“Who is that?” I ask my roommate. We’re in our apartment. We’re hosting a party. We stand on the dark color rug which we loathe for how ugly it is but appreciate for how it conceals spilled drinks and strands of hair. Six girls in an apartment produce a lot of hair. I flick my eyes over to a man on the other side of the apartment. “He has a girlfriend” she says. “Oh.” I couldn’t even pinpoint what about him attracted me; there was no one attribute that caught my eye, but I couldn’t deny the feeling that there was something to be explored there. The girlfriend, however, made it a moot point. Moreover, I had the dating prowess of a banana slug, so the only thing that could come of my inquiry was perhaps a crush.
Months later, I found this man in my apartment again. I walked in the door to a scene of several people, some roommates some not, sprawled across the living room. I chose to delay my nightly routine of starving myself or binging, whichever phase I was in, to find a corner of a couch and chat.
We matched on Hinge. One of those matches where you were not sure if the other person swiped as a “lol it’s you” or to genuinely express interest.
Either way, the next time we hung out, I knew he was single. I wasn’t drinking. Because of the calories. And the chemistry I knew would be there was there. And he, drunk, told me I was cute. And our friend relayed the next day that he, sober, said I was pretty. And that was that. My first heart break. The next four or so years did not culminate in an earth shattering, soul crushing, heart break. But rather subtle tears and patches again, and again. With muscles, which your heart is, this is meant to make you stronger. But this was more like the unfurling and restitching of a seam, growing more tangled and distorted with each pass over.
For some context, these friends with whom most of these stories transpire adopted me out of, truthfully, pity. The friend who invited me in, who we will call Allie, could tell I was suffering. I’m sure most people could. But she took it upon herself to include me. Encourage me to join them out. Tell me after she was glad I’d gone. Allie was the one who told me that the guy, we’ll call him Noah, said I was pretty.
Noah and I began texting pretty frequently. Conversations digitally and in person were always fast paced, full of hypotheticals and follow-up questions. I was devoted to understanding him. He was fucking weird. And I adored it. And I cherished each detail he shared of his peculiarities and their origins.
It was our senior year, and the gang decided to do a cruise for our spring break. Leading up to this, Allie asked to meet me for coffee. As she sat down I could tell this was a coffee with a motive. She asked that on the cruise, and I suppose generally, I not make a move with Noah. I was crushed. I owed her so much. So I felt I had no choice. It didn’t matter too much. I was far too gross to be liked like that. Far too cowardly to find out anyhow.
Talking to Noah was my favorite thing. I felt like no one else operated at the same wavelength. Risha, my close friend and roommate at the time, would often find herself third wheel to these conversations, in the back of Ubers or corner of bar tables. “Oh my god you two are so boring!” She’d tell me in private. I couldn’t comprehend that. He was the most interesting person I’d ever met.
On the cruise, I had some of the best times of my college career. That said, the drink package, instructions from Allie, and unmedicated depression coalesced in more than one instance of dramatic brooding at the bough of the boat. On one of our last nights, at the cruise night club, I found myself utterly overwhelmed. The energy between Noah and I was palpable, but not as all consuming as my nauseating fear of intimacy. We danced and my head spun, not remiss of Allie’s plea in refrain. I stepped out of the night club and Risha poured out after “Why don’t you just kiss him! I don’t get it!” I lost it.
The final few months of our senior year was full of flirtatious confusion. “I should’ve kissed you texts” and dates that never actualized. We exchanged playlists of the 5 songs most important to us. He’d send me other songs he thought I’d enjoy, and I treated these songs like confessions. Risha was the only one who knew about my feelings, and even she didn’t know just how far gone I was. And so, I felt like I was leading a double life. Stealing glances and sending texts, but never making a move, and assuming my peers oblivious.
Slowly, and then all at once, Noah grew distant. I’d see him with my other roommates, but when I’d reach out he’d be busy. I didn’t know it then, but the situation was not as covert as I’d thought. While no one, apart from that fateful coffee date with Allie, had ever broached the subject of Noah with me, apparently they’d been accosting him with questions and accusations. The eve of graduation, the cruise gang reunited around a fire pit at a roof top bar. I remember little of what was discussed, except that when I left and hugged Noah, he whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry. I’m always here for you.”
And then we were graduated. But fantasy breeds in isolation, and I spent the next couple years allowing delusions to fester as I spent my days at work, in the car, or locked away in my room. My eating disorder was out of control. I was desperate for a way out, and like many, turned to religion, kinda. Well, not exactly a religion, but a similar fallacy, putting my fate into something beyond myself. I was journaling a lot, and my entries then oscillate between suicidal despair and elated certainty that this time was the time. The time I’d lose weight and keep it off; I’d get a grip on who I am and want to be; I’d be lovable. And so, my fantasy of Noah was inextricable with the rest of it. I came across the concept of manifestation and would write out scripts of when I’d see him– me thin, glowing, and desirable, and how we’d be together. We did see each other again. Though I was not thin nor glowing. I was broken. Allie, Noah, and friends met up and spent the weekend together.
Here’s a notes app entry from the last night together; we were out dancing:
lol
Depressed
I’m so fucking fat
Everyone looks so cute
I look repulsive
No one will ever like me
Holy shit you’re so fat and repulsive
You’ve been so annoying today
I don’t like me
Haha
I’m in love with noah
Haha
He’s so disinterested in hurts
Of course he just wants to dance w skinny bitches
Fuck
This hurts so bad. And is. gonna take a lot to work through. Lol. I just can’t believe I fucked that up so bad… well yeah I can. I hate myself.
I want to die.
Plz someone let my plane crash tomorrow
He’s flirting with Sarah
Big tits def smarter than me
I want to die
I WANT TO DIE
I want to leave so bad
This is horrible
So uh – yeah! I was doing super great. A few weeks later, we went into shut down. Work ended, and I had nothing but free time to pour into my FINAL attempt to fix my life, and then my FINAL final attempt etc. Journaling, guided meditations, the Huberman lab, spiritual youtubers, trying to claw my way out of despair one tarot card at a time.
One day, on Instagram, I saw a call out for people who meditate. I meditate! Kind of. This person was launching a virtual meditation group and asked if I’d like to join, and if I could help recruit others who may be interested. I signed up, and I relayed the news to Noah, someone with an actual meditation practice. He signed up too.
I was convinced that us sharing this spiritual experience, observing one another bettering ourselves, having witnesses to our candid vulnerability would re-lay the ground work for something more.
The first meeting I took stock of all the Zoom squares, the people I’d spend the next few months with meditating and whatever else one does in a meditation group. I see Noah, and I’m giddy. My eyes scan over the others, mostly in their 20s-30s, but otherwise a diverse bunch, and then they fixate on her. A beautiful, doe-eyed red head. EXACTLY Noah’s type. It felt like a cruel joke. Well, I thought. So much for that. I was now stuck in this ridiculous thing and would have to bear witness to him falling in love with this chick.
During our meditation, I turned my camera off and ate my lunch while staring daggers at her. We’ll call her Tyler.
When the meeting ended, Noah texted me. “I have to tell you something.” … “Tyler and I are dating.”
Over the weeks I logged into Zoom and held my composure as I saw him beam, however subtly, when Tyler would contribute and vice versa. Things only got worse. For one, I liked her. She was the only person in the group, apart from Noah, who I felt any sort of kinship for. Partly because, I slowly discovered, she was as fucked up as I was! And that hurt most of all. I thought it hadn’t worked out because I wasn’t ready. I had too much to work through. Too much mental mess I had to conquer. Come to find, that wasn’t the problem. It was just me.
Before the world began to reopen, I applied to grad school. My main motivation in doing so was to be able to work at camp again. Camp was the one place I recalled being happy and at home in myself.
The first day of camp setup, I saw a guy in the parking lot and thought, “who is that?” Being back on the Cape, in nature, at camp, with my dad, heading to New York, I had a newfound pep in my step. I asked the guy out to ice cream.
Catching up with Noah, I told him about this ice cream date. I told him how I don’t crush often, but when I do, I know instantly. And that was my opportunity to tell it all. And I took it. We had an hour conversation where I recounted the story I’ve told here. Painfully, but unsurprisingly, he didn’t remember many of the nights or conversations I had replayed in my head a hundred times. Regardless, it was a meaningful and cathartic conversation. After that, we asked, what now? And the answer was, while there won’t be a relationship for us (at least any time soon I told myself), there was obviously an attraction there, that maybe, perhaps, could one day be explored.
When I next saw him in person, I was on a high. I was tan from the summer. I’d unlocked a part of my sexuality with ice cream boy. I was living in New! York! City! In the immortal words of the Cheetah Girls, I was “lookin’ good with a new attitude.”
With the world reopened, we were much overdue for a cruise gang reunion. We gathered, this time, in D.C. In many ways, I was worlds better than the girl I was the last time we’d convened. But our dynamic transported me to 2019. The first night, Noah cuddled up to me on the couch. The next day, distant. Day drunk, I texted him from across the room trying to make sense of his signals. They continued to be mixed. I returned to New York confused.
Several months later, in March, we gathered again. I’d come to terms with the reality that we’d never be together, in any way. I accepted that it was done. There was no chance. On the first night of this trip, Noah asked if anyone was interested in venturing to the roof. I was the only one who took him up on it.
I’d always compensated for my insecurity in my sexuality by being overly crude in conversation. So, somehow, we found our way to discussing an online BDSM quiz. We held this conversation side by side, looking across the cityscape. And when I said I liked it rough (or so I thought I would if I were having sex), he grabbed me my the neck, turned my head, and kissed me. When we pulled away, I stuttered something about people probably wondering where we were.
And that was the only time we ever kissed. It seems unusually cruel (for me and for you) to account the several more times we found ourselves in the same place, and I tried to make sense of it all. But found ourselves we did. And I never got the closure I wanted. Until recently.
One of my favorite heart breaking songs is “I’d Have to Think About It” by Leith Ross. It goes:
I know that I will love again
I’ll meet someone and we’ll make amends
I’m sure she’ll be a gentleman
And I will be content
…
But if you come to me
In my home with my three kids
If you asked me to leave
To be with you and split
Well I’d at least
Have to think about it
And these lyrics haunted me. I had come to terms that we would never be. But I feared that even if I did find someone who loved me, Noah would hold ownership of my heart. That I’d never truly be able to give myself to another person the way I’d wanted to to him.
And then I met Matt. And I fell in love with Matt. And he loved me. He loves me.
This winter, Noah was in New York. We got a drink. And those lyrics, so faintly, refrained in my mind. What if I saw him and it all came flooding back? What if I’m like my mother, and I abandon the stable, kind love for a chance with the bold?
We had a nice time. It was good to see him. But no part of me was trying to impress. The dormant feelings remained dormant. And I was eager to return home to Matt.
I can’t say writing this didn’t stir feelings. It was challenging going through old texts and notes. Those four years were an incredibly slow and painful erosion of hope and desire. But, in the way of erosion, what was ultimately left behind was soft, non-threatening.
