Journal: Elvira, Mistress of the Frigid Bitch (Part 1)

Elvira (NOT her real name) was the prettiest woman I had ever met. Read on and you will see just how little that matters.

I was a freshman at college taking my first quarter of Physics. The Physics building has three cavernous lecture halls, side by side, that can probably hold 200 students each and typically did for this particular offering.

This is one of those people who you remember exactly where you were when you met them. Well, except I don't remember which of the three halls. Anyway, I think I was in the second row from the back and second seat from the left end of the row. Elvira came in some time after I did and sat right next to me, to my left.

Perhaps I should set the stage a little bit before I continue the story. I went to an all-boys' private high school and in part because my parents chose to move to a rural low-education area south of the town I was born in, right before my father died (he was, in fact, terminally ill when the house was being built and never set foot in it after it was completed), I had spent my high school years with very little contact or interaction with girls. [NOTE: ATTENTION ALL PARENTS. Make sure this never happens to your kids.] Near the end of my junior year of high school, I started an intense relationship with a girl that probably 95% of which was conducted over the phone. This relationship would have definitely turned sexual if we had had more access to each other and time alone, but as it was, "third base" was as far as that got. In any case, she broke up with me in December of my senior year of high school. I got started up with someone else at the beginning of a two-week Music Department tour right after I graduated from high school, but that ended in days only to restart and restop several times over the course of the next six or seven years (i.e., even past college) even though we never lived in the same town again. So, when I started at college, with routine contact with and access to girls, I was half mad. I wanted more! However, my early attempts at getting with various girls in my first year at college were fruitless and frustrating and by Spring quarter of my freshman year, I was still desperate for affection but had not yet sunk to the depths of loneliness and hopelessness that I would sink to later. In other words, I thought I was in an ascendant phase as a young man of 18, and I thought that I would enter into bigger and better relationships in short order. Not only was I very wrong about this, but Elvira would help show me how wrong I was, time and time again, like a tour guide.

Sitting in that lecture hall in the Spring of 1982, it was one of those situations where two strangers happen to look at each other at the same time and, in so doing, inadventently disclose to the other that they are looking at them. We smiled at leach other and said hello. Had my relationship with Elvira gone differently, I would probably remember this event of 21 years ago as though it were yesterday. Alas, I remember it like it was 21 years ago and the beginning of a string of events that were mostly frustrating and hurtful and, eventually, ended in ambivalence. Today, the whole thing is just a painful lesson. And, like the Beatles tune says, "I'm telling you so that you won't lose all."

As it was, I don't recall which of us spoke to the other first or how things progressed right after that point. However, I do remember that we got together to work on Physics in her dorm toom, but the only thing I remember about that is following her ass up the stairs. She was wearing light blue jeans with some kind of metal oval on the right hand pocket.

This would probably be a good time to describe what Elvira was like. She looked Latina, and she was in fact born in Venezuela. She was probably about 5'3" and thin. She had large eyes that I think were dark green, set off by somewhat heavy dark eye shadow and mascara. High cheekbones, full lips on a narrow mouth, light skin. When I first met her, her hair was about waist length and dark brown, parted on the side, and straight, although later on, she'd rat it out, which made her an even more striking package. Long waist, short legs. Catlike voice.

Her father had worked in the oil industry and her parents had been divorced for a long time. I didn't really learn much about her childhood or the circumstances of her parents' divorce, although one time she said something about being supposed to be "seen but not heard" when she was a little girl. I got the distinct impression that there was something about her childhood that was not at all good and that she was not interested in discussing. Had I gone through my experiences with Elvira knowing what I know now, I would have tried to draw her out a bit more regarding this topic or, if that wasn't in the offing, I would have moved on. For many reasons, I should have moved on, and not moving on cost me in ways I really wouldn't understand until just in the past few years.

I'm going to jump to the end of the story in part so you know how it ends when you read the middle. So, where is she now? Every four years or so over the past twelve, she looks me up and either writes, calls, or e-mails. in each case, I am presented with a recent history of hyperachievement the likes of which maybe one person in a million can top (Googleability keeps me from elaborating). However, in the follow-up, more detail would come out that would be less positive - chronic medical problems, a house that was slowly disintegrating from the outside in and from the inside out (things of which were not all just bad luck - let me leave it at that). A couple months ago, an e-mail arrived from her. Same pattern. She sent it from her work (Federal Government) address and the first thing I did was ask if she had a personal e-mail account I could reply to. When I finally got an answer, she said no, go ahead, I send/get personal e-mail here all the time.

Okay, so I responded, and I pulled no punches. I updated her on what all had gone on with me, and I also told her honestly how I felt about my relationship with her. Aside from forwarding me some of her spam (i.e., she sent a message to some number of her friends and acquaintances), I never heard back, and that's fine. My candor probably took her by no small surprise. I'll get to my response later.

I believe we had exactly one actual date, very early on. She drove us in her green Corolla to this huge trendy restaurant on the north side of town. We sat in one of those tables that only sat two side by side, which was awkward as crap. I remember that I flicked a cockroach off the table and we did kiss goodnight after she dropped me off.

You have just read about the high point of the relationship.

More later.