SharpNose's Journal: The College Girlfriend (Part 2)

Love and/or sex can make you look past someone's flaws, but no amount of love or sex - especially the lame sex that we had - could make Sara's flaws invisible:

Pushy - told everyone, in every circumstance, what they should do about everything. One day, we were driving around in my car (she had a banger Chevelle but we'd go around in the Camaro with the T-tops off) and she told me what shortcut I should have taken one time too many, and I got after her about it. I said, look, does it really matter that much? This was a big town with roads going every which way; you could spend your whole life finding shortcuts beteen any given point A and point B. She backed down after that, but geez, it was annoying.

Tactless - Sara's father was a professor. Now, most people, when especially good fortune comes their way, have the class to soft-pedal it. Not Sara. She'd lord the faculty parking sticker on her Chevelle over people whenever the subject of parking came up, with was often, because parking on campus was notoriously shitty (an aside: they tore up some tennis courts on campus to build a multi-level parking deck to the relief of all, only to reserve it for athletic functions - turned out the bottom level of the parking deck flooded every time there was a good rain, and I think it still does to this day). It's not good to see the look in people's eyes when they'd like to slap your girlfriend.

Selfish - this really showed up in bed. All of the moves that I would have unleashed on Elvira got unleashed on Sara that first night, but we had a problem. I wasn't expecting to get laid, so I didn't have any condoms and, in fact, had never bought any in my life, which should come as no surprise to the regular reader. At this point in time, you generally didn't need to worry about STDs (especially incurable ones that would eventually kill you) if you were young, straight, and didn't have sex with a LOT of partners, so there was a bit of hide-the-sausage. Eventually, she was on top and we were going to do the pull-out trick, but when the time came, I pulled out...and she did nothing. And I couldn't reach it because she was in the way. First ever fuck and I lost the orgasm. This and other circumstances to follow (that I won't go into) got things to the point where when we fooled around, I couldn't get off. This didn't seem to bother her in the least. This didn't keep me from trying to get her off as many times and/or for as long as I could, any way I could. Look, I enjoyed that. You go for years frustrated and invisible and you learn one day that you can just about make a girl pass out?? DON'T EVER GET THAT DESPERATE, GUYS!! That one-way street is hard to get away from.

Childish - Look, even my wife and I have a certain kind of "baby talk" we've always done with each other. It's not so "baby" that you'd vomit if you heard it; it's like what a nine-year-old might do. Couples do that as a way to share vulnerability and even to express thoughts or sentiments that would seem out of character if you did it in their usual comportment. And, for our part, back when we were first married, we had a small Coca-Cola polar bear that was "our bear" and I'd "animate" Bianca (that was my wife's name for the bear) for our amusement (we still have Bianca, but we don't mess with Bianca much especially because we have a daughter now). So, you might imagine that I'd be pretty tolerant of a college-aged girl having a teddy bear, and you'd be right. Except, if the teddy bear got rolled on accidentally, she'd get all put out. That was a little much. She also made me this needlepoint thing and framed it - it said "With this rainbow I give you my heart" - which was kind of sweet although the rainbow wasn't an arc, it was straight parallel lines with a 45-degree kink in it.

Gluttonous - Toward the end, there, I was basically in a state of toleration toward Sara. She was for all intents and purposes living with me; she had a key, she had a drawer in my dresser. She also had a dorm room, but she was rarely ever there. She was paying me no rent, was riding shotgun in my T-top Camaro, and every so often had to endure orgasm after orgasm in my bed. Sounds pretty sweet, huh? Anyway, one night, Robe came over to do a lab report or something with me, and Sara was there. Incredibly, she downed a whole bag of Double Stuf Oreos while Robe was there and - this is bad, okay? - while we were in the kitchen working, Robe and I were also drawing this picture of a pig and pushing it back and forth, adding to it each time. It probably wasn't a good idea to let Sara see it.

Toward the end, I was a bit of a dog and I did have a lightweight encounter with the Backrub Bitch (she who would years later say "We were kids). That's why I was late to pick up Sara at the airport the night of said encounter, and when I finally got there, the whiny "where WERE you??" that I got the instant she saw me after not seeing me for nearly a week just set me off. I wasn't THAT late - maybe 20-30 minutes - but she immediately saw from the look in my eyes that I was hurt. It really hit me that to her, I was The Ride (in more ways that one) more than anything else. Yes, I was a dog, and I am not proud of my duplicity for trying to start a relationship with someone else without having the stones to end the one I was in, but I must again point to the desperate state of mind, which DOES NOT LEAVE YOU when you finally start seeing someone. You fight for months or years to get into a relationship - any relationship if the ones you want don't pan out - and even if it sucks, you won't leave it because it's better than the sorry state of being alone. You want to get off the road, but you hold out for that nice, seamless cloverleaf.

By the last couple of weeks of my last quarter in college, the Summer of 1985, I was pretty busy, as was Sara. I was trying to avoid failing my Engineering Economics class - which I was only going to be able to do by acing the final. Anyway, once finals week rolled around, the day came when I was Done. No more school business. Ever. That was really when graduating from college hit me. I remember lying in bed one night, by myself, unable to sleep. Finally at about 1AM, I called Robe in his dorm room. He couldn't sleep either.

The night before the graduation ceremony, Sara came over and something she said or did (I don't remember) made things come to a head and I very nervously broke up with her. I seem to remember that some time earlier, I asked her to move out, and she cried and as she cried, I told her I was sorry and I stroked her hair and held her. But, by this point, I was too used up and too disoriented (what with graduating and all that that meant) to be that loving. She wasn't as emotional either. I do remember that she said something to the effect of her parents thought that we'd get married someday. My clever but rather heartless response was that I hope they didn't go ahead and get silverware engraved.

My response may have been heartless but it was an understandable result of feeling pushed along in the whole relationship. I've got one picture of the two of us together; I think it was taken by my mother the night before graduation, hours before I dusted Sara, in the hotel room my family was staying in. They took me to dinner later but Sara couldn't stay for some reason, but she came by the room first; I think that was the only time she met my family. My mother took the picture. In it, I am sitting on the couch in the hotel room and Sara is sitting on it too, back toward me and leaning on me, smiling at the camera. I'm facing straight ahead and the look on my face conveys embarassment and fear.

My see-you-most-every-day-but-don't-touch-me relationship with Elvira is what had my attention from that point on for the almost six months I would remain in that apartment. Sara did come over one time, but it was a very platonic visit. I showed her my concert video of the group Asia and I showed off the used synthesizer I had bought (I seem to have reverted back to that "care about what I do if you won't care about me" thing). She said that she now thought Bruce Springsteen was "hunky." I had brought her away from Air Supply to Asia, Rush, and King Crimson but now, with some time away from me and time with her buddies at the fraternity she was a little sister at, she had conformed as necessary (to her minor credit, she all but abandoned the little sister gig while we were involved with each other).

I saw her again maybe two years later, at a Homecoming Weekend function. She had married this guy she knew from the fraternity and they moved to Minnesota. Her ass was as wide as two basketballs, and I said to myself, there but for the grace of God would I have gone.

We had no further contact. Information I have come across indicates that she and her husband still live in Missouri and that they have kids. Google showed that Sara and her husband are active in homebrewing clubs. Thanks to Google, I came across a picture of her with a group of people at some homebrewing function and even though her back was to the camera and there was no caption explaining who was who, her thin ponytailed hair was, to me, unmistakable. It appears that she now weighs no less than three hundred pounds.

In October 2002, it seemed as though we might meet again at a band alunmi function that Homecoming Weekend - the first one I hade attended in a great many years. I was not looking forward to seeing her and I was angry about her selfishness and how it cost me even in subsequent relationships. I felt like ignoring her or being rather nasty to her. But - and I will try to tell this story in full some other time - I had an epiphany that weekend that changed my thinking.

She may weigh over 300 now, but there are a few people alive who experienced her when she was shapely, smooth, and horny, and was capable of real sweetness. She was the first person to really go out of their way for me on Valentine's day (although there was a meaningful incident in high school that I will try to describe later). I don't know what all the hell made her so selfish and immature, and it doesn't matter. In her limited way, she loved me as much as she had ever loved anyone, and she seemed perfectly willing to be my wife.

As (I hope) my last e-mail to Elvira showed, you can't just go on hating people; it chews you up inside and it makes you crazy. For longer-term relationships like the ones I had with Sara and Elvira, you adapt, and the adaptations are so ingrained that you cannot consciously change them or reason with yourself about them. That's a serious problem and it goes a long way to explain why women that are getting beaten and cheated on keep coming back and/or hooking up with guys that treat them the exact same way. When time passes and you're able to do something to stop holding these Twisted Wrecks in your mind in the same light, you've got a prayer of having the adaptations fade away.