Come Running
For those of you who don't know, I've been traveling in New Zealand for the last four months. Being away from home and the family and friends I've been surrounded with in the past can often be lonely, and as a result of that loneliness, horny. That being said, what happens in New Zealand, stays in New Zealand, am I right guys? Huh? Huh? OK. High five.
Having been technically "single" for the last two years doesn't give me a lot of material to work with when I'm wistfully recalling the people back home that love and miss me, namely the young, beautiful, intelligent women who long for the day that I return to their toned, well-oiled bodies. This being the case, the first memory that pops up is always the last time I was in love. And I was last in love with Samantha.
If I think about it consciously, it's silly for me to even think about her at all--Samantha and I don't have one of those relationships in which we broke up and never saw each other again, leaving us to wonder about each other for the rest of our lives--in fact, when I'm living in Austin, she lives about a block away from me, and we previously shared the same job. We saw plenty of each other. Because of our consistent proximity, I've had plenty of time for my idealized version of her to go away and be replaced by the version that isn't in love with me anymore, the version that thinks I'm a music and film snob, that doesn't understand why I critique her for the things that I dislike about the way she lives her life now, the version that absolutely hates my hair at the length it's currently at. The one that doesn't see anything wrong with trucker hats, for God's sake.
It's silly for me to think about her, but sometimes I still do. In fact, she pops up in my mind at least once a day. But it isn't actually her that pops up--it is, of course, a picture of her--she still looks relatively similar in my mind as she does today. But it's really just a picture of her with emotions and memories that existed two years ago, and has nothing to do with who she is and how we interact today. I remember spending three days with her in Barcelona. I remember exchanging Christmas gifts with her. I remember spending time with her family. Most importantly, I remember doing the nasty with her in bed, on the couch, in the car, in the bathroom on an airplane and in the den after everyone has gone to sleep--but not the nasty nasty, the love nasty1, which as straight-forward and relatively un-kinky as it was, was still the most fulfilling sex I've ever had.
She traveled, last summer, to Paris, to study and to vacation. In the two months that she was there, she reportedly had "the best summer of her life," which was mainly due to her visits to Switzerland and other surrounding countries, and participation in extreme sports. However, she did get lonely at times, much as I do now, and she wanted someone familiar to talk to about it. I can't say for sure that she didn't talk to other people, but she did tell me that none of her friends besides me and her younger sister bothered downloading the instant messenger program that seemed to work better from her dorm room in Paris than the one that she normally used. And since I was there, we talked, flirted, and made suggestive comments to each other for that two months. It was almost as if we were together--as together as you can be when one person is in France and the other in Texas--mainly because the closeness I felt with her over that two months was so similar to the way I felt before, and so dissimilar to the way that we behaved towards each other for the previous fourteen months after our breakup.
When she returned home, I was hopeful--not for us getting back together, necessarily, but at least to see her, to talk to her, to be as close to her in real life as we were during our online conversations. On our meeting after her return--a lunch at a cafe close to home--I found that things had rapidly changed from the flirty sentimental Franco-US relationship we had to the more familiar, sterile-but-friendly domestic relationship we maintained previous to her departure.
After my first two months of travel, I wrote a letter to Samantha. This is a portion of it:
I concluded with
With great willpower and measured judgment, I never sent her these portions of that note, and instead opted for a less-sentimental version that was more fitting to our relationship at the time (which is, incidentally, the same as our relationship now--sterile but friendly). In the end, I decided that it was better to limit communication between us in general2, and maintain as much of the pleasant memories of our relationship as I could.
In talking to a friend about my feelings of the news of her boyfriend (which I had to ask her about, she didn't volunteer the information), I said simply that
"She's not even a real person to me anymore. She's just an idea, a memory."
I think that's the way I prefer it.
1Some people call this "making love." But not me, 'cause that's some pussy shit, dude.
2This decision was aided by the fact that she now has a boyfriend.
Having been technically "single" for the last two years doesn't give me a lot of material to work with when I'm wistfully recalling the people back home that love and miss me, namely the young, beautiful, intelligent women who long for the day that I return to their toned, well-oiled bodies. This being the case, the first memory that pops up is always the last time I was in love. And I was last in love with Samantha.
If I think about it consciously, it's silly for me to even think about her at all--Samantha and I don't have one of those relationships in which we broke up and never saw each other again, leaving us to wonder about each other for the rest of our lives--in fact, when I'm living in Austin, she lives about a block away from me, and we previously shared the same job. We saw plenty of each other. Because of our consistent proximity, I've had plenty of time for my idealized version of her to go away and be replaced by the version that isn't in love with me anymore, the version that thinks I'm a music and film snob, that doesn't understand why I critique her for the things that I dislike about the way she lives her life now, the version that absolutely hates my hair at the length it's currently at. The one that doesn't see anything wrong with trucker hats, for God's sake.
It's silly for me to think about her, but sometimes I still do. In fact, she pops up in my mind at least once a day. But it isn't actually her that pops up--it is, of course, a picture of her--she still looks relatively similar in my mind as she does today. But it's really just a picture of her with emotions and memories that existed two years ago, and has nothing to do with who she is and how we interact today. I remember spending three days with her in Barcelona. I remember exchanging Christmas gifts with her. I remember spending time with her family. Most importantly, I remember doing the nasty with her in bed, on the couch, in the car, in the bathroom on an airplane and in the den after everyone has gone to sleep--but not the nasty nasty, the love nasty1, which as straight-forward and relatively un-kinky as it was, was still the most fulfilling sex I've ever had.
She traveled, last summer, to Paris, to study and to vacation. In the two months that she was there, she reportedly had "the best summer of her life," which was mainly due to her visits to Switzerland and other surrounding countries, and participation in extreme sports. However, she did get lonely at times, much as I do now, and she wanted someone familiar to talk to about it. I can't say for sure that she didn't talk to other people, but she did tell me that none of her friends besides me and her younger sister bothered downloading the instant messenger program that seemed to work better from her dorm room in Paris than the one that she normally used. And since I was there, we talked, flirted, and made suggestive comments to each other for that two months. It was almost as if we were together--as together as you can be when one person is in France and the other in Texas--mainly because the closeness I felt with her over that two months was so similar to the way I felt before, and so dissimilar to the way that we behaved towards each other for the previous fourteen months after our breakup.
When she returned home, I was hopeful--not for us getting back together, necessarily, but at least to see her, to talk to her, to be as close to her in real life as we were during our online conversations. On our meeting after her return--a lunch at a cafe close to home--I found that things had rapidly changed from the flirty sentimental Franco-US relationship we had to the more familiar, sterile-but-friendly domestic relationship we maintained previous to her departure.
After my first two months of travel, I wrote a letter to Samantha. This is a portion of it:
It feels good to know that someone back home loves you and misses you, and that when you come back, they'll be there waiting. I suppose that means that I also understand why our relationship changed in the way it did when you were in France (and everywhere else) last summer. I might be assuming too much, but that's my theory for now.
I'm trying hard not to make you that person for me while I'm gone, simply because I know that you have infinite things going on in your life, and I know that were some feelings to be created here, it would be nothing more than a result of the situation, and nothing concrete, and certainly nothing that was what we had until eighteen months ago (and besides, who says you're even interested?). As you said to me after you got back, "Obviously things change when we're together. It was different when I was there." I shouldn't put that in quotes, because I can't be sure that's what you said, but it is a close paraphrase.
I concluded with
It's silly, really, for me to think these things. It's even sillier for me to write them down and send them to you. But in the end I probably will, because deep down I'm a stupid romantic, and my emotions nearly always dominate my actions (whether the emotion is sentimentality (as seems to be the case here), determination, sadness, horniness, happiness, or anger), to some measured degree or another.
It's easy to get soft-hearted when you're thousands of miles away from home, don't know too many people, and there isn't anyone or anything to replace or distract from the feelings you once had for someone. I suppose it's only now that I've had time to stop and think about these things. And that's the real issue.
With great willpower and measured judgment, I never sent her these portions of that note, and instead opted for a less-sentimental version that was more fitting to our relationship at the time (which is, incidentally, the same as our relationship now--sterile but friendly). In the end, I decided that it was better to limit communication between us in general2, and maintain as much of the pleasant memories of our relationship as I could.
In talking to a friend about my feelings of the news of her boyfriend (which I had to ask her about, she didn't volunteer the information), I said simply that
"She's not even a real person to me anymore. She's just an idea, a memory."
I think that's the way I prefer it.
1Some people call this "making love." But not me, 'cause that's some pussy shit, dude.
2This decision was aided by the fact that she now has a boyfriend.
posted by Chris Cusack at 2:35 PM
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