A Relationship that Never Was

By Jonathan Freeman

What is it about relationships these days that make them this difficult? It seems our parents and even their parents had a much easier time with relationships or at least less complications. While I could wax eloquently about the agonies of relationships today, I certainly would not think to be the equal to thousands of articles, books, delightfully cheesy country songs, Sex and the City episodes, and/or Meg Ryan movies. Instead, I would like to bring up the topic of the relationship that never was or even had a chance.

Recently, having come back to my hometown in Iowa (yes, normal people come from Iowa), I bumped into an old friend of mine from high school. We got to be friends in high school playing soccer, since there were not enough players generally for a team, it was co-ed though fairness to her she really was better than most of us, myself included. We got to be quite good friends after this and the normal thing in my life happened: I developed a crush for her and she fell for a really good looking but not nearly as charming or intelligent as me fellow, and unsurprisingly the fellow was one of my best friends.

The joy of the experience continued as my friend and the young woman in question went to our senior prom (she was a year younger than us) which was followed by a senior class trip where oblivious friend fell for the woman who eventually became his wife and ironically just gave birth to their first baby a few days ago. I, on the other hand, since a little misery is never good enough for me, exacted a promise from the aforementioned young woman to take her to her senior prom. Naturally, I kept in touch with her during my freshman year of college (her senior year of high school) in order to secure the prom date. In fairness to her she was the only person I know that could have gotten me to read a biography of Francoise Gilot, Picasso’s lover/unofficial wife for over a decade, and enjoy it.

The momentous night came and went with little fanfare with a small exception of a few cute stories that all involved can continue to remind ourselves about at the odd party. The remarkably painful moment came months later when I decided to sit her down and confess my feelings to her which somehow I had convinced myself was all that was needed before she would fall into my arms. The ridiculous cliché is still somewhat painfully sharp as I write this down. Anyway, as I’m sure you have already guessed things did not go as I planned or even remotely hoped. The pain of failure was only diminished by the remarkable awkwardness felt by us both. What can I say, unrequited love is a bitch. We saw each other a few more times over the years but I had not spent any quality time with her.

Fast forward nine and a half years and picture this: I am at this potentially lame Christmas Party with friends of my parents that normally would end by 10:15 pm at the latest and ran into the woman in question. Although she is not terribly young anymore she is certainly not old and haggard, of course she still has the same qualities that I was attracted to those many years ago: bright, lovely, charming, funny, and royal pain. I invited her over for dinner (I cooked and yes if you are wondering, I am multi-talented and am one of the few straight men I know that is competent at cleaning when properly motivated). The evening was mostly dominated by catching up over the last number of years since we had seen one another but I have to admit I had an interesting experience through a gamut of feelings.

Interestingly, I have just recently been through another unrequited romance (I hope you are getting the sense that I am good this since my mother always taught me to be the best at anything I did). The most recent experience was interesting in that a while before I had the foolish thought that I should profess my undying love, I sat back and thought that perhaps this was not romantic love kind of feeling. It was certainly strong and there was definitely a feeling of affection but that was it. Oddly enough I was meeting a close friend for lunch that happens to be a professional psychic (no, not Ms. Cleo though that might make the story more entertaining) and brought my latest, almost unrequited love with me.

The nice thing about having a few friends who are psychics is that they end up of helping you without a charge because to excuse the pun, because they can’t help themselves. When I spoke to my psychic friend about the almost unrequited love, he said something very profound to me. He told me that she does not really trust anyone but she trusts me and THAT is very seductive to me, probably to anyone. Something about that statement just struck a cord in me, you know the one where you realize that you have just been given an obvious profound piece of knowledge even though it was not meant as such. I began thinking that the situation with my most recent unrequited love might be the latest in a long (OK, not that long) pattern.

Back to the original girl (I would like to use names here to clarify everything for you but in the small event that one of them reads this article I would like to be able to lie profusely that it is not them and I horrible at making up other names). We talked a long time about a number of topics mostly, as I mentioned, having to do with catching up. The interesting thing for me was being able to witness this whole morass of emotions and calmly sweep them away. I could certainly see how I could get obsessed with this woman again, I mean she clearly is just as lovely, charming, and delightful as I remember her. It felt though as if I was reliving a past life in the present and it was odd.

This does not mean I would be against anything happening, it’s just that I need to not force anything from happening. Some people may see this as somehow creating a cocoon or barrier of space preventing me from exerting myself or even simply being lazy but that’s not exactly a fair or accurate portrayal of the situation. I am simply trying to break this pattern, this cycle that has dominated my non-dating life for years. In my limited though daunting experience of being shot down it generally has always happened because I was trying to force something that did not exist in the first place or that I was trying to take something that never belonged to me to begin with. As a result, I realize that the greatest enemy is attachment and not an attachment to a person but an attachment to an emotion. It is that attachment that forces the unnatural to happen and we all have been in those agonizing circumstances. So, it strikes me that in order to remember the pain of the relationship that never was, it's far more important to remember the relationship that was and to let the rest of the drama go. But if that fails you can always try the Joey line from Friends: “How you doin’?”