Tell me a Love Story

[morrigirl]

Tell me about the person who you would say has been the love of your life up to this point. What were they like? How did you meet them? Why did you love them? Doesn't matter if you're currently married to the person or you broke up with them six years ago. If you're no longer together, why did you break up? Heck, it doesn't even matter if you never dated them at all, I just want to know about that one person who set your heart a-fluttering stronger than any other before or since.

Comments

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

I met Aaron when I was 14 years old. We were in the choir together, and in the same math class. In math, he sat in front of me, and he'd always sprawl out on my desk, talking to me and being a charming, arrogant little shit. (Something he is to this day.) I loved him instantly.

We went through a lot together. He knew me before, and then after, my hardcore Christian phase. He saw me through a lot of changes. When we were 17, we came out to each other simultaneously. He saw me through more transformative periods of my life, and knew more about me, than anybody had before-- and than anybody has since.

The trouble was, it wasn't enough for him to be loved intensely and honestly by one person. He wanted to be adored by everyone-- even if it meant they never knew him well. I knew who he was as a vulnerable, flawed person, and I think that scared him. I think he wanted to be loved by people who thought he could do no wrong. And so we'd have periods of intense involvement with each other (more than platonic-- I think what we had was sort of a romantic relationship without a sexual component. Except for that one time he got really drunk and we made out in a bathroom. But that's another story.), followed by him abandoning me for someone else who knew him less but admired him more. I hated when he did that, but I assumed he'd always come back to me.

Then when I turned 20, something shifted. I was in Japan, and for months on end I never got so much as an e-mail from him. There I was, calling him, writing him letters, sending him gifts-- but nothing on his end. And being away from him helped me look at him in a more detached light-- something I needed to do. I realized I didn't want to keep being abandoned for other people. I didn't want to be abandoned. I felt like I was growing up, and he wasn't growing with me.

I cut off contact with him-- except for a couple times since then that I've seen him. It's never been the same during those times, but I miss him a lot. He was the closest friend I ever had-- and for me, intense friendship means more to me than dating or romance. I still feel adrift and lonely without him, and though I know we'll never be friends again, I miss him horribly.

[questioncurl.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be selective, and talk about the "person who set your heart a-fluttering..." even though that wasn't the love of my life at all, because I'm just odd about these things. I was working at Cornucopia one particularly slow summer afternoon, all on my own, and a man came in. He had a voice like dark chocolate, and he said that he was driving across the country to join a Ph.D. programme in Creative Writing, and that he pulled off the road to get lunch. He looked at me in astonishment when I spoke, and said that he hadn't heard anything but the Midwestern twang for weeks, while driving slowly from California. He told me about the kola nut ceremony in Nigeria as I made him a sandwich, his cut-glass British accent mingling odddly with the rhythm of the ritual, and making me feel very naive and awkward and unpolished, stuck here in this Midwestern puddle, but then his sudden excitement at getting the right turn of phrase showed him to be as young and eager and uncertain as I feel most of the time. We colluded in finding excuses for him to stay for a few minutes more in which to talk: he finding questions to ask me about the incense burners and Peruvian teas on the shelves, and I racking my brains to think of anything at all about the road to Chicago that he could conceivably want to know. Then the bell rang and a group of the Red Hat Ladies poured in; he said thank you, shook my hand, and left. I was only in love with him for about ten minutes all told.

So it's a little late, but I'm finally reading my filtered friends list so I can see best posts.

[electra310.livejournal.com]

I met him in high school, well, sort of. I had just discovered online roleplaying games, and was in an X-Files-esque game on AOL. I was fifteen, what can I say? =) He told me, and everyone else, that he was in his thirties, married, an English teacher. We became friends because he was fun to write with and had all sorts of fun and crazy ideas. I wondered about him sometimes, because his grammar kind of sucked back then, and it didn't seem very English teachery. Besides, all of my English teachers to that point had been extreme tightasses who wouldn't so much as look at a roleplaying game. But I didn't let it bother me too much. It felt good to have friends at all. I wasn't having a very good time in high school, one of my only RL friends had just moved away, and having friends online was enough to keep me from cracking.

A long time passed, as these things are measured on the internet. A year and a half or so later, one of my other online friends confessed her suspicions about him, that he wasn't who he was pretending to be. She was right. (Takes one to know one, I guess, since it turns out she was lying about herself too, but I didn't know that till much, much later. I'm still not sure about her.) In any case, we confronted him in a private chatroom, an online intervention. He confessed. He was my age, a high school student, and he'd been afraid no one would take him seriously when he started playing. After he got his online identity up and running, it sort of took on a life of its own, and he couldn't back down.

This added many new and interesting wrinkles to our relationship. He was genuinely contrite to the point that I forgave him quickly for lying to me for such a long time. We were sort of in the same boat, high school almost-seniors with few friends and no social lives, making college decisions and trying to get our lives in order. We had a lot more to talk about. Eventually we started talking about senior prom and what a miserable thing that would be for both of us, either missing out or going stag. He asked me to go with him to his prom.

That was a big moment, because I'd never actually met any of my online friends. He sent me a picture of himself, I got one of my senior pictures taken of me with my computer, especially to send to him. My parents paid for the dress and the plane tickets for my eighteenth birthday present. My mom went with me, that was the only condition. She didn't go to the dance, so I didn't mind. A couple of weeks before the trip, I broke my right ankle. With all our plans in danger, he went out and got his driver's license, on the seventh try, so one of us would be able to drive to the dance.

I took him a teddy bear as a gift, the first of many bears and stuffed animals exchanged during our relationship. We met in the lobby of my hotel. It was very strange and familiar at the same time. We hugged and exchanged presents. We went to the dance, and had a really good time. My dress and hair were fantastic. He still carries the picture in his wallet. The next day we went to the Hershey Factory for the day and got stuck in a two-hour traffic pileup. We played cards and talked, and it just felt natural to be with him. We split a piece of cake at Hershey, and he drew "I (heart) U" in the frosting. When the weekend was over, I cried to have to leave.

Stay Tuned for Part Two!

Part Two!

[electra310.livejournal.com]

All through college, we got away as often as we could to see each other. Spring breaks, Christmas Breaks, summer vacation visits. It was a 12 hour Greyhound trip to reach him at school, and I got to know it by heart. He proposed to me in the parking lot of the Exec apartments on campus, and I didn't hesitate. Natalie was on my shoulder, and she bit him on the nose. I considered it a blessing on the union. Being away from him was really hard, but we had sort of gotten used to it. We talked online every day, and made phone calls, and it was the next best thing to being there. It helped that we'd met on the internet, and it was a natural means of communication for us.

We got marrried the month after we both graduated college, on a warm and iffy day in July. It was a beautiful ceremony, full of family and friends, and anothe fabulous dress. When I looked up the aisle and saw him, my heart jumped in my chest, and I've never been so certain that I was doing the exactly right thing. We danced all night. It felt so good to hold him and realize that this time, neither of us would have to go away, back to separate schools and separate lives. It was a little awkward at first, learning to live together, learning to speak aloud. Sometimes things were really hard, and irritating, and sometimes we fought and pouted and got all passive-aggressive with each other.

But still, sometimes I'm standing in the grocery store, or in the kitchen at home, and he'll come into view, and my heart still gives that little leap just to see him. It's sappy, but I like it. And that's my very long love story. Ta-da!