14
years ago, I fell in love. I was at Wells College with my girlfriend
at the time (SS), visiting a high school friend of ours (DB) who I
didn't even really get to know until after graduation. That was the day
that I found out that both girls had been interested in me when we were
going to school together, but I was too dense to clue in to any of it.
That day, hiding under a beanbag chair, getting teased in (as far as
they knew) harmless fun about how clueless I had been, was the day I
fell in love with the woman who is now my best friend.
Now, when I say I was clueless. . . well, as a fat kid with few, if any, good friends, I was so assured of my own status as a social pariah that it never occurred to me to entertain the idea that a girl could possibly be interested in me. The flirting went unnoticed because no self-respecting person would ever flirt with ME. The times in study hall when SS sat in just such a way that I had a clear view through the buttons of her shirt at her bra was clearly nothing more than a wardrobe malfunction, there was no way she wouldn't readjust if she knew that I could see. And when DB asked ME to the prom? Clearly that was some sort of setup, a cruel joke she and her friends were trying to play on me, but I wasn't going to be fooled by it.
It was that last story that sent me for the cover of the beanbag chair. I played it off like I was playing along, pretending to be ashamed, or like I was back in that bubble of ignorance that I had called home for so many years. But the truth was, when she told me about how utterly devastated she was by my refusal, I was . . . I don't know. Heartbroken. Ashamed. I felt like I had missed out on the single greatest opportunity of my life. I just wanted to go back to that day and have it to do over (and for that matter, I still do). And I cried. Quietly, so they couldn't hear me do it, but I cried.
I guess that saying I fell in love that day wasn't entirely accurate. Fell in lust, perhaps. Fell in infatuation maybe. Even though I was dating SS, I wished that I could be with DB instead, but it was made perfectly clear that the day that I refused that prom invitation was the day that any chance of ever having a romantic relationship with her was gone. But I still wanted her to be in my life, so I did everything within my power to strengthen our friendship instead. Both because I really wanted her in my life, and because I felt I owed her whatever I could give her for the pain I caused.
Well, time moved on, and so did we. I left SS for her college roomate, my wife, in a disaster of a betrayal/breakup that showcased perfectly just how immature I was when it came to relationships, and which cost me one of those few friends I had from high school. Many years later, I wrote SS a long, heartfelt apology letter for what I did to her, and while she accepted my apology and we became friends on Facebook, it was like trying to mend a bullet wound with a Band-Aid, there was just no way that wound was ever going to heal.
DB, meanwhile, also found her spouse-to-be, another old friend of hers. We were still friends, but it was extremely hard for me not to interfere. I had so many good reasons why she and he shouldn't be together, but I knew better than to get in the way, since it would no doubt cause great harm to our friendship. And I knew that behind every one of those "good reasons" was a heaping helping of jealousy. I didn't even know her fiancee, but I knew he was the reason I couldn't have her, never mind that she no longer had those feelings for me, and never mind that I already had a girlfriend.
Eventually, it got so hard for me to hold my tongue that I made one of the hardest decisions I had ever made to that point in my life: I decided to disappear. I couldn't trust myself to stay in this relationship, I was going to fuck it up like I had fucked things up so many times before. I wanted her to be happy, and I certainly didn't want her to hate me, and my love, my lust, my infatuation, was so strong I knew I couldn't hold it in. So I disappeared from her life, and went on with my life with my actual girlfriend.
A couple years went by, and the two of us eventually reconnected entirely by accident. I don't remember exactly how, but I think we both randomly booted up AOL Instant Messenger at the same time, which was pretty much how we had kept in touch before. In the time in between, DB had gotten married, and I had gotten engaged. And while I knew I still had those feelings for her, I thought that enough time had passed, and that we had both moved on enough, that I would be able to handle rekindling the friendship, even though deep in my heart I still wanted to be with her.
Long story short. . . or rather slightly less long . . . our friendship has continued to grow over the years. We've lost contact from time to time, but we always manage to reconnect sooner or later. And for a long time, we've both been comfortable sharing pretty much everything with each other. I would tell her about my wife and my struggles with vaginismus, my agony over never being able to have children because of it, my ever constant doubts that I had made a good decision marrying. She, in turn, would tell me about how much she struggled with being a Navy wife, her husband being away for months at a time. How they struggled to re-acclimate to one another when he was in port. How they even discussed entering an open relationship. But there was always one topic that I would never go near; my continuing romantic feelings for her.
Now, that's not to say that I've never told her I love her, because our friendship long ago progressed to platonic love. Indeed, the fact that I could tell her I loved her has always been a sort of pressure release for me, a way to tell her how I really feel without actually telling her. And I can't say for sure that she doesn't know. Frankly, there are days that I'm sure she knows, and she only leaves that fact unexplored because she and I both understand that admitting it could irreparably damage a friendship she and I both value deeply.
In the last couple of weeks, we have both revealed to one another that neither one of us is truly happy in our marriage. Her husband has grown detached, to the point that he would rather she pursue a polyandrous relationship than address his shortcomings. And while I do genuinely love my wife, I often find myself feeling less like I'm married and more like I have a roommate who I share a bed and a tax return with. And the more we told each other about how dissatisfied we had become with our lives, the more those old, amorous feelings welled up inside of me. It has taken every ounce of my energy to both be there for her while she goes through the struggles of a distant spouse and a newly discovered dating life and keep pent up all the emotions I have felt.
And then there was yesterday. I woke up from a dream about her, one of about four dreams I have that I can remember per year, a dream where I thought I might get some insight from my subconscious about how to deal with these feelings, make some sense of it all. Alas, I woke up too soon, and really didn't learn anything new about myself from it. But I was awake for the day, so I dragged my butt out of bed, hopped on my computer, and . . . there she was, on facebook chat, wanting to talk to me about a particularly abusive guy that she had dated recently. And we talked. And I managed to provide some insight that she found helpful. And a couple hours later, while she was still obviously upset, it was apparent that our conversation had at least helped her feel a little better about everything. Nothing particularly new there, we have helped each other through shit for years. And not only did she feel better about things, I felt better about things. Also not really new, I always have felt good about helping her, after all she is a dear friend of mine and I want nothing more than for her to be happy.
The strange thing was that I didn't just feel better. I felt genuinely good about myself. And that is a feeling that is so rare to me that when I do feel that way, I definitely take notice. It took me a while, but I eventually realized what had brought it on. That insight that I was looking for in my dream had come, not from the dream, but from the following hours.
It was then I realized, the most important woman, the most important person in my life is not my wife, it is this, my closest and dearest friend. Not because I secretly harbor these romantic feelings for her, but because of our love of each other as friends, this closeness that we never would have discovered had we ended up going out with each other so many years ago.
Do I have my emotional baggage totally figured out now? Oh, hell no. But for the first time in a long, long time, I'm actually okay with that. And I'm glad to finally get all of that off my chest.
Now, when I say I was clueless. . . well, as a fat kid with few, if any, good friends, I was so assured of my own status as a social pariah that it never occurred to me to entertain the idea that a girl could possibly be interested in me. The flirting went unnoticed because no self-respecting person would ever flirt with ME. The times in study hall when SS sat in just such a way that I had a clear view through the buttons of her shirt at her bra was clearly nothing more than a wardrobe malfunction, there was no way she wouldn't readjust if she knew that I could see. And when DB asked ME to the prom? Clearly that was some sort of setup, a cruel joke she and her friends were trying to play on me, but I wasn't going to be fooled by it.
It was that last story that sent me for the cover of the beanbag chair. I played it off like I was playing along, pretending to be ashamed, or like I was back in that bubble of ignorance that I had called home for so many years. But the truth was, when she told me about how utterly devastated she was by my refusal, I was . . . I don't know. Heartbroken. Ashamed. I felt like I had missed out on the single greatest opportunity of my life. I just wanted to go back to that day and have it to do over (and for that matter, I still do). And I cried. Quietly, so they couldn't hear me do it, but I cried.
I guess that saying I fell in love that day wasn't entirely accurate. Fell in lust, perhaps. Fell in infatuation maybe. Even though I was dating SS, I wished that I could be with DB instead, but it was made perfectly clear that the day that I refused that prom invitation was the day that any chance of ever having a romantic relationship with her was gone. But I still wanted her to be in my life, so I did everything within my power to strengthen our friendship instead. Both because I really wanted her in my life, and because I felt I owed her whatever I could give her for the pain I caused.
Well, time moved on, and so did we. I left SS for her college roomate, my wife, in a disaster of a betrayal/breakup that showcased perfectly just how immature I was when it came to relationships, and which cost me one of those few friends I had from high school. Many years later, I wrote SS a long, heartfelt apology letter for what I did to her, and while she accepted my apology and we became friends on Facebook, it was like trying to mend a bullet wound with a Band-Aid, there was just no way that wound was ever going to heal.
DB, meanwhile, also found her spouse-to-be, another old friend of hers. We were still friends, but it was extremely hard for me not to interfere. I had so many good reasons why she and he shouldn't be together, but I knew better than to get in the way, since it would no doubt cause great harm to our friendship. And I knew that behind every one of those "good reasons" was a heaping helping of jealousy. I didn't even know her fiancee, but I knew he was the reason I couldn't have her, never mind that she no longer had those feelings for me, and never mind that I already had a girlfriend.
Eventually, it got so hard for me to hold my tongue that I made one of the hardest decisions I had ever made to that point in my life: I decided to disappear. I couldn't trust myself to stay in this relationship, I was going to fuck it up like I had fucked things up so many times before. I wanted her to be happy, and I certainly didn't want her to hate me, and my love, my lust, my infatuation, was so strong I knew I couldn't hold it in. So I disappeared from her life, and went on with my life with my actual girlfriend.
A couple years went by, and the two of us eventually reconnected entirely by accident. I don't remember exactly how, but I think we both randomly booted up AOL Instant Messenger at the same time, which was pretty much how we had kept in touch before. In the time in between, DB had gotten married, and I had gotten engaged. And while I knew I still had those feelings for her, I thought that enough time had passed, and that we had both moved on enough, that I would be able to handle rekindling the friendship, even though deep in my heart I still wanted to be with her.
Long story short. . . or rather slightly less long . . . our friendship has continued to grow over the years. We've lost contact from time to time, but we always manage to reconnect sooner or later. And for a long time, we've both been comfortable sharing pretty much everything with each other. I would tell her about my wife and my struggles with vaginismus, my agony over never being able to have children because of it, my ever constant doubts that I had made a good decision marrying. She, in turn, would tell me about how much she struggled with being a Navy wife, her husband being away for months at a time. How they struggled to re-acclimate to one another when he was in port. How they even discussed entering an open relationship. But there was always one topic that I would never go near; my continuing romantic feelings for her.
Now, that's not to say that I've never told her I love her, because our friendship long ago progressed to platonic love. Indeed, the fact that I could tell her I loved her has always been a sort of pressure release for me, a way to tell her how I really feel without actually telling her. And I can't say for sure that she doesn't know. Frankly, there are days that I'm sure she knows, and she only leaves that fact unexplored because she and I both understand that admitting it could irreparably damage a friendship she and I both value deeply.
In the last couple of weeks, we have both revealed to one another that neither one of us is truly happy in our marriage. Her husband has grown detached, to the point that he would rather she pursue a polyandrous relationship than address his shortcomings. And while I do genuinely love my wife, I often find myself feeling less like I'm married and more like I have a roommate who I share a bed and a tax return with. And the more we told each other about how dissatisfied we had become with our lives, the more those old, amorous feelings welled up inside of me. It has taken every ounce of my energy to both be there for her while she goes through the struggles of a distant spouse and a newly discovered dating life and keep pent up all the emotions I have felt.
And then there was yesterday. I woke up from a dream about her, one of about four dreams I have that I can remember per year, a dream where I thought I might get some insight from my subconscious about how to deal with these feelings, make some sense of it all. Alas, I woke up too soon, and really didn't learn anything new about myself from it. But I was awake for the day, so I dragged my butt out of bed, hopped on my computer, and . . . there she was, on facebook chat, wanting to talk to me about a particularly abusive guy that she had dated recently. And we talked. And I managed to provide some insight that she found helpful. And a couple hours later, while she was still obviously upset, it was apparent that our conversation had at least helped her feel a little better about everything. Nothing particularly new there, we have helped each other through shit for years. And not only did she feel better about things, I felt better about things. Also not really new, I always have felt good about helping her, after all she is a dear friend of mine and I want nothing more than for her to be happy.
The strange thing was that I didn't just feel better. I felt genuinely good about myself. And that is a feeling that is so rare to me that when I do feel that way, I definitely take notice. It took me a while, but I eventually realized what had brought it on. That insight that I was looking for in my dream had come, not from the dream, but from the following hours.
It was then I realized, the most important woman, the most important person in my life is not my wife, it is this, my closest and dearest friend. Not because I secretly harbor these romantic feelings for her, but because of our love of each other as friends, this closeness that we never would have discovered had we ended up going out with each other so many years ago.
Do I have my emotional baggage totally figured out now? Oh, hell no. But for the first time in a long, long time, I'm actually okay with that. And I'm glad to finally get all of that off my chest.
