I Can't Have You the Way That I Want

Do you remember the first time you fell in love?

Was it anything like the movies, where you look across a room and connect eyes with a beautiful stranger? Suddenly you see that person everywhere, even in the middle of a crowded room when it makes no sense but you do. They're falling as hard as you are. You're the only one that can make them blush.

I convinced myself at a very young age that love was not real. It was all fictional -- something created by Hollywood to sell movies. I convinced myself during those formative years of my life that I was not meant to be happy. I wasn't interested in relationships or boyfriends.

But as my friends started maturing and becoming more romantically involved, I started to feel behind. I was behind in all aspects of high school romance, but I was trying to convince myself and everyone else that it was because I didn't want a boyfriend. I wanted to be single.

I carried that mindset to college, where by this point it was humiliating to be so behind all of my boy-crazed friends. I keep telling them and myself that I don't want a relationship to tie me down while I'm still young, or to define my college experience. Someone told me that a healthy relationship wouldn't define my whole experience, it would just be a part of it. That's true. But that defeats my logic so sometimes I just pretend she never said that.

And I still can't seem to figure out why my brain is trying so desperately to teach my heart a language it won't understand. Today, was my last day of classes -- a happy occasion! (That doesn't actually feel like a happy occasion, but that's a completely different blog post all together.) My film class went to eat "dinner" at a nice restaurant in the city. We walked there and we walked back. I ended up walking back with the boy I've been kind of fancying for the past sixteen weeks of the semester. Our class only met once a week. It was easy to think I wanted him for that 2 hour and 45 minute segment, and then forget about him for the rest of the week.

But I knew I wanted him. In what capacity, I think I'll keep to myself. I also knew I couldn't have him. He's a senior and I'm a first semester senior. He's graduating in May and I'm graduating in December. He's leaving and I'm staying. I think I always knew I could never have him.

So I wanted him. Have you ever wanted someone so much, despite the fact that you can't have them? Pretty much every romance in my life.

And today, walking home with him and talking to him was something different for me. I was so busy trying to keep cool and sound interesting/not shy that I was too focused on asking him questions about his post-grad and future plans. I should've asked him about the city he was moving to - because I want to move there post-grad. I should've talked more about my opinions, instead of asking him about his own. You know. All the stuff I criticize my friends for doing when they talk to boys.

He walked with me the entire way. Even when he stopped to pick up his bike, he walked his bike with me as we talked instead of saying hey, I've got a bike so I'm gonna go. Have a great semester! He actually asked if I wanted to wait while he went to grab it and walk it with me. It was a ratty bike. Probably 90% rust, 10% bike. He asked me to guess how old it was. I said 5 years. I was convinced it was a trick question. He was like, you're way off and then told me it was 43 years old. I should've told him that I thought it was a trick question - but then doesn't that sound lame?

When we parted ways he said to keep in touch. I crossed the street, looked behind me once or twice to see him pedaling away. And then I giggled. I couldn't stop smiling. I wanted to tell everyone I knew about this! But that would destroy my reputation: I don't care about boys. I want to break their hearts. Men are trash.

I ended up only telling one friend. We decided I should friend him on Facebook so things can escalate to Instagram. Keep in touch. I'm still kind of smiling about this.

Cut to me having to go to work.

I work at an arena on my university campus, so there was a concert tonight. I ended up seeing another boy from another one of my once a week classes that I convinced myself I could be into. He was with a very pretty girl and showed me their tickets. I might be a dumb bitch, but I can connect the dots.

It wasn't that I was sad over him, a missed opportunity. It was that I felt so conflicted in that moment, staring at them and thinking about Bike Boy. Bike Boy and I probably aren't compatible. We probably don't even have that much in common. But I couldn't help myself from wanting something so simple as that. Someone to go to a concert with and smile at me and hold my hand. To appreciate me getting dressed up and pretty, excited to go see an artist that I really like.

Friends are great, friends are fun.

But I do want something more than a friend. My heart wants the attention from someone I've been craving and the affection I've always denied myself, feeling like once they get to know me they're going to realize I'm not even remotely interesting. But I don't think my brain understands that. Do you ever feel too scared of rejection to even put yourself out there seriously?

I wish I had a young summer fling, a young love in high school where we could leave class to pretend we were in the bathroom and walk around the hallway talking. I wish I never ghosted certain boys to only want them more when they paraded their girlfriends to the world. But I wish most of all, that I knew what was wrong with me.