Starting up again...

Grad school, with all of the dense readings, the lectures on little known subjects, the lunches with friends sharing unbelievable stories, has been an enlightening experience. Yet, all the above mentioned factors aside, the most enlightening aspect has been the interaction with my male peers.

My undergrad experience was far from the see a cute guy in the halls, smile, know you will probably run into him later at whatever solo cup rager was going on that weekend, look as cute as possible on that night, and then who knows what. In my case, if I saw a cute guy in the halls, chances were I would probably never see him again. Now, here I am in a full on campus environment, where, after one semester, I know everyone's face if not their name. It's both comforting and disquieting.

Our Dean said in his welcome speech that some of us, undoubtedly, will get married to each other. How could that possibly be the case? It already feels incestuous to view each other romantically - and oh how people would talk. And yet that doesn't stop people, attached or otherwise, from making eyes and overtures...

Meet and Greet

A year and some months later, I'm finally meeting his friends. His group of high school buddies that played JV soccer together with silly nicknames on their jerseys. What started as a small gathering over dinner, us plus three of them, has ballooned into an eight person affair with an acquaintance who wasn't originally invited (awkward) and another girlfriend (thank god).

If the three potential outfits packed in my bag don't already give it away, I'll come out and say it. I'm nervous. What do they know about me already? How will the conversation flow? Should I buy lots of drinks? And. The one that all the others stem from. Will they like me?

A seems to think so. I guess we will find out.

A little blast from the past, if you will...

Date of Execution

Growing up, and even in my 20s, I had very few straight guy friends. I spent most of my time in dance and theater, where guys are few and far between or, although it is a stereotype, gay. My heterosexual male friends were kept close and valued for the advice they gave and the offers they extended to pummel any guy who treated me poorly.

R. is one of those incredible, reliable guy friends that I’ve stuck close to since high school. He is a serial monogamist and, not surprisingly, proposed to his longtime girlfriend last year. They set a date for August and sent out ‘Save the Date’ cards soon after. I wrote the date in my planner: August 21. But something inside of me knew that I wouldn’t be attending.

R. is marrying B., who has a drinking problem. At one point, her problem got so bad, that R. and B. split up. “I can’t handle her when she gets blackout drunk,” R. said once. And every time B. drank, she binged to the point of blackout. During their split, she worked on “giving up hard liquor” and once she did, they got back together. “It’s only hard liquor that makes her black out,” R. said. This past January, on B.’s 25th birthday, she got blackout drunk off of beer (what happened to that hard liquor rule?) and kissed another guy. She never told R.

Up until this point, I have been elated for all of my friends who have gotten married or engaged. Everyone has seemed to fit so perfectly together, to complement each other, and really benefit from their unions. Except for R. and B. I can not go to a wedding and pretend to be happy for my dear friend and the woman he is settling for.

That little RSVP card sits on my dresser, asking far bigger questions than “Yes” or “No.”

The Aussie, Part 2

I didn’t want to go. He’s not for me, he likes me too much, what if we run out of things to say, what if I’m awkward, what if he gets to know me and he’s disappointed, he dresses funny, if I wear my tallest heels I’ll be taller than he is. “Do you want to do dinner?” “I do but I’m hesitant. I’m moving in a couple months and I think dating someone in New York is not the best idea right now.” “I guess that’s fair. Shame. You’ve got such a different energy than any other girl I’ve met. But I’m not letting you off the hook that easy. We can still hang out.” “As friends?” “Sure.”

I agreed to let him take me to an improv show at The Pit. He smells so nice, jeans and sneakers this time, his shoulder touched mine, is he leaning toward me, is that body language, he touched my knee, please touch my knee again, he’s got a nice laugh, he hasn’t looked at his phone once the whole night I love that, he’s definitely leaning toward me, touch my knee again.

“Where are we going now?” I want to spend more time with you. “Do you play pool? I know exactly where we’re going.” A pool hall in Korea Town. “I know, it looks dodgy, but it’s cool.” Dodgy. In a tiny elevator, just me and him, twelfth floor, kiss me in the elevator, kiss me in the elevator, kiss me in the elevator, he’s smiling at me, shot myself in the foot with the friends statement, I could really like him and now he won’t kiss me.

He is terrible at pool, and I’m not much better but it doesn’t even matter. He doesn’t even care when I beat him, still not looking at his phone, touches my stomach as he passes by for the next shot, please touch me again, I don’t want to be your friend.

“Up for a location change? I know that look. It’s bed time?” I want to go home and think about how lovely this night was and I don’t want to drink any more to ruin it. Arm around my shoulder walking to the subway, if I hadn’t made the stupid friends proclamation he’d be holding my hand, he smells so nice, will he kiss me at the station? A hug. A long hug. A kiss on the forehead. A kiss on the cheek. You missed! Another kiss on the forehead. I am surely frowning as I say goodbye and jog down the subway stairs. “Text me when you’re home, yeah?”

Usually when someone asks me to text them that I got home okay, I forget. This time, I didn’t forget. Because he was all I could think about.

Why Not Me

This weekend I went to spend some time with my best friend. She was my very first best friend, the one who packed a bag full of books and stuffed animals and “ran away” with me when I got mad at my mom, the one whose house I ate dinner at almost as much as my own. She is the one who knew me from diapers to braces to crutches to heartbreak. There were times when we drifted, but then we grew up and drifted back together again. We only live three hours apart now but we don’t talk as much as we should. I drove up to Albany on Friday, mostly to visit her and catch up, but also to get to know her boyfriend, the one she tells me she’ll marry someday soon.

My last morning in Albany, over far too much breakfast meat, I regaled her with stories of the men in my life. It almost seemed trite. She’s been dating her boyfriend for almost two years, living with him for six months. And here I was, whining about a first date gone wrong or a crush I had on someone in another state.

But then I remembered why she is my best friend, why I tell her any of this in the first place, and why I will continue to seek her advice long after our own kids are packing their stuffed animals and heading for the next block.

“It’s weird,” I said. “Even though you know the relationship wasn’t right, you know you weren’t meant to be together, you still watch him with someone new and you think, ‘Why not me?’”
“But then you meet the right person,” she said calmly. “And you’ll be completely over everything that happened to you in the past, and you’ll be happy again, and then that Ex will look at you and think, ‘Why not me?’”

This is new.

He was on his way to meet our close mutual friend for dinner.

4:58 PM me: come kiss me and then gohaha

4:59 PM A: haha i would love to, just meet me at...
Friends to more. Maybe it's just this easy.

Spring

This morning, my Romanian colleague sent this martisor to the whole organization. A symbol of friendship and love, appreciation and respect, it's given out on the first of March to celebrate the beginning of spring.

Lovely, no?

Today

For some odd reason, Valentine's Day always reminds me of this one place...

(MP, I'll have to tell you the story)

Together

Pure Love

This is one of the sweetest videos I have ever seen, and after the craziness of the holidays, this is what I'm taking with me to start 2010. Happy New Year!

The Middle

Let's get to part two of the Hungarian story.

Monday morning in New York, two and a half weeks after saying goodbye, I waited in the hotel lobby for the group. He was the first to come down. Big grins and kisses on the cheek. For the most part, the day passed like any other, and yet we had our moments. Walking up Fifth Avenue, he told me how he went to an experimental concert in Chinatown the night before, and I pointed out the Paris Theatre where I'd seen A Very Long Engagement twice. At a bar that night, he and I played foosball against my colleague and his fellow Hungarian. We may have won two of three games, though I can't be sure. Another coworker, aware of my crush and now slightly inebriated, sing-songed at me. One of his groupmates asked if I thought he, the Hungarian, was cute. I'd like to think we were more subtle than that, but perhaps we were just that obvious.

After our tour of the O'Keeffe exhibit the next day, he asked me to lunch. We ended up eating with the larger group but no matter. I was then off to an old standby cafe to do some work, and he tagged along, despite his reluctance to hop on the subway downtown. On that rainy afternoon, over two cups, we talked and talked for hours until he asked me to dinner. We made the 40 block trek back to the hotel arm in arm, stopping for a compost cookie along the way. Changed and refreshed, we made our way back downtown (let's be real, I don't know of anything above 14th). And at the counter of a trendy cafe, about to order, he kissed me. We shared our meals in couple fashion and then got a drink on Ludlow before calling it a night close to midnight. Though I've never been one for public displays of affection, I admit, I was completely swept up in us. There are worse sights.

He hadn't been to New York in almost 15 years, and we still spent all of Wednesday together. Me, writing down math formulas, him, answering emails in a different language on my laptop. Beside each other on a bench, splitting a grilled cheese and tomato soup, I played with his hair, and he stroked my knee. Hours later, it was time to meet Lauren E., but he still had work to do. Without thinking, I offered to let him use my computer while he stayed with a friend that night. He protested, but I countered with: "why rely on that person when you can rely on this person?" Suffice it to say, my dear friend was startled to see me walk into Le Pain (late) hand in hand with him.

"I didn't know you were bringing someone."
"He's just leaving; he's borrowing my computer."
"I could stay for a coffee..."

So he did. Call me presumptuous, but I think she found him charming. And he is. After all, I did spend 36 hours with him.

Thursday night, he and his friend joined me and mine for a reading/anniversary celebration of a friend's wonderful literary culture blog. We kissed hello, locked eyes often, reached out for each other whenever that happened (also often), and kissed goodbye. Waiting for the subway, an old high school friend, whom I hadn't seen in years until that night, asked about him.

"Is that K guy your boyfriend?"
"No, I met him three weeks ago."

Introduction

Lauren E., meet your soulmate.

You can thank me later.

A crowded inbox, and nothing to read

I open up a new email. As I begin to compose it, suddenly my fingers won't go anymore. My stories, about to trip out of my head and onto the screen, suddenly pause with my breath.

I think about my inbox that is perenially full. Emails from the financial aid office, emails from the dean of students, emails over the student listserve asking for rides here and there, emails about classes that are cancelled, emails about homework assignments posted online, emails from various job search engines, emails about job fairs, emails from linked in about people I may know.

I start my email: Hi all! I know it's been a while since my last update, but let me make up for it now with one of my epics!

I pause. Ctrl A. Delete. Discard email. I could blather on about myself for a few paragraphs. Recounting the stupid incidents that make life funny and fun. Tell them about how classes are, the people here. Tell them I eat baguettes like that's my goal in life. I could tell them my ankle is much better now. How living with D is going. How life is so quintessentially and stereotypically Parisian some days when I pick up a baguette from the boulangerie after a class has been cancelled yet again and step in some dog poo on my way home to call the internet company about why my connection still isn't working. And then what?

I could wait.

I could wait for a response. One or two of them are usually pretty good about responses. It takes a day or two, but they'll get back to me. I'm glad about your ankle, glad things are going well with D, glad you're having fun, oh yea, drat that dog poo! Hugs, bye.

And then I wonder if it isn't better to get no response at all? At least then I don't find myself searching for a hint of life in the emails. At least when there isn't any response at all, I don't try to read between the lines to figure out what is happening in that friend's day to day. She used an exclamation mark - could that mean she's happy? She commented on everything except the baguette - does that mean she's been eating out a lot? Cooking at home? I'm sure if she'd baked some bread she'd have mentioned it.

And then a couple of weeks go by, and again I start: Hi! Sorry I'm such an awful so-and-so at writing emails! But just in brief, this is what has been happening with me...BLAH BLAH BLAH...how are you all? I miss you guys, hope everything is well.

And then I wait. And I get one or two responses. And a vast all-consuming silence.

I flip through pictures on facebook. Oh I guess he got a new apartment, look, he had a housewarming party. Oh wow, that haircut looks super cute on her. He's missing from a bunch of pictures, must be studying for the GMAT. I wonder if that's the cute new neighbor? Hm, when did she go to California?

I get whiney and grumpy and I munch on a few grapes. I say "screw them" and discard my latest draft. I contemplate rolling up into a ball and moaning in a corner. I float about in yogic calm, letting my whines and grumps fly away.

And I check my inbox one more time. Even if it's just a response, and nothing more, something at least to show me that an ocean doesn't drown out friendships that used to be a 24/7 live wire of communication.

Unanswered questions

"Oh, so it looks like you're serious huh? I must meet him! What's the point of it all if I don't meet him! Next time you must bring him, otherwise how can I approve of him and how can it work!"
"Haha, yea, I know, next time."
"Yea, without my approval no marrying any boys no matter how great they are!"
"Marrying?! Who said anything about marrying?"
"What?"
"Um. I'm thinking of asking him to come with me next time so he can meet my friends and family here, but..."
"So - you're not getting married?"
"No! I mean, I don't know, who knows. I haven't thought about it. We haven't thought about it. It's too soon. I mean, I don't want to think of it yet."
"Oh. But. But then?"
"What do you mean 'but then'?"
"Well no, I mean, I just thought...since you're meeting each other's families and stuff. You're thinking of bringing him half-way across the world to see your home, meet everyone. You're going on vacation with his family..."
"Yea but I mean..."
"No, I mean, I just wondered. I mean, I thought you guys were serious."
"Yes, we are, of course, but just. I mean. Well in any case who has the time to think of all these things, I can barely take responsibility for myself, let alone a whole marriage! Forget about it! Haha, let's get my sister married off first, and what about YOU, Miss-I-don't-like-anyone! Let's get you married off first!"

I laughed, we joked about how her uber-conservative slightly cross-eyed neighbor would be the perfect match. Swine flu is taking over the world, the rains weren't enough this year, her upcoming trip.

I have no answers to her questions. She doesn't see the point of dating if you're not going towards a goal: namely, marriage. I don't see how you can make that goal unless you're with someone for a while.

We never finished that conversation.

If It Kills Me, If It Kills Me, It Might Kill Me...

“I remember the first time I met you.” Few lines resonate in me the way this one does. He remembers. He remembers me. He remembers me before I thought twice about him.

The long distance crush. Six months later, only our second meeting. He put his hand on my lower back and it was like shouting out loud in an empty warehouse, “I like you!” The tiniest gesture that had the greatest meaning.

Three months later, a Facebook message. “I’m kinda upset we never hooked up.” Blunt, juvenile, intoxicated. And the follow up: “Hey, sorry about that drunken Facebook.” I shouldn’t have been flattered but I was. This unspoken attraction that had been going on for almost a year was now vocalized. Pinwheels spun inside my chest.

And then began the downward spiral. He sent messages every once in awhile, asking how I was and what I was doing. The next time I saw him was a year and a half after our initial meeting and his new girlfriend joined him at the New Year’s party. Despite the other woman, he sought me out to ask when I was moving to Seattle, to put his number in my phone (“for when I’m in New York next time”), to make it clear once more that he was interested. Cue pinwheels.

By the time I left Seattle, the first month of 2009, I knew this was someone who wouldn’t disappear from my life so easily. And then began the texts. Late at night, in the middle of the afternoon, first thing in the morning. To say hi, to ask about the New York weather, to tell me he was thinking about me. We started e-mailing so we could write in more detail about what we were going through in our jobs, in our families, in our lives. From physical attraction to sincere friendship. Then he planned his trip to New York and told me he couldn’t wait to see me. He started texting me every day to remind me that the day was getting closer.

He arrived in town, staying with our mutual friend. While everyone suspected she was in love with him, she denied it and denied it, over and over again. “Does it bother you that he and I keep in touch?” I asked her once. She assured me it didn’t. I was giddy to see him. I felt his eyes on me at the bar and caught his smile from across the table. Two years of waiting for this moment and it was closing in on me like a hurricane.

Friday night. At the bar. He kissed me. Finally. Two years in the making. It was perfect. He told her he wanted to leave with me, that he liked me. She started to cry. “What?” he asked. “Why?” “Because,” she answered. “I like you.”

And you know what they say about the best laid plans…

Girl in the Iron Mask

As I walked toward the picnic table, lit up from underneath by patio lights at the Beer Garden, I saw him chatting with B. The roommate. J.’s roommate. The sweetest, most genuine guy in the world, R. is like a big teddy bear. He insists on a hug when he sees you and another when he says goodbye. So when I approached the table and put a hand on his shoulder, he turned with a huge smile and called out, “Give me a real hug!” I was genuinely happy to see him. “How are you?” he asked, and not in that sympathetic, ‘I know you must be hurting’ way. But I felt compelled to answer his unintentional, unspoken question anyway. “I’m great!”

R. stayed to have a beer with B. and I and then came back to B.’s house with us after and hung out until 3 in the morning. We had a blast and only one inappropriate comment slipped out of my mouth. As we played Rock Band, I made a comment about how “smokin’ hot” the animated guitar player was. “Wow,” R. laughed, “You have really low standards.” I grinned and replied, “Aw, you already knew that.” I suddenly felt like Carrie Bradshaw in the Post-It note episode…

Carrie: And just so you know, Alan...
Andrew: Andrew.
Carrie: Uh huh. Most women aren't angry, irrational psychos. We just want an ending to a relationship that is thoughtful and decent and honors what we had together. So my point, Billy, is this. There is a good way to break-up with someone and it doesn't include a post-it!

I made a mental note to keep it together, laugh it off, change the subject. Don’t want to be the crazy girl. No one mentioned J. again until R. walked me home. I kept trying to leap over the awkward silences but he seemed to be inserting them on purpose. Finally he said it. “I’m sorry all that shit went down.” Don’t be the crazy girl, don’t be the crazy girl.

“Me, too.”
“I was really confused by it. He came home one night and… I was like, ‘What?’”
“Yeah, well… you can’t make someone want to be in a relationship.”
He laughed. “Yeah, what’s that song? I Can’t Make You Love Me?”
I laughed. We both laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

But when I got upstairs, I listened to it anyway.

The Sweetest Thing

One of the most difficult things about being newly single is the feeling of being alone again. Just when you get used to having someone to walk you home at night, to think about when you’re idly clicking around the internet at work, to text when you see something hilarious on the street you know he’d love… that person is suddenly absent. It feels like a death – someone you grew to depend on but just can’t (or shouldn’t) reach out to anymore.

Enter the crush. He is an island on my way to a continent. A lifeboat that will carry me to a yacht. A bodega around the corner from a Whole Foods.

The mutual attraction is there: it has been explicitly, albeit drunkenly, confessed on so many occasions and in so many ways. He is so lovely because he is so far away. None of the evils of real life can seep into this relationship and sour it because we are not a part of each other’s real lives. He tells me about work, I tell him about vacation. He teases me about being a New Yorker, I tease him right back for saying “hella.” Our communication is limited to the phone and Facebook, and our physical relationship has peaked at a hug, but somehow, after a bleak breakup, this tiny, insignificant crush gives me a little something to reach out to. And a little butterfly in the stomach never broke anyone.

A question like a blot on beautiful parchment

Today I had a drink with a boy who used to like me, with whom I am now officially "only friends," whose face visibly fell when he heard I had a boyfriend. We continued after that little mention of D, sneakily slipped in by me, as if nothing had ever passed between us apart from pure and platonic friendship. He joked about law school loves, I asked about his love life, he told me how he'd been seeing someone but they broke up, we joked about the waitress, everything as usual. Because we're friends now. But his face fell. He took a long sip of his beer, but I saw it. D called while we were in the middle of drinks. I didn't pick up.

D called again. I picked up.

"Hey I'm with my friends, what was the name of that restaurant you were telling me about?"

I was sitting across from a boy whose face fell when he heard I had a boyfriend. Why was I sitting across from him, and not across from my boyfriend, at that restaurant I had been telling my boyfriend about?

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

(Photo courtesy of the billyllama)

I've never found myself at the center of a love triangle. I have never had two men fight for my attention. So Saturday night, in the midst of pleasant conversation and the faint glowing pin pricks of light in the dark Queens night sky, I was surprised to see a text from C. He was sitting across the group from me.

"Are you with that guy?" I looked to my left. J. had seen the screen on my phone light up and C.'s name. I texted discreetly back with the truth. "Nope. We dated last year. Things are a little ambiguous now, but he's not quite boyfriend material."

J. isn't boyfriend material because he doesn't want to be. I am a believer in sparks and I have a hard time denying chemistry when it kicks me in the gut and then refuses to subside. I have always had that chemistry with J. but circumstances and technicalities kept getting in the way. And then there is my blatant fear of getting hurt again. Oh yeah. That.

Another text. "What are you and C. texting about?" In the warm April air, conversation buzzed around me but I couldn't even hear it. What the hell was going on here? "We're not?"

For the rest of the night, J. looked like someone had kicked his puppy. He tried to hold my hand and glared at me with wounded eyes when I refused. He tried to kiss my forehead when no one was looking and cowered away when I jerked at his touch. All the while, inside my head, I kept thinking, 'You are not my boyfriend. Stop acting like it. I will not be your hook up.'

The next day he asked if I'd meet him for a drink. After four games of pool and a round of beers, we headed out and I couldn't believe he hadn't brought up the previous night. So I did. "Do you want to talk about last night?"
"What about?"
"About how you keep trying to be touchy feely with me when we are not dating? You really confuse the shit out of me. One minute you want to be friends, then the next you want to just hook up, then you want to be nothing."
"Lauren, I like you. I have always liked you." Stopped me in my tracks. Huh? You like me?

He confessed that he had no idea how I felt about it, so I said I liked him, too. But that nothing had changed. I am in it for a relationship and I can not do the casual dating thing anymore.

"You're looking for something real," he concluded.
"Yes!"
And with three words he lifted me straight into the stratosphere of hope. "So am I."