Round and Round and Round in the Circle Game

When I met the blue-eyed guy with whom I’m drinking boba teas these days, I truly ached with appreciation for how I had encountered this man—who surely was too amazing, too unique to stay single for long—at a time when he’d had no one else on his arm. Imagine the timing and the luck!

I look back on the other men in my past who were too amazing, too unique, too romantic to stay single—and, as it turns out, none of them are still single after all. There’s my first boyfriend, the saint—a handsome Jewish boy who had black dreadlocks in high school and a green “Go Vegan” sticker on the back of his blue Honda Civic. Possibly the sweetest, most earthy man on, well, earth. The PETA activist for whom I went vegetarian when he quit smoking in a pact made on July 17, 1993, four days after our first kiss on July 13, and two days after my 16th birthday on July 15. After living in Humbolt without electricity for a while, he recently got in touch to tell me he’d married a blind Japanese woman (he makes his living training guide dogs), and they live together at the home he bought in Berkeley. She’s lucky; too bad she can’t see him because he’s beautiful on the outside too. (Sidebar: My mom made me clean out some junk in my old bedroom yesterday, and I found his photo ID pass card to Magic Mountain from the summer of 1992 and his North Hollywood High School school ID from his senior year, my sophomore year, in ’91-’92. Classic.)

I just re-encountered the guy who didn't know who Bobby Brown is, and it turns out he’s dating a Christian girl who prays every day, everywhere, whom he met in the Newark airport. And I can see clearly in my mind’s eye how it all went down. Because (I read his blog about their meeting, but also because) I know how he courted me with an intensity I’d hardly experienced since, maybe high school, or maybe never. So, so whole hearted, and so open, and so loving. And so eager. The first text message I ever got from him said something about how he was buying bok choy, and was happily making a note to himself to buy two bundles of bok choy next time for us to eat now that we had each other. And the second text message I ever got from him said, “So much to curl up with u. So much to laze the morning away in your arms pressed against your skin, breathing in your scent. So much so much so much.” That’s a mouthful for 160 characters, don’t you think? He had so much love to give, I just knew he'd find someone who would be so happy to receive it. (I thought that someone might be me, but it turned out I was wrong and wasn't prepared to embrace all that.)

And then there’s my college boyfriend, the guy who rang my doorbell (through the door: “Who is it?” “It’s your neighbor.” “My neighbor who?”) to give me some chocolate chip cookies he’d baked after he’d seen me crying on the stoop the day before. (“You looked sad. I hope these will cheer you up.”) I made that guy run a hell of a gauntlet—gifts of homemade fudge, breakfasts, flowers, enough praise to make me feel like the most extraordinary woman alive—before I finally committed to being his reluctant girlfriend six months later. And then he was the most dutiful boyfriend imaginable for the next three years, even though he’d had a tough childhood and had more on his mind (death of mother, serious credit card debt, biracial identity crises) in college than I did (getting an A in Film 25B, finding cool 16mm projectors at the flea market, what to wear on the trip to Mardi Gras with the girls). After Berkeley, he went to Harvard, where he met a woman he dated for four years, with whom he moved to New York. Today he told me he needs to be free, and he’s moving out as soon as he gets the money. He’s not marrying her, like he’d told me three years ago he was planning to. Now he says he doesn’t believe in romance, and he’s not the marrying type. If he doesn’t believe in romance, it’s hard to know what’s true anymore.