The Harem, part 3

Let's continue, shall we?

Abby was great as a girlfriend. She was a lot of fun. I loved hanging out with her. I don't remember much of what we did. After that first night with her, it was all new territory to me. I think I was putting pressure on myself regarding how I should act. After my relationship with Lynnette, I felt that there were certain obligations that I had to fill in order to be a good boyfriend. There were rules that had to be followed in order to keep a girlfriend.

As I said in my previous entry, Lynnette wanted a lot of romance. She wanted an Adonis. But I couldn't give that to her. So it filled me with feelings of inadequacy when it came to my new relationship with Abby. I confided in her about how I felt, that I was incapable of creating a romantic relationship. But she told me repeatedly that I wasn't obliged to do anything.

Unfortunately, Abby didn't graduate. She claims that she was ejected from the school because the Resident Director hated her and because some of the other students had hidden alcohol in her dorm room. Now, I don't know what happened. I've only ever heard her side of the story. I think it was more of a combination of small things that just built up to the incident which led the Dean to decide to release her from school.

At that point, our relationship became long-distance. And Abby didn't have a car. To this day, it's been over ten years since she actually drove a car. I kept telling her that she needed to get one, but she always adamantly refused. That always pissed me off because essentially became a one-way street. If we wanted to see each other, I always had to drive to her place. She only lived an hour away, but it was still a major annoyance to me. Sometimes she would take the bus, but for the most part, it was me who did the driving.

It was a slow burn, but the long-distance thing took its toll on our relationship. Plus, I think we weren't being honest with each other and with ourselves about what we wanted for our relationship. I don't think I actually knew what I wanted. It wasn't going anywhere and I wasn't happy about it. There were other factors involved. I knew she wasn't "the one". I had no plans to marry her. I remained with her for the same reason I let my relationship with Lynnette last as long as it did. I was lonely.

After college, I didn't have any friends left. Not close ones. I no longer had any contact with Stephen or Josue. With Abby living an hour away, there was no one I could hang around with. I liked the people I worked with, but I didn't really want to get to know them outside of work. I'd go to work and come home to a computer and a television. I really was bored with my life, and it affected my relationship with Abby.

Then one day, Carolyn visited me at work. She was a woman I knew from the church youth group as a staff member. She was also a teacher at a local junior high school. She asked me if I wanted to go out on a blind date with a girl named Angela who was a former student of hers. I was completely taken aback . That was the last thing I would've expected Carolyn to ask of me.

At that point, I was still with Abby, although we were on the way out. The reason I said yes to Carolyn was because I was bored with my life and going on a blind date sounded kind of interesting. When it was over, I would be able to say, " Yes, I went on a blind date with someone, too!" I would have a story to tell. I didn't believe that anything would come of it, that I would end up dating this girl. I just wanted the experience of going on a blind date.

I told Abby about it. Maybe it was a dumb move. Not just telling her about, but also the agreeing to the blind date. But I felt that I had to tell her. Needless to say, we broke up. Words were spoken. Painful words. Feelings were hurt. I was upset, but not heartbroken. No tears were shed. I felt mostly anger, but I was all right.

The date with Angela turned out all right. No big drama or freaky occurrences like you see in sitcoms. It turned out to be her nineteenth birthday. (I was twenty-eight.) When I saw her the first thing that popped into my head was that she looked like a combination of Hilary Swank and Neve Campbell. Kinda skinny. Definitely a plus because Lynnette and Abby were both overweight. (Not fat, though). We met at Carolyn's house where we had a spaghetti dinner (her choice) and then went to see The Mummy Returns. After it was done we exchanged phone numbers and went on our merry way. The evening was just pleasant.

We remained friends after that. We'd go out to eat. We'd hang out at her place and watch videos. I even joined her for a Bible study she had with Carolyn every week.

I was flirtatious with Angela in the beginning. Not overly-so. Just to see if there was any kind of spark between us. I'd say, "Hello, cutie!" or "Luv ya, babe!" Occasionally I would say she looked good in a particular shirt. I also did it just to be nice. I've been told that girls like it when someone compliments them on the way they look.

But Angela didn't. She wrote me a letter stating that my flirtations made her uncomfortable and that she didn't think about me "that way." I replied that even though I did, in fact, think she was very pretty, I would stop. Which I did. For the most part. Occasionally I let one slip now and then.

It's weird how you can see someone every day and they're just part of the ordinary. Maybe a co-worker or friend or someone you see in church every Sunday. And then at some random, not-so-special moment, you all of the sudden are in love. It happened to me with Melissa when I saw her in her Halloween costume. Then it happened again with Angela.

We were doing the Bible study at Carolyn's house. She got up to get a drink from out of the refridgerator. Then BOOM!!! I was totally in love with her! I had seen her cross to the fridge a hundred times over. But at that rather mundane moment, as I watched her walk over, it was like a switch had been flipped. For the rest of the night, I could not concentrate. I desperately wanted to be with her. I wanted to be her girlfriend and she my boyfriend.

But alas, it was not to be. I eventually wrote her a letter expressing how I felt about her. She responded that she wasn't interested. I let the matter die, but not before I told her that if her feelings ever changed, that she would let me know. My feelings for her waned even though I still found her physically attractive. I never told her so, which proved to be a costly mistake. But that's not a mistake that you can see coming. I mean, you don't just come out and say to someone that you're not in love with them anymore. That's rude and downright mean.

More on that later.

It wasn't until Ricki Ann showed up that the word "harem" started to become associated with me. Up till then, I had never brought a guy friend in to my house. It was always a girl I would bring home with me. Whether it was Abby or Angela or Susan. So when my mother met Ricki Ann for the first time, she said to me, "Another one? Boy! You're developing quite the harem!"

I'm not entirely sure where Ricki Ann fits in to the timeline of my life. I just know it was somewhere in the year that I wasn't speaking with Abby. If you ask me if it was before or after my crush on Angela, I couldn't tell you. But she was significant in that she was so memorable. She had quite the personality.

We met at work. She was brought in as a department head. She worked in the wedding department on the other side of the store. I hate to say it, but she was fat. Not disgustingly so, but she had a definite weight problem. Even her face was puffy. But she was also a sweetheart. She had a really cute voice and a cute smile.

Now, I'm a flirt by nature. It's just something I do. I often compare myself to Pepe Lepew. We're both interminable flirts, and females find us physically repulsive. Many times when a girls says, "It's hot in here," I respond with a "Thanks! You're not so bad yourself!" Or if I'm walking by one of the floral designers who's working on an arrangement, I'll say, "Very pretty. And the arrangement's not bad, either." Those kinds of comments would always get a chuckle.

So my flirtations are of the friendly variety. Nothing sexual. Just the kind that garner a round of giggles. I'm never looking to develop a relationship with any of the women. Just to put a smile on their face.

Naturally, I flirted with Ricki Ann. At the time, some of my comments in my repertoire of flirtations were "Hey, sexy," and "Hello there, gohgeous!" I have since retired those greetings. If I knew then what I know now, I definitely would have cut back on the comments. But at the time I had no clue about the complexities and the warnings about the female personality, particularly those who have weight and self-esteem issues. Live and learn, I guess.

So yes, I said those things to Ricki Ann and she responded well to them. She started paying extra attention to me as a result. Our friendliness grew to the point when we exchanged phone numbers and started hanging out together outside of work. At that point I found myself physically attracted to her. Even though she had a weight problem, she just had this thing about her. I don't know what it was that made me gravitate toward her. It's like she pressed all the right buttons.

But her personality was a different story. She was insecure to the extreme. I could barely say a word to her that she wouldn't get defensive about. She would be talking to me on the phone, and out of habit I would let out one tiny, polite laugh to let her know that I was listening. Every single time, she would say, "Are you laughing at me?" Every. Single. Time. I would have to reassure her that it was just my way of being polite. Eventually I got so irritated with her that I stopped denying it.

"Are you laughing at me?"

*sigh* "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because of what you said."

"Why are you being mean to me?"

"I dunno."

We would have that same conversation several times during our phone calls. I found it very aggravating.

She was also insecure about her weight. Who wouldn't be? But her insecurity went to the extreme. I remember one time at work when I was in the stockroom working in my aisle and she was up on a ladder in the next aisle. She lost her balance and grabbed the top shelf to steady herself. I looked up and was startled to see the piles of boxes wobbling. I told her that for a second I thought they were going fall down on me. Well, she took great offense at that. She thought that I had just called her fat because she made the boxes wobble. I said nothing of the sort. Those boxes would've wobbled no matter who was up on the ladder. But I couldn't talk to her for two days because she thought that I had called her fat.

In spite of all that, the spark between us grew. Our conversations became quite sexy. Like I said, she just had this thing about her that I found extremely attractive. One day I took her to see the movie Chicago. We ended up making out right there in the theatre. After that we came back to my place for a heavy make out session.

And that was that. I never saw her again after that night. We spoke on the phone several times, trying to coordinate our next visit, but we always had other plans. I had to work, or she was going out with friends, or I had someplace I needed to be. Eventually I stopped calling her and I never heard from her again.

Time to stop. This is turning out to be quite the book, isn't it?