A wine rep of mine came in the other day, after she had been on a week's vacation (I will call her S to preserve her identity). So I asked her how it was.
"Awful. Totally, horribly awful," she said.
She went on this vacation with her current beau, and this other couple, who started out as his friends, and, as it goes, became friends with her as well. S and this man had been dating for about 5 years. A year ago, he moved from Seattle to San Francisco for a work thing, but they decided to give the LD thing a go. He flew up and stayed the weekend with her, at her place. Then on Sunday the other couple, Long-Distance Boy Friend, and S drive two cars up to a remote cabin up in Canada.
Mind you, he had spent the whole weekend with S so far. Monday dawns and he decides to tell S that he thinks they should split. MONDAY! Like he couldn't just keep his mouth shut until the last day they were together, or as S says, "or just not come at ALL."
I have to say that S deserves sainthood for putting on a brave face and trying to make the most of her vacation after that. Especially because LDBF guy proceeds to alienate not just S, but the friends as well by acting like a complete, irrational psycho the rest of the week. This is already going to be a hugely long post, so I won't go into details, but clearly this guy was either off his regular meds, or pulled a Rush Limbaugh. (I am not clear on the details, but somehow there was a cat at the cabin, must have been the friends' cat?) Anyway, one morning S was cuddled up with the cat, LDBF gets up all snarly and yells, "You're both blanket hogs!" Then turns and points directly at the cat, "and YOU SNORE!!!!!" and storms out of the room.
According to S, this is apparently the best way to get over a relationship. Spend a week in close quarters with that person after you have broken up. "Poof! All feelings are gone, I mean, how can I love someone who is CLEARLY insane?"
Which got me thinking about my first major relationship mistake. I wish it had been that easy to recover.
Of course, we are talking AV (after virginity) here. DV (during virginity) my mistakes would all be the same. Mistakes 1-1,000,000 DV went this way: I developed a crush on someone, made moon eyes at them (in my head, I think), thought every love song on the radio was about them, figured they couldn't like a troll like me, then repelled them with my brainiac meanness. Why again was it that I couldn't get a date in High School?
Thank god for college, though. You get away from the family, you find yourself, get a job, get some confidence..........ahhhhhhhh. Damn, I loved college. If it wasn't for that pesky homework crap, I might have stayed there forever.
So, mistake #1 actually starts DV. My virginity was a lot like myself in High School, unwanted. I was waiting tables at that faux-italian place downtown (waiting tables, incidently, is the *BEST* birth control ever invented) and taking the bus from the U District, since I didn't have a car. I was fairly new, and on a trip to work I saw a fellow Spagger on the bus. He was brand-spankin' new, and for some reason I got a little shy and didn't talk to him. I think it was because when I first saw him, I gave him that "I know you look" and it wasn't returned.
However, that didn't stop me from talking to him about it when we got to work. "Hey, I saw you on the bus, but I didn't say hi because I wasn't sure if it was really you." We struck up a friendship, due to our newness and it was fun and a little flirty. It was definitely going somewhere. One night he asked me over to dinner at his place. I had to work that night, but I thought I was getting off fairly early, "Maybe after work?"
"No problem," he said
Of course, it ended up being slamming that night, and I didn't get to his place until after 10. It was cool though, he made a beans and rice dish that was quite good, and we had.....beer? wine? Lordy, I don't even remember. We talked forever and ever. I had been kinda watching the clock, knowing the bus schedule. I kept putting off leaving because it was so much fun talking and hanging out. Suddenly, SHIT, the last bus of the night had left, and I was stranded. I didn't relish walking home after 1am on a Sunday night, especially as I lived a good 3 miles from there. Tim just said, "No problem, you can just sleep here, in my bed, nothing will happen."
That seemed cool, and really I expected NOTHING to happen. My college friends, who were boys, and I did this ALL THE TIME. Seriously. We would be studying, get tired, and hey....let's just go to sleep! Silly, naive kerewin. Let's just say I went from DV to AV that evening. It wasn't any big deal to me, I was tired of "Being Virginated" and here was an easy opportunity. I had found, in the past, that revealing this to some guy you were fooling around with was a good way to end the evening. Cold. Flat. Boring. So, I never told Tim. It seemed a moot point.
Well, at least I can say my first time wasn't awful. At the time, I thought it was pretty decent, but looking back with more experienced eyes, I would say it was okay, but not spectacular. I think I was more involved in paying attention to how I felt than how Tim felt, and for all I know he ended that night thinking, "Jesus, what a lousy lay." My little subterfuge didn't work however, because the next day we were hanging out and he said, "Did I hurt you last night?"
Hmm....how the hell to answer that question? "Ummm, no, umm, not really.....why?"
"Oh, there was just some blood and I was worried."
So, I had to tell him I was all Virginated and stuff and he got all worried (men are SO stupid). He thought I was in love with him! feh. While I was not in love with him, and I considered him a bit of an experiment, I was ready to keep experimenting. That was fun! Let's do that again! AGAIN! AGAIN!!
"Tim, it wasn't any big deal. I had something I didn't want anymore, and you made it easy. I don't want to, you know, consider us girlfriend and boyfriend, and all. If you want to just move on, no big deal. However, I would kind of like to keep sleeping together, but if we do, I just want to know that you aren't sleeping with other people, for safety."
He agreed, and for a month or so, we experimented, you know, in the name of science. Tim became the first guy, but by no means last, who wondered if I was some sort of nympho. Apparently a female wanting to have sex is rare. (Side note: boys, here's some advice, WOMEN LIKE SEX, get more on the ball, if they don't like sex with you, maybe you need some tips.) I had my "let's not give each other any diseases" thing and Tim had his "let's not tell anyone atwork so as to maintain our privacy" thing.
Stupid, stupid, naive kerewin.
It was so much fun to work with someone you were having a private fling with! Especially for the other person, because it still gave him an open playing field. Not that I knew it at the time. After a month or so, he broke it off saying, "I think you are getting too serious." Oh, Tim, you were never my boyfriend, but you will always be my First Ex.
We engaged in a couple of post breakup nighttime experiments (just twice,and just in the first few weeks after our "breakup"). We still worked together. We were still friends.
Fast forward to 5 months later, I went to England on my Spring break, with a cheap student ticket and some of my student loan money. I had a fabulous, unfortunately sex-free, time. I met this hottie-patotie Greek on the plane over, and I think something might have happened there, but my friends picked me up at the airport right before we set a meetup....oh well. Probably best. So I get home and my best friend (also a Spagger) picks me up at the airport. I can't even think why but she tells me she gave Tim a ride home from work one of the nights I was gone and he told her that I was still in love with him.
PARDON???? I was never in love with him. Ever.
He apparently also invited her in for a drink and..........
She said, "no,thanks."
I get back to the apartment and my roomie, another Spagger (who was my matron-of-honor at my wedding and is my true best friend, ever) tells me, "Hey, Tim called me the day you left and asked me over for dinner."
The next day I hang out with another friend Celeste, another Spagger...sigh. She asked me to bring her back some real British hard cider. Well, Celeste actually slept with Tim while I was gone. It was as if he picked the 3 people closest to me and tried to sleep with them all. And *did* sleep with one of them! Here's the part you must have seen coming, he didn't want me to tell people at work we were sleeping together, because he was sleeping with a few OTHER PEOPLE, while we were sleeping together. Even the boss.
This is when I found out that I had loved Tim. Or something. I had a soft spot, I was a fool, something. Because I felt so shit upon. I felt like someone jumped up and down on my heart. How could I be so fucking stupid? However, my hatred was like a cleansing fire for my heart. It blew all that love out, and burned it down. What a total bastard. To make myself feel better, I told myself, "at least I was first, at least I wasn't the 3rd or 4th person he slept with here, at least I didn't know ahead of time."
Yet, I got mine back. I found out his stalker method of befriending new waitresses and sleeping with them before everyone told them he was a scumbag. So, if I saw him talking to some new girl, I would just pull them aside later and tell them what a male slut he was. I killed his sex at that restaurant.
It felt sooooo good.
We hated each other, and we continued working together for at least a year after that. Two lessons in one! Don't let someone keep your relationship a secret, and never date at work!
Useless trivia #1: While thinking about this past history, it dawned on me that all this happened early October 1993. The hub and I had our first date October 2, 1996. Dear god, that wasn't the same date as my "first" was it? Now, thanks to google, I know that the date of my first was actually October 3, whew! Missed it by a day. (Although, technically it happened after midnight, so it was really October 4)
Useless trivia #2: Yes, yes, I was 22, almost 23 when I went from DV to AV. I told you no one wanted it when I was in H.S.!
Useless trivia #3: Spagger n. A person who works at the Old Spaghetti Factory. More than likely a drunk, or completely bitter and mean.
Posted by kerewin at February 21, 2004 10:21 AM