you’d want to sit up there and fondle Ramona’s leg.”

Fondle. He said fondle.

And then Luke did the “hurr hurr hurr” dude laugh and reached over and fondled my leg.

I slapped his hand so hard the entire car went silent.

I have never before or since wished to die instantly in a car crash.

Later, it was time for me to drive Shane back to the hotel where he was staying with his folks. And, of course, everyone in the basement got up and wanted to ride along.

“No,” I snarled. “I’m taking him myself. I’ll be right back.”

Luke backed off, hang-dog. I fumed. How dare he fondle my leg in front of my ex-boyfriend? How dare he make me feel guilty for wanting to flirt with my ex-boyfriend? How dare he be less sexy than my ex-boyfriend? Argh.

And, in hindsight, the weird part was that I was not mad at Shane at all for making things more awkward. He didn’t have to make penis jokes. He didn’t have to say the word “fondle” in front of God and everyone. But he did, and damn my messed up psyche, I totally liked it.

Nothing happened on the ride to his hotel. In fact, nothing ever happened with Shane again.

And probably no one remembers the penis jokes and fondling but me… at least I hope that’s the case.

The Black Fedora

Shane wore a black fedora. He was fifteen, and so was I, and there weren’t too many guys in high school who had affectations like black fedoras.

(My “affectations” were mostly that I decided maybe not to wear the pink glittery unicorn shirt anymore, since I was fifteen now.)

He somehow managed to pull it off, though. He sent me pictures before I met him, with the hat. Even his senior photos featured the hat. When I finally did meet him I thought it was weird at first. It was the summer, after all. Who wears a black fedora in the summer? But he did.

And that’s the thing I remember about him first when I think about him now– that stupid black fedora that he wore despite being fifteen and it being the heat of summer. It was a small act of bravery in a world that hadn’t required too much bravery of us yet.

I hope he kept wearing it.

Fighting Words

I was never really a fighter until Matt. I guess I didn’t need to be. Joe and I just kind of really didn’t see each other enough. Same with Shane. And Luke would have let me win any fight ever, even if we’d ever had any.

But Matt? He wasn’t afraid to throw down… about pretty much anything.

Usually it was about how I was being “unsupportive” by explaining why maybe his point of view wasn’t the only one.

“Why can’t you just support me?” he’d bellow.

“I am supporting you,” I’d shout back, but then I’d tell him why he was wrong.

(Fine, maybe we both had room for improvement.)

The rest of the time it was usually some imagined slight done to him by me. I hadn’t paid him enough attention. I had given him a “look.” I hadn’t been appropriately pleased about something.

Once, he stormed out of a bar that we’d carpooled to with my friends, because I was talking to them too much and not enough to him. (As I recall, it was so rank with the noise of karaoke and drunk people that there wasn’t much talking to be had anyway.)

Stupidly, I followed him to try to work things out. Had I the chance to do it over, I would have stayed in the bar and karaoked my ass off, and let him walk himself all over town by his own damn self.

But I didn’t.

I followed him and we walked and fought for a few miles before we made up and he decided we should call a cab.

Guess who paid for the cab.

(He didn’t have any cash.)

Summer and the Water

There’s something magical about water in the summer– something that makes teenagers fall in love, I think.

Joe

My curiosity about Joe turned into a full-fledged crush on a summer camping trip to the lake with the youth group.

Of course, I figured it was all still going to be from afar, because there is no way to look cute when you’ve showered in a public bathroom with your eyes open in case a roach came at you. Or when you’ve taken a ride in a speedboat without a hair band. Or when you’ve decided that being barefooted is the new cool thing and you end up cutting your foot on a sharp rock and limping back to your shoes, defeated.

But something about that water made him see past all that stuff I guess, because he flirted with me the whole weekend, and then asked me out a few weeks later.

Luke

Years later, Luke and I hiked out to a river behind his house. We were just friends at that point, still, even though I was being a complete dumbass about it and he was following me around like a lovesick puppy.

When we got out to our destination, the rain that had been threatening suddenly let loose in a downpour like I’ve never seen before or since. We were immediately soaked completely through with nowhere to take shelter, and we laughed and screamed and hid under a pine tree that offered almost no protection.

And I was not such a dumbass that I didn’t feel an electric pull between us– like a premonition that this “just friends” thing was not going to work, and I should just give in and kiss him while he was drenched with his soggy hair in his eyes.

I didn’t kiss him.

Somehow I missed the whole memo that getting caught in the rain with someone is incredibly romantic and you are supposed to suddenly realize that you are madly in love, and share your first movie-worthy kiss, sopping and steamy.

In the end, we just trudged back to his house, squelching in our ruined shoes… which is not really that romantic.

But the tug of that electricity in the rain never left, and you know how we ended up, so maybe it was romantic, in a way. I guess that’s the magic of summer and the water.

Runaway Girlfriend

You’ve seen that movie Runaway Bride, right? Julia Roberts plays an adorable, but damaged woman who keeps getting engaged to “the perfect guy” and then leaving him at the altar. This is all supposedly because she morphs herself into what she thinks the guy wants her to be, but in the end, she (somewhere in her psyche) realizes she’s not being true to herself, and runs away.

I sort of wonder if that plot sounds far-fetched to some people. It doesn’t to me. Because I’ve done the same thing, many times. And it went beyond how I liked my eggs.

The Joe Me

Before I met Joe, I had consciously decided to re-invent myself. I was fourteen years old, just about to start high school, and had just moved across the country with my family. To cope with the potentially crushing change, I decided that this was my chance for a clean slate. I could be beautiful, and popular, and desired. I practiced my smile in the mirror. I convinced my mom to let me wear this pair of ridiculously tiny white shorts. I experimented with make-up.

And then Joe appeared, just at the height of my confidence in my new identity. I was coy, not shy. I was mysterious, not quiet. I was classically pretty, not frumpy. He bought it. I almost died of shock.

So, really, The Joe Me was more my construct than his, but he helped perpetuate it for the ten months we were together before he went off to college.

The Shane Me

I sort of created a construct for myself on purpose with Shane, too. Before we knew each other, really, we played a role playing game together (ugh, I know) where he was this badass Indiana Jones type and I was an even badder-ass lady smuggler with red hair and an attitude problem.

The thing is, it turned out that Shane really was kind of a badass Indiana Jones type– I mean, as much as a 15-year-old can be. I guess he just assumed that I was more like my character than not, too, so he treated me that way. He sent me a card once that he said made him think of me:

I want a sensitive man… One who’ll cry when I hit him.

This was about the time in my life, too, when I decided that most emotion was unnecessary. I stopped crying over sentimental things– and, truthfully, mostly openly scoffed at them. “Nice” became the most hated label anyone could apply to me (although it was still applied often). I desperately tried to be the badass Shane thought I was.

The Luke Me

Luke and I were best friends for a long time– like months (that is a long time in high school)– before we started dating, and I was drawn to him because he was wide-open funny. You know the type: They’ll do anything for a laugh. He was perfectly willing to make a complete fool of himself just to make you smile. He memorized full scenes of funny movies and could repeat them back verbatim, with voices. Everyone absolutely loved him.

When we started dating, I knee-jerk resisted being labeled “Luke’s girlfriend.” No. I would not be nameless girlfriend. I would be funny in my own right. So I developed my own brand of humor. Sure, I’d indulge in silly costumes and general tom-foolery with him from time to time, but my style was understated and acerbic, compared to his wild shenanigans. But I was funny. And as far as I know, I managed to avoid the “Luke’s girlfriend” label fairly successfully.

The Matt Me

Oh, dear Lord. The Matt Me is probably the me I wish I could have avoided being. By then, I was this weird mix of leftovers from the other mes (a little coy, a little badass, and a little funny) plus the real me, which was a huge dollop of awkward and insecure and a whole lot of sensitive, squishy mess. When Matt swooped in, he brought with him the drama of growing up in a dysfunctional family, where you yell and shout and call names and say horrible things to each other, all in the name of love.

In order to defend myself, I yelled back. The drama swallowed me whole. I got moody and mopey and angry, with not a small amount of argumentative thrown in for good measure. I snarled at everyone for even the smallest infractions. Imagined slights became gaping wounds that had to be avenged.

So who did I end up being?

In the movie, Julia Roberts takes a break from relationships and figures out who she really is. It’s all very neat and clean. She likes the kind of eggs she likes, and she hates all the other kinds. The end.

In real life, it’s not quite that simple, I think. Because there are parts of those versions of me that will always be me. I will always default to mysterious when I want to be desirable. I will always swing toward badass if you cross me. I will always crack a joke to try to make myself memorable. And, though I hate to admit it, I will probably always snarl defensively if you hurt my feelings, even slightly or by accident.

Does that make me Not Me? No, but I think it makes all my exes part of me– and that will never really go away.

Three Smiles

Have you guys seen Win a Date With Tad Hamilton? Not a particularly great movie, but when I saw it, there was a line that made me choke on my own saliva. Pete, the dork and real love interest (of course), is giving the treat-her-right speech to Tad, and he says:

Like do you know she has six smiles? One when something really makes her laugh. One when she’s making plans. One when she is laughing out of politeness. One when she is uncomfortable. One when she is making fun of herself. And one when… she’s talking about her friends.

But let me take you back.

Shane was what my friends referred to delicately and completely without snark as my “Internet lover.” This was in 1995. Match.com did not exist. We had one computer in the house that my three siblings and I shared. No one had cell phones– or at least in any iteration that the current generation would recognize. The Internet was not full of LOL cats. In fact, the Internet was mostly full of nerds in chat rooms.

And if you were a nerd in a chat room, you could, sometimes, find nerdy Internet love.

Shane and I didn’t meet in person for quite a while, but we did, eventually, when he came to town with his folks on a trip, ostensibly to scout out colleges, I think.

Things had already gotten as “hot and heavy” as things can get between two 15-year-olds who email back and forth (and exchange fan fiction, if you want to know the whole nerdy truth), but things in person were a little… awkward.

On my part, there was a lot of blushing and umming and giggling. He was smoother, but I think not as suave as he was hoping to be. Still, there were moments– moments when we both managed to pull ourselves together enough to communicate like reasonably sane and intelligent people.

One such moment came when we were in my room talking (actually talking, with the door open, people– we were nice young things) and he looked at me and he said, “Do you know you have three smiles?”

And I ummed and blushed a little, because I have a way with words.

“You do,” he insisted. “You have the one you’re doing now. It’s like the pretty, polite school picture smile. No teeth.”

And I smiled a little bigger. Who wouldn’t?

“And then there’s that one.” He paused to wink at me. “That one’s your happy smile, the one that goes up to your eyes and I can tell is the real one.”

And then I laughed, probably out of pure glee, because no boy had ever so thoroughly wooed me.

“Aha, that’s the one I love best,” he said. “That’s your super-smile. The one when someone really makes you laugh, or surprises you… in a good way. And I’ve been trying to get you to do that one all day.”

And I think I may have melted into a freaking puddle right then.

So when I heard Pete say his line in that dumb movie, my mouth dropped open until my popcorn fell right out. I may have uttered, “He stole Shane’s line.”

And then I melted into a puddle all over again, even though that movie came out in 2004, nearly ten years after Shane unlocked all my smiles in one 30-second woo-of-the-century, and at least a couple of years after my last conversation with him.

Such is the power of a really good woo.

The Wives

I’ve recently learned that all four exes are married. It took a little stalking on my part, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

Joe married Skipper and they created a spawn, as you know. I am regularly subjected to Facebook posts of their baby doing things like slinging food around and picking her nose, and this is supposed to be adorable.

Luke, as you know, married his weird hipster girlfriend and also spawned. There are very few pictures on Facebook of this spawn. They’re probably all on Instagram instead.

Matt married the first girl he dated after me, which I guess I can’t fault him for. (But I sort of do.) And now they have twins. Pretty much the only time he posts about them is when they are vomiting, so you know, I don’t find them that adorable.

And I just found Shane. Yeah, in a dick-move, ex-girlfriend, full-on stalk, I found him on GooglePlus, clicked on all his contacts, and pieced together that he is married. To a PhD. A pretty one. Goddamn it.

I will admit here that I don’t particularly like any of The Wives. They are physical manifestations of everything I failed to be. They are perky and adorable and thin and smart (well, some of them are), and they are, I’m sure, better wives for my exes than I would have ever been. If I were a charitable human being, this would probably make me happy and peaceful. Since I am me, it makes me sort of snarky. Not bitter, exactly… just… vaguely itchy in the hate corner of my heart.

Luke’s Smooth Move

Normally I don’t recommend carnivals as good date options. There are many unromantic things about carnivals: food on sticks, piles of sawdust-covered vomit, and carnies, just for example. This story involves a carnival, and it’s a little romantic, but I felt I should give you the disclaimer above before continuing.

Luke gave me moony cow-eyes for a whole summer before we dated. I was completely oblivious. I thought we were friends. I had not yet seen When Harry Met Sally and I didn’t realize that men and women cannot be friends because the man pretty much always wants to bang the woman, even if she’s not hot. This would have been useful information to have when Luke and I started doing friend things together, one-on-one. I was doing buddy stuff like making crude jokes and punching him in the arm, and he was doing I-like-you stuff like…

Well, like taking me to the carnival. I’m pretty sure I tried to get other people to come with us and it didn’t work out. Maybe they were all smarter than me and realized we were a couple, even though I didn’t. In any case, we ended up at the tiny, dusty county fair together with a few hours of free time and a roll of ride tickets, purchased Dutch, of course.

And the ride he wanted was one of those swirly spinny ones with the cars for two people. I was game, so we got aboard. The seat was plenty wide enough when we got in. We were both skinny high-schoolers and there was at least half a butt-cheek width between us. But then the ride started spinning.

Luke had gotten the outside seat and I’d gotten the inside seat, and I quickly realized we were going to have a problem. I held on for a minute, but the centripetal force inched me ever closer to touching Luke’s butt with my butt, which seemed very un-buddy-like to me. Eventually my skinny forearms gave out and I thudded against Luke’s thigh, screaming my lungs out from either the ride or the touching, I wasn’t sure which. Luke just grinned, victorious in his butt-touching scheme.

I think it took us at least a couple more weeks after that to officially be “dating,” mostly because I was still blissfully oblivious, despite my butt having touched his butt. It’s a good thing my life didn’t depend on understanding male-female relationship dynamics. I would have been a goner.

Up on the Roof

Shane and I were long-distance internet lovers before long-distance internet lovers were really normal. Yes, in this way, I was weird. I know. Shocking.

He came to visit once while we were still dating. I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but he somehow ended up hanging out with me for the day. We played badminton and went to the arboretum and met up with some of my friends and he threw his arm around me amiably and took my picture and played with the family dog. It was a nice day. But the thing I remember most about that day was sharing my “hiding spot” with him. (Not as dirty as it sounds– but we’ll get to that.)

I don’t know if all teenagers do it, or just me, but I delighted in knowing things that no one else in my household knew. I knew, for example, that I could pop the screen off my bedroom window and climb out of it fairly easily. I tried it several times, just to prove it to myself. I never actually had to use my super secret escape method, but I could have if I’d wanted to.

I also knew that I could climb onto the roof of the shed in our back yard and sit on the side facing away from the house, and no one would know I was there. This I did fairly frequently. I had my own room (which was extremely lucky in a family as large as mine), and really, no one ever bothered me if I went to my room and closed the door, but the roof of the shed somehow seemed more private. I’d go up there to think when I really needed to be alone.

I took Shane up there. I’m not sure why. I can’t remember taking any other boyfriend up there. It could have been because I knew he wouldn’t be popping by to visit whenever he felt like it, and climbing up there to invade my privacy. But, mostly, I think it was because I just wanted to share something secret with him, that was only mine to share. In a lot of ways, Shane already knew me better than most people. He’d read my writing (fiction and non-fiction), and when you’re a writer (even if you haven’t decided yet that you’re a writer), that means something. So it was probably also because I felt more comfortable with him than I’d ever felt with Joe.

We sat up there together in the afternoon sun, reclining on the slope of the roof, soaking up the last warmth of the shingles. I don’t remember if we talked about anything important, or if we even said anything at all, but I remember feeling happy. It wasn’t a secret anymore that was just mine– it was ours. And I was glad.