the book ...part one

Adventures in Dating - by A Lady

When I was younger I was quite idealistic and romantic, maybe I still am. But life has changed me in a lot of ways. Luckily, the one thing I have retained is my optimism. Sometimes that is all you need to get through.

When I was twelve or thirteen, that age when girls stay closeted up together in bedrooms after school and at slumber parties on the weekends, doing god only knows what, I developed a lot of ideas. For me and my friends, these were times when many things were discussed and decided. Some of them were silly, some of them weren’t. My major skill at slumber parties was my ability to play TRUTH or DARE. I almost always chose TRUTH, and really can answer any question honestly, though I did take part in a few DARES of which I am less proud. As we got older and these weekend events became co-ed the game became more like a game of scruples.

But at this early stage, when almost all of my friends were girls, the major subject up for discussion with friends, and in my diaries as well, was boys. We discussed which boys we had crushes on, but more often than not didn’t say ... since these things have a tendency to get around school. Admitted in my diary, which was unceremoniously stolen and read by friends on occasion, were the boys I was “madly in love with” and my often bizarre explanatory reasons.

Also up for discussion, pondering, and much deliberation, was THE FUTURE, and along that vein BOYS in THE FUTURE. Would we get married? Would we have sex before we got married? All these things were discussed, so for those who think that all girls talk about together is clothes, hair and make-up, I can honestly say many moral dilemmas are hammered out as well. Some of my friends didn’t want to get married, most thought they would. My best friend didn’t think she would have sex before she got married, but maybe. In my mind, at that time, I would only ever have sex with two people at the very most. Firstly, it would have to wait until I was engaged, which seemed millions of years away to begin with, then if things didn’t work out, for whatever reason, we could break it off and I could later marry someone else. This seemed to me to be the best plan. I always hated the idea of getting divorced and from the earliest age knew it wasn’t meant for me. This conviction was not born out of any religious belief, but simply a reaction to my environment. I had seen the effects of divorce on my older siblings and most of my friends.

Over time of course, some of my views changed. I still hold to my last conviction, if not the first. For most of my adolescent years, other than as friends, I had no meaningful interactions with the opposite sex so it didn’t matter much. Adolescence was a struggle, but boys were far from the problem, so far, that I rarely thought much of them. I had crushes on a few boys I knew, but nothing came of it. My self-esteem was low, my popularity fairly non-existent. I became one of the multitudes of withdrawn, troubled and misunderstood teenagers.

Then, one day, long after I had despaired of it ever happening, a guy asked me out, (Ok to be honest it had happened a couple of times before but I had said “no thanks”). I had been pining after the object of one of my crushes and had planned that very day to ask him out, but deciding that to be a lost cause, I agreed to the “date”. I was 17 years old and would be graduating high school in a month. I, a social pariah, an outcast, in my school of wealthy, trendy, and overly-indulged peers, had a “boyfriend”. What kind of a boyfriend I really had no idea ... and thus began the unravelling of all my best-laid plans.

THE CYCLOPS

I apologize now for the nicknames, but real names would hardly do, and honestly, in my attempts at self-deprecating humour, these names have already been awarded by several of my friends (you know who you are).

So, I met Cyclops at school. He didn’t go to my school though. I was in a special career preparation program in theatre production and was at school working on building a set on a Saturday. Cyclops was there helping to build things. I noticed two things about him at first, he was in awesome shape and had an eye-patch, but was otherwise quite good-looking. Assuming he was an older construction worker I didn’t think much of it. Over the course of the day we started talking to each other and I found out he was 17 also and went to a different school, but often did construction work (he also had lost an eye in a street hockey accident). At the lunch break we hung out together and I showed him around the school grounds and the park. Just before we went back to work he asked me to go out with him. Won over by his gregarious personality, and the mysteriousness of it all, I agreed.

That evening I had been planning a dinner for my friend, let’s call him RIVER, the object of my crush, to celebrate his birthday, and in my mind tell him of my “love”. But in the face of the events, and my own fear of self-rejection, I figured I was better off with Cyclops. So, I invited Cyclops over for dinner as well. Thus it all began. Cyclops succeeded in the first 15 minutes of alienating my mother, though truth be told, I don’t think she would have liked anyone I chose as my first boyfriend. My dad on the other hand, likes everyone, which I guess is opposite to the stereotype. Anyway Cyclops, River and Myself were there. I had made a cake and cooked a meal ... and I think some kind of gift, I don’t remember what it was. River, being the very nice guy he was and one of my very good friends, put up with it all tolerably well. I always assumed he knew of my crush and put up with my irritating adoration just to be kind.

The first hint I got about what kind of “boyfriend” I had ended up with began when his mom came to pick him up. His mom was weird. Not just weird it turned out later … crazy. About 2 days after we started going out she started phoning me at home, having never had any kind of boyfriend before I had no idea quite how abnormal it was. I don't think I realized quite how crazy she was until the time we caught her spying on us having sex while bragging all about the fact that he was getting laid to his older sister on the phone. Oh god I had only known these people a couple of weeks and already I was in over my head. Rather than retell a horror story I will insert a poem about it all here:

AND

(she remembers clearly)

She remembers clearly the taste of tongues and ice cream (Neapolitan flavoured)

And nicotine and pheromones

the all-encompassing passion of shared pain and escapism

when you are numb and bleeding and she is only a half-healed wound

you crash together and bleed anew

you plant the seeds of lust and fear and pain and pleasure and violent numbness

she will give in-she will submit

she will crave your violent sexuality ~ but hate being the recipient of it

---you are escaping into numbness by pouring your pain into her---

and you think she’s perfect you put her on a pedestal

~ where she used to dwell only in forgotten dreams of purity since six-years old

--when she was touched and she was told

never to say how much she hates to be touched anywhere by anyone

Like caterpillars on her skin your closeness creeps into her soul

And she laughs nervously - petrified

you scare her through and through

and she’d do anything for you

because pain and fear are better than nothingness

you will grab her pin her down and cover her with painful kisses

even though minutes ago you were screaming at each other

over your perpetual lies and other girls you’ve slept with

even though you swore it wasn’t so

and she can feel them on your body

like dyes that taint her through and through

and now she knows the price of love

which is she’ll always love and hate you

--and there is blood in the corner where your rabbits were slaughtered and you found out and then you cried

and flies buzz around you

and the smell of death and fear and blood and sex and rape and suicide surround her

You tell her she is the world to you, that she is everything

But she knows it isn’t true

You drink so much that you don’t remember

Where you’ve gone and what you said—which lies you told

She can’t say no – you make her weak

Remind her of her buried pain

You uncover her scars and tear them open

Leave her bleeding – unable to sleep for weeks

You grasp her soul and steal her strength

It makes you strong and weakens her

She’s not nearly as powerful as she used to be

She crawls away with broken wings

A Nightingale which cannot sing

You have crawled inside her body

You have trespassed on her mind

You have borrowed her heart and soul

Turned her inside-out so that she can’t find

Herself

She will never be the same

She sits patiently inside the flames

While this passion gives her third degree burns

Burns off her nerve-ends until she feels nothing

Until she is the void

She is vacant

She is empty

She is a vacuum

And now she’s free

No heart, no soul, no love, no hate

She is now an empty slate

And she can reinvent herself

Because she is only 17

And you are an underage alcoholic.

Need more be said, really? This poem sums up the entire relationship (about 4 weeks in the spring of 1997). It's funny when you grow up and can put these things into perspective, that in the larger scheme of life something that felt so important was so minor and short-lived.