The title of this issue was the title I gave to a poem that I wrote about four years ago. The subject of the poem was the guy who I was getting over at the time. Since he had been the object of my affections for almost three years at that point, the break was not a clean one, and I was severly pissed at everything: him, me, the world, dirty socks, etc.
Few people know the history behind the grand infatuation; some think it was a terrible romance gone bad, others think it was a star-struck crush. It was almost a legend among my younger friends and the followers of my old 'zine at my high school.
I'm sure it was a combination of his flirtatious attention applied at the right moment, added in with a blossoming friendship and a shared spate of interests, that drew me to him initially. When he didn't reciprocate my perhaps less-than-deeply-expressed emotions (I've been told I'm a hard person to "read") and began to date another girl, I was already deeply enmeshed in the crush, and thought I was perhaps the secret object of his affections. But I hid my feelings from that time onward, afraid of the embarassment of exposure and ultimately of rejection. I saw him from time to time, to be sure, but I was so busy acting like I didn't like him that I forgot how to be his friend. I nursed the crush beyond the time when we were speaking civilly, or on any terms at all.
I guess the real break came during the winter break of my senior year. He was off at college by this time, but I was so used to his being out of sight when he actually attended the school that I thought nothing of it. Besides, he showed up periodically in the place I called my second home that year: the art room. Over the break I worked up enough courage to call him at home and ask him about how things were going--I had only called him one other time in all those years.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hello, is so-and-so there?
The Mother: Yes, hold on a minute.
(Four or five minutes of household noises; my impatience and finally annoyance grew)
Boy: Uh, hello.
Me: Hi, this is Eve. What's up?
Boy: Nuthin much, just attending college upstate.
Me: That's what I heard.
Boy: ... Well, I've gotta go, so I'll see you around, ok? Later.
Me: ... Okay. Bye.
(click)
Yes, my attempt to play catch-up was neither too thrilling nor fulfilling. Actually, being blown off kinda made me mad at him. Gee, if only I'd called him sooner, I could have been miserable about someone else for about two and a half years--or even happy about someone else, as hard to believe as that is (especially for me).
And so, "Bitter?" was the name of the somewhat profane poem I wrote in his honor (several months before the phone call). This month I have taken time to reflect on all the bitter feelings I have had for various exes, crushes, boys who were just mean, and boys who were just annoying. Not that it's anti-men; it's more anti-rejection than anything. I think I'm going to be staying aggressively single for quite some time, and if I ever start to think that anybody I know is acting really sweet to me, I'll just have to cruise on back to this issue to remember what a reaction on my part can produce.
I will admit, however, that it'd be nice to have a normal, happy relationship for once. I've been happy as part of a couple before (thanks Baby), and I've been part of a normal couple before, but putting the two together seems to be a difficult task for almost everybody I know.
Well, here you go now, on with Issue 23.
(P.S. If you happen to be an alum of my high school reading this, email me with any comments or questions. But if the main question is "Who was the guy?" then don't even bother.)