So yesterday he withdrew from school, and after talking for a half-hour
with an admissions councelor (who also said he needs therapy), he felt
a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. I told him, as a
veteran of psychological visits, that it only gets better.
I feel like I may have crumbled at the feet of my initial ultimatum:
finish school or we're finished. But he promises he will finish, and
he will go to therapy. I wait, I wait, I wait.
But the fact that I still want to be with him while simultaneously being frustrated
with him and occassionally wanting to knee him in the groin, gives hope to
the relationship. I know that we work things out no matter what the issue is because
it's worth it. I've never felt like this with other relationships.
Let's just say I haven't had the greatest luck with relationships. I was such a dork
up until...well, I'm still a dork. In the junior-high and high school years,
I jumped at the chance to go out with a guy, thinking he was my only hope.
I went out with the
dorks who liked me because I felt pity for them and I always saw something
good in them. Besides, they liked me, when other boys I had a
crush on didn't like me, or felt intimidated by my quiet, smart, dorky
prescence.
My first boyfriend, Tyler, I met over the Internet, when chatrooms
were in the primal stage. I was 13, he was 15, the year was 1990. At the time, we
had so much in common. We both sang, both went to a Lutheran church
(not the same one of course), both were always joking around and silly.
The thing was, I thought I knew him so well, but I'd never met him.
The first night we met was at his high school performance of "Oklahoma."
My mom and I went, nervously, to the ticket table where he'd reserved
two tickets for me. We poked around the hallways, eventually asking
two girls, dressed like Little Bo Peep Goes Western, if they knew
who Tyler was. They giggled slightly and pointed to this gangly cowboy, pushing
up his glasses as he sauntered down the hall. His hair was straight and
slicked to the side, and the stage make-up didn't do much for the zits
on his nose.
We awkwardly introduced ourselves, I wished I could fall into a hole
in the ground, and he rushed away to get in line
for his part as a Chorus Cowboy.
I distinctly remember my mom asking if I wanted to stay or book out of
there. She knew I thought he was a by-the-book nerd, because she
definitely thought so. We stayed. And there began the trend of pity.
I knew he liked me, so I appeased him.
Now, like I said, I was a dork too. At the time I was wearing large, red
glasses that made my eyes look too big for my head. I was just at the
end of my tight-rolling-the-jeans phase, but I still wore large, dangly
plastic earrings. Besides, Tyler was one of the nicest guys I've met.
After "Oklahoma," he brought me a yellow rose, which I sheepishly accepted.
I just wasn't physically or sexually attracted to him, and meeting him
in person after months of only talking via email and the phone was just too big of a gap to fill for
my comfort. We stayed together for about three months, dating off and
on for a few months after a break up. We never hugged, never kissed,
never touched. He never made the move and I never had the desire to.
I'm lucky, I guess. Though I was extremely, emotionally ...compliant...to guys,
the few that followed Tyler were the type who never, never touched me
unless I initiated it. And I never wanted to initiate it. Don't get me
wrong, I really wanted someone to hold, but not those few. So when Todd
came around, I was ready to do anything. He initiated everything and
was very cute. And he was the one who dumped me because I wouldn't
sleep with him. And I was the one, 15-years-old, who thought it was
my fault. What if I had sucked his dick? Would he have stayed with me?
I asked that question and others similar to it for years afterward.
Then I met Travis, who was two years younger than me. We were best friends:
both turned on by each other, both wanting the love to last until we
were 100 years old. After a year and almost a half of that, he started
to grow up. I have no explanation, no summary for that relationship.
Truthfully, it's hard to reckon with because I don't know if it was
love or a consenting, sexual experimental time. I wrote
a little bit about Travis on May 10th and
June 16th. Getting
over him is, well, it's more like getting used to him not being in my life. And
excepting that is challenging as well.
J. and I are completely different. We are more of a team than I've
felt before. And there could be more. I'm not doubting that J. could
be a stepping stone to another kind of love. Hell, my parents thought
that they were life-partners at one time, now they're either remarried
or about to be to the ones who they love more than anything in the world.
I just pray that I have the knowledge to know more than I did the last
time around in love, and that I learn from it all.
|
