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[Mar. 22nd, 2009|05:36 pm] |
I don't write in this thing anymore, but I need an outlet.
I don't even know what to think about the whole situation. I feel very deceived, and hurt.
I was spending last week trying to coax my friend Camilla into overcoming her fear of relationships ("they always end, and when they do, they end in tears. and I like this person too much to hurt him") by reciting the age old phrase "it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all".
I am not so sure I believe that anymore.
I've had 'relationships' go badly. Some so badly that they didn't really even get a fair chance to start before I smothered them by doing something stupid. I like to say I've lived my life with no regrets. Whatever happened in the past has shaped who I am today, and I'm reasonably okay with who I am now. So all the hurts of the past, whatever, what doesn't kill you make you stronger. You learn. Yeah maybe I would go back an time and switch a few things around, but I don't spend my life looking back and thinking 'if only...'.
I didn't think I would regret St. Patrick's Day night. I didn't regret it the next morning, either. I only regret it now, a few days after the fact. Not because I feel I acted in any way badly, or in a way that I felt comprised who I am or whatever, but because I really truly believed I had made a connection with a person, and then they bugger off and disappear. I fell for this guy... hard. And with every fibre of my being I honestly believed that he felt the same way. I don't believe in this love at first sight crap, but there it happened. Two people meet and have an instant connection. God, I felt I had known him my entire life, I completely trusted him... I am so stupid.
But let's rewind and give you some context shall we?
St Patrick's Day. We are in the student union as drink prices are cheap. I am bored out of my skull, and really pissed off that my friends don't seem to think it's as important as I do to spend the holiday in an actual Irish Pub instead of the union. I have 9am class and am considering just going home, but I manage to convince them to go out to the 3 Sisters, and Irish pub with 3000 capacity - lots of fun music and fun people. Awesome.
I show up, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is playing (the UK is obsessed with this song!) and I sing along very overdramatically with a patron in a green felt Guinness hat. This is my scene. Lots of people, freedom to act a little silly. I'm finally having some fun here.
I hear a voice in a familiar accent. I'll just go on a tangent and say I miss home. I miss American/Canadian boys. I miss how they sound and how they dress and how they act. It's hard to put my finger on what's so different about boys in Scotland, but it's just not the same. I 'get' guys from home. They make me feel comfortable and safe, they laugh at my jokes, they get my pop culture references. I get very excited when I think there's someone from my area around.
So I whip around and say "where are you from?" and I'm face to face with an incredibly handsome man. He flashes me what can only be the world's most perfect smile. I have nice teeth, and always am complimented on them, but this guy's smile lit up the room. There was something very Matt Damon about him. Maybe with a little bit of today's weathered Brad Pitt thrown in. This guy was classic handsome, really really good looking guy. Stunning blue eyes, framed with the kind of wrinkles/smile lines that add character and not age. He was just so hot, in the kind of way that you feel like, "oh my god, I can't believe he's actually talking to me!"
He puts on a Scottish accent and tells me he's from Edinburgh, and my heart sort of sinks. He then jokes that he's living in the castle, and I laugh and play along before he abandons the charade and tells me he grew up in Jersey outside NYC and now lives in D.C. Very respectable pedigree.
His name is Bryan. And he's here with his brother Frank, and their friend (who's name I forget, so let's call him Rick). Rick's also Canadian, and 'from Toronto' and excitedly I ask where. "I'm at Bayview/Yorkmills where do you live?!" and he goes "Whoa, you're giving me a subway station - I'm from Mississauga!" I crack a few jokes about how Mississauga is to Toronto what Jersey is to NYC. All of them are ridiculously nice. They hold my jacket for me and I basically have to argue with them to stop them from buying me drinks. And for those of you who aren't privileged to know great American boys, know that they buy drinks for you just for talking with them. They don't expect you to reciprocate with sexual favours, they are honestly just ridiculously nice and generous guys.
So Bryan is Hollywood gorgeous - but get this, he's also an animal nut. He volunteers at a rescue for abused horses, and acts as a foster parents for unwanted dogs, taking them in only days before they are destined to be destroyed, and trains them and works on behavioural issues to that they can then be adopted into suitable homes. He rescues animals as a hobby! And even better? He's a fucking hockey player. Not only did he play in the top leagues (some of his buddies making it to the NHL draft) but he now coaches the women's hockey team for American U. And he has such an obvious passion for the sport, and dedication to his team. He brags in glowing terms about the spirit of his players, and how they play for the love of the game, instead of being all about ego like men's teams.
Honestly. I am not making any of this up.
The perfect man for me exists. And I just happened to run into him at a bar.
So we talk and hang out, dance a bit and flirt like crazy. People here don't touch you. That sounds weird, but think about it, when you're with your friends, do you touch them while you talk? Lean on them? Give them a bit of a shove for being cheeky? Hug them? Yeah. The UK does not do this. If your knee brushes someone else's when you're seated at a table, they will move their leg so that no body contact whatsoever can exist, even accidental.
Bryan touches me when he talks. It's refreshing. It feels like home. I want to stress that this wasn't sexual or creepy in any way, just like touching someones arm when you lean in to talk to them. It's just nice.
So we eventually start making out. The bar closes and we're wondering the streets, talking, making fun of each other, holding hands, kissing. If I make a particular good joke (actually, even a bad joke) he laughs and smiles in a way that makes his eyes just sparkle, and kisses me, laughing as he whispers "good one!".
So here we are, after 4 in the morning, and finally it boils down to the what we've both been thinking the whole time - your place or mine. I tell him I live in a dorm with a single bed and 3 flat mates, he's staying in a hostel room with 6 guys. He asks me again and again if I'm sure, because I deserve better he says. I'm not just a one night stand kind of girl. "Well," I say, leaning in for a kiss "I guess you'll just have to stay for another night."
So we've both never done this before. Where the hell do we go? Find a hotel, but where? And will they take people at 4am? This should be an awkward situation, but it isn't. I am so comfortable with Bryan that we're just laughing at how ridiculous the whole situation is.
We find a place, and just go upstairs and tear each other's clothes off. We leave the lights on. I'm not really going to go into too much detail, but I got maybe an hour or two of sleep. We were just so into each other and could not take out hands off each other. Endless sex, quick naps, wake up, more sex. Punctuated with makeout sessions and heavy petting of course. This guy makes me feel so good. Usually I have a lot of insecurities being naked in front of a guy, especially a new guy, but they've all just evaporated. He makes me feel like the most gorgeous woman alive, complimenting me, but not in a way that seems at all forced, but just a genuine sigh with a whispered "god, you are so beautiful".
And you know what we talk about post-coital? How the flu virus works, and the immune system in general. We also talk about action movies, and which superhero flicks are the best. We talk about how memory is strongly associated with sound, but most strongly associated with smell. We are total nerds. This guy is just too perfect.
It's the mid-afternoon before we shower and leave, deciding we should probably eat something.
We talk about our families and friends. He just got out of a serious relationship because she wanted to get married and have kids, and he's not there yet. I should probably mention his is 30 and I am 19. Yeah...
But we just walked around the city, ended up at my flat so I could change (running into roomates on the street who gasped "you never came home last night did you!") and making out on my bed. And laughing about how he never expected to be hooking up in a dorm room again.
Then we just wander the city again, just talking. We animatedly discuss philosophy about whether 'it is better to be a man and unhappy than a pig and happy'. We just sit down on a bench and he just holds me and strokes my hair as I cuddle up to him. He kisses my eyelids when I start to doze off...
And then he has to go. I made him miss a plane on Wednesday morning (yeah, I never went to school Wednesday either) so he had to catch one Thurs morning. He goes to catch a bus to the airport, and insists on giving me cab money so that I can get back to my flat. He just refuses to let me walk home alone at 5am. We say a goodbye. Not very memorable, but I didn't think it'd be the last time. He tells me again he gets cheap tickets with the airline as his mum works for them. He promises he'll be back. He takes down my email, we kiss goodbye and I leave.
And I never hear from him again.
Why? Did he sit the 7hours on that plane alone thinking "What the hell was I doing? Obviously I'm just rebounding from getting out of a serious relationship by having a fling with a teenager. This has no future, so who cares if she was an incredible person? I was obviously just executing poor judgement because I'd been drinking. Wow, that's another crazy story I'll recount of my travels"
Did he think it all through and realize how nuts it was? That we just met and fell so ridiculously hard for each other so fast? Did he try to rationalize it? Pretend he didn't feel the way his eyes and his gaze so clearly told me he did?
I have no idea. I can't get him out of my head. It is driving me absolutely crazy. I just want to see him again.
So I acted creepily and googled his name to find his email, and sent him a note this morning. I still haven't heard back. I don't even know.
My flatmate said maybe it's better. We had two perfect days, and I will always remember them as being flawless, so maybe it's better that we never meet again and do anything that could tarnish the memory.
Doesn't promising to visit again and then never even bothering to send an email not tarnish the memory?
I don't know if I prefer having met him, or would have preferred never having met him at all.
Fuck, Bryan, you know we had something. You could at least reply to my email...
I will never meet someone so good looking, and into animals, and into hockey, and as nice, and funny and clever and perfect again. This is the one that got away. |
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