Tales from the Mild Side: The Jerk
I was what you might call “boy crazy” when I was a kid. I can remember having crushes as early as kindergarten. These easily carried into middle school where boys like Joey, Curt and John were the objects of my childish obsessions. Not to mention the posters of surfer boys, Scott Baio, Christopher Atkins, Andy Gibb and the entire cast of The Outsiders on my walls.
Junior High was a disaster on all fronts: Friends, boys and my social status were all a mess. It was my first immersion into public school having spent all but one year of middle school with nuns and rules and large vocabulary words…none of which made me “cool.” I did have my first real kiss in junior high though. I was at a pool party and someone got the idea to turn over a raft so we could hide under it while standing in the pool. That turned into a mini make-out session between me and Jeff R. He had braces. That’s pretty much all I remember.
I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school, but I hung around boys a lot. Having grown up with boy cousins, it seemed natural to me. I was almost always in the “friend zone” and that was totally fine as well. I had no clue how to be a girlfriend or how to even really flirt. I was the “fun one” that got asked to dances. And more than once, I was the last “date” before the guy got a serious girlfriend. Hmmm…sounds like a movie plot.
College was my first stab at having a boyfriend and I didn’t do a very good job at first. I lived in the dorms freshman year and my RA (resident advisor) asked me out. He was clean cut version of Jeff Spicoli. A surfer dude who got stoned A LOT.
We had a few months of awkward dates and fooling around, but I wouldn’t sleep with him. I’m pretty sure this led to our breakup. And since we both lived in the same dorm, that was weird.
Then there was Bruce. He was what I consider my first real boyfriend…and he was a jerk. My friend was dating his friend, yadda yadda yadda. He lived near my hometown and I was living about an hour away for school, so we saw each other mainly on weekends. It was fun because we had a bunch of mutual friends and we could all hang out together. He started out all sweet, but he was cocky and I was naïve which was not a good combination. Over the course of almost two years, we fought a lot and he constantly berated me. I was becoming less of myself and more of this wimpy dependent girl that I did not like. I’m pretty sure he started dating his new girlfriend before we even broke up. Oh the tears I cried and the lessons I learned! Not sure it makes things any better, but he wound up marrying that new girlfriend. Like I said, I was always the one right before “the one.”
I transferred to UCLA my junior year and avoided having a boyfriend until a few months before graduation. Dave was super cool, a great artist and into ska. His mom and my mom actually conspired to get us together. He was coming out of a long relationship and I was, well, considering getting a cat. So, why not? We hit it off really well and wound up moving in together with a third roomie once I graduated. This lasted almost two years and was a pretty crushing breakup for me. He apparently got to a point where he wasn’t that into me anymore. I think he was intimidated by my career goals and nineties power suits. He had a new girlfriend within a month.
My next “long-term” thing was over a year later, with a guy I met while working at NBC. This Italian stallion was a graphic designer, a charmer and also a jerk. A year and a half into our relationship he had to move back to Europe while his work visa got sorted out. I planned a week-long visit to London after we had spent the summer apart. My first clue that things were going south is that he was forty-five minutes late picking me up from the airport. Ever the gentleman, he waited until I flew home before he broke up with me during a phone call. “I like the idea of us,” he said “more than the reality of us.” Seriously. WTF? I sat at my desk and sobbed at what my international life of intrigue might’ve been.
At this point, I switched jobs and went to work at a digital start-up with a very young staff. Best. Time. Ever. We were all young, single and doing fun stuff like managing chat rooms and creating digital content when it was all still very new and ground-breaking. During that time, I dated more than ever. Mostly jerks and disappointments. I was getting very discouraged…and kinda getting old. And by “old” I mean, mid-thirties. I didn’t really feel the urge to have children, but wanted to at least get a dog with someone.
Thankfully, my old boss at NBC called me with a job offer just as the dotcom world was imploding and everyone at my current job was getting laid off. Of course, going back meant facing the Italian who had finally sorted out his visa and was back at his old gig. I gave him the cold shoulder until he begged to sort out our issues. Whatever. He was dead to me. Luckily it wasn’t long before a new Italian entered the picture. We were on the same digital team and kept our relationship a secret until our engagement almost two years later. I think kissing a lot of jerks made me confident about what I didn't want and how I shouldn't be treated. I still have insecurities and am by no means a relationship expert; however, I've learned from my heartaches. So, thanks jerks!