My First Girlfriend
Yeah, nobody cares, but I like telling stories, so there we are then, aren't we?
I hadn't had a girlfriend until the last month of high school, and like always, I was displeased with my single status. I had had varying crushes on my friends at one point or another, but nothing ever came to fruition. Senior prom approached, and I was to go with my friend Monica as her pseudo-date (aka, friends going together in a non-romantic manner). Anyway, we went, and had been there about fifteen minutes when, in the course of our mingling, we were introduced to Robert's date for the evening (they weren't a couple, nor were they all that great of friends as I came to find out... and she went to a different school). He introduced her as "Michelle..and I can't pronounce her last name." I, being the witty, inquisitive gentlemen I am, asked "What is it?" And she shared it with us, I inquired as to its origin, and we were off. I ran into her (both coincidentally and not) repeatedly through the course of the evening. At the end of which, she asked me for my number. She was going to put it in her cell phone; borrowed from her mother for the evening, but she didn't know how to work it. I had mine with me, so I said, here, you give me yours, and I'll call you. She gave it to me, and my friends rushed me off to get on with our evening. I got to the car, we were about halfway home when I discovered, I had lost it! I lamented, but we got on with our evening. That was Saturday.
Sunday, I thought about looking her up in the phone book, her last name probably wasn't all that common, and I had a good idea on how to spell it. Monday at school, not all that much happened. Afterward, I went to work like normal. In a lull, I decided to look in the phone book to see if I could find her. There were two listings under her last name. I looked at the addresses, and took my chance with fate. I dialed the number, and asked if Michelle was home... She wasn't, so I left a message with her father, along with my cell number. Two hours later, on my drive home she called. We talked straight until dinner, she ate, I ate, we talked straight until we went to sleep.
Tuesday at school, I'm like, woohoo! I'm telling my friends how well I've done, and how things are going. And one of my friends that knows Robert had been told that she had a boyfriend. My heart sank. Why hadn't she said anything about him? Wait a minute, maybe she didn't want to scare me off. I brought it up that night. She had been dating him for ten months, but they were going through a rocky period, hence her going to prom with Robert. No biggy, it's not like I'm going to be dating her, especially if she has a boyfriend. We continue to talk, break for dinner, talk til bed.
Wednesday, I tell my friends what happened, I'm kind of disappointed, but hey, c'est la vie, no? That night we talk the same way we did before, getting to know one another, etc. Thursday, she is interested in exploring a relationship with me. I am as well, except for that whole boyfriend issue, which I point out. They break up the next day! Friday, we make plans to get together. Saturday we do, we go out to dinner, and things are great. We go back to my house, and share our first kiss. Things are great!
We get together on Sunday, and Monday too (it was a three-day weekend) and it was awesome! We're saying goodbye on Monday, and she gives me a hug, and says into my chest "I love you." And I asked, "What did you say?" She responded with "Oh nothing..." and I asked if she said what I thought she did. And she did. Whoa! Okay, that's fine. She pointed out there is a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. I was fine with that, and let her know. I didn't give it a second thought.
About a week and a half later, she gave me a note that said she was now in love with me. Uhm, kay. "I'm not quite there yet, but I'll give it some time." Then she kept bringing up the issue of what was going to happen to us when I went off to college. I wasn't sure, but it was a good question. I should point out that at this point, she was a sophomore in high school, and contemplating whether or not she was going to graduate her junior year, or the year after. We kept going out.
Over the next week and a half, the issue kept reappearing, but I wasn't ready to make a decision. And then finally I was. I decided I thought it would be best for us to break up. I would be 2 states away, making new friends, out on my own for the first time. I didn't know what the future held in store, and I didn't want to be constrained by a girlfriend I couldn't kiss, touch, or see. She accepted that. I still liked her, she was still in love with me (or maybe the idea of it).
Soon after, I suggested we break up. Not because I wanted to, but because she was getting to be so attached to me. We'd barely gone out a month, and she was in love with me, I was the one. But I was going away in under two months, and we'd be breaking up then anyway. She agreed. It was in both our best interests.
Three days later, she was having a party at a friend's house and I had agreed to go. She asked if I would be attending, and I had said that I agreed to, so I'd be there. The day came, and I was going to be unfashionably early...like before the party was to start even. I called my friend Bob halfway there, and asked if he wanted to hang out for a bit. He said sure, and I took a detour over to his house. We played some video games, and pool, then it was time to go to the party, and he agreed to go with me.
We got there, and she was nowhere to be found. She had gone to get some soda (pop/coke) and would be back soon. Bob and I were very uncomfortable, we didn't know anybody. And it was just weird. Bob wanted to leave. I said, we'll give it 15 minutes, and if she's not back, we'll go. 15 minutes came and went, so did minutes 16 and 17. We left.
We went back to Bob's house, and were hanging out some more. My cell phone rang, I didn't know the number. I ignored it. 15 minutes pass. It rings again, same number, I don't know it. 15 minutes pass. Same thing. 15 more minutes pass, and I'm like blah, fine. "Hello?" And it is Michelle, crying, trying to hold back more tears, "Where..[sob] are... [sob]...you?" Oh, crap.
You see if there's one thing I hate more than girls who are mistreated by their guy, it is a girl crying. It hurts me, and I want to do anything I can to stop it. It's kind of like kryptonite.
I let her know I'm at Bob's, and I'll be over in a bit. I was peeved that she wasn't there. It's her party, I'm there for her, and she's not there?! Okay. So I go to the party. And it is just a gathering of her, and some friends I don't know. I make the best of it, and just mingle a little bit. A friend from school showed up, that was a fun surprise, but she only stayed a few minutes before she ran off. The evening dragged on, and I wanted to be elsewhere, but I couldn't just up and leave. 11:30 approached, and I was finally able to make my departure. She was in the pool with some people, and I don't do the whole swimming thing. I went out to say goodbye, and she had something to tell me. Oh crap. "I still like you." I think to myself, "So? we broke up for a reason, and your liking me or me liking you has nothing to do with it." I make a weird hand gesture, and a funny sound to try and get my point across. Blah. I say goodnight to everyone in the pool and drive home.
The next day she calls me up at 10pm, absolutely bawling. She had a fight with her mother. I calm her down and talk her through it, but decide I can't be that person. I can't be someone's emotional crutch all the time, not now. I evade. I go into hiding and stop answering my cell phone. The phone calls stop.
My friends ask how I'm taking the breakup, because I'm fine. They're kind of worried, but they don't know what to think. "Scully is a resilient guy, he's an emotional rock, very hard to shake, and generally keeps it to himself anyway. He's taking it too well, is everything okay in there? He totally just dropped that girl like she was nothing to him, and he was the happiest he's been in a long time. He's not sad about it or anything. That's not like him. What's going on?"
I didn't take it hard. I took it easy. It was my first relationship. It wasn't all that serious for me. I don't think I handled the post-relationship near as well as it could have been handled. But at the same time, I was foolish, and squandered a friendship.
A year later, the day before I went home (for a few weeks for summer), I sent her an email. I had been thinking about it on and off for almost two months. I decided to do it, and I did it. I apologized for cutting her off and not being a friend after we broke up, and explained my neanderthalic reasoning-- I also offered to be a friend now. I got a reply in the early morning hours, I took it as though she thought I was looking to get back together with her, which wasn't the case. I sent her a response spelling out very clearly my intentions, and she responded agreeing that was what she had taken it as anyway.
The next day at the airport, I got a call on my way to check-in my baggage, and it was her. She sounded like she was choking back tears, with some success. We did a little bit of catch up, but I couldn't talk for long because I was up to the counter shortly. I got another call about 15 minutes later while I was getting a pretzel (air travel routine of mine, flying United Airlines). That was complicated because I have two arms, one piece of luggage, a drink, a pretzel, a backpack, and a cell phone to hold to my ear. I said I'd call her back after my pretzel.
I called her back, and we talked for about 30 or 40 minutes, and discussed getting together while I was in town. We said goodbye, and I flew to Vegas. I got in, did the family thing, and went to sleep uncharacteristically early, 9:45pm. I was wiped from a long day and little sleep. I got a call at 10:40 which woke me up. I thought it was Michelle, but I didn't know any better in my exhausted slumber. We talked for something like 10 minutes, and I was told that I could reach her at the number from which she called. About 2 weeks later, I found out it was my friend Erin, I had fallen asleep twice in the course of the conversation, and the three times I had called that number and left a message for Michelle, Erin's mother was thoroughly confused, though she new precisely who Scully was.
The night before I flew back to Boulder, I had it all straightened out, but I didn't have time left to get together with Michelle. But we got to talk for an hour over the phone as I packed, which was kind of nice, I guess. We said goodbye, and we'd make a better effort to get together next time I was in town.
--------------------
In retrospect, I recognize I can be a very cold-hearted ass hole, instead of my usual dorky, nice guy self. Nobody's perfect, but that's no excuse.
Now I look for Ms Perfect, what I thought Michelle to be. I'm afraid I'll screw it up and break her heart (too?). I don't want that to happen, there's no reason I should, but I'm still afraid it will. C'est la vie.
(It was longer than I thought. If you read it all, congratulations. If you didn't, no biggy. There it is.)
I hadn't had a girlfriend until the last month of high school, and like always, I was displeased with my single status. I had had varying crushes on my friends at one point or another, but nothing ever came to fruition. Senior prom approached, and I was to go with my friend Monica as her pseudo-date (aka, friends going together in a non-romantic manner). Anyway, we went, and had been there about fifteen minutes when, in the course of our mingling, we were introduced to Robert's date for the evening (they weren't a couple, nor were they all that great of friends as I came to find out... and she went to a different school). He introduced her as "Michelle..and I can't pronounce her last name." I, being the witty, inquisitive gentlemen I am, asked "What is it?" And she shared it with us, I inquired as to its origin, and we were off. I ran into her (both coincidentally and not) repeatedly through the course of the evening. At the end of which, she asked me for my number. She was going to put it in her cell phone; borrowed from her mother for the evening, but she didn't know how to work it. I had mine with me, so I said, here, you give me yours, and I'll call you. She gave it to me, and my friends rushed me off to get on with our evening. I got to the car, we were about halfway home when I discovered, I had lost it! I lamented, but we got on with our evening. That was Saturday.
Sunday, I thought about looking her up in the phone book, her last name probably wasn't all that common, and I had a good idea on how to spell it. Monday at school, not all that much happened. Afterward, I went to work like normal. In a lull, I decided to look in the phone book to see if I could find her. There were two listings under her last name. I looked at the addresses, and took my chance with fate. I dialed the number, and asked if Michelle was home... She wasn't, so I left a message with her father, along with my cell number. Two hours later, on my drive home she called. We talked straight until dinner, she ate, I ate, we talked straight until we went to sleep.
Tuesday at school, I'm like, woohoo! I'm telling my friends how well I've done, and how things are going. And one of my friends that knows Robert had been told that she had a boyfriend. My heart sank. Why hadn't she said anything about him? Wait a minute, maybe she didn't want to scare me off. I brought it up that night. She had been dating him for ten months, but they were going through a rocky period, hence her going to prom with Robert. No biggy, it's not like I'm going to be dating her, especially if she has a boyfriend. We continue to talk, break for dinner, talk til bed.
Wednesday, I tell my friends what happened, I'm kind of disappointed, but hey, c'est la vie, no? That night we talk the same way we did before, getting to know one another, etc. Thursday, she is interested in exploring a relationship with me. I am as well, except for that whole boyfriend issue, which I point out. They break up the next day! Friday, we make plans to get together. Saturday we do, we go out to dinner, and things are great. We go back to my house, and share our first kiss. Things are great!
We get together on Sunday, and Monday too (it was a three-day weekend) and it was awesome! We're saying goodbye on Monday, and she gives me a hug, and says into my chest "I love you." And I asked, "What did you say?" She responded with "Oh nothing..." and I asked if she said what I thought she did. And she did. Whoa! Okay, that's fine. She pointed out there is a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. I was fine with that, and let her know. I didn't give it a second thought.
About a week and a half later, she gave me a note that said she was now in love with me. Uhm, kay. "I'm not quite there yet, but I'll give it some time." Then she kept bringing up the issue of what was going to happen to us when I went off to college. I wasn't sure, but it was a good question. I should point out that at this point, she was a sophomore in high school, and contemplating whether or not she was going to graduate her junior year, or the year after. We kept going out.
Over the next week and a half, the issue kept reappearing, but I wasn't ready to make a decision. And then finally I was. I decided I thought it would be best for us to break up. I would be 2 states away, making new friends, out on my own for the first time. I didn't know what the future held in store, and I didn't want to be constrained by a girlfriend I couldn't kiss, touch, or see. She accepted that. I still liked her, she was still in love with me (or maybe the idea of it).
Soon after, I suggested we break up. Not because I wanted to, but because she was getting to be so attached to me. We'd barely gone out a month, and she was in love with me, I was the one. But I was going away in under two months, and we'd be breaking up then anyway. She agreed. It was in both our best interests.
Three days later, she was having a party at a friend's house and I had agreed to go. She asked if I would be attending, and I had said that I agreed to, so I'd be there. The day came, and I was going to be unfashionably early...like before the party was to start even. I called my friend Bob halfway there, and asked if he wanted to hang out for a bit. He said sure, and I took a detour over to his house. We played some video games, and pool, then it was time to go to the party, and he agreed to go with me.
We got there, and she was nowhere to be found. She had gone to get some soda (pop/coke) and would be back soon. Bob and I were very uncomfortable, we didn't know anybody. And it was just weird. Bob wanted to leave. I said, we'll give it 15 minutes, and if she's not back, we'll go. 15 minutes came and went, so did minutes 16 and 17. We left.
We went back to Bob's house, and were hanging out some more. My cell phone rang, I didn't know the number. I ignored it. 15 minutes pass. It rings again, same number, I don't know it. 15 minutes pass. Same thing. 15 more minutes pass, and I'm like blah, fine. "Hello?" And it is Michelle, crying, trying to hold back more tears, "Where..[sob] are... [sob]...you?" Oh, crap.
You see if there's one thing I hate more than girls who are mistreated by their guy, it is a girl crying. It hurts me, and I want to do anything I can to stop it. It's kind of like kryptonite.
I let her know I'm at Bob's, and I'll be over in a bit. I was peeved that she wasn't there. It's her party, I'm there for her, and she's not there?! Okay. So I go to the party. And it is just a gathering of her, and some friends I don't know. I make the best of it, and just mingle a little bit. A friend from school showed up, that was a fun surprise, but she only stayed a few minutes before she ran off. The evening dragged on, and I wanted to be elsewhere, but I couldn't just up and leave. 11:30 approached, and I was finally able to make my departure. She was in the pool with some people, and I don't do the whole swimming thing. I went out to say goodbye, and she had something to tell me. Oh crap. "I still like you." I think to myself, "So? we broke up for a reason, and your liking me or me liking you has nothing to do with it." I make a weird hand gesture, and a funny sound to try and get my point across. Blah. I say goodnight to everyone in the pool and drive home.
The next day she calls me up at 10pm, absolutely bawling. She had a fight with her mother. I calm her down and talk her through it, but decide I can't be that person. I can't be someone's emotional crutch all the time, not now. I evade. I go into hiding and stop answering my cell phone. The phone calls stop.
My friends ask how I'm taking the breakup, because I'm fine. They're kind of worried, but they don't know what to think. "Scully is a resilient guy, he's an emotional rock, very hard to shake, and generally keeps it to himself anyway. He's taking it too well, is everything okay in there? He totally just dropped that girl like she was nothing to him, and he was the happiest he's been in a long time. He's not sad about it or anything. That's not like him. What's going on?"
I didn't take it hard. I took it easy. It was my first relationship. It wasn't all that serious for me. I don't think I handled the post-relationship near as well as it could have been handled. But at the same time, I was foolish, and squandered a friendship.
A year later, the day before I went home (for a few weeks for summer), I sent her an email. I had been thinking about it on and off for almost two months. I decided to do it, and I did it. I apologized for cutting her off and not being a friend after we broke up, and explained my neanderthalic reasoning-- I also offered to be a friend now. I got a reply in the early morning hours, I took it as though she thought I was looking to get back together with her, which wasn't the case. I sent her a response spelling out very clearly my intentions, and she responded agreeing that was what she had taken it as anyway.
The next day at the airport, I got a call on my way to check-in my baggage, and it was her. She sounded like she was choking back tears, with some success. We did a little bit of catch up, but I couldn't talk for long because I was up to the counter shortly. I got another call about 15 minutes later while I was getting a pretzel (air travel routine of mine, flying United Airlines). That was complicated because I have two arms, one piece of luggage, a drink, a pretzel, a backpack, and a cell phone to hold to my ear. I said I'd call her back after my pretzel.
I called her back, and we talked for about 30 or 40 minutes, and discussed getting together while I was in town. We said goodbye, and I flew to Vegas. I got in, did the family thing, and went to sleep uncharacteristically early, 9:45pm. I was wiped from a long day and little sleep. I got a call at 10:40 which woke me up. I thought it was Michelle, but I didn't know any better in my exhausted slumber. We talked for something like 10 minutes, and I was told that I could reach her at the number from which she called. About 2 weeks later, I found out it was my friend Erin, I had fallen asleep twice in the course of the conversation, and the three times I had called that number and left a message for Michelle, Erin's mother was thoroughly confused, though she new precisely who Scully was.
The night before I flew back to Boulder, I had it all straightened out, but I didn't have time left to get together with Michelle. But we got to talk for an hour over the phone as I packed, which was kind of nice, I guess. We said goodbye, and we'd make a better effort to get together next time I was in town.
--------------------
In retrospect, I recognize I can be a very cold-hearted ass hole, instead of my usual dorky, nice guy self. Nobody's perfect, but that's no excuse.
Now I look for Ms Perfect, what I thought Michelle to be. I'm afraid I'll screw it up and break her heart (too?). I don't want that to happen, there's no reason I should, but I'm still afraid it will. C'est la vie.
(It was longer than I thought. If you read it all, congratulations. If you didn't, no biggy. There it is.)
posted by The @ 9:24 PM
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