I
am horrible at being in relationships. I have only been in two,
both of which were doomed from the start by my inability to remain
content in stability.
However, I recently met a boy. This boy, like me, is Trouble. The
kind of boy your mother and girlfriends warn you to stay away from
while lustfully sneaking glances his way. We don’t quite know
what to do with each other, but we are exceedingly fond of each
other’s company and looks, at least for now. Recognizing the
trouble in each other has added an element of frankness that comes
from knowing each other’s little tricks. I have always, as
he points out, been partial to “bitch dudes”—boys
who have spent entire weekends looking for the perfect old T-shirt
for me. Boys who worry hourly about their hair, boys who know where
their favorite obscure band is playing on every leg of their pitiful
tour. Boys who paint. Each other.
This one might be intelligent, well read, capable of interesting
conversation, and open and generous with his feelings, but he also
plays sports and has calluses on his hands and talks about beating
other boys up if they look at me. He drinks beer and goes to the
batting cages and plays basketball all day and doesn’t whine.
Not a trembling lip or sketchpad in sight. He might as well be a
different species from my usual paramours, and I find myself utterly
and woozily charmed.
Which leaves me in a conundrum: I’m used to arty sissies.
I know how to work sissies. I have mastered the steps involved in
developing a pretty fun relationship with a sissy I particularly
like. With this one, however, it has been like starting to get to
know and like boys all over again. I feel like Adam Sandler’s
character in Billy Madison, who has to compress his entire education
into a short time span to catch up with his peers and earn his inheritance.
In much the same way, I have been retracing my steps to learn how,
exactly, a pair progresses when they “LIKE like” each
other. We started with elementary school:
“Now what?” I asked, vague.
“No idea.”
“I could make you a Valentine.”
“It’s April. But OK. I have pink and red yarn for yours.”
“Shit, yours is going to rock mine.”
And make one I did. Not exactly a Valentine, because I thought that
might be a touch sappy, and doilies are surprisingly difficult to
find out of season, but when I was sitting at my desk over lunch
with work piling up, I saw a piece of gold wrapping paper out of
the corner of my eye. I immediately set to work with a scrap of
cardboard and a glue stick, and constructed the sturdiest six-minute
paper sheriff’s badge in the history of man. I even taped
a tiny safety pin to the back. He was sufficiently impressed. In
return he shared his lunch with me for about a week, and I knew
we were hooked. By Wednesday I understood the basics of the elementary
school relationship: Food, crafty presents, and sitting close to
each other in public.
I realized we had entered high school after we’d been calling
each other every night before we went to bed, and not saying much
of anything, for hours at a time. I asked my 16-year-old cousin
for confirmation.
“What do high school kids do when they like each other?”
“Stay up on the phone all night.” Check.
Our high school phase peaked when he called late one night and I
invited him over because no one was home. Both of us were wearing
hooded collegiate sweatshirts, as though we were saying a proper
goodbye before leaving for our respective state schools. We stood
in the kitchen and talked and made eyes at each other, with my hands
in the pockets of his sweatshirt and his hood partially obscuring
his face. High school romance involves comfortable clothing, stolen
moments, and a great deal of relatively chaste groping.
“I think we can make it work.” I wanted to call out
as he left. “Sure, you’ll be far away, just don’t
make out with any other girls.”
By last weekend, we were college freshman. I spent a couple of days
at his house, drinking beers on the deck in between sessions of
sealing ourselves in his room while his extremely male roommates
tried to goad him out by being hilariously rude outside the door.
It reminded me of those first few weeks in college when you realize
that if you like someone and want to spend all of your time with
them, there is absolutely nothing stopping you. Class can be skipped,
parents can be ignored, roommates have no say in your behavior.
The college relationship is borne of exhaustion, quiet giddiness,
and hours upon hours of simply lying around.
We may have begun to enter the grown up phase this week. Late Sunday
we had a little chat about where we see ‘this’ going,
and what exactly we think we’re doing. I have never questioned
either before, just sort of let my idiot head and hands do whatever
they want whenever they feel like it. Granted, the conclusion we
came to is that the magnitude of our affection and attraction will
lead to a flaming tailspin that can’t possibly last more than
two glorious weeks. Instead of leaving it at that, however, and
floating along on the doomed romance of it all, we actually decided
to make a conscious effort to ‘take it slow’ and, dare
I say, perhaps, ‘get to know each other better.’ As
he put it this morning, If we’re headed for a train wreck
we might as well keep our safety belts on.
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