Why I'll Never Get Over My First Love

"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end" - Benjamin Disraelier

Longtime readers of this blog probably already know the basic story of my first love, but I'm gonna tell it again in more detail for the newbies. I apologize in advance because this is gonna be a long one.

I met Snickers when we were in high school at a mutual friend's party. He had a girl but we became fast friends - he and his cousin and me and my sister were a tight foursome; spending countless hours in each others' basements watching basketball, playing Come Clean over and over and over, and talking sh*t. We probably fell in love with each other about two seconds after we met but it took about two years for us to finally get together, and that was only after I gave him an ultimatum - be with me or we can't be friends anymore.

I know it sounds crazy to say this, but for a long time we had a perfect relationship. We hardly fought, loved each other hard. We knew we were going to be together forever. The only problem was that it was a long-distance relationship in the days before email, before cell phones, before facebook and twitter and all the ways we now have to stay connected to people even when they’re far away. We wrote each other letters and my parents allowed me to call him like once a month for half an hour – at something like $0.45 a minute.  There was never enough ink in the pen or minutes on the phone to say all there was to say, but we made it work. We were happy.

But we were also stupid. See here’s the thing – he was a basketball player on scholarship at a school in New York. After two years he decided he wanted to change schools; he wasn’t happy where he was. But changing schools meant that he’d have to start over from scratch somewhere else and instead of waiting two more years to be together we’d have to wait four more years. For some reason we decided that we should “separate”. We didn’t call it a break up because we would still be together when he was home but when he was at school we would be free to do our own thing. I remember being nervous about what “doing our own thing'” might lead to and I remember that he wasn’t nervous at all….he told me that no matter what happened, no matter how far apart our lives might take us, no matter what one day he would show up on my doorstep with his hand outstretched saying '”we gotta go”.

I would ask him things like “but what if I marry someone else? What if you marry someone else? What if you show up on my doorstep and I’m pregnant with someone else’s child?” And he’d tell me that he would stand there with his hand outstretched until I came with him. No matter what. And so I believed him.

Needless to say, time passed and “doing our own thing” led to huge problems between us. Our separation turned into a breakup that took about three years to complete. And when it was over there was nothing left but the love. We weren’t friends anymore. There was no closure - we never talked about what went wrong. He never talked about showing up on my doorstep one day and I stopped expecting him to.

More time passed and I dated other people. Loved another person. It took about 5 years but eventually I was able to picture myself marrying someone else without feeling like I was betraying him. I was over it, I thought.  Until he died.

The afternoon I found out I could not stop crying. I thought there was something physically wrong with me and I called my mother half-terrified that something had permanently shifted in my brain and I would never, ever stop crying. She said to me “now you’re going to have to really get over him.”

My mother – if she lives to be 112 years old – will never be more right than she was with that statement. I thought I was over it but what I was really doing was burying my feelings. I thought I had accepted that we would never be together but what I was really doing was biding my time, waiting for that knock on the door. And when I found out he was dead I was crying as much for the fact that I would never know if that knock was coming as for the actual tragedy of his death.

It’s been three years now and if you come into my home you will see more pictures of him than of anyone else in here. I know they should come down at some point and I know that I will probably never take them down. I resist everything that I see as a threat to his memory, even as my mind gently pulls me away from it. Earlier this month the anniversary of his death passed without me noticing it.  The horror of realizing that I am no longer fixating on it – and him – sent me into a tailspin of tears and self-recrimination. And that was an unconscious step forward from my past….what would a concerted effort to move on do to me? This isn’t just moving past a relationship that was meaningful; this is exorcising someone who is part of the fabric of who I am. Someone I was in love with when I became myself. I don’t know how to get rid of that and leave myself intact.

If I were reading this story about someone else I would have two things to say about it. First – that this person is caught up in the tragic romance of it – two star-crossed lovers separated by tragedy. It’s so poetic and beautiful…it’s like starring in your very own romance novel. And second – this woman is using her dead first love as an excuse not to try again. And both of those things are true. They’re part of the reason but not the whole reason.

The rest of the reason is who he was and what we had. He is the only person who ever made me feel that he loved me just for me. Not for what I did for him or how I made him feel or what I looked like, just who I was. Nothing I’ve ever had with anyone – friend, lover, whatever – has ever come close to that. And I fell in love with him at an age when I didn’t know what a broken heart felt like. I didn’t know about the horrible things that people can do to the people they love. I didn’t know that finding love is the easy part, that staying in love is the hard part. And honestly if I had known all of that back then I might not have bothered.

Why can’t I get over my first love? I don’t see the point in it really.  Even with everything I’ve learned about love and relationships, even with all the effort I’ve put in to make relationships work, I’ve never had anything like what I had so effortlessly with him. So it doesn’t seem worth the bother. I’m content with the memory of something amazing, coupled with the sheer comedy of my life as the perpetually single gal. It doesn’t seem like much but it’s enough for now.

So what about you guys? Do you have big loves that you can’t get over? Do you let them stand in the way of falling in love again? Can anyone see where I”m coming from? Give me your take in the comments.

Throwback Tuesday - One is the Onliest Number

For most of my adult life I've been a one-woman show. And notwithstanding my auntie's prayers for a husband for me and my mum's assurances that "my time will come", I'm okay with it. Let's face it, I’m way too weird and way too solitary to really flourish in a long-term relationship.

I’ve really never bemoaned walking through life alone, but lately I’ve caught myself wondering if I should have married young.  Then again, the catalyst for these musings is always either some calamity that I don’t want to deal with or something heavy that I don’t want to lift, so I don’t think I have a crisis on my hands just yet.

It does make me wonder though whether I'll ever be willing to give up the sublime joy of living alone and let a (gasp!) boy move in here. Right now the idea holds just about zero appeal, but I’m still young(ish) and hot and running the streets every chance I get. Having a man to tend to will just slow me down! Ten years from now it might be a different story.

So in order to prepare myself for the possibility of co-habiting again, I’ve been giving some thought to the possible benefits of having a live-in man at casa max. This is what I’ve come up with so far:

1. He could take out the garbage.

2. He could investigate when I hear loud noises in the middle of the night.

3. He could lift heavy things.

4. He could nag me to do the things I am too lazy to do such as take my vitamins.

5. He could help me figure out which shoes to wear with my outfits.

Hmm that's all I can think of. That's sad.

Oh wait!

6. He could untangle the knots that I always get in my necklaces.

Oh good lord that's all I can come up with.  But I did come up with a few cons of having a man around. Let's take a look, shall we?

1. He will complain about the number of toiletries I have strewn all over the place.

2. He will complain about the number of shoes I have strewn all over the place.

3. He will talk to me when I am reading.

4. More laundry to do because I do not trust men to wash clothes for me. (Oh but I just thought of a pro! He could iron for me!)

5. He will snore. And while I don't really mind snoring so much, given a choice I'd prefer not to listen to it.

6. He will turn the television up too loudly. I know he will.

7. Although he could take out the garbage, in actuality he wouldn't and that would irritate me.

8. He will want to keep his clothes in my closets after I've finally gotten them arranged the way I want them

So yeah, all things considered it doesn't seem like having a man around wouldn't accomplish the same thing as hiring a handyman and a housekeeper. And I would have a lot more closet space.

Am i missing something? Enlighten me please!

Gotta Love a Good Ex

Okay now really - have you nominated me and my blogging buddies for the Black Weblog Awards yet? I hope you have but if you haven't there's still time to redeem yourself...get all the details and sh*t over here.

If you follow me on Twitter, yesterday at about 5:30pm you would have seen me tweet this: "Homeward bound with @superblackgirl". Then at about 12:15am you would have seen this: "Finally [home]!"

Now I'm reasonably sure that all of you are much better at addition than I am and can do the math on this - my sister and I left our parents' house which is two hours away at 5:30pm and I did not reach my home until 12:15am the next day. Why? Car trouble again.  Without boring you with the details, suffice it to say that said car trouble involved us sitting in my sister's disabled car on the side of the highway in a little town called Brant Ontario. After exhausting the list of relatives with cars and free time whom we might beseech to come and save us and drawing back nubs, there was but one solution: call Him.

Him is my ex, and I would have to say he is probably one of the world's greatest exes ever. Him is the ex that I have called at 2 o'clock in the morning to come pick me and my drunk friends up from the club and he has gotten up out of his bed to do it. Him is the ex who was at my house at 6:00am two weekends in a row to help me move. Him is the ex with whom I happily cohabited for two years after our breakup. Him plunges my toilet and fixes my computer for me. If I need something, I call Him and Him almost always comes through. Him is that ex who hangs out with me and my friends and laughs along as I tell stories of effed-up shit he did to me and then willingly admits that he was an asshole when we were together. And Him is the ex that graciously authorized a post celebrating our friendship, despite the fact that I have already used everything that has ever happened between us as fodder for this blog at least twice.

Now despite my tumultuous relationship history, there aren't a lot of dudes that even warrant the term ex. And most of the ones who do are dead to me are not in my life anymore. I don't really believe in being friends with my ex, but somehow this one slipped through the cracks and I'm glad we did because I really do think we are a shining example of the perfect ex-relationship.

If you are lucky to have an ex that you can actually stand to be in the same room with, who does not bring any drama or confusion into your life, with whom you can hang out and talk without him trying to get back into your pants,  thank him. Or her. Because a good ex is a great thing!

So what about you guys? Do you have a great ex or do you have the kind that you would murder if the courts were giving out bad breakup passes? Do you think the quality of the relationship predicts the quality of the ex? Share your stories in the comments.

And don't forget the nominations for the Black Weblog Awards! Easy instructions are right here.

Max in Real Life: Do I Spend Too Much Time Online?

Have you nominated me and my blogging buddies for the Black Weblog Awards yet? You can get all the details and sh*t over here.

Here's what a typical day in the life of max looks like: I wake up, suck down a bottle of water, and head for my laptop. I check out what's going on in the world: Twitter, SingleBlackMale.org, and ThreeWaystoTakeit.com. I shower, deal with my hair, and come back and check the weather online. I get dressed and head for work; tweeting or foursquare'ing my whereabouts along the way.

I get to work around 7:45 am most days. When I get to my desk I hit twitter again, peek at Facebook, and check out the 200+ new posts in my Google Reader while I eat my breakfast; commenting on anything that catches my interest.  Once that's finished it's time for work to begin. I tell other people how to do their work,  while furiously gchatting and tweeting all day long. Then I come home, get on twitter, and fellowship with my e-girls and fight over e-boyfriends until it's time to go to bed. Next day I do it all again.

But in the last two days, three-dimensional circumstances have kept me from spending as much time online as I normally do. The pain of separation from my #1 gchat love yesterday was felt as badly as any other separation I've ever endured. Last weekend I spent more time "talking" to my twitterfriends than I did my real-life friends. And these days my sex life consists of pornographic dreams about Slim Jackson since he changed his profile pic male bloggers.

Is this too much, do you think?

On the one hand, I say no. I'm a lone wolf by nature, and all this e-interaction allows me to have the best of both worlds; solitude and connections with real people. Plus as a blogger it's my responsibility to interact with my readers and get to know them, isn't it? And furthermore, I work in emerging media; it's my job to be au courant with social media...right?

Then on the other hand I wonder if what I'm doing is really just hiding from the world. But no, that's way too maudlin and dramatic. So maybe what it is is that I'm taking the lazy approach to life. An approach that allows me to "experience" things without leaving my apartment or changing out of my pajamas. Is that really such a bad thing?

My bestie would say yes. But then again, she is also known to have spent many a weekend holed up in her bed ordering in her meals and watching Hoarders marathons. So I say let she who is not without anti-social tendencies cast the first stone.

As with all of life's toughest conundrums, I put it to you dear readers. Is there such a thing as spending too much time online or am I just being efficient? Is striking a balance between e-life and real life something you strive for, or something that you don't even think about? Hit me with your perspective in the comments.

And don't forget the nominations for the Black Weblog Awards! Easy instructions are right here.

What I Won't Do for a Date

Have you nominated me and my blogging buddies for the Black Weblog Awards yet? You can get all the details and sh*t over here.

When I called my daddy to wish him a happy father's day, I ended up getting sucked into the vortex that is a phone call with my mother. My mum (the one exception to my phone rules because it is more painful to get in trouble for not talking to her than it is to actually talk to her) has an uncanny ability to either enrage, infantilize, or reduce me inside of five minutes when I get her on the phone. Virtually every topic we might discuss can be turned into a way to make me feel dry. Her latest topic: why I don't date more often.

I patiently explained that I rarely meet men and that when I do they usually don't ask me out. Ever helpful, she began suggesting 9,999 things I could do to increase the number of dates I go on. All of her suggestions were unacceptable for various reasons, but the following four really stood out as things that I just will not do for a date. Right now, anyway. But ask me again after I turn 35 in a couple of months.

So here we are: What I Won't Do for a Date

1. Online Dating

Whenever I think of being on E-Harmony, Lavalife or Plenty of Fish, my skin starts to crawl. It just reeks of thirst to me. Now I don't mean for that to be a diss against anyone who does participate in online dating, and lord knows enough people find love that way these days, but for me it just seems so sad. Plus I've been following a certain blogger's chronicles about her experiences on POF and they make me just want to stab myself in the eye. Maybe I could have done this when I was younger and felt more compelled to find "the one" but now? Nah sir! I'd sooner stay single for the rest of my life.

2. Broaden My Horizons

This is a big one. The fact that I get this advice from people other than my mum gives it a little more credence, but it's still highly unappealing. I like what I like. And even though I've had a very poor rate of return on getting involved with the men I like, the idea of going outside my normal extended social circle in the hopes of finding some previously undiscovered gem just does not interest me.

3. Ask to be fixed up

Three reasons why I would never do this:

i. After online dating, this seems like the thirstiest thing in the world to me. To me there's just something so distasteful about asking someone to help me find someone to bone love. I know that's just pride and pride goes before the fall and all that but yeah no.

ii. Asking to be set up disturbs the natural order of things. I don't like to orchestrate too much in my life, I prefer things to happen magically organically. Asking for a setup is the opposite of organic.

iii. I do not trust my friends to set me up. I'm sorry, but I just don't.


3. Date outside my race

You guys are well aware by now that I don't do this right? I tried it twice and it's not for me. At all. Yuck! No judgment at all of those who do, but it's just not for me.


4. Ask a man out

No matter how many times people try to convince me that this is okay, no matter how many times I'm momentarily convinced that they are right and I am wrong, I just can't do this. I just cannot. Actually no that's not true, it's not that I can't - I will not. I don't believe it's my job, it goes against everything that I believe in, and it's for homely girls and I believe with all my heart that it permanently tips the balance of power in the man's favour. We can't have that can we?

Now I know you guys are just dying to school me on how wrong I am for having these standards and how I will die alone if I don't compromise, so please do so in the comments. And if you have any things you will not do for a date, please share them so I don't feel so alone.

And don't forget the nominations for the Black Weblog Awards! Easy instructions are right here.