ah, the good old days. when I was young, carefree. when I dated complete morons.
as I get ready to embark on this crazy journey you kids call "matrimony," I can't help but be reminded of my expansive and often frightening romantic history. I find this to be a good time to reflect and put it all behind me as I get ready to start life with the only person I've ever been in a relationship with who can actually deal with all my bullshit.
I put forth, for your examination: three of the most screwed up couplings of my 23-year-old life.
Exhibit A: Chelsea's Traveling Circus, featuring The 180 Degree Man
when I was 18, I was probably the most miserable person on the campus of Northeastern University. I was also the biggest mess. I smoked far too many cigarettes. I ate horrifyingly fattening cafeteria food every day, I wore way too much glitter for my own good, and I drank Southern Comfort religiously. after screwing around with a misguided emo kid, an actor, a software peddler, a pagan and a hipster, I fell for - you guessed it, or, actually, probably not at all - a long-haired World of Warcraft player English major who pretended to play bass. who was a virgin. pro-life. and a Republican.
not a very long story short, we dated for a year and a half. I took my second v-card. he broke with me over the phone right after my mom got out of the hospital, where she almost bled to death. not that there's any ill sentiment remaining. it appears that after we split, he cut all of his hair off and voted Obama. how charming! I like to think it was my bold, overtly feminist ramblings, but it seems to me now that he was either 1) naively under the political direction of his overbearing Catholic mother, who continued to buy him action figures for Christmas when he was 19. or 2) claiming to have voted for Bush and and against abortion simply to irritate me. I wish him all the best, regardless of the fact that I actually have no idea who he ever was to begin with.
Exhibit B: Work Relationships are a Bad Idea, Even if One of You Doesn't Work There Anymore
fresh on the prowl in January 2008, I admitted to a former coworker that I had a crush on him following an inebriated night in the city. we had worked together as co-ops and had spent most of the 6 month period making fun of each other. he admitted the feeling was mutual. things are supposed to progress grandly from there, are they not? we met up in Allston for drinks. drinks turned into hanging out at my friend's friend's house until 3 am. that turned into an awkward sleepover on my parents' couch. we made out in a stairwell at Jillian's during a work party. he took me to lunch and left me on the stoop of my office building, and he didn't call me again. until he found out I met someone else. turns out he was "cleaning up the mess" of his psychotic meth-addict ex-girlfriend, who has her eyebrows tattooed on. last I heard, they had a beagle together. mazel tov.
Exhibit C: I Thought I Did a Dead Guy
I just want to preface this story by saying: when I was 17, I was an idiot.
I met a guy on the internet. I'm not going to go into my internet rant, and I'm not going to discuss how the internet has led to two engagements of people I know. including my own. all I will say is, I met a guy on the internet. and he was a lot older than me.
seven years older, to be exact. I invited a guy seven years older than me to come to my house. and he did. and he brought pot. and I hooked up with him.
we went for a walk around my neighborhood and he invited me to go "camping." now, we all know about "camping." "camping" is not cooking on an open fire, sleeping under the stars and enjoying nature's pleasures. "camping" is going somewhere so you can have sex in a tent. and foolish me, wanting adventure and more of this guy's pot, agreed. I met him at a forest in Taunton. he regaled me in stories of jam band festivals and sleeping with a woman in her forties so he could get unlimited use of her Cape Cod beach home. he told me all about the trailer he lived in while we sat in my Jeep to avoid mosquitos. I was bored and he was an asshole. I drove home the next morning and never saw him again.
one day, curious about the hippie douche I went "camping" with, I Googled him. much to my surprise, I found an obituary for a person of the same name, and approximate same age, from New Bedford, where he claimed to be from, but the obituary was dated 1999. I convinced myself the loser I met assumed a dead man's name so he could screw high school chicks from the North Shore, and fell into a miserable shame-slump about it.
recent Facebooking has refuted my initial conclusion. the guy I met from the internet did provide me with his real name. he only used his weed to bed me. and his about me says it all: "you could never understand this shit." I think I do, Brian. I think I do.
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