I dated three or four girls in high school before my first serious relationship. She was one of my best friends throughout high school. We started at the tail end of our senior year and lasted through College: Year 1 into that summer. Then we broke up. That sucked hard.
Then I jumped right into another serious relationship that lasted well over a year. It was, in many respects, a huge mistake. I learned a lot about myself, though.
Then I dated. A lot. And don’t it just figure that the one person with whom I was very happy moved to SoCal? So I dated more.
Then I landed in another serious relationship. It didn’t last all that long, but DAMN it was intense. Like the last, it ended awkwardly and I made many mistakes. I learned a lot more about myself, though.
By now I’ve about stopped with the women. I’m heartsick and tired of 'em. I says to my roommate, I says, “Jay, I need to have fun. I need a women that drinks, smokes, spits and cusses. I don’t want any more serious relationships.”
Wouldn’t you know it, but that woman appeared on my couch one afternoon playing Mario Kart with my other, extremely gay, roommate. Y’see, he was trying to hook up with her best friend who was only just coming to terms with coming out of the closet. So, we frequently had the pleasure of her company.
And she cussed. And she smoked. And she spat. And she drank. And I’ll be damned if it ain’t four years later, and I’ll be damned if we aren’t getting hitched in December.
Stick with it, my friend. I had my heart ripped out and stomped upon three times before I met my love. I didn’t even know what I wanted in a girl for quite a long time. I got supremely lucky that, though I was looking for something frivolous, I found the real thing.
You’ll find that person, the one who lights you up and calms you down at the same time. Hell, I found it three different times with shitty results. It can take a while. Here, have some Philip Larkin. He’s a guy who knew what was going on.
“When First We Faced, And Touching Showed” by P. Larkin
*When first we faced, and touching showed
How well we knew the early moves,
Behind the moonlight and the frost,
The excitement and the gratitude,
There stood how much our meeting owed
To other meetings, other loves.
The decades of a different life
That opened past your inch-close eyes
Belonged to others, lavished, lost;
Nor could I hold you hard enough
To call my years of hunger-strife
Back for your mouth to colonise.
Admitted: and the pain is real.
But when did love not try to change
The world back to itself–no cost,
No past, no people else at all–
Only what meeting made us feel,
So new, and gentle-sharp, and strange?*
), etc., and usually when I wasn’t really dating (or looking for love) at all.
