hackstory

The first one asked me out over MSN. I was fourteen, he was thirteen. A month later I was sure I was in love.  He wrote me poems and songs and brought me flowers he picked from gardens along his paper route. Three years later, I broke his heart.

The next one started as a destructive crush on a close friend. We finally ended up dating for a few weeks, and I learned for the first time that friends shouldn't date friends. He dropped out of school, I pined.

The third arrived in my life in the first year of university.  We were culture vultures holding hands and twins in skinny jeans and v-necks.  We giggled for four months, smiled for two, and frowned for two more. We got sick of each other, we broke up. We're best friends.

I loved number four. The only one I have, maybe. We spent almost three years dreaming and planning and laughing until one day we woke up and realized neither of us was making any space in our dreams for the other.  We broke up and promised to stay close.  We still don't talk.

"Rule number one is that you're not allowed to fall in love with me." The fifth started as a summer fling. The fifth has never been good at following rules.  We now speak only in long eloquent drunk texts.  We seem to agree that staying away from each other is better.

The sixth didn't call when he should have. Maybe because I called when I shouldn't have. Four dates in the first week and I was hopped up on like. Four dates in the first week and he was backpedalling. He's smart, he checks all my boxes. I tell myself that sometimes he looks funny in pictures. Little things take the sting out of rejection.

There've been others, 6.2, 6.5.  Boys and men I knew for a night, for three days.  One that left a love letter on my stoop, a few others I never called back, an Australian that opened our conversation by asking if I planned to take his last name when we married.  I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to number seven, or if I want to keep wallowing in the decimal points for a while longer.

Love and relationships are a curious thing.  I'm a fighter, if anything, and I haven't found anyone to fight for just yet. I don't believe in soul mates and I don't believe in finality.  Let me know if you find a bright and angry red-head, someone with two masters degrees and endless ideas, someone that has never stopped reading. My door might just be open.