Graduation and the End of an Era

You guys may remember me mentioning Big Relationship. If you don't just click up on the "Who's Who" tab above to read a little bit about our history. It's a long one, and we've definitely remained as close as we have despite all the odds, but also because of them, I think. Our somewhat-unlikely yet enduring relationship passed another big milestone on Sunday, so I thought I'd dedicate a post to it, as a tribute, of sorts.

Four years ago, while we were still dating and while we, somewhat foolishly but completely earnestly thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, I watched Big Relationship graduate from high school. He was (well, still is, I guess) a year older than me and so the year after, while I would be entering my senior year of high school, he was heading to Brandeis for his first year of college. Thankfully, Brandeis was only about 45 minutes from our houses (okay, okay-- I've done it in 36 and gotten a ticket to prove it), so we were confident that we could make it work. And we did, for a year, until it was time for my graduation.


I was going to Williams, and, being three hours from Brandeis, the certainty of our relationship was a bit more unstable. I honestly thought we would make it work, but barely three months into my freshman year, we were over.

Fast forward to Sunday. There I was, sitting in the exact same spot I had sat in four years earlier when I watched Big Relationship graduate from high school. His mom and dad sat on one side of me, his aunt and brother on the other. I was in the exact same place I had been four years earlier...but I wasn't. Everything that possibly could have changed for us had changed between those two graduations; I'm dating L. and am completely in love with him, B. is single for the first time probably since he was 15 (when he first started dating me), he's moving to Portland next year for a job, and I'm planning on moving to Los Angeles next summer. The only thing that remained the same is that I sat there for both of the ceremonies, a little teary-eyed, and thought about our future. In high school, it was the hope we would and simultaneous fear we wouldn't make it through college. Last Sunday, it was the sheer overwhelming thankfulness that we managed to remain best friends after a crushing break-up, and once again the fear that as our college graduations take us further away from each other, he'll be out of my life for good. I couldn't get over the similarities of the two situations, paired with how different they really were. As my friend Andrew said, "You've got to write about that. You just don't find natural symmetry like that in real life."

Noted.

(Credit: this isn't my picture...swiped from B's facebook.)

Whether our friendship survives the next big change is yet to be determined, but I guess I just want to say how lucky I know I am to still be so close with my first love. Most people think our friendship is bizarre, and it is, but that's why it's so important to me.

Under Pressure

I hope that the Queen song began playing in your head upon reading the title of this post, as that was actually the intended purpose.

This week is not just any normal week, friends. For many reasons, but the main one being, of course, that it's Finals Week. When Finals hit, life as we know it at Williams comes to a standstill. I swear. It's kind of like how I imagine the day after a Zombie Apocalypse or a nuclear fallout would be. Suddenly, the dining hall is barren at 12:30pm on a weekday, with western music playing in the background and tumbleweeds blowing by, though the place is basically like Grand Central Station every other week at that time. That is, if all the trains suddenly got canceled and people had no place to go.

I just don't understand why people change so much during Finals week. Don't they still need to eat food? ALSO, what happens to clothes during Finals? As in, why are people incapable of wearing them? Williams goes from its usual sea of khaki pantsed, polo-shirted boys and sundressed girls to pajama pants and leggings faster than you can say "Holy butt lumps, Batman."

I don't know about these people, but at least for me, during Finals I still retain my humanity. Well, some semblance of it anyway. I've been known to snarl and snatch that last piece of candy in the libs or shoot daggers at people who order pizza to the libs. (It's distracting!) But it's okay because tonight L. brought me and C. chips and salsa and Ben and Jerry's in the libs since we're both suffering through studying for our Con Law final. But, I digress. It's the hunger talking. During Finals, I still manage to bathe, consume food at socially acceptable hours (and some not ones), and dress myself.

Some other out of the ordinary things happened this week. Last night, for example, Big Relationship came to visit since he's done college (!!!). I'm going to his graduation at Brandeis on Sunday on my way driving home, but for now he's working about 30 mins away for the summer so he came for dinner. (I know, I bet you guys didn't think there was ANYTHING for 30 mins in any direction around Williams. Shocker!) So I cooked dinner for the ex, Big Relationship, and the bf, L., and all L.'s and my friends. This alarms a lot of people, so I've given up trying to explain how this situation is in any way normal. But I think Big Relationship likes L., and L. at least pretends he likes him, and they're both very big part of my lives so they make nice with each other. PLUS, I made the most DELICIOUS orange chicken anyone has ever eaten, which was a really big deal. I barely cook Easy Mac in college because the kitchens are so grody/understocked, so you can imagine how I managed to fry little pieces of chicken and then cover them in a homemade orange sauce reduction. And all I had to do was google "orange chicken recipe like Panda Express." You think I'm joking. The only chinese food within 30 mins of Williams is a restaurant called Chopsticks, which basically serves lumps of crispy batter dunked in syrup and calls them orange chicken.

I spent an hour making dinner for myself and 8 boys, and when I disappeared for a second (to get Big Relationship a beer, no less! The perfect hostess), I came back to discover that the boys had nearly devoured the entire pan of food. Now I know how my mom feels on Thanksgiving. Sigh.

So, let's talk now about the fact that I've been writing out flash cards for the 120 cases I need to know for Friday's exam and my right hand is literally shaking uncontrollably. This blog post is actually painful to write...physically, anyway. I know more about emanations of penumbras of privacy and free speech than anyone really needs to know.

That reminds me of a funny story Prof C. told us in class. If you haven't discovered yet that I'm a little obsessed with Prof C., well, keep up with me. So anyways, Prof C. as you might remember is also a Williams alum, and after he had finished taking Con Law his freshman year, he went home to work at the Gap over Christmas break. If you knew him, you'd understand how funny this is. So anyways, at the Gap, apparently to prevent giant losses of products from people doing sneaky ish, the employees would have to take down names and addresses of people returning things. You get why; people walk in the store, walk out with something, and then bring it back to "return" it and get store credit or, even better/worse, a "refund." So anywhoodle, this ornery man refuses to provide Prof C with his address and name when Prof C. asked, and went on this huge rant about how he had a constitutional right to privacy that protected his giving his information to Gap store employees. This is like, Christmas EVE, keep in mind, and there's a holly-jolly line out the door, but Prof C. decides this is the perfect time to give the man an impassioned and chastising lecture on constitutionally-bestowed rights, and how holding your information from the wonderful employees of Gap is not actually among them. Thinking of 19-year-old Prof C giving this little lecture is heartwarming and cringeworthy at the same time. (For reference, this is a man who waves his pocket Constitution wildly when disagreeing with us in class, jumps on his desk for emphasis, and whenever he quotes John Marshall saying "Remember, this is a Constitution we are expounding!" he emphatically slams his fist down on the table/chalkboard/anything that will make a loud noise on the word "Constitution."

I didn't tell Prof C. that I accidentally stole a belt from the Gap once. That's a funny story too, though now I'm starting to feel guilty blogging when there's cases to be learned. But real quick--in 9th grade I was on a date with my first high school boyfriend, George, and we went belt shopping at the Gap for him. I found this orange and white one that I liked and carried it over to show up up to the front register, where he was already paying for another one, and then we walked out of the store, and it wasn't until we were almost at the car that I realized I was still blatantly holding the belt in my hands, and that I'd totally walked out without realizing, and what's more, without any of the store associates noticing. Then I was too mortified to bring it back, much to my dad's chagrin when I tried to regale my parents with the tale when I got home.

Prof C. wouldn't have let me get away with that.

Catching Up: Just Friends? Part 2

The first couple weeks of my sophomore year at Williams, in Fall 2008, were not so great. There was the notorious sophomore slump, for one. And the next couple got even worse. The first weekend back involved going to a party thrown by L.'s a cappella group, watching him with other girls, and leaving in tears. Summer Romance, as it turned out, was not very good at keeping up his end of the long-distance deal. He barely made time to talk on the phone, and our conversations were strained, at best. Meanwhile my friends back at work continued to tell me stories of Summer Romance and Other Woman's alleged relationship, and being three hours away I did the only thing I could think to do: come home unexpectedly and see if he had any time to see me, or if he was suspiciously booked for the whole weekend.

The first weekend I came home wasn't decisive, as he had some afternoon time and took me out to dinner (read: we split it and then I left the tip because he didn't have enough money), but after that he "had to meet up with his cousin to watch the Sox game." I didn't even know he had a cousin.

The visit wasn't great but it wasn't enough to make me end things, and L. had seemed strangely affected by the idea that after he had broken my heart over the summer I had returned to Williams with a new boyfriend, so I wanted to ride that road out and see why that was the case. After another few weeks went by, a friend from work called to tell me some interesting news: Summer Romance had a bonfire at his house for our work friends, Other Woman was in attendance, and suspiciously stayed the night when everyone else left to go home. Of all the questionable things Summer Romance had done, which included, but are not limited to,

Having me leave his apartment before brunch and me going home to read that Other Woman appeared to be going with him and his parents, who I didn't even know where in town

The magically-appearing mascara smudges on his pillows when I made sure to wash my face before going to bed

Come into work one night when he didn't know I was working at chatted with Other Woman while she worked the bar, and then awkwardly tried to alleviate both of our questioning stares

Told me he would come to my parents' beach hosue on Memorial Day weekend (aka the day before I left for college), but cancelled last-minute

Refused to let me end the relationship

...of all those terrible things, FINALLY somehow that was the last straw. I called him up and ended things, despite his angry allegations that she was too drunk to drive home and needed a place to stay. A few weeks later I went home for the weekend since he wanted to talk things out in person, and stayed with him since my parents had gone north for the weekend and empty houses creep me out. But I had gotten hints that Summer Romance had made more of a commitment to Other Woman after he and I broke up, so I refused to kiss him or sleep in his bed. It was a confusing and awful weekend, especially since I was the only one with any fortitude in keeping the physicality to a minimum.

I only saw him once more after that and a month or so later, L., who had been there for me the whole time, and I began dating. I saw him on Christmas Eve, when he came into work (Yes, I had to work Christmas Eve. Damn the restaruant industry!). It was strained and awkward and, as much as I hated it, emotional, and when he asked to get coffee so we could talk over what had happened I almost said yes. But of course, then I decided last-minute to jet off to Santa Barbara for New Year's Even with L.'s family. And when I texted Summer Romance that as the reason why we couldn't get coffee, he responded with

"All the way to California for him? Wow, looks like I missed out on a good thing. Though I never really had much confidence in you having a long-distance relationship..."

I deleted that text almost immediately and it's still burned in my memory. Only if by "confidence in me having a long-distance relationship" he means "turning a blind eye when I feel the need to sleep with other women when we're apart." Ugh!

Cut to last summer, Summer 2009. I wasn't home for most of it as I had my art musuem internship near school, but right at the end I had a couple weeks and Summer Romance wanted to get together and have that long-time-coming talk about "what had gone wrong between us." Um? YOU WERE SLEEPING WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

Luckily, this talk coincided with me recently having lost 20 pounds on the South Beach Diet, so I got into a pair of jeans that were TWO sizes smaller than the ones he had last seen me in, a v-neck tee, and cute heels. We had decided that I would drop by the highschool since he was trying to get his classroom together for the first day of school. He had complained that he didn't have enough decorations for the room so on the way I stopped at Staples and grabbed some of those cheesy window clings you see in Kindergarten classrooms--you know, the ones that have one ant holding up the number 1, two caterpillars carrying the number 2, and so on.

I got to his classroom and, though my hands were a little shaky, sauntered in the door and made a Geometry joke right off the bat (he's a Geometry teacher, if you didn't catch that.) We hugged, I told him I had the perfect thing for him to put up in his room, and presented him with the window clings. He laughed, my hands stopped shaking, and that is where the power shifted and stayed. His next words were that I looked "soo skinny...you're a skinny minnie!"...really dating himself on that one. Anyways, I made him laugh, got him a kick ass joke gift, and he noticed I was hot. Things were going pretty well.

They only got better from there. He showed me some of our cute texts from the previous summer that he had SAVED FOR A YEAR. I promptly told him that I had gotten a new phone and didn't have any of mine. He asked if he could see me again over Thanksgiving. I told him L. was coming home with me. He not-so-subtly had one of his teacher friends come in to "chat," but sheepishly admitted they had planned the whole thing an hour before so he could show off his hot ex-girlfriend. And when I told him I had to leave, he got serious, took my hand, told me that he'd always be there for me (yeah, just like he was when we were together?) and if anything ever happened (read: if L. and I ever broke up), to call him. He then attempted a sneaky kiss (I turned the cheek,) hugged me tightly, lingered, and I strutted out and made sure that I worked me heels all the way out to my car, since I knew he was watching from the window.

I want to make it clear that vindictive was the LAST thing I was during the visit. It was really too pleasant on my side, for all that he put me through. But I'm happy with L. know and god knows what kind of girls he's messing around with now. I didn't ask...I didn't want to know. It was just great, after feeling so powerless at the end of our relationship, to have our (most likely last ever) meeting to be one where I held the cards, and left him questioning a lot of things.

We haven't really talked since then and I don't imagine that we will. Though I generally remain friends with my exes, he and I had nothing in common in the first place and probably will never speak again. So in that case, no, we could never be friends.

But that still leaves the problem of Big Relationship. How did we manage to remain best friends after a four-year relationship ended in a very, very non-mutual breakup? Well, I guess that's a story for another time...

Catching Up: Just Friends? Part 1

To start off my new Catching Up Feature, in which I write about times in my life that were slightly more eventful than the present, I thought I'd take on a doozy: Can men and women ever just be friends, as exhibited by my friendship with Big Relationship, my ex and current best friend after 4 years of dating, and the saga of one of the most frustrating and deceptive men I've ever known, Summer Romance.

I'm not sure if I agree with Harry on this one, that men and women cannot just be friends, but it's pretty damn hard. I have two very good examples to back this up. Case point #1 involves the situation of two people who dated at first, and then tried to become friends afterward. Or, aka, Big Relationship and myself. Now, I will tell people that Big Relationship and I are best friends, and we are, in the sense that we've known each other longer than most of our other friends have known us and for five years of our lives we were as close as any two people can ever be. If you've had that, how can you do anything but remain great friends?

So we have, or at least that's what I like to tell myself. But truth be told, our relationship lacks a lot of the makings of a strong male-female friendship, if such a thing even exists. There's an unspoken rule for no flirtation, which everyone knows is a cornerstone to opposite sex interactions. [Or maybe that's just how I manage mine...hmm...] To a degree, I mean. And we just aren't as tender or emotive as we once were, from this sort of invisible wall that I guess we've, well in my opinion he's, put up since the breakup. It's really just a strange dynamic; two people who know and understand each other better than most people ever will, who have an invisible barrier between them.

I bring this all up because I'm seeing Big Relationship this Friday when he comes to see the show I've directed, and also because this summer I saw Summer Romance for the first time in eight months. It wasn't be the first time we've seen each other since we broke up in Summer 2008, but it was the first time we've really gotten to talk about everything that happened between us since. The Summer Romance Saga is a long and complicated one, but I will try to do my best to recap it in a clear, unbiased and most importantly uncomplicated manner, if that's possible:

Summer Romance and I worked together Summer 2008, and always engaged in minor flirtation, but I had heard that he was involved with someone else we both worked with, who we'll call Other Woman, and knew that it would be unwise to get in the middle. Plus, when I met Summer Romance, what is now my infamous Declare My Feelings For L. and Get Shot Down Weekend was coming up, and my mind was totally preoccupied by that. So Summer Romance and I continued our flirtation. I asked him about Other Woman, and he told me they had been hooking up in the spring but that he was single.

So anyways, as we all know I confessed my love for L., he broke my heart, blah blah. (Which, in case you're wondering, I never let him live down.) So when I returned home I was feeling a bit down, clearly. So when Summer Romance asked for my number I thought, well, why not, maybe I'll have a...yup...summer romance, at the least. We had a great connection instantly, even though he was 24, which at first I thought would be a problem. He had also just recently gotten a job as a math teacher at Big Relationship's former high school, which I also thought could be quite awkward, but no, none of these apparent dealbreakers ended up being a problem. The only problem turned out to be Other Woman.

See, Summer Romance may have thought he was single, but Other Woman certainly did not think so. And I, naive hostess who was not privy to the convoluted world of work relationships, did not know any of this. So Summer Romance and I had a few dates and they were going great, and I was (kind of) starting to feel less brokenhearted about L., although truth be told he was never far from my mind. And then the problems started. And continued. I'd overhear Other Woman talking at work about Summer Romance in a very possessive, girlfriend-y sort of way, yet whenever I'd try to bring it up nonchalantly to Summer Romance he'd completely deny all my allegations and make me feel overly jealous, etc, for wondering. So we'd go back to having another great week or so, and then I'd overhear some more Other Woman convos. Or, even worse things. I'd wake up at Summer Romance's apartment after having spent the night, have breakfast, kiss him goodbye, and happily prance (okay, drive) home only to see that Other Woman's fb status would read "Going to lunch with [Summer Romance] and his parents!"

Um, wtf?

I'd then get frustrated and try to end things with Summer Romance, he would fight with me until I didn't, I'd somehow believe him that there wasn't anything going on between them. I'd even explain away the inexplicable things, like the fact that there was mascara smudge on his pillows in the morning even when I'd washed my face the night before. Truth be told, I'm infuriated that I let it go on as long as it did. I'm a little notorious for being picky about the guys I date and ending things not so far in.

So when the hazy days of summer began to draw to a close and my returning to college three hours away from home began to loom menacingly, I begrudginly had "the talk" with Summer Romance about "where this was going." (Ugh.) I put it out there as "we had a fun run, summer fling, keep in touch, go our own ways, etc" and so imagine my shock when he said he wanted to "do the real thing," and have a legit, monogamous (or so I presumed) long-distance relationship. I hesitantly agreed, only to un-agree a few days later after my Other Woman instincts got the best of me. This didn't work, as Summer Romance has a great way of making me doubt my instincts and trust him completely, which is something that NEVER happens with me, and so after a teary, tender and, what I thought to be honest, conversation we decided to really go for it.

Stay tuned for Part Two!

[Image from KnightleyEmma]

Catching Up: Just Friends? Part 1

To start off my new Catching Up Feature, in which I write about times in my life that were slightly more eventful than the present, I thought I'd take on a doozy: Can men and women ever just be friends, as exhibited by my friendship with Big Relationship, my ex and current best friend after 4 years of dating, and the saga of one of the most frustrating and deceptive men I've ever known, Summer Romance.

I'm going to have to agree with Harry on this one. Men and women cannot just be friends. I have two very good examples to back this up. Case point #1 involves the situation of two people who dated at first, and then tried to become friends afterward. Or, aka, Big Relationship and myself. Now, I will tell people that Big Relationship and I are best friends, and we are, in the sense that we've known each other longer than most of our other friends have known us and for five years of our lives we were as close as any two people can ever be. If you've had that, how can you do anything but remain great friends?

So we have, or at least that's what I like to tell myself. But truth be told, our relationship lacks a lot of the makings of a strong male-female friendship, if such a thing even exists. There's an unspoken rule for no flirtation, which everyone knows is a cornerstone to opposite sex interactions. [Or maybe that's just how I manage mine...hmm...] To a degree, I mean. And we just aren't as tender or emotive as we once were, from this sort of invisible wall that I guess we've, well in my opinion he's, put up since the breakup. It's really just a strange dynamic; two people who know and understand each other better than most people ever will, who have an invisible barrier between them.

I bring this all up because I'm seeing Big Relationship this Friday when he comes to see the show I've directed, and also because this summer I saw Summer Romance for the first time in eight months. It wasn't be the first time we've seen each other since we broke up in Summer 2008, but it was the first time we've really gotten to talk about everything that happened between us since. The Summer Romance Saga is a long and complicated one, but I will try to do my best to recap it in a clear, unbiased and most importantly uncomplicated manner, if that's possible:

Summer Romance and I worked together Summer 2008, and always engaged in minor flirtation, but I had heard that he was involved with someone else we both worked with, who we'll call Other Woman, and knew that it would be unwise to get in the middle. Plus, when I met Summer Romance, what is now my infamous Declare My Feelings For L. and Get Shot Down Weekend was coming up, and my mind was totally preoccupied by that. So Summer Romance and I continued our flirtation. I asked him about Other Woman, and he told me they had been hooking up in the spring but that he was single.

So anyways, as we all know I confessed my love for L., he broke my heart, blah blah. (Which, in case you're wondering, I never let him live down.) So when I returned home I was feeling a bit down, clearly. So when Summer Romance asked for my number I thought, well, why not, maybe I'll have a...yup...summer romance, at the least. We had a great connection instantly, even though he was 24, which at first I thought would be a problem. He had also just recently gotten a job as a math teacher at Big Relationship's former high school, which I also thought could be quite awkward, but no, none of these apparent dealbreakers ended up being a problem. The only problem turned out to be Other Woman.

See, Summer Romance may have thought he was single, but Other Woman certainly did not think so. And I, naive hostess who was not privy to the convoluted world of work relationships, did not know any of this. So Summer Romance and I had a few dates and they were going great, and I was (kind of) starting to feel less brokenhearted about L., although truth be told he was never far from my mind. And then the problems started. And continued. I'd overhear Other Woman talking at work about Summer Romance in a very possessive, girlfriend-y sort of way, yet whenever I'd try to bring it up nonchalantly to Summer Romance he'd completely deny all my allegations and make me feel overly jealous, etc, for wondering. So we'd go back to having another great week or so, and then I'd overhear some more Other Woman convos. Or, even worse things. I'd wake up at Summer Romance's apartment after having spent the night, have breakfast, kiss him goodbye, and happily prance (okay, drive) home only to see that Other Woman's fb status would read "Going to lunch with [Summer Romance] and his parents!"

Um, wtf?

I'd then get frustrated and try to end things with Summer Romance, he would fight with me until I didn't, I'd somehow believe him that there wasn't anything going on between them. I'd even explain away the inexplicable things, like the fact that there was mascara smudge on his pillows in the morning even when I'd washed my face the night before. Truth be told, I'm infuriated that I let it go on as long as it did. I'm a little notorious for being picky about the guys I date and ending things not so far in.

So when the hazy days of summer began to draw to a close and my returning to college three hours away from home began to loom menacingly, I begrudginly had "the talk" with Summer Romance about "where this was going." (Ugh.) I put it out there as "we had a fun run, summer fling, keep in touch, go our own ways, etc" and so imagine my shock when he said he wanted to "do the real thing," and have a legit, monogamous (or so I presumed) long-distance relationship. I hesitantly agreed, only to un-agree a few days later after my Other Woman instincts got the best of me. This didn't work, as Summer Romance has a great way of making me doubt my instincts and trust him completely, which is something that NEVER happens with me, and so after a teary, tender and, what I thought to be honest, conversation we decided to really go for it.

Stay tuned for Part Two!

Going the Distance

I just got off yet another hour-long Skype session with L., and I've been thinking about this past summer, and how our together-every-second-of-the-day relationship has all of a sudden gone to seeing-each-other-once-in-three-months relationship, and, well, it really sucks. We've been apart for almost a third of the entire time we've been official. I'm just not cut out for this long-distance business. Big Relationship and I dated for three years in high school, and then he, being a year older, went off to college and I spent my senior year of high school wishing it away and driving down to Boston, where he went to school, to see him every weekend or two. Then, when it was finally time for me to go to college, and the distance between us, i.e., Williams and Boston, grew to three hours, we hardly made it two months before he called it quits. But he isn't wholly to blame; I had my difficulties with the distance. I think the biggest problem with that situation was that there was no end in sight; he was going to be in school for three more years, I'd just started college, and that was the way it was going to be, whether we liked it or not.

So there's really one of two situations to be in, concerning distance. You can be in a relationship with someone who goes to your college and see them almost every day for nine months of the year, and then be apart all summer and all major holidays (the best times!), or date someone from home and be with them all holidays, all summer, and sporadically throughout the year. Well, that's what I attempted to do with Summer Romance the beginning of my Sophomore year, and, let's just say it was an absolute disaster. Of course, his valuing monogamy a little more would have helped too, but I digress.Clearly I've chosen the first route, the seemingly more appealing together for most of the year, inseperably, only to be ripped apart for three long, hot, lonely months. I did see L. once this summer, for about five days, which were wonderful. But otherwise, this summer has been pretty miserable. I've been staying busy at my job, which I've mentioned before but to refresh it's working in the Publications department of an art museum, and it's stimulating and keeps me busy, but it's not quite enough to keep my soul alive with the glory of life. So then part of me feels like a victorian anti-feminist for needing my boyfriend, and feeling unfulfilled and just slightly below the level of being really, truly happy without him, but honestly, that's just how it is. So much of my experience here at Williams is inextricably linked to him, just as so many of my plans for my up and coming future are.

But, in one and a half short weeks, all that will end and finally, my long-distance relationship will once again be in arm's reach. It definitely hasn't been a fun run. We certainly haven't had deep-rooted problems, but how much is there to talk about on the phone every day for three months? And I've gotten frustrated, and I've gotten bored, and I've gotten despondent, and I've gotten restless, but I've also had some of the most affirming moments in our relationship this long-distance summer, and known more surely than ever that I'm madly in love with him. And he, of course, has been unchanging, calm, even-tempered, and constant, which are some of the things I love most about him.
Oh, and another perk to long-distance relationships? Today in the mail I got a surprise package containing two seasons of my two favorite tv shows, so I would "be able to stay busy until we see each other," as L. put it. And watching Lily and Marshall on How I Met Your Mother makes me feel more at ease, too, since I think Lucas and I are headed in the same place they ended up on the show. So, in honor of Lily and Marshall, I can't wait to see L soon. It's going to be legen--wait for it--dary!

[Update: L. is actually spending Thanksgiving with my family on the East Coast this year! There's one major holiday we can cross off the "Time We Have To Spend Apart" black list!]

[Images from Le Love, Flickr]

Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose

I am a goose. At one time my friends were ducks, and some have become geese, too, but I have been a goose for quite some time now.

When did the pursuit of love become more interesting, important, valued, trendy, active, cherished, and most importantly talked about than actually finding love itself, and being in love, and being loved? Magazine columns, blogs, newspaper editorials, tv shows, reality shows, grocery store aisle conversations, spa talk-- it all seems, lately, to be centering around the impossibility of finding love, or the "chase." When did women all of a sudden stop decrying the chase, and get in on it? Men have been criticized for years, decades, no doubt, over their love of the cat-and-mouse game, the uncertainty, "playing the field," bach-ing it. But ladies seem to be showing a suspicious penchant for all of the same. Which brings me to my points: when did relationships become a means rather than an end?

Allow me to explain. Basically, it goes like this. Try to refute this as they may (and I'm sure they will), my lady friends became much less interested in my life, particularly my weekend nights, when I started a relationship. [Disclaimer: For the sake of this post, I will be relating the conversations that my friends and I have about relationships. This should not be extrapolated to mean that the entirety of our conversations are comprised of such talk.] I realized this in the first year and a half or so of college, during Sunday morning brunch. Before, when my group of friends was cohesive [read: hadn't fallen apart], we would get together Sunday mornings and have a long, fattening, dish-heavy brunch. I started to notice a correlation between how "single" we were (if we were all "Ducks") and how long our talks lasted. Because the truth is, women are much more interested in hearing about attempted romances, failed dates, would-be hookups and all the games in between than anything else, and that anything else includes the one thing they seem to be searching for when involved in all the above: a good relationship.

When I was a Duck, too, I don't think I noticed this trend. The beginning of my freshman year of college, I was involved with Big Relationship, but it was on the rocks, falling apart, and frankly dramatic enough that it warranted its own place my friends, the single girls', conversations. After that relationship ended, I was thrown into the world of the Ducks for the first time in four years, and that world is, I can say even now objectively and subjectively, much more highly-charged than the world of the Goose. After the end of my Big Relationship, there were a string of Ducks and maybe one or two Would-Be-Geese, although they hardly deserve the distinction. During this time, between my Freshman fall and Sophomore falls, I was an insider in the conversations that I am only an outsider of. Things were going wrong constantly. S. couldn't get the Duck she wanted and couldn't get rid of the Duck she didn't, C. was in my position of having recently lost a long-time Goose and didn't know quite how to go about getting another one, T. never wanted a goose to begin with and regaled us all with amusing, heartwarming and sometimes horrifying stories of other Ducks, and P. entered college a Goose, quickly became a Duck, quickly found another Goose, and nested with him for most of the winter. It was a dramatic and crazy time and frankly, I don't miss it at all.

When we were all Ducks, the conversation could revolve around chance encounters with other Ducks and was decidedly anti-Goose. I didn't quite know what it was like to be on the outside of that until Sophomore fall, when I had my heart set on a Goose that also happened to be my best friend (you know him by now as L., and the story of how he became my Goose is yet to come). I will say that finding him was like finding the goose that laid the golden egg, if you will. Between Sophomore fall and my L., I had to rule out the Soccer-Obsessed (not bad at all in his own right, just not for me), Self-Absorbed (he was really more of a Duck), Guilt-Trip (also known as In-Love-With-My-Best-Friend), the Friend-With-Benefits (with whom I still remain great friends to this day), and one of my favorites, the total Jerk, who not only dreaded confrontation (read: talking) but also attempted to pass himself off to be one of the most promising and caring potential Geese to date at that point. Who knew?

That summer I began a confusing and emotionally draining relationship with a guy who could have many titles (High-School-Teacher, Cheater, Sweet-Talker, Inconsiderate-Actions-Don't-Match-Wonderful-Words), but we'll just call him Summer Romance, since despite my almost-21 years of life, he's really the only true Summer Romance I've had. With this brief rundown of failed romances, you can see how food for thought was never low. Multiply all this by five, because the lives of my fellow females, if not more complicated, at least as actively frustrating.

I also can't really extricate my friends from the problems with the aforementioned failed romances since some of them failed in part to inter-friend dating on the parts of the men, for which I don't blame my friends or the men but really just will note here as an important side note of detail and then move on.

My life may be much more simple and settled and ordinary now that these would-be-romances have ended, for now at least and hopefully for much longer, but I never realized it was boring. But that seems to be the case, since without drama or complication my dating life seems to be borderline nonexistant. It was a frustrating time, after all the complication with L. was cleared up and we began our happy life as two birds of a feather, because suddenly my love life (the operative word being love, and the one thing that was missing from my friends' encounters) wasn't of value anymore. I can't even recall how many meals I sat in on with my friends at the beginning of Sophomore year, and listened to endless strings of party encounters, chance flirtations and unsuccessful hookups, only for when it became my turn to share my weekend's events the meal was suddenly ended; someone forgot they had somewhere to be, someone had to run to a meeting/rehearsal/class.

Sure, my relationship got some press during the first few weeks, when the girls were excited to hear about all the firsts, especially since L. had been the male cohort in my female group of friends and had, himself, been along for the ride with us of searching for love at college. Well, if not actively searching, than at least noticing the lack thereof. This union of two frustrated Ducks in the friend group took care of a big chunk of angsty yearning for love among us, but it also doubled our subsequent un-interesting-ness factor afterward. If I couldn't get a word in edgewise at Sunday brunch about how L. and I spent our weekend, the idea that we could share our stories and funny anecdotes together at a meal was pure scoff.

I also notice that I'm beginning to sound bitter about this, and I want to reiterate that I really am not. I love my friends, single or taken, very much, but wish that I didn't have to seek out another relationship-involved Goose to have some quality girl-talk.

I may not have as many shocking brunch stories to reveal now that I've been out of the world of dating for quite some time (almost ten months), but I am happier than ever. Which brings me to part two, and a new post.


[Images from Softie Making, Seeds of Growth]