Lifestyles Unrequited

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Goddess • Gary Glauber It was my first major rejection

You can’t force someone to love you. She told me her story and I wanted to believe her, if only to save myself. We each played our parts. It was my first major rejection.
I’d persisted with poems (and even a song), believing that if my creativity didn’t win her over, it would at least pique her curiosity. I was wrong. She had her own problems and I was too caught up to notice.
When she spoke, I listened for words and phrases I wanted to hear. It was all dreams and fantasies. She was more symbol than person, a marionette out of control, and I was an emotional mess amid tangled strings. Reality never had much part in it.
I’d heard rumors. Her mother was dying of multiple sclerosis; her father had been in jail. I wasn’t sure her family problems concerned me. My selfish dream didn’t allow for outside issues. Instead, I asked others to say good things about me to her.
The futility lengthened, as the days grew shorter and the guessing game and innuendo had become too much. I was very aware how she was pursued by lots of guys, and how she saw them as nuisances. But I felt I was different. I deserved to hear directly from her what the story might be. After weeks of deliberating with quickened heartbeat, I decided to call.
Her roommate answered, eager to screen this attempt. I told her I knew she was there, that it was an emergency, that I HAD to talk to her. My verbal pleading worked. She got on.
"We need to talk."
"We do?"
"You’d be doing me a favor. Can we meet in an hour at the flagpole in the middle of campus?"
"I have so much work. It’s really not a convenient time."
"Can’t you inconvenience yourself once on my behalf?"
The silence seemed to stretch for ages.
"Okay," she said. "See you in an hour."

The day was cold and dry, the air unnaturally clear, the snow reflecting the late afternoon’s sun. In my mind it was Humphrey Bogart meeting Ingrid Bergman. Sharp winds stung the part of my face the scarf ignored. I fully expected to be stood up. Then I saw her climbing the hill from her dormitory.
We exchanged a silent greeting through the bulk of our clothing, and walked together toward the empty football field. Though my heart was beating in my throat, I managed to tell her my feelings. She seemed flattered (yet not surprised), but wanted to speak her mind too.
Her story seemed a stock one, simple enough: bad timing. Coming off a really sour dependent relationship that had lasted four years, she’d been hurt badly. The last thing she wanted now was another relationship.
I took it all in, then argued on, rallying in defense that we could be different. I presented my case, even reducing it to listing all the interests we shared. In essence, I described the very foundation of my dreams in what I thought was a most moving way.
She said no.
Sensing imminent loss, I proposed the dreaded alternative.
"Can’t we at least be friends?"
She said "With you it could never be just friendship."
I took that as a compliment, my bruised ego grasping for anything. She went on to say all the right lines, as if I had written them for her.
"You’re a special person. I’m flattered. And were it another time, another place, things might be different."
It was a movie of my life, a romantic scene of heartbreak, something that would play again and again in memory’s theater.
"Maybe then I could be who you want me to be. And I’d be able to respond the way you want."

When we parted ways, I think I loved her more than ever. She wasn’t rejecting me. It was timing. I heard her story and fell for it. I admired her honesty, her forthright attitude, her easy way of discussing emotional matters. She must care, I told myself, to throw her work aside and brave the cold simply because I’d asked.

Back in the warmth of my room, nagging doubts crept in: was she telling the truth or only responding the way a normal person would when confronted with a pathetic emotional train wreck? I wanted to think the best.

A few months later I learned she was "going out" with someone. I tried hard not to panic. He was another freshman, not even some upper classman. I told myself it wasn’t true. After all, I knew what she’d said.
Yet it was. She was with him, despite what seemed obvious: that the two of us would be a far better match. All the hurt I’d held in check came back full force. Naivety transformed into ugly jealousy. I lay awake at night trying to figure out why it wasn’t me. Everything she’d said was probably no more than her being polite and I hadn’t known it.

From a distance, she caused me more pain than any I’d ever known. I had made her into some goddess and as such, I’d also given her the power to strike me down. The real woman was oblivious, perhaps even happy in this new relationship. For me, it didn’t matter. The fantasy woman left me heartbroken and eager for revenge. I hadn’t yet learned that when the world stops revolving around you, it manages still to spin on.
Gary Glauber – © December 2003
gigwords@optonline.net
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