September 9, 2019

As a child I often felt neglected and unloved. My family and specifically my mother would disagree, but that’s how I felt. These feelings often caused me to look for love in the wrong places and create fantasies of what I thought a relationship should be. This false image of love was derived from movies, music and books. Rather than ease into things with girls, I dove right in.

There was a myriad of girls throughout my life that I thought I “loved”, but now realize these feelings were either of lust, a desire to not be lonely, or an intense craving to have what I always hoped for: a movie-like preteen relationship full of dates to the diner, hot and steamy make-out sessions in the back of a car and summertime vacations with her family.

As I see it now, I only truly loved two women in my life. I’m not in the position to ask permission for these ladies’ names, so we’ll call the first one Alexis and the other Rose.

I stumbled across Alexis in the distant days when the social media website “Tumblr” was popping (and still had porn). This was late 2011/early 2012. My username was “lasersnotlosers” a reference to my infatuation with Lupe Fiasco at the time. As you probably know, Lupe’s album Lasers was a dud and my hopes for it to be the greatest album of all time quickly evaporated.

Her username was simple yet creative, although I won’t reveal it. She wasn’t dauntingly beautiful. But rather her beauty was subtle and welcoming. She had a round face, a round nose and big brown oval eyes. She was Hispanic, but her skin was pale. Her colorful hair hinted at her candid personality.

We immediately formed a friendship, that soon turned into a relationship of sorts. She lived about 2.5 hours driving time away from me. I had just got my first car, a ’94 Honda Accord. I also learned of my absent father’s death at the time. I showed no grief, remorse, or sadness. He wasn’t in my life and I didn’t know the guy, so I was indifferent toward the entire situation.

What I did appreciate though was the monthly stipend I was set to receive until my 18th birthday thanks to Supplemental Security Income. The timing couldn’t be better or so I thought. I had a car and adequate money to go see this mystery woman I was slowing falling for.

Other than the distance, another thing stood in my way of the relationship I always dreamed of. Alexis had a boyfriend. I had no intentions of falling for a girl with a boyfriend. It sort of just happened. I don’t know what her intentions were, whether she was just toying with me like I was a kitten or whether she truly loved me, I don’t know, but I fell for the girl.

Our first encounter was at a rooftop Cheesecake Factory in San Francisco. It was dreamlike. Here was this girl, across the table sharing a plate of pasta with me. It wasn’t some movie I was watching, a book I was reading or a song I was listening to. It was actually happening.

It didn’t take long before our innocent escapades took a turn. Soon we were no longer friends and no longer showed respect for her current relationship. We transitioned into lovers vivaciously and spontaneously adventuring in hotel rooms throughout California.

I asked her to go to my senior prom with me. She agreed. I planned everything out. I secured the limo, the dinner, the tuxedo. She got her dress and paid for the hotel. Our hotel room was adjacent to the convention center the dance was held at.

I was getting ready, she was still in bed, looking pretty as ever, when she told me she didn’t want to go. I asked why, she simply replied she wasn’t comfortable meeting my friends. At first I was taken aback. Why didn’t she tell me all of this beforehand? I spent money on the limo and tuxedo, and reserved a table for dinner. She bought a dress and booked the hotel room.

I eventually came down from whatever pedestal I was standing on and realized all of those things were hifalutin. What mattered was that I spending time with the girl I loved. We each popped an ecstasy, stayed up all night and occasionally peeped out the window to see guests arriving and leaving prom.

As time passed, she seemed reluctant to end her current relationship. I was confused, but didn’t want to force the issue. I was also beginning to realize that this was simply a fling. I was off to the University of Oregon that fall and she was going to stay in California.

I wish there was a happy ending to this or this ended in some worthwhile fashion, but the relationship simply ended without fireworks. She didn’t intend to leave her boyfriend and I didn’t intend to keep waiting. Although I loved her, and although the sex was glorious, I didn’t have time to wait around. The summer was dwindling and autumn was on the horizon.

I foolishly tried to rekindle things in college, and we tried to make it work for awhile, but to no avail. Alexis will forever be characterized as my first love. What am I to her? Who knows? I just know when “Pyramids” by Frank Ocean plays I’ll be thinking about her and not the girl I’m currently sharing the bed with.

Part 2

You’d think after Alexis, I’d learn to talk to girls within a 20 miles radius or more specifically girls who don’t have boyfriends. I didn’t learn and before I knew it, it was me and a new girl named Rose under similar circumstances.

I stumbled across Rose much like I stumbled across Alexis: social media. The year was 2015 and this time it wasn’t Tumblr that was popping, but Twitter. I don’t remember who followed who first. I do know I slid in those DMs and soon we were texting everyday.

Rose was five years my senior. When I first started talking to her, I was 21 and she 26. She lived in Brooklyn, New York and worked as an attorney near the Empire State Building. Her focus was corporate and contract law, so as prime as it would have been to be involved with a criminal defense attorney (in case I ever needed one) those dreams were shot down.

Rose had a radiant smile, with perfect teeth. She was petite and sometimes too tiny for her own clothes, but her affection made up for her small stature. Her lips were my favorite feature. People say white people don’t have lips and for the most part that’s true or it may just be a Twitter myth, much like white people don’t put seasoning on their chicken. But Rose’s lips were perfect, luscious and salivating.

Rose gave me light when I was surrounded by darkness. She understood or at least pretended to understand what I was going through. She was nurturing and motherly. She made sure I got adequate rest, ate enough and studied enough, even though she was thousands of miles away.

I knew she had a boyfriend, but I figured if she is telling me she loves me and wants us to be together then her relationship can’t be too serious right? I didn’t realize the severity of their relationship until I drunkenly flew to New York City in April 2016.

In a drunken state, I packed my bags, intended to drop out of school and go live with this woman I had never touched. Cocaine for breakfast, yikes.

During my connecting stop in Dallas, I learned that she and her boyfriend lived together. I came to this realization when I asked her to go to a Yankee game with me that night, and she said she couldn’t because her boyfriend lost his keys and she had to go home to let him in.

When I landed in New York, I booked an Airbnb, bought a bottle of Grey Goose and went to the Yankee game alone. She rushed from Brooklyn to the Bronx to meet me after the game. I didn’t realize how much of a journey she was making until I recently moved to New York.

Heading from Brooklyn uptown to the Bronx is a 90 minute mission if you’re lucky. But hey, I made the trip from Oregon to New fucking York.

I remember meeting her, making out in the Airbnb and waking up at 3am or so with her gone. My memory of this night is sporadic. I knew for certain we didn’t have sex because she told me later she didn’t want to, in case I stopped talking to her after I got what I wanted. Silly girl. If I wanted sex I’d hit up the now defunct Backpages.com. I wanted love and that’s what I got.

Much like Alexis and I paraded across California in hotel rooms, Rose and I found solace in Airbnbs across New York City and once in New Orleans. If the sex with Alexis was glorious, sex with Rose was downright euphoric. Our bodies meshed together as if they were one and we rarely got tired before one of us climaxed.

She eventually ended things with her boyfriend and moved out and got her own place, but soon after that something changed in her. She was no longer the schoolgirl with a crush on her fellow classmate. She no longer texted me explicit things she wanted me to do to her. She no longer sent an abundance of emojis. The love was still as strong as ever, but something changed in her. To this day, I can’t pinpoint it. Maybe she was just tired of me. Tired of my drunk phone calls, tired of my manic episodes and tired of me saying I would change, but never doing so.

The last time, I saw her (before moving to New York City) we agreed we did not click. While our bodies clicked in the bedroom, once we stepped outside our personalities clashed. I’m bold and brave. She’s timid and reserved. While I wanted to go to a concert and jump around, she wanted to stay in bed and play games on her iPad. Albeit that is fine, but if the Yankees win the Series, I want to look over and embrace my woman surrounded by hundreds of electrified fans. She instead would suggest we stay in and watch the game.

A few weeks ago, we met for lunch. It’s no question we both craved each other and wanted to take each other to bed, but she needs time to do that. She needs time for those feelings to rekindle and time for her to get comfortable with that act again. I love the girl, no doubt, but sometimes you gotta let the things you love go.

As Kanye asks in “Coldest Winter,” will I ever love again? I mean I got to believe I will. Sure I’ve been hurt and cried and been in bed for days depressed because things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to, but I have to believe there is someone out there for me. I don’t need someone like I needed someone in high school or like I needed someone in college. I’m far more confident and comfortable with myself than I was back then. But I’ll never stop dreaming about a magical wedding day, surrounded by my friends and family and the one truly meant for me. Never.