Under the Hill

I was driving to work the other day and I ran into the old object of my obsession, Nick. Now, Nick was the one guy that made me break all my rules. Handsome and very good at making you think he cared, I ignored the little fact that he had a girlfriend and dreamed of making him my own. There had to be something between us, right? I mean one look at him and my heart was jumping out of my throat and my knees were buckling, he had to feel it too! I, of course, like many women who make this mistake was just playing myself because on that happy day when Nick finally did tell me he had broken up with his girlfriend and wanted to date, he literally disappeared on me days later. I tried to call him a few times and no response. A few weeks later I heard he had hooked up with a woman I knew, a Hook Nosed Girl that I had met a few times and frankly found a little emotionally unstable. Not only was I cast aside but for a less attractive girl who could barely string two sentences together and needed Prozac? I was deeply hurt.

So, running into him again after that humiliation was something I wasn’t really prepared for. My plan was just to wave and keep on driving, but he followed me into the parking lot and when he got out of his car I did a double take. He wasn’t nearly as cute as I remembered and was he always this short? He fumbled around asking me if I still had his number. I replied no and he offered to hand over the prized digits again. I passed and the look on his face was priceless. It had been a year since I saw him. What made him think that I was still interested?

I asked him about Hook Nose and he told me that they had broken up months ago and she was “cool. That was about all.” He said, “he’d call me.” I said, “I won’t be waiting by the phone” and that was that. The funny thing about the encounter was that I always wondered how I would feel if I saw him again. The answer was surprising. I felt zip. Zero. Nada. The feelings that I thought were so strong, that I even thought were love was merely a strong infatuation that I held on for a ridiculously long time. I was free and I had to tell you. I felt like break dancing. That’s when I knew that I would never lower my standard to try to win a man again. Infatuation fades, love for yourself is forever.

The funny thing is that when I told the story to a mutual friend of ours she informed me that Nick and Hook Nose were “still going strong.” I was shocked. When I last saw him he was trying to play me and a year later he was trying to play me again? I realized that Nick would never change and that it was foolish for me to think that Nick would ever be any different. You have to take people as they are and any thoughts of changing them or them magically changing is ridiculous. I think that’s one of the great things about entering your thirties. You know what you want and you just won’t take the crap from guys that you use too.

Nick did actually call me, but I didn’t even bother to answer. That old feeling was gone and in its place, was the unshakable confidence that I can do better.

till next week…