Aaron came over last night. I was sitting outside on the porch with a Sprite and some stationary because I told myself I wouldn't go online again last night. So I was sitting out there sort of waiting for Aaron, and sort of waiting for something to happen -- ANYTHING to happen.
All day, little things had been happening. I got called into work at Java's -- for three hours. Three hours is not a work shift. Three hours is long enough to make like, half a cappuccino and let somebody else sprinkle the cinnamon on top. Then I went home, and Jo came over for approximately four seconds, and then left. Then I went online, got offline, went to Burger King, and came back. Peter was supposed to come by around 9.45 to pick something up from me, but he didn't show, so I wasted some time waiting for him -- what the fuck else is new? And somewhere in the process of all of this, Aaron asked if I wanted to go to a rave with him tonight. Well, fuck, since nothing ELSE was happening...
I've never been to a rave. I don't think I'd like them, particularly since I'm sort of afraid of drugs. If I started hallucinating over a little bit of pot, can you imagine what "e" would do to me? But I firmly believe that one should do at least one or two things every week that are completely unexpected. Like last week when I went to the Arrowhead Christian Bookstore. Um... yeah. That's not even worth its own entry, okay? Or like the other day when I walked through a nasty underpass while a train was going overhead. Whatever. I thought perhaps I should go to a rave, just to meet my quota of out-of-the-ordinary things I've done. So I said, "hey, yeah, let's go to a rave."
Well, Aaron showed up for a grand total of twenty minutes. Then he had to run and meet somebody more important. He'd forgotten they were supposed to hang out and watch TV, so, nevermind the fact that I was changing to go to some rave, watching TV was more important with this girl. Fine.
Fine.
So he stayed for 20 minutes. And in that twenty minutes, he said something that really bothered me...
"Helena, do you know how many people I have been with?"
"No, how many?"
"THIRTEEN, okay? I'm such a slut!"
"You're a guy; guys are supposed to be with lots of people; it makes them manly... Do you know how many people *I* have been with? I had the so-called superslut of Denny's tell me I'm a whore, okay?"
"Well, you know..." Aaron got his most philosophical look. "That's becoming more common..."
"What is?"
"Sleeping with more than one or two people."
"Well, obviously... Look at us..."
(Okay, okay, seriously, I haven't been with very many people at ALL. As in, if one of my past lovers walked up to me and said, "Hey, am I in your top five?" I'd have to say yes... But still... It used to seem like everybody I knew was just plundering the countryside getting laid left and right, unable to remember half the people they'd been with... Now, it seems like a list of two or more is excessive... I dunno... Maybe I just switched crowds or something. Two years ago, people thought I was a prude. Now, people think I'm a streetwalker. And people think Aaron is a ravishing stud.)
"Well, see, I think it's becoming more common to have more partners, because... Well, Generation X..." Aaron had about 14 things going through his mind and they were all sort of jamming together... "Like, Generation X, and Generation-In-Between [that's me and Aaron -- too young to have seen Twin Peaks the first time around, and too old to like Korn] don't really believe in love, you know?"
I looked at him gravely.
"Well, we believe in love, but we don't really believe we'll FIND it."
And THAT struck a chord. A minor-seventh, I think.
"We believe in love, but we don't believe we'll ever find it..."
Do I believe in love?
Yes. I do.
I believe... hm... I don't believe in randomness, not really. I believe that everybody is placed in their situation for a reason. I believe that you're supposed to run into the people you run into.
Nathan, for instance... I'll use him as an example, because he's probably the most uncomplicated person I've ever cared for intensely... When I saw Nathan across the room for the first time, sparks flew. Not really romantic ones, just sparks. I KNEW we'd be friends. I KNEW he was important to my life. And he has been.
"But... that's not really what you asked..."
Helena, do you believe in love?
Yes, yes I do.
Helena, do you believe you'll ever find it?
Um...
I guess I don't really know. Maybe it's not really as simple as that.
I believe I've been in love. That's about as far as I can conclusively go...
I don't believe that when you're in love, you have to "BE WITH" somebody. Love isn't something you save until marriage. It's not something that slowly builds up and then kind of fades. Relationships do that. Love really doesn't. People confuse the two more than they confuse sex and love, I think.
"Oh, I love my boyfriend."
"Well, would you love him if I told you he's been fucking somebody else?"
I can't believe the number of people who draw the line there. "I can't be in love with somebody who isn't faithful to me." Or, "He's an asshole; how could I have EVER thought I loved him."
That's when things go to shit. The truth is -- in my humble opinion, of course -- that that's not how the world works. Everybody's so obsessed with these little manmade definitions of boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives and friendships and whatever, and there are so many lines that you're not supposed to cross... Who's to say I can't be in love with somebody who isn't in love with me? Who's to say I can't be in love with somebody I'm not dating? Who's to say I can't be in love with an asshole? Or somebody 40 years older than me? Or somebody who doesn't speak my language? Or somebody who's the same gender as me? Or the opposite?
Maybe I just have a very high tolerance for pain, but I don't think I ought to shut off my ability to love people just because circumstances aren't anybody else's idea of "right." I am NOT going to start dating somebody within my age-group, social status, and level of education; and fall slowly in love with them until we mutually decide to get married and have babies and live happily ever after in a sweet little house, or maybe a shitty little trailer. That will NEVER happen to me. Love doesn't work like that.
There was a game we played in fourth grade. You randomly listed five boys you liked. You listed five places of dwelling: mansion, house, apartment, trailer, and cardboard box. You listed five numbers: 1, 2, 3, 10, and 20 -- those were numbers of children you'd have. You listed a couple of other things; they were all variables. Then you chose a number; say, eleven. So you'd count down eleven lines on your sheet of notebook paper, and you'd cross out whatever was on the eleventh line. You'd keep counting and crossing out until you had only one item left in each category. And then you made it into a complete sentence or something. Mine usually read something like, "You will marry Ben, live in an apartment with 5 kids and no pets. Your marriage will be a happy one, and the first time you have sex, it will be funny. Etc, etc...
Eleven years later, I've kind of decided things don't work like that. Or maybe things work like that, but love doesn't. I can easily see myself getting married for the tax breaks and having a lifelong secret affair with somebody else. Or maybe doing the Meryl Streep Bridges-of-Madison-County thing, where she has this fantastic affair with her Soul Mate for a week or two (it's been a long time since I've seen the movie, okay?), and then kind of, leaves the woods, so to speak, and goes back to her husband and kids and pretends nothing ever happened. But I don't foresee anything going the way we used to plan them in 4th grade.
Helena, do you believe you'll ever find love?
...Depends...
Do I think I'll ever find love that I'd be willing to bring home and introduce to my online journal? No. Absolutely not.
"We believe in love, but we don't believe we'll ever find it..."
Am I going to be a slut because of it?
No. Well... maybe a little.
Helena, do you believe in love?
...
~H.T.*
"I'm in love with a big blue frog; a big blue frog loves me..." --some dorky folk-song my mom used to sing to me.