Story Part VII: Miscellany and Details
I feel I should take a break from the telling of chronological events, and zoom out so that you, dear reader, might have some broader sense for this story--I feel you need context. Further, this story is about to take a serious turn, and perhaps I might brace you for what is to come...
As a graduate student, I had become increasingly depressed with the future I was confronting as an academic--the petty bickering, the need to state all opinions as fact, the compulsion to be right at all times. I was uncomfortable with the persona I had increasingly adopted as my own. And, I was becoming increasingly adept at maneuvering myself in this environment, and that fact petrified me.
Also, I had been on a string of terrible dates--the week long trip to Boston (aka Hell) had severely shaken my confidence--a fact I was unwilling to admit to myself or others. After a two-weeks of email and phone courting, my Boston date flew me cross-country for a New Years nightmare. After three days of coldness bordering on moderate hostility, I broke down into a puddle of tears in the middle of a pool hall in front of my date during our third match. He finally confided that he had seen his ex-girlfriend on his visit home during Christmas, realized he was still in love with her, but had already purchased my ticket. He thought he was being kind by restraining himself from any and all signs of flirtation. I had been under the impression I had marks of the plague which I just couldn't see (I'm color blind and can't see red or green). So, although the confusion was resolved, it was still a pretty terrible week...feeling extremely uwnanted but, for all intents and purposes, trapped with my excrutiatingly polite (and frigidly cold) host.
Sebastian came along soon thereafter, and his letters to me were brimming with complements, hope, and raw attraction. While I desperately needed to hear those words at the time--to feel attractive to someone, I wasn't emotionally prepared for them; every complement became yet another expectation I felt incapable of meeting. But, so clever was I at fooling myself, I adamantly maintained that I was whole, healthy, and ready.
While he was here, we weren't experiencing that infamous connection of which poets write, but we were having fun. We laughed for hours on end. But, having spent so much of our pre-visit time conversing about our intolerably high standards, our inability to become intimate with most others, we were simply incapable of breaking the routine with one another. We had woven webs, and we were indefinitely stuck.
And, though we were not emotionally intimate with one another, we were physically intimate on numerous occasions. It was just easier to substitute physicality for the intimacy we both sought, but of which we were both incapable at the time. And, though we were careful on every occasion, on our last morning together, an accident did indeed occur.
So, this was the state of affairs as we enter into the next segment of our story. And if you thought I was to be your heroine, I fear you are soon to be thoroughly disappointed.
As a graduate student, I had become increasingly depressed with the future I was confronting as an academic--the petty bickering, the need to state all opinions as fact, the compulsion to be right at all times. I was uncomfortable with the persona I had increasingly adopted as my own. And, I was becoming increasingly adept at maneuvering myself in this environment, and that fact petrified me.
Also, I had been on a string of terrible dates--the week long trip to Boston (aka Hell) had severely shaken my confidence--a fact I was unwilling to admit to myself or others. After a two-weeks of email and phone courting, my Boston date flew me cross-country for a New Years nightmare. After three days of coldness bordering on moderate hostility, I broke down into a puddle of tears in the middle of a pool hall in front of my date during our third match. He finally confided that he had seen his ex-girlfriend on his visit home during Christmas, realized he was still in love with her, but had already purchased my ticket. He thought he was being kind by restraining himself from any and all signs of flirtation. I had been under the impression I had marks of the plague which I just couldn't see (I'm color blind and can't see red or green). So, although the confusion was resolved, it was still a pretty terrible week...feeling extremely uwnanted but, for all intents and purposes, trapped with my excrutiatingly polite (and frigidly cold) host.
Sebastian came along soon thereafter, and his letters to me were brimming with complements, hope, and raw attraction. While I desperately needed to hear those words at the time--to feel attractive to someone, I wasn't emotionally prepared for them; every complement became yet another expectation I felt incapable of meeting. But, so clever was I at fooling myself, I adamantly maintained that I was whole, healthy, and ready.
While he was here, we weren't experiencing that infamous connection of which poets write, but we were having fun. We laughed for hours on end. But, having spent so much of our pre-visit time conversing about our intolerably high standards, our inability to become intimate with most others, we were simply incapable of breaking the routine with one another. We had woven webs, and we were indefinitely stuck.
And, though we were not emotionally intimate with one another, we were physically intimate on numerous occasions. It was just easier to substitute physicality for the intimacy we both sought, but of which we were both incapable at the time. And, though we were careful on every occasion, on our last morning together, an accident did indeed occur.
So, this was the state of affairs as we enter into the next segment of our story. And if you thought I was to be your heroine, I fear you are soon to be thoroughly disappointed.
Labels: Story
posted by slickaphonic at 8:36 PM
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