Love, with Teeth (Part One)

    I’ve spent my whole life on a quest for control—of my circumstances, my emotions, others’ perceptions of me. In college, with the obnoxiousness only a twenty-year-old could have, I thought I’d cracked the code: avoid uncertainty, act logically, and make others as happy as I could while tempering their expectations of me. 

An ex once quoted the line from Persuasion, “I am half agony, half hope” to explain the depth of her feelings for me. I hadn’t, and still haven’t, read the novel. I didn’t understand how she could feel that way after only knowing me for a few months. Moreover, we’d agreed to only date short-term, exclusive but casual, just enjoying our few months together until we graduated college. What could she possibly be agonizing over? What was she hoping for? It feels horrible to admit my ignorance now, because it’s a concession I didn’t feel as deeply for her as she did for me. When she accused me of just that after we broke up, I took offense. In the years since, I’ve come to realize she was right. I still feel some shame about it. 

    I’d certainly tried to bring up my doubts in that relationship. But as the partner with less serious dating experience, I felt dismissed and overpowered. It was easy to convince me my concerns were inconsequential—things I could change about my behavior or personality instead of fundamental incompatibilities between the two of us. All logic told me that if someone felt so deeply for me, I shouldn't disappoint them. We had a plan: part ways after graduation. But as the day neared and she started to hint at something longer-term, I knew I had to end things sooner. It ate away at me. I felt awful, paralyzed. I’d never had to break up with someone before, and I didn’t know how to. But I was so deeply unhappy, my friends even told me I seemed like a shell of myself.

I was a coward when I finally did it. Sitting on her bed one morning in late April, I could barely get the words out. In fact, it was she who asked, “Are you saying you want to break up now?” I nodded wordlessly, my eyes brimming with tears. She was, of course, upset with me, but all I could register was that she was actually letting me go. It was a massive relief. I had been so worried that she would argue, tell me I was thinking about things all wrong, and, if all else failed, find a way to guilt me into staying. Instead, I was free. 

    I probably would have stayed with her through graduation if it wasn’t for a dream I had. In the dream, I kissed someone. Someone I’d never thought of romantically before, but whom I probably got a little too excited to see twice a week for the class we had together. We’d met before, our freshman year, and I’d thought back then she might be the funniest person I’d ever met. To my dismay, we soon settled into different dorms and groups of friends, so by senior spring it was almost like we were strangers again. Now, assigned by some twist of fate to the same group for a semester-long project, I got to talk to her almost every day. I still thought as highly of her as I did three years prior and hoped we might rekindle our friendship. Maybe this time it would even last. We started walking to class together, and these walks became the best parts of my week. She made me laugh harder than anyone else could. Our conversations never got too deep, so I cherished each new detail I learned about her: she had a cat at home; she was scared of ladybugs; one of her roommates had been using communal drinkware to propagate onions. 

    The morning I woke from dreaming that I’d kissed her, I was mortified. After cycling through a few rounds of denial, I finally let things come into focus. This was more than just enjoying someone's company; I was totally smitten. I felt stupid for not recognizing it sooner. A wave of guilt came over me, and I spent the next several days awash with self-reproach. Entertaining a crush while dating someone else seemed like the kind of thing a callous, uncaring person would do, and such descriptors did not comport with my self image. I'd just come out of an adolescence where I learned the best way to keep people around was to appear faultless. This necessarily required shrinking myself, flattening and folding my personality so it was easier to swallow and digest. Maybe that was why my partner felt she knew me so well after what I considered too short a time. I never really corrected her when she got things wrong about me. Back then, I truly believed care and consideration meant withholding the ugliest parts of yourself so as not to upset others. 

    “You’re ruining my graduation,” my ex blurted out mid-breakup. I didn’t care enough to bring up the obvious fact that I was graduating too. When we met up a week later to say our final goodbyes, I sat in silence as she berated and insulted me. As she told me how I would be “hard-pressed to find someone,” all I could say, truthfully but meekly, was that I wasn't looking for anyone. I had in fact already resolved not to date again for a long while. At least until I could figure out where exactly I'd gone wrong, how I'd managed to upset someone so much when I'd been practically killing myself to keep her happy.

    At a house party during graduation week, one of my best friends drunkenly grabbed me by the shoulder and looked me in the eye, saying: “Next time you date someone, they need to make you more you, not less you.” It was a moment of lucidity so sincere it took me aback. My friend probably had no idea how badly I needed to hear that there were people in the world who saw me for who I really was and who loved me anyways. That it was possible for someone to not only tolerate but actually appreciate my quirks and imperfections. 

    I kept my promise to myself and stayed single for years. I dated casually here and there, but mostly just made out with strangers on  the dance floor of the gay club. I even had a one-night stand for the first time. I felt free, selfish in the best way. All of my decisions were my own, and there was no guilt to feel about it. When I started law school, I took a break from all things romance to focus on my studies. I told myself it was just a 1L thing so I could properly adjust to all the new demands in my life. But by the time 2L year came around, something had changed that made casual dating seem entirely unappealing to me. I wasn’t totally ignorant to what it was, but out of convenience (and to avoid the profound disappointment I was certain lay ahead), I pretended to be. I kept three dating apps on my phone, though I rarely if ever opened them. On Friday nights, I stayed in with my roommate, smoking weed and watching reality TV instead of going out and meeting new people. And, I had once again rekindled an old friendship, this time over text, which I was once again using as an escape from the problems I was too afraid to face head-on. 

___

The night after college graduation, as I was turning in my dorm key, I ran into the friend about whom I’d dreamt weeks prior. Nothing had happened between us in the interim—she too had been seeing someone else, and besides, it would have felt wrong to make a move so soon after my own breakup. I still harbored some guilt about my crush, but it was assuaged by the fact my feelings were one-sided. Now unattached, with the stakes low due to our imminent graduation, I let myself indulge in some light flirting. I enjoyed seeing her become flustered when I’d poke fun at her or act overly familiar. My behavior didn't seem unwelcome, but I found her impossible to read. Her general awkwardness both endeared and confused me. As the semester wrapped up, our text conversations drifted away from class and into increasingly personal territory. At the same time, my efforts to hang out outside of class were almost all rebuffed. But, charmed as I was, I was content to spend whatever time with her she would allow me, even if it was next to nothing.

    That last night, as she walked by the check-out desk to get back to the elevators, she saw me and stopped. I'd just tucked my brass key into its little yellow envelope, sealed it, and handed it off to the student employee who dutifully checked my name off a list. "Are you moving out?" my friend asked. I thought she seemed surprised, as though she hadn't been expecting me to leave just yet. I immediately recognized this as wishful thinking, a projection of my own sadness that this was the last time I'd ever see her. When I told her I was, she hesitated before uncharacteristically (and exhilaratingly, for me) asking if she could hug me. Up until then, I hadn't been sure whether she even really liked me as a friend or simply tolerated me out of politeness. Her hug made me feel like I was dreaming. She cares that I’m leaving, I thought. Maybe she’ll even miss me! Modest as it was, that hug felt like the biggest thrill with which my college experience could have ended. 

We lost touch again after that. We both moved back to our respective hometowns, thousands of miles away from one another. Sometimes, we’d shoot each other a text—usually a screenshot of some particularly ridiculous LinkedIn or Nextdoor post, as those had become our shared language of non-committal, casual nudges to keep the conversation alive. But it always sputtered and died out again after a few texts back and forth. I started to feel like I was grasping at straws, our connection becoming increasingly tenuous until there was no way to keep talking while maintaining what little pride I had left. 

    Eventually, all contact petered out. I forgot about my crush. I took the LSAT, moved back to Boston, made out with strangers, got accepted to law school, went on dates, worked my first full-time job, moved back to SoCal, stopped dating, started school. Life went on in all its uncertainty.

~~~~

Songs I've enjoyed lately:

1. "Mobile" by Avril Lavigne
2. "Computer Love" by Glass Candy
3. "This Time I Know It's For Real" by Donna Summer
4. "Lucky Again" by Lykke Li
5. "If I Can't Hold You" by Desire