Author and Columnist
Firstly, to get this out of the way, the gods are not one bit concerned with bringing people to my webpage. Clinically psychotic obsession is an entirely different story.
You are referring to Emily's ex-boyfriend here, based on things she said and an email sent from a Hotmail address. You deleted this email unread as a show of faith in Emily, which flattered and surprised her.
I wish that you had not. I would love now to know its contents.
Let's pause for a moment to puzzle this curiosity over. How would her ex-boyfriend find your email address? You might confide in the world, but you don't give them contact information.
So, did Emily give her ex-boyfriend your email address? Why would she do that?
Did he glean otherwise how to divine your email address? Why would he even know about your humble blog unless someone (Emily) pointed him in its direction?
Was he the sender of this message?
You are a week into this relationship, and there is this mystery with a common enemy. The solution Emily gives does not satisfy. The most straightforward answer is that she was the email's author. Did you know this at the time?
Tuesday, I skipped class in order to go to the city (this would be NYC, as that is "the city" to everyone in NY) with M because her father had won tickets for her to see Jane Eyre on Broadway and she wish to, not surprisingly, have me as her escort.
This is a good memory. It would have been better if you were not forcing this -- what is it? -- fourth date, but it was still fun to relive.
Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, we are good kids. We spoke at length, full of that passion that intelligent lovers excrete instead of excessive androgens.
You are too florid.
I get the feeling men have been less than courteous to this girl.
No matter doubts in other venues, I will grant this was likely the truth. Emily had a hard life to choose the defenses she did.
On the ride, Emily told me that she thinks that she is in love with me...
She labeled you her boyfriend eight days ago.
The mildest I can put this is that it is not healthy to love a stranger after knowing them for fewer than two weeks.
As M attended to her therapy in Rutherford, I took a dreamless nap upon a sofa, blanketed not-at-all by a Discover Magazine and a Psychology Today.
The meal you mentioned before this, the drive here, are faded beyond paper-thin. This nap is in perfect clarity.
The brain is a funny thing.
Then she, being the atypical typical girlfriend, reminded me what she'd want in an engagement ring.
Eight days. Sure, an idle jewelry store conversation, but hardly a suitable one for a fourth date.
Cute. Not as cute, though, as when she said (much like she had superior scriptwriters implanted in her frontal lobe) "from the moment a little girl puts a toilet paper veil on her head, she is thinking of the day she gets married."
She has excellent screenwriters in her brain.
I recall her denying years later having ever said it. One can decide whether your accounting here or hers years later is the right one.
she found some manner of stereotypical witch hat. She was so adorable. My mouth formed words my brain didn't have a chance to filter and I said, "I love you, Witchipoo." She smiled and shyly said, "I love you, too." So this is how I find out I am in love. Hmm.
Eight days. Eight damned days because you cannot help feeling that you are on some stage, the star of a movie no one is watching and should say the correct line rather than the true statement.
You are not in love, and you absolutely know it. You are a stimulus-response machine, an actor in a play reciting a script he pretends to feel, a twenty-year-old who seems not to know any better but to make the wrong decisions.
As Emily put it, they had affected a very expensive and purposeful messy look. But they were empty. We decided the relationship between them would end when she slept with her accountant once his beauty began to fade.
Your inclusion of this does come off as heavy-handed foreshadowing, given that you are affecting a persona little more authentic than these strangers you disparage.
Emily does not sleep with her accountant but with her sparring partner.
It is important that she notices these things. That she says them. I would much rather be with a women that speaks well than one that is comely.
Are you trying to convince yourself? Emily is a cutie, but you are not attracted to her in the right way.
She does speak well, though -- no denying it.
I didn't much have a question, so I went with, "Will we always be happy?" She shook her hand and said, "You may bet on it."
No. No one is always happy.
Is Emily happy as I write this? She has two kids on whom she dotes, seems to have a strong relationship with her husband (said sparring partner), a taekwondo school, and is finally getting back to training after injuries that debilitated her. I would guess she is happy.
Am I happy? I have eight published books, one soon to be republished after having been worked over by my adorable and adoring wife. I have a job that pays me well, does not mentally tax me, and has technically made me a community college faculty member. I have my mental health usually in check. I do not see friends as often as I would like, but I am otherwise about as happy as I have ever been.
How much can you milk from someone playing a role in a horror-themed restaurant? As though she was going to say, "No, you will be miserable."
Wandering the city a bit more, in search of the theater, I noted that this had been one of the longest and best days of my life, and we hadn't even gotten to the reason we were actually there. This, undoubtedly, is significant.
It's the city. You exist in a low-grade panic whenever you are there, clinging to your guide for fear that you will misplace them and immediately find yourself beset by subway muggers from the 1970s.
New York City is not unfairly called the center of the universe. On any given day, the things one can do border on infinite. So, given that, what have you done today? Therapy, a toy store, dinner, and now a show? It would not make a great movie to watch.
Emily pursued the song books and stated that she had been in something like eleven. She was, as she puts it, one of those annoying child actors.
Maybe this is true. You never cared to verify it.
We were seated next to two rather talkative old women who asked if Jane Eyre was once a movie (it was) and generally chatted away ("Oh, I don't like her, she is just after his money." "She doesn't love him, Jane Eyre does.").
Those are the best people to be seated near when the actions on stage are as silly as this one was.
We left the theater, twisting throughout the crowds in the city and giggling over the play. Gods, in those moments, I felt like I was in a movie. A love story where nothing goes wrong. Everything was so... right. Every word, gesture, person in our way. Exactly as they should have been. I couldn't have written it better (so I am recapping it badly, I am sure.)
Funny how I just said it would not be a great movie. However, in the spirit of fairness to you, I can imagine how this exact scene could be cinematic. Muted sounds and non-diegetic music (depending on the tone of the montage).
Much as I once harped on your fixation on Kate, I sense I am going to transition to picking on you for wanting to craft a life worth watching rather than living one you authentically enjoy.
The car right home was intense. We told each other deeply of our histories.
Ardent secrets are only secrets when they are true. Otherwise, they are stories, which carry much less weight.
As we ate at the Moonlight Cafe, I told her what was going through my mind. Basically, I was scared that she would disappear.
Oh, I know this song! The refrain goes something like:
"You have abandonment issues that negatively affect your interpersonal relationships and keep you in unhealthy situations."
(I never said that this was a catchy tune, buddy.)
What I felt, important as it seemed, was nowhere near as important as that she produced a letter from her bag that she had written to me (with no intention to give to me) that stated almost verbatim what I was saying.
Nothing like two people with abandonment issues clinging to one another.
I suspect her issues are not quite yours, however.
"Goodness gracious!" to quote my paternal grandmother.
I have zero memory of Grandma Louise saying this, but I will pretend I do.
It was nice to just hold someone who I knew loved and respected me.
You just met, so she doesn't love you. She loves love, perhaps, but not you.
Again, everything felt life the gods were scripting us.
Life is better lived, not scripted. I am not suggesting that you shouldn't chronicle these things, but you have the order all wrong. Live fully, then scribble it down later. Don't plot what would make for a good story and live it only after the dress rehearsal in your mind.
Grabbing her hands, we spun as fast as we could in a circle. The whirl of the world behind her seemed film and rehearsed. In seemed like it was checked and cleaned with a computer for optimal clarity.
Are you intentionally being heavy-handed about this? I can never tell with you.
When we awoke (well, rather, when I finally awoke. She, evidently, had been watching me sleep for hours. Yet I am not freaked out...) and took a shower.
A little creepy, but forgivable limerence.
I gave her the nickname Tangelo (which, no, I am not explaining).
She reported that her father noted that her breasts were too big to be tangerines, so they were tangelos.