The Year For Love

My roommate, Erin, believes in me.

Well she does usually, but at the very least she accepts me. As all good roommates should.

For me, Erin doesn’t fall under the friend category. A relationship with your roommate can blossom into a beautiful life long bond or transform your home into a battlefield where lines are clearly drawn and never crossed.  Think about it: someone who has a backstage pass to your life-uncensored. They know your sleeping patterns, lies you tell your mom on the phone, what you look like naked, your midnight snack of preference, the unmentionables (things said whilst intoxicated, who you left the party with, embarrassing photos , videos, recordings etc.), they know it all. So to have a person with all of this potential black mail who isn’t a blood relative, childhood friend, or significant other BELIEVE in you is (certainly in my case) INCREDIBLE.

My history with mankind is about a colorfully awkward as RuPaul’s wig collection. So when I blurted my thoughts on the years potential romantic possibilities out loud for the first time- they materialized on Erin’s face in a confused pout.

If you’re an American girl born between the years 1980 and 1995 this is the shape your face took when you saw Britney all over the news in 2007.

She was bald. She was using an umbrella as a weapon. She had lost it.

Everyone judged at first, and rightfully so.  I mean, wasn’t that when the term “hot mess” was created? But after a few days of the never ending breakdown play by play, you remembered Britney. The girl who was lucky and was the brightest star. She would eventually be stronger than yesterday. Hey, sometimes we run, sometimes we hide, and we might be scared. We had to confess, we still believed….in our Britney.

And as if she had just scanned through my greatest hits, Erin’s pout softened into a warm smile.

“I think you’re right about this year. It’s time.”

I took her support as a sign I wasn’t crazy.

I desperately wanted love for, Erin. I spent most of my first year trying to coax her away from the guy she was with. He was bad, the worst. Everyone, including Erin, knew it. She just couldn’t help herself.

(Note: A “just can’t help it” romance means exactly that. IT CANNOT BE HELPED. Not by you, not by their parents, not by Dr. Phil.  Any and most everyone can and will succumb to it. So before you gather your friends and stage an intervention let me give you some advice: It’s like the flu-you have to let it run its course. Stick with your friend when they’re convinced that dirt-bag piece of shit has traded in his bad attitude for one way ticket to commitment-ville. Smile, and wait. Because when that ticket is swapped for a roundtrip to whore-town and your friends left with nothing but a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and you…things will become clearer. It may get as ugly and redundant as ‘Call Me Maybe’ but trust that your pal will come around, dump his ass, and thank you. The “I told you so” is optional.)

She loved with a guarded heart. So when certain misters knocked on the front door, they were politely turned away. She was afraid of letting someone in only to destroy her. But they problem with guarding is not everyone knocks. She was so focused on protecting herself up front that when he who must never be named broke in through a back window she didn’t see it coming. She was defenseless and in denial.

My mom met my dad when she was nineteen. Sure she didn’t know almost thirty years later they would be married with two kids when he hit on her at a Hardee’s , of all places, but that’s what happened.

So naturally, when I was eight months deep into my nineteenth year of life and still single- I felt- well:

Like a barren milk maid with one tooth who was slowly going blind from all the meticulous farm work she did my candle light in her dank, creaky cabin in the woods. Whose sole companion happened to be a billy goat (probably named Gerald) who spat at her and tried to bite her every time she attempted to pet him. But she loved him anyway.

(reminder: I’m a drama major)

I was home sulking,( I had just returned from summer camp in a tiny beautiful town in Colorado)and mourning the loss of my  camp crush. Who, I was warned, would vanish after camp. It was the natural order of summer flings, right? That was until BOTH of my good friends returned home with tank-top tan, bug bites everywhere and  camp crushes turned commited boyfriends.  So my inner voice at this point:

It’s gotta be me. No, I just always go for the assholes. Maybe I’m intimidating. Am I too easy to get? No it’s totally them-not me. Well maybe it is me…Damn. It is me, isn’t it? How come no one told me I was undateable. Isn’t that what friends are for. No calm down, it’s 100% them. Boys are the worst. They suck and their clueless. Hate them. I need to spend time on me anyway. I LOVE ME. I HATE BOYS. I’d rather be single. Where’s Oprah when you need her? Where’s Tyra? Is GirlCode on? Help…

I was in the thick of the quintessential female slump.

teenaged and single.

And although majority of my friend base was made up of similarly single girls, I felt like Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon. No one could possibly understand what I was experiencing; I was forging through undiscovered territory, alone.  

      I bet the fifties was a great time for an American twenty-something.  Someone was bound to like you enough to want to sit across from you at a restaurant and watch you eat food they’d end up paying for. It all seems so peachy and…easy. You hop in your poodle skirt and Billy (or whoever the fuck) picks you up in his convertible. You swing on by the soda shop and sip on some root beer floats. And hey! Maybe he’ll give you a nickel to put in the jukebox so you can play your favorite song.  Then he takes you home walks you to the door and say he thinks you’re “swell” or “neat-o” or he’s “keen on you”.  You go on a couple more dates to drive ins, and diners, and dances and before you know it he asks you if you WANT to go steady with him. And he gives you his class ring, or his letterman jacket and BOOM. COMMITMENT. 

    Now, you stalk the shit out of Billy’s facebook profile and scan every photo of him from 2007 to now for red solo cups, embarrassing haircuts, and the ghosts of girlfriends past.  And Billy probably asked you out via text or facebook message. Something like: we should hang out  ;) 

DON’T WORRY, I DON’T KNOW HOW THE WINKY FACE BECAME THE UNIVERSAL SIGN FOR INSERT ROMANCE HERE, EITHER.

   Then you meet Billy at a Starbucks and you sit and talk about things you already knew about him from going all Nancy Drew on his online persona. Only to realize this outing wasn’t a date… you were just “hanging out”.