So….so far my dating life has been
quite interesting. With Josh in
and out of my life faster than a hooker in heat (too soon?), I was quite
frustrated. I just could not
figure out what was wrong with me when it came to dating. A question that follows me up to this
exact moment I am writing this book.
I began to get very annoying to Elle and Ana about finding me a man, but
every one I was set up on a date with was worst than the last (Moley was
starting to look really good at this point). Days turned to weeks and nothing. Until one fateful Thursday night (ok maybe not fateful, but
it seemed like a dramatic way to end this paragraph which turns out to be not
very dramatic because I’m adding this explanation at the end of it. Oh well I tried).
So every Thursday became a
tradition of mine and the girls of going to one of the only gay clubs in
downtown Denver. Oh I’m from
Denver by the way. Go Rockies, the
best football team this side of the Mississippi. The place was called Dream,
and for those of you who live in Denver and don’t know what the hell I’m
talking about, this magical place is now called Tracks. That’s
how old I feel, old enough to have the club I hung out in high school renamed
because it was out dated. So Dream was one of the only gay clubs that
had an 18 and over night and that was Thursdays. Now since my mother is ever so supportive, she agreed to let
me go to the club every Thursday night as long as I got up for school the next
morning, I could not miss a Friday ever due to it. And I never did. (And on the 8th day God created
mothers to support their gay sons).
So Ana and I happened to be at the club that night doing our
choreographed dance to Barbie Girl
when a young guy came up to me and started to dance with me. He was on the shorter side, thin, and
cute in the nerdy way. I mean this
in the most loving way possible. I
mean he dressed well but lets face it.
He was a nerd. So as the
two of us danced one thing lead to another and we were making out. Now I don’t know what came over me
because I am NOT that type of gay where I end up making out with a random dude
at a club. I mean ever since the
time a guy started putting his hands in places that were not welcome, I was
very wary of any physical contact on the dance floor until then. But we made out nonetheless. As the night went on we started talking
and I found out his name was Sam.
Not too be confused with my mothers chocolate lab, but I digress. So Sam was 19 in his first year of
college at CU Boulder. We chatted
for sometime and ended up exchanging numbers and I left because I had an
economics test in the morning. I
never call first…He called the next day.
We chatted up on the phone for the next couple weeks and didn’t meet up
for awhile just so I could make sure he was not a psycho. But lets make a list: For sure gay?
Check. No moles on the face?
Check. Single? Check. Gay? Check (Because somehow that had become double as
important.). So it may not be a
lot of criteria, but he met all of my criteria.
Now Sam lived in this faraway land called Boulder. It was about an hour maybe an hour and
a half away from my house but since he did not have a car I decided that I
could make the trip so we made plans for me to come over that weekend. So that Saturday I hopped in my good
ole 1984 Blue Volvo that thank god had a CD player, put in A Chorus Line (yep it’s true), and headed to this far off
place. So apparently Sam was still
trying to make sure I wasn’t psycho (something no one to this day has figured
out), and we started off the day with his roommate and best friend we shall
call him John. They welcomed me
graciously into their home and showed me their very nerdy belongings (yes his
room mate was just as nerdy) from game systems to trumpets to some random dance
they like to do which I have blocked out.
Now when I am first meeting people, it is hard to believe but I am very
shy and don’t speak much and since I had no Ana or Elle as a security blanket,
I was extra careful. But we decided that the plan for the day was to go on a
hike, come back have some dinner, and then go from there. Now I am not really an outdoors
activity kind of person. Don’t get
me wrong, I love nature but I’m not really one to go out and hike in it, my
mother used to be the same way but she then became a traitor and now loves
it. I think I still have my sister
Jessica on my side though, who is the girl who went out in the woods in
stiletto heels. But again I
digress. So Sam, John, and I went
out to go on a hike, me of course in the wrong shoes. We hiked for entirely too long. Long enough that my hair went from spiked up in front and
cute to dry, frizzy, and looking like a toy troll.
On this hike, the three of us had a
nice conversation for the most part until came up the topic of life after high
school (for all my musical theatre nerds out there). For some reason, because at this point I had already been
accepted to school in NYC, they were very negative about it. They said I shouldn’t go because it was
too far away and I would be on my own and probably wouldn’t be able to handle
it and I should think about going to CU Boulder and all this stuff. They basically made it seem because
they were 1 year (and in Johns case 2 years) my seniors that they knew SO much
more about the world than I did.
It really bugged me but I let it pass because I didn’t really know them
that well. Finally after we got
all the way up this freakishly large mountain (it may have been a hill) we
headed back down to go to their apartment and have dinner.
His roommate made a nice dinner of
Ham with baby carrots and a nice pineapple glaze (this was obviously before I
became a vegetarian and was ok with eating Babe). It was delicious. After awhile minutes turned to hours
and suddenly Sam and I were alone in his room. Now before I get started on this next part let me ease all
your minds that this book is not at all about sex. I never had any intention of it becoming that, but since sex
is part of every adult relationship it is bound to come up. But because I don’t want to make anyone
super uncomfortable, mostly my mother, I will make sure I write it in the
classiest way possible…We did it as dirty and wild as two ravaging animals in
the wilderness. Kidding. So this wasn’t my first time having
sex, it’s funny because I didn’t decide to include that first time in this book
because honestly it had no emotional attachment to me in the least bit and
since this book is about relationships and not sex, I decided to leave it
out. But we did have sex which was
nice in it’s own right, but it was in the dark which with your first time with
someone, can seem a little impersonal because this is the first time you have
been naked with one another. Now I
had had sex before but I was in no way an expert (Except with myself. I will forever be my best sexual
partner for myself. Don’t roll
your eyes) but let me share with you my trick of the trade. My gimmick. Ok how do I put this in a way that
won’t be too uncomfortable for all of you? Ok so let us call men microwaves (shut up it’s all I can
think of). So when you turn on a
microwave (no pun intended) it cooks for the proper amount of time and then the
bell goes off and you are done. In
men’s case when they are “done” things happen. So my way when I was first having sex to not let the bell go
off before the proper amount of time, was that all during sex I would sing the
entire CD to A Chorus Line. Yep. From “I Hope I Get It” to the “One Reprise.” I had that damn
CD memorized and hell yes I was going to use it to my advantage! But because A Chorus Line is not a particularly long show especially on CD, it
was usually the proper amount of time. So there you go.
You know the secret, use this information, as you will. The night was nice, but because I was
still kind of an obsessively compulsive clean person at this time in my life, I
showered immediately afterwards.
It’s funny because I then called my mother and told her I was sleeping
over, the very first time ever I had slept over at a guys. She told me that was fine as long as I
was home in time for The Amazing Race the
next day.
So because of Sam and his distance,
we didn’t see each other until the next weekend. It was a Saturday again but this time because I had stuff to
do that weekend, I was unable to stay over that night. So obviously we got busy during the
day. Now remember I had not
actually seen Sam naked. The last
weekend it was all in the dark.
This day, however, was the first time I actually saw him. He had is shirt and pants off and at
first I didn’t notice anything weird, but then I got a little closer and I
noticed them. All over his chest and on his legs were scars. Scars large and small which were the result
of him cutting himself. I didn’t
say anything. I mean what do you
say? We did what we did and I of
course took a shower and we hung out in the living room and watched a movie
until I had to leave. I was still
in shock. I mean I didn’t know
whether or not I should ask about what I saw or just pretend that I didn’t
notice them. I mean you could
CLEARLY notice them. They did not
make him any less attractive in any way but they were very noticeable. To my relief, he brought them up. “So I’m sure you noticed my
scars.” I replied with “Oh…I mean
yeah, but I mean they didn’t bother me.”
He said, “Yeah, I’m a cutter.” He then went into an explanation about
how they came to be. About how he
was sexually abused a couple years prior and how he was basically an outcast
with his family and how all of this built up made him very emotionally
unstable. I asked him a question that probably was none of my business. “Do you still cut yourself?” And he
replied with a simple “Yes.”
I mean this was a lot to think
about. I mean obviously I had
never been in this position before.
I did what I do best. I put
it in the back of my mind and forgot about it. We went on with our lives for the next month or so; I went
to his place about every weekend.
He did meet my mother, which went well (usually anytime my mother meets
any of my boys it goes well, it’s my sister you need to worry about). When he met my mother he brought her a
batch of homemade cookies in his own personal Tupperware. He even came to my high school
graduation party where he met some other members of my life. So far, I guess so good.
One thing I started to realize over
the next month was that Sam was not only emotionally unstable. He was downright angry and
insecure. We began to have fights
about little things, things that normal people don’t fight about (at least not
this early in a relationship). He
would get mad at me for not calling him right away. We would fight about New York. We would fight because I borrowed his shirt and forgot to
bring it back. We fought because
he thought he knew so much more about life than I did. I mean all of these things in my
opinion were just stupid. But that
didn’t stop him from fighting over them.
One day I was coming over to his place, I don’t remember what day it was
because at this point I had graduated high school so it was the beginning of
summer. I had told him that I was
going to be at his place by noon that day. We didn’t have anything really planned; we were just going
to hang out. Well that morning for
some reason I had a lot of things to do.
I had to run some errands, stop at work, and clean up some stuff, so I
didn’t really get on the road until a little after eleven. I mean I didn’t think anything of
it. So I was a little late, I mean
there shouldn’t be that much of an issue.
I traveled again to Boulder but unfortunately I got stuck in a little
bit of traffic, and not only that but my phone had died because I forgot to
charge it the night before. So I
finally pulled up to Sam’s apartment at 1:05pm. I got out of my car and because they were usually fine with
it, I walked in. Sam was sitting
on the couch. “I’m sorry, I’m
sorry. I got behind today and my phone died,” I said. Sam got up slowly and
said, “You know what Jeremy, you completely lack respect. I mean when someone tells me that they
are going to be here at noon I EXPECT him or her to be here at noon. And how irresponsible do you have to be
to not charge your phone when you know you will need it the next day? I mean what do I expect, you are so
young and you have no idea what it feels like to be an adult. I don’t even know why I waste my
time.” I just stood there for a
second before I responded with, “Are you fucking kidding me Sam?! Seriously,
get off your high horse; you are only ONE year older than me! That doesn’t make
you any more aware of being an adult than I do! I told you I was sorry and
that’s all I can say.” He responded with, “Maybe you are just not ready for a
relationship, because I may be only a year older than you, but I am FAR more
advanced than you and at least I have my life and all my shit together!” I lashed back with, “What the hell are
you talking about?! You can’t even go a bad day without cutting yourself to
ease the pain. If that’s having
your life together than I don’t want my life to be together in any way like
yours is!” I regretted it as soon
as the words left my mouth.
Apparently that didn’t show on my face because he came right up to me
and hit me full force across the face.
I stood there for a moment with my hand placed on the spot where he hit
me feeling the skin sting underneath it.
At first I wanted to cry, and then I turned and started to walk towards
the door. He grabbed my arm and
with as much force as I could muster I pushed him off of me, walked out the
door, got in my car and drove home.
Days went by and my phone kept
getting overrun with text messages and voicemails from Sam expressing his
apologies. I never returned them. Days turned to weeks and the messages became
fewer and fewer. I mean, I was
angry. No one should ever have to
experience that, but that is what we do naturally. As humans I mean.
We react based off of our emotions, it can be a very great but also a very
dangerous thing. Sometimes
we get so emotional that we just react because of them. Maybe that’s what Sam did, but I was
young, I didn’t know how to deal with it.
So again, I did what I did best, I put Sam in the back of my mind, and
closed him there and forgot him.
Not the healthiest thing to do, but I did it nonetheless. So the calls stopped for a while but
they started to resume again, this time with no voicemails following them. So I again ignored them, and then my
mother called me. She started
with, “So Sam called me today.” Does this boy never give up? I responded with,
“Oh yeah, what did he want?”
“Well,” she said. “He says
he is very upset because you never returned his t-shirt and he wants his
Tupperware back.” I replied with, “Screw him and his Tupperware!”
Sam never really came up in my
conversations after that point, except for one time after I moved to New York
and he again called my mother and told her that he was vacationing in New York
soon and wanted to see me. I
refused. At this point I had moved
on and I didn’t want to deal with that.
I mean, I’m sure Sam was hurt when I never called him after the day he
hit me, because obviously he cared for me due to the fact that weeks later he
was still trying to get a hold of me and apologize. Did I come across rude and insensitive not really closing
the situation? Yes of course. I mean you don’t think that looking
back I can’t help but think that every day during that time that I didn’t call
Sam that he would cut himself? Of
course I do, and to this day I can’t help but feeling guilty about it. But I can’t change the past. I can only look back on it hoping that
Sam moved on with his life as I did. That he was able to find a different
outlet than the unhealthy one he had for so many years. That he was able to find someone to
love and share a life with as I hope to.
I also hope he got new Tupperware.
I hope for that most of all.
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