17th
Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike
I hooked up with P on and off for about 9 months. While some people could pop out a baby in the space of nine months, I chose to invest that time in events such as Drunk ‘80’s Night at Banditos! Drunk Horse Races! Drunk Cornhole (What? Exactly.)! Drunk Beach! Drunk Kickball! Drunk Baltimore!
With so many exclamation points, there’s no way that it wasn’t a fantastic gestation period (Drunk Gestation!). As such, approximately 95% of my Drunk Relationship! with P took place at or immediately after these events, especially in Baltimore, which is weird.
But some dates would have been nice, you know? And, in fact, there’s that leftover 5% of the relationship that took place at civilized venues like restaurants, concerts, and… well, that’s it.
I remember the best time I ever had with P. It was during an acoustic concert at a coffeehouse. The performer was the lead singer of Brand New. His voice, his guitar playing, and the small venue were perfect. The stars were aligned.
You know how it is when white boys start singing when they’ve got a guitar in their hands and no band to back them up. Their voices get crackly as they tell stories of that one perfect girl that you know you don’t resemble very much. I bet she wears lots of flowery dresses and looks like one of those ads in the Urban Outfitters catalog where the pictures are all overexposed because of the blinding sunlight.
P and I ate it up. The sappiness of the songs was so great that it somehow got inside of me and for an hour or two, I knew my relationship with P was perfect. I liked him more at that moment than I ever had. I could tell he liked me for once too.
Then the concert ended, P went on vacation to Michigan for a week, and I broke up with him in two phases, the first of which was via phone.
The appeal of white boys with guitars is that they lull you into a world of nerdy, honest boys with hearts on their sleeves singing to beautiful, unattainable girls in the bright sunshine.
Nick and I went to the Ben Folds concert last Friday. Ben launched into The Luckiest, in which he not only wears his heart on his sleeve, but it seems to be bleeding sickly sweet corn syrup all over the piano.
“I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you
Next door
There’s an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day
Passed away
In his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away
I’m sorry, I know that’s a
Strange way to tell you that I know
We belong
That I know
That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest”
As I sat with Nick, listening to Ben spin his imaginary world, I realized I didn’t feel anything. No burst of passion in my chest, or longing and jealousy, or visions of me frolicking in fields in the sun doing my nerdy boy mating dance.
For the first time – ever – a song couldn’t make me like my boyfriend more than I already do.
