Wednesday, August 27, 2008

ThE hArShNeSs Of rEaLiTy'S cRuElTy

Next comes a time in my life that I am not proud of at all. It was, and still is, the lowest point I ever reached in my existence. You see a lot can happen in 3 weeks, but even more can happen in 6 months. I didn’t sit around waiting for Guy, of course I didn’t, instead I planned and plotted and tried to get him back. Anyway I had of getting closer to him, I used it, exploited it, and demanded far more from it than could reasonably be expected. I was irrational, desperate and above all obessed.

A now ex-girlfriend whom I considered a rival who had not only competed against me, unbeknownst to me, but also somehow won. That was the way I saw it, but perhaps not the truth of it. I saw her as hideous, repulsive and above all inferior to me in every possible way. Younger than me, uglier, and stupid, she had absolutely no claim to him at all, no right or reason. What galled me the most was that he’d chosen her over me. I be-friended her, played nice for my own gain but instead I found a truth that destroyed everything I’d wanted and left me hanging off an edge.


Every word Guy had said, every perfect answer, every moment of intimacy, every single minute, had been repeated to her. Every. Single. Thing. I struggled against it, denied it and clung to my own memories of him but the truth was stronger and inevitable. I faced up to it, looking straight, but one thing did stay the same. The truth of that moment at one in the morning when someone just couldn’t help but want to carry on talking to me, trying to run away from the everpresent bittersweet reality of goodbye. That was one thing that was only for me. At some point in my life, I was loved that much.

Do YoU LiKe ScOoBy DoO?

Do YoU LiKe ScOoBy DoO?

I think that, in essence, what makes us human is our ability to change, adapt and move on but ultimately to learn from our past. We are not the kind of beings that are easily able to repeatedly slam our head into a wall, mainly because we have the pain threshold of a teaspoon, but also because it adds nothing to our lives or experiences. Well most of the time.

Sometimes there are exceptions to this rule, and sometimes we are steeped way too deeply in denial to realise the truth of our actions.

I got a second chance, at friendship, and perhaps something more. Once I’d relinquished the belief that Boy and I would eventually find a way, I’d had to move on, adapt and change. Something that came surprisingly easily, all things considered. I won’t bore you with the technicalities of how I met Guy but suffice to say that from the very beginning our relationship was an odd one.

The first conversation we ever had was about Scooby Doo, yes that cartoon character invented by Misters Hannah and Barberera. Well I totally liked him and strangely enough he felt the same. Our entire friendship bordered on obsession though it only lasted about a month, perhaps less. From the word go, Guy and I had an intense relationship that was completely and utterly open and led me to a lifestyle of being co-dependent. Of needing him, all the time, and needless to say he was more than willing to oblige. We started our “thing” shortly after the Valentines Day of my grade 10, when Boy sent my friend (not me) a rose to celebrate the Martyr of Saint Valentine. Read that how you will, I myself am not entirely sure what the implications of that were but perhaps the broken heart I nursed had a part in my reciprocation of his clingy tendencies.

Our relationship crashed and burned about 3 weeks after it started, spiralling downward as fast as it had grown. The first 2 weeks I knew him were a mix of obsession and insecurity. I had a need for a replacement and although Guy wasn’t Boy, he was close enough a substitute. That is how it started.

But somehow along the way my replacement became better than the original. He was perfect in a way I could only imagine. Every word of his almost as though he’d picked them right out of my head. As ridiculous as this may sound, I really did fall in love with him. It was like a fast-forwarded teenage relationship, First the totally obsessive gaga stage, then the realisation that not everything is perfect and then of course the “we need to take a break” stage. Those words are a direct quote from him, saying that he thought it would be better if we didn’t talk for a week. We didn’t talk for two days of that week but my fury was unparalleled. The week ended on my birthday and he tried phoning me more than 3 times as well as messaging to the point where the next time he phoned I threw the phone across the room and left it, still ringing.

That was the tipping point. Somehow, somewhere along the line, we switched places. I thought it might have centred around the first time I met him and how Boy had planned to sabotage our group date but the reality is that somehow he got bored and instead of him vying for attention and affection, it became me. I waited and angst for 6 months over a boy I’d known less than a month. There are just some things that cannot be explained rationally or at all merely because those who experienced them didn’t understand them in the first place.

But I can leave this chapter of my life with this one memory, at some point in my life, there was someone who would phone me at one in the morning just because he didn’t want to say goodnight and use all his airtime talking to me for 2 hours because he wanted to hear my voice. If nothing else I was loved, for a few brief moments, someone cared that much about me. And that is something not many have.