cosmicawareness

There was one time (feels like five-bazillion years ago, now) when I actually got the attention of a girl just like the ones on this site. I was 25 at the time, but just as socially-awkward, nerdy, and intense as I am today. She was visually perfect- Short, thick, super-dark brown hair that consistently looked like she'd been fucking all night (which she had been, lol), ice-blue eyes and freckles. She was tiny - 5"2', and 100lbs soaking wet.

We were homebodies. She wasn't a crazy partier then. Her previous boyfriend had been a drug dealer (he once threatened to blow up my Jeep. I laughed in his face. Of course it was an empty threat) and she just wanted someone she could feel safe with who didn't expect her to be drunk or high all the time. We spent most days when we weren't working sitting in the field behind her family's trailer smoking cigarettes (or cloves) and talking about art - not about judging art, but why it was that art was made. We talked about tattoos and piercings and sketch out all the pieces we'd get if we could pool the money to get them done. Comics, video games and getting the fuck out of Florida to where there'd be more people like us.

We knew we belonged in New York City the first time we looked at apartments together. I'd asked her to marry me the week before and we'd decided, for our parents' sake, to get our own place until the wedding (a ceremony that was going to terribly uncomfortable for both of us as Pagans in Christian families). We looked at a nice apartment on the lake, and both commented that it was much too big and WAY to "new". The answer was obvious.

Many things happened shortly after that. Events that fucked me up forever. It sent me running away, essentially, to New York (alone) with 2,000 from the returned ring, carrying two suitcases and a backpack. I cut off everyone I'd ever known aside from my family who I only spoke to occasionally.

Since then (June 2007), I've only had one meaningful relationship among a sea of hookups. That was over three years and promising me once again that I'd be headed to the suburbs sooner than later. The problem was that after about a year, she haaaaated me. She constantly made me feel like shit for not being able to support her and her acting career. She'd mock me for gaining wait then tell me I couldn't use a gym because I didn't make enough money, whereas she deserved it because of her career. She'd hit me when she was drunk and make me thank her after sex saying that "I should be grateful because [she] was all [I'd] ever be able to get". When she got pregnant, she had it aborted without telling me - she said I wasn't the man she wanted to be the father of her children.

In short, I was scared of her. Most humiliating of all, I was only scared that she'd leave me.

Then she did. She kicked me out of the apartment, onto the street. Kept our cats, my friends, my social life - everything. That was in 2013.

Since then, all but ONE woman I've asked out has said no. The one who didn't, treated me like a pet. Her secret boyfriend. She never wanted to take me out in public, and when her friend's asked about me, she'd call me her "date-er". In the end, she told me that she'd never "love" me because what she wanted physically was the exact opposite of me, and as such, I'd look out of place with her in public. Plus I didn't speak Spanish and that made it awkward whenever she DID let me tag along. I speak French... didn't help me in that situation.

After that I was done. With myself, with life, with everything. I was so desperate for help, I even attempted to contact my most-recent ex, but I should have expected to be disappointed since she had "ghosted" me the moment she left.

The only person left who understood me enough to help me make sense of everything was Samantha. The girl who sent me running to another state just to forget.

But that would be impossible.

See, Samantha had died in 2013. She had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer and within 6 months, she was gone.

For some things in life, there's no closure. But to this day, girls like the SG's remind me that maybe once in a lifetime, the girl/boy you have a crush on will love you back, even if you're not "their type". This short, blond, nerdy guy who dresses like he's either at the beach or on an archeological dig - who writes and illustrates comics, worships the sea, mixes essential oils, grinds herbs, and studies Atlantis. It happened to me. Once.

-Jacob Atom

"Although I may not be man the some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart she carries the key
Wont you tell her please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me."

-Sinatra