16 January 2001 ~ Bad timing...

Was listening to a beautiful song and pondering the desert earlier. Was writing a love letter and pondering asses earlier. Was interrupted from all of these things by a mention of unrequited love.

Once, this girl fell in love with me and I had absolutely no idea. I could kick myself now for not seeing it. I mean, for gahd's sake, she'd tell me I was beautiful, brush my hair back from my face, and start kissing me! And I STILL didn't realize she had feelings for me! Stupid me, I just thought it was some random stupid experimentation. How dumb could I get? Every chance she got, she was all over me. I was seventeen, recently dumped, and was in the mood for random stupid experimentation. Kissing girls isn't all that different from kissing boys. Being felt up by girls isn't all that different from being felt up by boys. Seemed like fun to me. I never even considered that there might be something more important going on in her head.

I remember watching "Reality Bites" in her basement. Her mother was ultra-religious -- think Piper Laurie in "Carrie" -- and there was a sort of thrill in watching the movie and making out on her floor knowing that her scary-assed mom could come down the stairs at any minute and like, cane us, or make us say the rosary eighteen million times as penance. I remember the way her mouth felt, and the way her body felt in my arms, and I remember I liked it, but I don't remember anything else. I didn't go home thinking about writing her love poems or making her mix-tapes full of love songs. I didn't go home thinking about the next time I'd see her... Well, maybe I did, a little bit... I went home thinking... I don't know. I guess I wasn't thinking much of anything.

She confessed to Aaron a few months ago that she'd been in love with me from the start. Aaron, of course, never one to keep gossip from his Partner in Conspiracy, promptly told me, and left me aghast.

If I had known she wasn't just kissing me to see what kissing a girl was like... If I had known she actually cared about me as more than a playtoy, maybe I wouldn't have used her as mine... Maybe if I'd considered that she actually LOVED me, I would have been open to the idea of loving her back. Who knows? I don't think I WOULD have loved her back, but I wasn't really thinking much about it, now was I? Now it's too late, and who knows what she thinks of me now. No wonder she despised my boyfriends so much.

Why the hell couldn't you have told me? Why the hell did you just let me drift through my non-thinking little world, obsessing about the same old things and whining about the same old things and not having the foggiest idea that you were standing directly next to me and like... in LOVE with me or something? Why did you let me use you? Why didn't you say something everytime I introduced you as "my friend, Rachel"? Why didn't you slam me over the head with my own stupidity? I can't believe you waited three years to tell anybody... I am so sorry...

I guess I've been fairly lucky, in that, whenever I've had feelings for anybody, at least they usually KNEW about it, at least eventually, and if they didn't, they were just, like, brain-damaged or something. I've never just lusted for somebody for years. Not saying I've never lusted for somebody for a long time and never received any signal back, but at least they always knew.

What do you do when someone comes to you and says "I think I love you," or "I've always found you attractive," or whathaveyou? Guaranteed, it's never going to be the right moment; it almost never is. What if you're seeing somebody? What if you're just simply not interested in the person In That Way? What if you've just never thought about it, and so now, all at once, with one little confession, you're forced to decide whether or not you have feelings for this person, whether or not you ever have, whether or not you ever COULD, and to think about maybe several years worth of friendship to analyze every little gesture... Only, you're not allowed to hesitate, because if you hesitate, you might break somebody's heart.

This happened to me last night. A friend, whom I've known for three and a half years, whom I met at a fast-food joint over a dish of pickles and a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie, whom I've spent years of my life gossiping and partying with, told me he's always had feelings for me. He told me about one day when he was trying to get up the nerve to kiss me, only he had a girlfriend, and I said, so as not to hesitate, "Well you should have; I would have been your Other Woman." Then, jokingly, "I'm sort of used to it by now." And he said he didn't want another woman, he'd wanted me. And THEN what do you say to THAT? Was I even telling the truth? Would I have been The Other Woman? I remember that day quite well; I remember being pissed off at Peter and pissed off at my job and sort of depressed and cranky... We were in the freaking mall, for gahd's sake. And he didn't kiss me. If he had, what would I have done?

And last night, what was I supposed to do?

I'm not upset, not angry, not even confused, really, just sort of pissed off at myself that I didn't know.

And pissed off at what is, if nothing else, another example of extremely bad timing. I HATE bad timing. Some people are blessed with a wonderful sense of timing, and I'm surely not one of them, although I can't help but wonder, "what if..."

Whatever.

Yours with a chocolate-covered pickle...
~Helena*