Forever Alone | Chapter 2: Proms & Palpitations (Part 3)
Forever Alone | Chapter 2: Proms & Palpitations (Part 3)
In which my teenage dreams swell to the highest heights and burst spectacularly, I learn to date boys I’m not into, and I mistake depression for love.
I published Forever Alone: One Introverted Millennial’s Half-Agonizing, Half-Hopeful Journey Through Singledom in 2021 as a 7-part podcast miniseries. I’m re-publishing it here on Substack for the first time in written form! Start reading from the beginning here.
Depression, anxiety, and an incredibly toxic relationship left me almost unrecognizable to myself. I looked back two years to the creative, funny, confident person I was in high school, and struggled to recall what it felt like to be her. I was insecure, rigid, serious, and downtrodden.
So, in an effort to feel more like myself, I did something pretty out of character for an introvert who hates uncertainty—I signed up for a two-week study abroad over the summer, in Europe, with a bunch of absolute strangers.
Which is where I met Stephen.
When I sat down at the gate ahead of our flight to Italy, I scanned the group and texted Kristen, “Damn. There are no hot dudes on this trip.” Which was true—no one stood out to me in a physical way.
But I wasn’t there to meet guys, anyway, or so I told myself. Right before the semester ended the guy I’d been casually dating for a few months—my rebound from Patrick—told me he’d rather just be friends. It stung my ego more than actually wounded me, but still, I was free and available and it would have been nice to meet someone while studying abroad. It would have made a good story, at any rate.
The trip was only two weeks, but we bonded the way 20-year-olds sharing one big house together tend to do. I made fast friends with my roommates—two cute girls a year behind me named Melanie and Carissa, and together we befriended most of the guys on the trip. Almost all of them were single, and it was obvious that, like most normal college dudes, any or all would have been more than happy to take an opening if I, Melanie, or Carissa gave them one.
I had fun flirting with all of them in rotation, but I wasn’t interested enough to single any one of them out. But one night in Rome, at the end of the trip, a group of us dressed up—bodycon dresses, heels perilously navigating cobblestone streets—and went out dancing. Stephen was a good dancer, he made it clear he was into me, and I made it clear I liked that he was into me, and by the time we got back to the hotel my roommates were asking me if he and I were going to become a thing.
On the last leg of the trip back home, before we all took separate flights back to our families, I made sure Stephen had my number, and breezily invited him to text me some time, if he wanted. Within a few days we had one of those fun, flirtatious text threads going that you can only have right at the beginning of something.
It was going to be another six weeks before we were back at school, which seemed like an unnecessarily long time to keep texting someone without knowing where it was going. So, since Stephen lived a few hours away, but only a few miles from where Kristen lived, I decided I’d go visit her and let him know I just so happened to be in his neck of the woods.
He wasn’t an idiot, and immediately asked if I wanted to go out while I was in town. I wore a blue dress that was technically longer than a shirt, but wouldn’t have a chance of covering my ass now. He picked me up and we drove to a lake nearby and walked around. Eventually we stopped on a dock and sat down. I was in the middle of telling him about one of my dreams—god knows why—when he leaned in to kiss me.
I immediately deflated. It didn’t feel good, or right. It was Patrick all over again. Except this time I wanted to like it, and just didn’t. I actually had to stop myself from pulling back too soon, for fear of hurting his feelings. As we made our way back to the car he ran his hand down my side, over my hip, and said how much he liked my dress—that he’d liked it when I’d worn it on our trip, too. I forced a laugh and thanked him, working hard to hide my disappointment.
That’s where it should have ended. “I had a nice time and I like you a lot, but I’m not feeling a romantic connection. Can we be friends?”
But that’s not what I did. Instead, just like with Patrick, Stephen and I were together for two years. Unlike Patrick, Stephen and I actually got along. We were friends—would have always made good friends, even if we’d never dated. Stephen was calm and funny and would humor me with conversations around almost any topic. He made me feel comfortable and seen—he liked how fiery and opinionated I could get, and didn’t easily get riled up by my innate sense of drama. Even now, 7 years since the last time we spoke, I still sort of wish we could have stayed friends.
But I never felt real physical chemistry. In fact, I let him think the entire time we were together that I just didn’t like kissing that much. I never had the guts to tell him that I did like kissing, I just didn’t love kissing him. But I didn’t think that was a good enough reason to end something with a guy I genuinely liked. I thought I was asking for too much, anyway. You can’t have it all, right? And aren’t some things more important than physical passion—like intelligence, humor, companionship?
Things were smooth between us for the first year, until we graduated college. Like before, a major life transition threw me into another anxious-depressive spiral. This time, though, I didn’t assume my relationship was the answer to my despair. At that point, I was wise enough to know it was much, much bigger than that. I spent a year questioning everything—where I was going with my life, what I really wanted, how I wanted to feel—and absolutely nothing lived up to my expectation of what I hoped it could be, including my relationship.
I wasn’t unhappy with Stephen, but I wasn’t happy, either. It was … fine. And I couldn’t figure out if the fine-ness was something the matter with me, or something wrong with the relationship. I called friends who seemed happy and asked them how they felt about their relationships, hoping for a clue one way or the other, but didn’t have much luck deciding.
But somewhere along the line, the part of me that knew the answer took over. I found myself, without intending to, distancing myself from Stephen. I wouldn’t check in as often when we weren’t together, and when we were I was aloof and hard to read. By the very end, I felt like the only part of me still in the relationship was my body—my mind and spirit had exited long before.
I didn’t exactly mean to, but I ended up breaking up with him on my mom’s 50th birthday. He came over after work—I was still living with my parents at the time—intending to have dinner with me while my parents were out celebrating my mom. He tried to hug me, and I froze—the same way I’d frozen when I was 16, after Dylan kissed me for the first time. He stepped back, asked me what was wrong … I don’t remember exactly what I said. But I do remember what he said: “I’m still in love with you, and you’re just … indifferent. And that’s somehow worse than you hating me.” We never ate. He left, and I called my mom crying, apologizing for ruining her birthday.
A while back I said that the stories we tell ourselves matter. Humans are natural storytellers—we make meaning and sense out of the things that happen to us by weaving a narrative not just about why and how it happened—but about who we are, as a result. And those stories matter deeply, because once told they’re very, very hard to un-tell. It took me a long, long time to parse out all the stories I’d told myself as a teenager, and even longer to question whether they were true.
The biggest story was this: What you want, doesn’t want you back. Or, put another way: You can’t have it all, so don’t aim so high. Or: Your feelings are not to be trusted.
Luke had been the first boy I was attracted to in every way. I never had to think for a moment about whether I wanted to be near him—I just did. Every part of my little 15-year-old self was lit up around him, effortlessly.
When I found out he wanted someone else, the story I constructed—unconsciously, of course—was that I’d been dumb for expecting so much. I was a stupid teenager who’d gotten caught up in believing life could resemble the stories I’d been reading and watching for most of my life. It wasn’t reasonable for me to want it all—intelligence, humor, athleticism, creativity, physical attraction—in one person. And I probably wasn’t pretty enough for someone like that, anyway.
So, I told myself that if you want someone who also wants you, you’re going to have to sacrifice at least one of the things on that list, and forget about feeling lit up. And really, forget about feelings, period. Those are for naive teenagers who end up wrong and embarrassed—so if you don’t want to feel like that again, don’t ever lead with your feelings. And for god’s sake, get a move on, kid, because you’re shamefully “behind” everyone who’s already had a boyfriend. Checking that box is more important than how you feel.
The narrative I wove wasn’t just about what happened—you got hurt, you felt ashamed—but about my identity as a person. I wasn’t good enough for what I actually wanted. I wasn’t lovable or desirable enough for someone I would find equally lovable and desirable. I was inexperienced and uncool, which was something to be deeply ashamed of.
So, without knowing what I was doing, I shut down. My mind got to stay online—because my mind was capable of logic and rationality. My mind had a firm grasp on reality. My mind knew where I ranked in comparison to everyone else, and wouldn’t allow me to get ideas above my station. But my body absolutely couldn’t be allowed to lead the way anymore. My body was the home of my heart and all the intense, messy feelings that lead me astray and broken my spirit.
At 16, what had previously been one whole girl fractured into two separate people. A reasonable, “mature” adult who knew better than to get caught up in fantasy ever again, and a silly, naïve girl who didn’t know how the world worked, and wanted things she had no right to ask for.
From then on, time and again for years, I ignored my body’s blatant calls for me to walk away from guys that, for one reason or another, I didn’t desire a physical relationship with. I pushed through my discomfort because I believed that was the only option for someone like me—not worthy of what she wanted, and dumb for even wanting it in the first place.
What’s funny, in a dark and ironic kind of way, is that Luke’s eventual confession—if we can call it that—did nothing to change that story. Learning that he probably had, at some point, felt the same way about me, didn’t make me go, “Oh cool, guess I’ve been wrong this whole time and I’m worthy after all!” One or two drunken texts wasn’t going to reverse a story that had taken on a life of its own—a story that had never really been about Luke, in the first place. He was the catalyst; the symbol for what I wanted in a relationship, but the story wasn’t about him—it was about my unworthiness to ever feel that way about anyone.
My true singledom—the 8-years-and-counting I mentioned in the last episode—began when I decided, on a level I wasn’t consciously aware of at the time, that I would never force myself to stay in a relationship that betrayed my body and disappointed my spirit ever again.
But the problem was—that left me with only one viable choice. I wouldn’t allow myself to ignore my body again, but I also didn’t believe what I wanted was possible. Which meant the only option was to be single. Perpetually.
So, I ventured forth. I quietly hoped I was wrong, but assumed I’d end up forever alone. I decided that as long as I wasn’t going to be fulfilled in that area of my life, I damn well better find it somewhere else. That story is for next time.
This was Chapter 2: Part 3 of Forever Alone. Read on for Chapter 3: Part 1!