Original Posting: January 2011
Depraved high school girls, rejoice!
Long story short, I usually got the short end of the stick when it came to dating in high school. It always seemed to me that they didn't know I existed, or knew I existed but were taken with (or taken by) someone else, or they knew I existed but I didn't feel the same way about them. My most recent exploit before college was completely outside of my established "type." Didn't work out well on my end. He didn't contact me for a few days after I got his number, and when he finally did, he was drunk and trying to persuade me into having sex with him, should we start a relationship. No thanks. I was a little too forgiving of him after that, though, and it didn't seem to me like he quite got that I wasn't interested in him after that, but I was too nice to tell him to back off.
Lessons learned: Stick to your type, and if you're not interested, tell him NOW.
Since this was on the tail of other emotional traumas regarding relationships of all kinds, I think by the end of all of that I had decided that men were all backstabbing, heartless, selfish bastards who would only have anything to do with you if they thought you would give them sexual gratification. Who cares if your feelings get hurt? At least they'll feel good about leaving you in the dust wondering what just happened while they get to brag to their buddies about how whatever they are.
Obviously, I'm still a bit bitter. I need to learn not to be, at least not for this long.
Fast-forward into college. As per a habit that I had developed over the past three years, I scouted around for every cute boy I could spot. It was refreshing to know that, for the most part, I was an unknown in this environment. With the exception of a few boys who graduated with me and a few more that I had met during orientations, none of the boys at this school had any idea who I was. Refreshing, but also a little bit scary. What sort of first impression would I make on these people? I had finally gotten comfortable with the idea that I am a very attractive girl, but I was still embracing the finer nuances of my personality that I had never quite felt free with during high school. Would I come across as too smart, too geeky, too severe, too anything? Of course, I was not about to be dishonest about who I was, but my fear was that, just as I believe might have been one of my problems in high school, I would be a little too intimidating. Obviously I am quite verbose on paper (or screen as the case may be), but I do not actually talk much just out of my own volition; usually someone has to speak to me first, or there otherwise needs to be something going on that sets a precedent for me to follow. I've already established that I like silence, and thus I do not particularly like breaking it. So, what most people get as a first impression of me, I think, is a pretty face that won't really interact with people.
Not very interesting, right?
So I think I did go into this new pool of eligible males being aware of that failing. At the same time, however, this was still a new pool of college boys. College men, as my dad always corrects me. They tend to be made of tougher stuff than high school boys, so they might be more willing to accept the risk of rejection, so I thought.
I braced myself and waded in. I didn't even have to get in past my feet.
The second week I was on campus, I met him. He asked me out the first night we texted each other, and we've been together since.
I remember being very nervous about our prospects. In light of past experiences and my thus very skewed perspective of relationships, I wondered what I wanted from this and what he wanted to do with me. I second-guessed everything, and was perhaps more cautious than the situation really warranted. I'm sure on some level this was frustrating for him (it certainly didn't make things very fun for me), but he told me he understood where I was coming from, which was reassuring.
I also remember being very upset when it started dawning on me that maybe we just couldn't work. He was very busy working toward his major and getting stuff done so he could go to grad school, and he was also in the play. Maybe, he thought, he might have to break up with me because everything would get to be too much to handle, and he didn't want to risk hurting me like that. I had just started college, and we were both wondering if it was maybe too much to have a first, new relationship right on the heels of that. It all led to one of those moments when you can't stop the tears, and all you want to do is scream because of the injustice of it all; was that how it would end when I had finally come that close?
By the next week, we had both decided it was worth a shot. I had figured out by then that you're going to get hurt by people regardless of your relationship with them, no matter what you do. The only way to avoid that is to not live your life, and what's the point of that?
He took me out by the water on a clear night; we could see every star. He made my first kiss special.
My roommate asked me several weeks ago what I liked about him. I'm not entirely sure why; I know that she's been very happy for me with my relationship, so maybe it was just simple curiosity. And in fact, I hadn't revisited the reasons explicitly for a while, so I indulged her.
I liked that he was very straightforward about how he felt. He admitted practically right away that he was interested in me. I liked that he was very thoughtful, and considerate of my well-being. Our first date, we hung out on a couch by the fireplace in the dorm building with tea for me and coffee for him, and we kind of wound up talking about our most recent significant experiences concerning, to put it bluntly, our mental states. I talked about the fallout of the past month, and he told me about the rough time he'd had leading up the end of the past academic year and the summer. Maybe this isn't the sort of thing you should talk about on a first date, but I felt it was fair to him that he know right up front that I still had significant hangups and might not trust him for a while.
He was very kind, and sweet. Talking to him felt like talking to myself. I often say when people catch me talking to myself that I'm talking to whoever's listening – which often ends up being myself. Finally, I could ramble on about something, trying to sort thoughts out, and there was someone who would give me feedback on those thoughts and let me know if they made any sense or if they needed to be expanded upon a little more.
Cleverly disguised narcissism? You decide, because I don't know right now.
And it's continued on. We have very good communication in the relationship, which it goes without saying is very important. And every conversation we have reminds me again and again that he's a keeper.
I can't say it's been perfect; we've had our share of ups and downs and bumps in the road, but we've worked through them, and we readdress certain issues on about a monthly basis to make sure we're still on the same page. As of last week, we have been together for four months, and it has been a dream come true.
I could never have gotten this with the high school boys I knew.
♥Sarah
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