1 (where one man's loss is another's treasure)
Two friends and I, our hearts full of high school angst and rock-star ambitions, were touring Oshawa (the "Shwa") in search of a ruckus. Finding none, we settled for loitering at a public playground. That awful thing known as boredom seemed to track us down in every place we went where alcohol wasn't. But hark! An incoherent wailing erupted from the suburban labyrinth,now blanketed in twilight and punctuated with streetlights. We approached the source without hesitation. It was our call to action, it was....something to do! Even better, the noise was coming out of girls! One melodramatic girl was crying, "no there won't! No there won't!" in response to her friends' assurances that there will be other guys, and so hey, don't take it so hard. "What's up?" we asked the grief-struck girl. She dried her tears with her sleeve, said "oh hi" with a wide, almost too-friendly-grin. I guess this is when Cupid shot an arrow.
Through the turbulence of drugs, raging hormonal flux, school, part-time jobs and high school politics, we managed to stay together for almost 4 years, only to have things come apart when I went to university. I was having a nervous breakdown at the time any way, and I think she might have been too. It sort of came with the lifestyle. In the last months, our love fizzled off and on before totally collapsing. She remained a black hole of wonder until Facebook put us in contact again, years and years later. And then just weeks ago, I finally met her again, and her 6 year-old daughter.
2 (some become more grounded as individuals like this: CRASH!!!)
Fast for-ward 3.5 years ahead.
I was in my final year of university, the home-stretch. My smooth and pristine dreams of becoming the next Socrates were starting to get damaged by increasing contact with reality. Worse, when I looked back at my university career,what I saw startled me: I saw a frightened, celibate bookworm who'd wasted a lot of opportunity by doing what he thought was "everything right".
I started to rearrange my life. Frequenting a gym and pursuing a life became goals. Meeting girls, I discovered, was next to impossible for me because not only did I lack both basic social skills and any knowledge of things other than contemporary Western philosophy, but I was also insanely nervous around people generally and women in particular. The one thing I had going for me was a delusion of being cool, despite all evidence to the contrary.
My status was "regular customer" at a coffee shop on the wrong side of the street, literally. Princess Street in Kingston marks a divide between the university bubble of happy-rainbow-campus-of-money-and-education on the one side and the street-hardened locals on the other. This was risky business for a shy boy like myself. One afternoon the shop's manager came and sat down beside me, which freaked me out. She was a woman and my nervousness was made worse by drinking my body weight in coffee. By some grace of god, my visible astonishment (fear) endeared her. I talked philosophy and she... listened to me. Game over: She had me.
Weeks later, she kissed me and my leg shook uncontrollably; Appliances rattled with the violence of it. This too, somehow, endeared her. The kiss was the first domino in a sequence of life-altering events:
Joy-->pregnancy-->drop out of university-->baby-->marriage-->in-law troubles-->financial troubles-->separation-->divorce.
Next.
3 (Third time is a
Recovering from a devastating marriage, I was living and working in Korea. I was there to run away from it all. I was hunched over report cards, trying to give a shit. Enter stage left: a professional-looking Korean woman who just landed a job in the same office. She was well-dressed, sophisticated, work-oriented and being polite ranked high among her priorities. What I'm trying to say is that to all outward appearances, we had very little in common. But there was some sort of familiarity in her face, a certain something that I can't put into words. Yes, she was pretty but that wasn't the whole story. There was just something there. That's all I can say. I fearlessly pursued her. Not my usual way of things. When I tried to kiss her one day, she backed in obvious horror with a weak "no". Oops. After she regained some composure, sat down and smoothed her skirt out on her lap, she told me I was very nice. Then she went home. For some reason, I knew it wasn't over. I was just puzzled by this obstacle.
Later, doubt crept in and I decided that this gut-feeling was just a stupid impulse, so I tried to let it go. Then she let it be known that she was, after all, interested. And we did naughty things in the office after hours.
She later began teaching at another school and by some weird coincidence, I got hired at the same place only a couple months later. Divine providence or just lucky. Either way, everyday day it just made my day to see her.
We stayed together for 3 years, during which I sang her songs and made nicknames for her. I never did tell her that I love her. Our relationship ended when I left Korea to start my life in Canada.
Too depressed now to continue.
The End.
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