"Post-Graduation: Home And Heartbreak (Part 7)"

          Despite both of our intentions our courtship soon turned into dating. In not wanting to over complicate an already complicated situation, we stated that we were "keeping things simple." However, this was in name only and Stev knows my view on this. If a couple is doing everything that is entailed in dating except for actually calling it dating...IT'S STILL DATING! Someone tell St. Amant (lol). We were not exclusive and I encouraged her to see other dudes. As long as when she was with me, she kept smiling, it didn't bother me. I reasoned that if she was coming out of a bad situation, and I claimed to care about her, then what would it look like if I tried to lock her down as well? I was trying to see things through her eyes and that course of action would have simply been selfish. For me, there were other possible girls in Ann Arbor but how many of those girls would I want to talk to after we hooked up? I felt like I had the total package so I didn't bother. The physical was great, but the emotional connection is why I fell for this girl. She would say things in passing that indicated that she did not know how I felt about her. So this made me more willing to open up to her but here was the caveat. Our relationship was almost in a vacuum because she was still married. Since I met her in November, she was supposed to be getting a divorce but all I knew of the situation was what she would share with me. Thus, I never pushed her on the issue. Doing so felt wrong to me because 1.) I shouldn't have been in the relationship in the first place and 2.) She was under a lot of stress and didn't need added pressure from me. Besides how do you tell someone to speed up a divorce from the love of their life without sounding like a selfish asshole? It's liken to how do you ask a girl to get an abortion? Chocolates? Roses?? All of the above??? (I PRAY I am never in this situation). 

          She would always try to get me to come over her house and chill and as badly as I wanted to, it felt weird. As her husband had lived with them, her family was intimately aware of everything that went down between the two of them. Thus if I was ever to "Meet the parents" (pun intended), the first thing that I would do is apologize profusely for dating their daughter. Think about it. If your daughter was dogged out by some asshole, wouldn't you want her to completely end that marriage and sever all ties with that dick before she began dating someone else? Well I was that "someone else" and without knowing me, they would not be in the wrong for assuming that I was taking advantage of their daughter. Suppose I gave in and met her family. Naturally the next step would be for her to meet my mother. You have to realize that in high school, my mother and I used to fight all of the time and though our relationship improved when I went away to school, I don't talk to her freely. I tell her what she needs to know but at the same time I don't like lying to her. So if you can follow my logic, how do I tell my mother, the ordained minister mind you, the truth about Amanda? 

          Despite our differences, my mother is the most important woman in the world to me. Trying to repay her for all that she's done for my siblings and I is my motivation in life. So if I met a wonderful girl, I would want my mother to know. At Amanda's house they would know her entire situation so meeting her parents would be a formality but at my house I would have to be more diplomatic about the details and this seemed unfair to my mother. (Side note, in writing my novel Galfing: A Young Man's Guide, I just realized that my high school girlfriend, Kelli, is the only girl to ever meet my mother. I don't know how I feel about this. The thing is that the next time that I move away from home will be the LAST time and I could easily leave the state of Michigan. I cannot imagine flying a girl back to meet my mother unless I was VERY serious about her. This means that if I choose to get married, the next girl to meet my mother, might be the "wifey." This is an unsettling thought. Maybe I should just bring home the worst girl imaginable. Imagine some hideous girl with ten kids by 20 different daddies, a mustache, missing teeth, a Meth addiction, one leg, outweighs me by 200 pounds, who sits at home all day watching The Home Shopping Network while drinking Burnett's Vodka. ANYONE I bring home after such a girl has to be a step up!) So full disclosure was NOT an option because as you can imagine, most mothers would question the relationship and even worse, the girl would be unfairly judged. I couldn't do that to Amanda so I decided that it would be best to keep things between us.  I aired on the side of caution by telling her that "One day we would meet each others mothers." I know this bothered her as it may have seemed that I was trying to keep her at a distance but what would she have me do? We had to continue with the way things were and so we did.

           We continued our tryst even taking a weekend in Ann Arbor where she met some of 1502 and the rest of the inhabitants of Hotel Arch. Remember I didn't have a phone so I had to contact Stev and my sister through her phone. That first night we went to Charley's and I ran into my friend Mychael from freshman year. Before we began to talk I introduced her her as "my girl." I remember how strange this felt to actually use the possessive in regards to her. What I had said was not a big deal but what I heard was "MY GIRL." However, if I was truly honest with myself, that's what she was. Thus after talking with my friend I looked at her and said, "You're my girl, let's cut the bullshit." Consensus from everyone that met her was that they loved her and they asked me to bring her back to our Easter trip that we were planning. One of Kenzo's friends provided a shocking moment. After overhearing Stev and I talking about Amanda at Rick's he heard the word "married" and grabbed me attentively. I do not recall his name but he had a thick Spanish accent when he spoke as I believe that he actually was from Spain. He held up his left hand to my face and said, "Marriage. Don't do it! I was married once and I thought I was in love, but then she asked for a divorce so I grabbed a kitchen knife and cutoff my ring finger and threw it at her. I told her if she didn't want my hand in marriage then NO ONE would have it!" 

          Remember we were at Rick's and so I was DRUNK as I listened to this monologue in a thick Spanish accent. I swear I would have thought that he was pulling a prank on me but he had his hand in my face and proceeded to wiggle the nub that now represented what was left of his ring finger. I had my drink in one hand and my jaw open in disbelief. All that I could manage in response was a nod of my head saying, "Yes sir!" Again I PRAY I never love anyone that much to cut off my own finger. People in those intense types of relationships rationalize them as being "passionate" I call BULLSHIT on that. I heard a story recently about a wife sending her husband to the ER after stabbing him multiple times. WTF?!?! If your argumentative skills consists of pulling out a weapon on your spouse you probably don't need to be in that relationship.  Maybe I am too logical but I could have understood cutting off her finger, but why the hell would I want to cut off my own finger? Also, a standard kitchen knife is not as sharp as a surgical blade or a Japanese Katana. So to actually cutoff his finger meant that he took a couple saws, back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth (Yes! I want you to get the image so I'm overdoing it) until the finger was severed. It was this gruesome display that was stuck in my head as I stood before him dumbfounded. At the end of the night, Amanda was liked so much that somehow the idea of a foursome with St. and Emily was proposed and I was in FULL support of this. We were at Pizza House when this was happening and I believe the two girl's even kissed just to satisfy us but there was no tongue or passion to it. The next morning she kept saying "I CAN'T believe you kept trying to get me to hook up with that girl," and all I could do was laugh. Smilez was there with Michelle, Stev was in another booth with some girls, St. was with Emily and there were various other girls that we knew at Pizza House, but I had the sexiest girl in the house. However, Emily is a sexy girl as well, so from my point of view, why WOULDN'T I want them to hookup? However the trip was a success but it was after we returned that things began to change.