I am Single, so Here is a Retrospective

Daily writing prompt

How did you meet your significant other?

Ryan
- We went to different middle schools, but attended the same band camp at University of Texas at Austin. I was a trumpet player, he was a tuba player. We have a ton of friends in common, but I have absolutely no idea what made him look at me that way. And I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life, because in me, he saw a woman he wanted to be with. In him, I saw the man I wanted to be. We click like white on rice because I mask him all the time in my head. However, he is much warmer and kinder than I am. But the funniest thing about the way we officially met in the middle of the mess is that I had never shaved my legs before. I was bleeding. This beautiful boy walks up to me and says, “hi. I’m Ryan Darlington. You look like you could use a Band-Aid.” It’s one of my father’s favorite sermon illustrations.
Meagan
- My best friend Mikal piqued my interest in her for months by talking about her, and I do not mean romantically. It was like Mikal had this Canadian retreat she would not share. It was when I saw Meagan for the first time that I nearly knocked over two desks to talk to her. My English teacher, Dr. Hudel Steed, must have been talking to God before I got to class because she said, “YOU MUST get the phone number of at least one person before you leave this class.” Not only was there someone I was dying to meet diagonally across from me, now I had an assignment. I do not presume that girls want to date me. I presume that I want to date them and let my jewelry do the talking. So, anyway, I approach this girl with a perfectly legitimate reason to exchange phone numbers, but she already had mine………………..Friends, when I was walking in the door to my mother’s apartment that afternoon, the phone was ringing. I picked up, and I hear this voice say a propos of nothing, “do you wear those rainbow rings because you’re gay, or because you’re an idiot?” “Both.” This is to clear up the misconception that I somehow did something to someone’s daughter. That was the vibe back then, and I don’t think you recover from a wound that deep. I think you learn to live around it. It was a rough scar to leave on a kid, and it had nothing to do with Meagan herself. The way her parents treated me was wrong, but it was also a product of its time.
Kathleen
- We met at University of Houston, but I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I do remember having to call the police when her ex-girlfriend showed up relatively shortly afterward. She wanted to talk to Kat so bad that she punched through a glass door and then was surprised when we called the police instead of excusing her behavior. The hard no was “please leave, we do not want to talk to you” about 30 minutes ago. My relationship with Kat was never healthy, so I’ve blocked most of it out. I do not remember her fondly because she didn’t just break up with me. She waited until I was out of town for my mother’s wedding and slept with like three people just to make it ugly. There’s a way to make a point without even having to make it three times, okkkkkkk. I wasn’t an angel, I was in CPTSD hell and I did not know it. But what I do know is that I have never felt so much enmity toward someone that I needed to hurt them that bad.
Dana
- My relationship with Dana was funny, rare, and special. I don’t want to rehash it. I will just link you up. It is my most famous article to date, and people still read it. I was retweeted by Margaret Cho and Martina Navratilova. She’s precious to me, but she doesn’t deserve me anymore. Taking a swing at me only had to happen once, and it’s only taken me until never to realize I didn’t deserve it. I blame myself harshly. The best I can do is put plenty of space between us and hope it works, knowing that my guard dog is out there (pats and kisses her head). Because see, the thing about having a guard dog is that even if they don’t like you, they REALLY don’t like anyone who hurt you.
Zac
- I met his boyfriend, Grayson, at a party and to this day I cannot remember if I met Zac in person that night or if I just think I did. In any case, I reached out to Zac thinking that he was single because I did not know that was Grayson’s boyfriend. It wasn’t an issue because Zac is poly, anyway. My bravery paid off because not only did I get a genuine “very stable genius,” I really forced myself to grow having to learn to speak “poly.” It remains to be seen how I will handle relationships in the future, because that relationship fit me at that time in my life. My connection to Aada was so all-consuming that being poly gave me a way to breathe. They lived in their own separate compartments and never crossed over…… and absolutely none of this makes sense unless you’ve lived my head, because Aada is not all-consuming. Her life is. Zac focused my talent and my drive back on me, something I dearly needed. And because Zac and Aada have so much in common, I was able to understand Aada and deal with her life better than I could before I met him. The joke that’s not a joke is that Zac is the version of Aada I could tolerate, because she would not create her own image. Having an online relationship that was that deep and that shallow at the same time choked me for air constantly. I didn’t have to chase anything with Zac, because I already understood him. Don’t believe words. Believe actions.
Sam
- We met on Facebook Dating, where I proceeded to make soccer a lot more fun for her because she couldn’t look at her phone without blushing during the games. It had been seven years since I’d dated anyone seriously, and we met at the same time Zac and I did. How we met is not interesting. How we came apart is- I was submarined by emotional unavailability. I told her that I had a first date with someone coming up, but that I’d cancel it if she was threatened. She told me that she was too busy to be threatened, and to have a good time. So, for three weeks we had this amazing relationship until she called me crying while I was on my first date with Zac, breaking up with me while we were having dinner. I was so angry at her for holding in her feelings. How dare she make me feel safe for that long while harboring all these dark thoughts underneath? She at least admitted that she was the one that was threatened and I didn’t try to fix it. I just moved on with my life. I tried to reestablish contact when I actually moved to Baltimore, because I thought we’d be solid friends. But apparently, I was wrong about that and haven’t reached out since.
Lisa
- Lisa saw me on Facebook Dating and instead of messaging me there, Googled everything about me and bypassed Dating to message me directly. This was red flag number one. Red flag number two was when I rearranged my whole morning to meet her for coffee and she blew me off. Nothing about her said, “I want a partner.” Everything about her said, “I am a lawyer and I need a trophy.” None of my preferences mattered, none of my pacing mattered, none of it. Every single conversation felt like she was trying to initiate some sort of power grab, and it felt like being claimed. I wanted to have coffee and see how it went. She was downright offended that I turned down six invitations to concerts coming up because we hadn’t met once. Danger, Will Robinson.