Seeding disenchantment
The first episode in a series following my formative sex & relationship experiences. We start at the beginning: from a deceptive ruse in middle school to my first teenage boyfriend.
Starting junior high, age 12, soon to be the girl they called Turtle🐢
The ominous sweater vest on display at my 13th birthday party. Pizza Hut, 1998 🍕
The sweater vest chronicles continue with more birthday fun…🎂
Starting high school, age 15
My Subway-worthy ride 🚗🥪
Science Olympics & laundry soccer jackets, 2003 🏆
The short-lived empowerment era post wisdom teeth surgery 🦷🐿️💪
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This is Divine Interruption.
I'm Sarah Hildreth Rankin.
Okay, I was up super early this morning.
I have already tried recording, and I'm here again.
It was like 5.30 in the morning when I realized I was repeating words and sentences and essentially trying to talk about something in my sleep.
So I got up and I was like, no, just go record now because it's coming.
And yet, yeah, as I made my way down here, I was like, oh, that's quiet.
Like, this is perfect.
And then the kids found out I was awake, so they came down and were literally both at the same time yelling at their Furby to start dancing right at my door.
So it just didn't work.
And that's okay.
I'm here again.
And I've just been thinking so much about what are those moments that change us and shape us and mold us into who we become?
And yes, that's like a huge topic, a huge question.
That's essentially one of the biggest guiding forces in my life.
And my biggest area of fascination is just how are we the way we are?
And what moments in our life got us to take that different route or shift our behavior or move us onto a different path?
And I've essentially always been analyzing and I think just reflecting on those moments in my life ever since I was a kid.
Just, why did I do that?
Or when that happened, why do I now believe this?
Like, it's just always been there for me.
I do want to talk about these things.
The drive in me is so strong to make sense of what I've experienced and how that has shaped me and who I am today.
It can be in a moment where we enter an experience and we're one way, and we come out of that moment, a word, a conversation, a connection, an event, and it just changes us completely.
So I look at that in so many different ways, especially in relationships.
And I think those are our biggest crucibles in a way for me, especially around romantic relationships and how those changed over time.
And so I think what I'm going to do is essentially just work through each one of my formative relationships and kind of see the evolution there and what I learned and why I made the decisions I made and why I ended up where I did.
And I'm just going to start at the beginning.
Who knows how many episodes this will be, but I'm just going to start at the beginning and see where I get today, and then carry on from there.
So I'm going to start when I was entering junior high school.
I am so grateful that those years happened in one school, and then I was able to move on somewhere else and kind of expand from that container because it was a lot.
And I want to say, even before I start talking about this, that I don't think any of us go unscathed as we grow up.
That is a part of life.
And during these years, we bump up against a lot, and a lot of these are such formative experiences that can really shift the narrative of how we feel about ourselves or certain things that enter our lives.
I also think it's really important just to say that I didn't experience any physical or sexual abuse growing up, because that obviously is such a formative experience to have to go through in any way, shape, or form.
And so I just want to say that that was also not a part of my journey that didn't factor in here in terms of me considering being with another person or what that might be like.
So I entered junior high school as a 12-year-old and I came out as a 15-year-old.
And I was really into, I don't know, a lot of creative, maybe nerdy things, I'm not sure.
I loved writing comic books and doing lots of drawings and playing games with different creatures and building little worlds.
And me and my best friend had this thing called The Apartment, and we had all these different stuffed animals and little toys and guys that would live in this apartment and we would build the apartment and make elevators for it and different rooms in the apartment.
And we played this for years.
So I was still, as a 12-year-old, really into that kind of imaginary play and into that world.
And I was certainly having all of the normal feelings around growing up and being interested in having a relationship or feelings around that.
That was all happening.
But my daily life, that didn't feel possible.
I hadn't delved in yet.
In terms of sexuality, I didn't have a lot to work through there in terms of my identity.
So that just wasn't a part of my journey.
I identified as a female and I knew that I was attracted to masculine energies.
So that part was fairly simple or straightforward in terms of societal norms, you know, I fit in in that way and didn't struggle a lot there.
But I just had no experience yet and I knew other kids did and I didn't.
I didn't give much thought to boys or being attracted to them necessarily, but it was definitely there.
I'd say the one thing that sticks out that I remember was David Duchovny in the X-Files specifically.
Like him as Fox Mulder was the epitome of what I thought was extremely attractive.
So I had pictures of him from my grandmother's, like Reader's Digest on my bulletin board in my room.
And I thought like he is the dream.
And I would never say that out loud.
I would never really talk about it.
I don't even think I was fully conscious that that's how I felt about him.
But there was something about that relationship between Scully and Mulder in X-Files that I epitomized as, oh, that's what I want.
That's what a relationship is.
That's what attraction is.
And I just thought he was beyond.
So let's just also say, we're kind of setting things up here with a few expectations as a 12-year-old around what a relationship might even be like or look like.
And so when I entered junior high, I was still doing all these creative games.
And yes, I was also reading 17 magazine, like the other girls in my class.
And some of them were talking about boys all the time, and they were starting quote unquote relationships, whatever those look like at that age.
And I desired that at some level, but it also just never found me.
I was just living my life my own way.
Until one day, a group of boys came up to me.
They were in a year above, and they wanted to talk to me about a guy who was in my class.
And we're going to call him Jay, just for privacy sake.
You know, again, this is in what, 1997?
Like, it doesn't matter, but just for privacy sake, we're gonna call him Jay.
And these boys said, hey, he really likes you, and he's too afraid to talk to you.
And the Halloween dance is coming up, and he really wants to dance with you at the dance.
Like, that's where he wants to meet up.
And I was just taken aback, and I was like, okay, like, weird, crazy.
And it just kind of plucked me out of my world and entered me into another one where all of a sudden I was thinking about this, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, I was feeling really excited and confused, and why would he like me?
And why would these boys tell me?
And okay, like, wow.
So the Halloween dance comes up, I'm putting on my best, you know, button-up shirt.
It's a little extra shiny, you know, my wide-leg jeans and all the things that made up such beautiful attire at the time.
Maybe I had a bucket hat, I don't know.
And we go to this dance, and I've now been thinking about this, like, oh my gosh, we're going to dance together, and oh my gosh, like, he really likes me.
And at some point, I kind of saw him enter the gym, and I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, he's going to come over here, and he's looking kind of weird.
And then the boys come up, and they're talking to him, and then they're getting closer to me, and he just bolts out of the gym, and he leaves.
And I'm like, what?
What's happening?
And I don't know.
I had some feelings about that, and then it became very clear.
They're all laughing, pointing at me, and Jay never comes back into the gym.
He obviously doesn't want to dance with me to the song from Armageddon by Aerosmith.
That's the vibe I'm getting.
Like, this isn't actually going to happen.
And then, yeah, that night, I went home, and I just bawled, because it was so painful, this realization that it had just been a big joke, and that they had set me up in a way that plucked me out of my little world and promised me all these things, and then it was actually the opposite.
And they had been laughing at me.
And so that first experience was very humiliating.
And I remember feeling that, like, I am humiliated, completely humiliated.
And, you know, this boy, he was a really nice guy, and he actually wrote me a letter, like a really short note the next day, and like passed it to me in math class or something.
And it said, oh, I've actually got a girlfriend, and I'm really sorry.
You know, she goes to a different school.
Obviously, she did not, and he did not have a girlfriend, but it didn't matter.
He, I think, felt bad about all of it, and I don't think he had anything to do with it.
And yet, from that moment, these boys also then started just kind of making fun of me.
And, you know, they were older, they were cool, they were actually involved with some of the other girls in my class.
And so I would hear about them, and they were calling me Turtle.
So my nickname was Turtle, and it just became very clear.
I was like, okay, I'm a big joke.
There's something about me that makes these guys want to make fun of me, and they want to poke fun at my appearance.
And, you know, I very much learned, like, I should be embarrassed about the way I look.
There's something that's really gross and unattractive about me.
They would want to humiliate me.
And it's really confusing at that age.
All of it is.
And, you know, you're already embarrassed, I think, about everything.
And I was hiding all of that as much as possible, right?
Not telling the parents, not telling anyone, like, this is just very shameful.
And I still had things.
Well, at that age that I still have now, a lot of skin stuff.
So one day I could look completely normal, and the next day, even I remember one day sitting in social studies class, learning about Russia, and I peeled off my entire hand, like one of my hands, the skin was just coming off all of a sudden out of nowhere.
And I was peeling all the skin off my hands and, like, trying to hide it and, like, put it in my desk so I could throw it out at the end of class and, like, hopefully no one will see me.
So uncomfortable.
So things like that, you know, and a lot of different symptoms that would just randomly happen to me.
So I was always trying to hide that.
And you're growing into your body as well.
This is something I wish that my parents explained a bit more about you're growing.
Your body shifts and changes.
You go through different stages.
And, you know, I didn't have even, like, a nice bra, which maybe sounds silly, but at that age, those things matter so much.
And I just remember seeing girls, and they'd go on, like, shopping trips to La Senza, and they'd come back, and they'd wear these cool bras to school that had, like, stripes on them or hearts.
And I had this Playtex bra that came in a box, you know, from the department store with two little tennis rackets on it.
And it was very, very un-complimenting.
Did mean no favors.
But those feelings where you feel kind of, like, already out of place, and you're like, oh, I'm not really fitting in here, and I can't make my body look the way their body looks.
But again, doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't mean that anyone's life was any easier.
It just means we all had our weird things that we felt really weird about that seemed to matter so much at the time.
So I, you know, received some of this kind of weird bullying, just being made fun of in different ways.
And I don't know.
It's funny.
It definitely deeply affected me, but I haven't always thought about it because my friends, I don't know if they knew that these guys were doing that to me or not.
It seemed kind of like something we didn't talk about.
And some of them were even dating some of these guys, right?
I even got pushed up against the lockers once, and I had just gotten this new sweater vest.
I did mention at the beginning of this podcast that vests play a very big role in my life and they will continue to come up.
It was from Blue Notes.
It was like striped and blue, and I just thought it was so beautiful.
And I'd worn it on the first day to school, or like for the first time ever one day.
And on that day that I wore it, a girl came at me, like actually grabbed the top of my vest, where my neck was, and pushed me against the lockers, and just threatened me and said, like, never wear that vest again.
This is my vest.
And she was wearing the same one.
And I guess it was just shockingly embarrassing that I would wear something that she was wearing.
So, you know, just experiences like that.
I had someone push pin tacks into my back during French class.
That was really, I really, really didn't like that.
Okay.
I digress, though.
It's not about that.
I'm just saying, I don't think we go unscathed through adolescence and growing up.
We all have these weird experiences that I think we compartmentalize sometimes, but that definitely do shape us or affect us in some way, right?
And for me, it was a formative experience with that group of boys who were older than me and essentially humiliated me.
And I learned from that experience that boys don't like me.
Even the boy that they set me up with in Pretend, it was all the guys, but even him, like, he didn't like me that way.
Even though they'd set it up, it was still something, well, he didn't like me.
He had to pretend he had a girlfriend so that he wouldn't have to, like, dance with me, you know?
And I learned that I wasn't attractive.
So I was not someone that a boy would even want to date or be around or think about romantically.
And so I always felt like I had to be funny or find a way to be interesting, to essentially distract from the fact that I felt so gross or that I did not look that way or I didn't measure up in some way.
And that connection to relationships with men, obviously at the age, like boys, but with men was just humiliation.
I will be humiliated.
And I just accepted that it wasn't for me.
I kind of learned, I was like, okay, like boys aren't really for me right now, or they don't like me.
I'm not going to be in a relationship.
And so I just kind of went back into that kid world.
And, you know, got re-energized into dolls and Barbies and stuffed animals and all these creative games that I would do.
And luckily I had friends who would do those things with me, right?
Like write radio plays and all sorts of weird stuff like that.
Also, that is not weird.
You know what?
That is just our innocence.
Why are we not allowed to write radio plays?
But yeah, I kind of went back into that world and just let that go.
And that planted, that seed for me about my worth and what it was to be in a relationship and how men felt about me.
So a few years later, I entered high school.
And this was in a new school, a new environment, so much bigger, kids from all over the place, so many cool activities.
Like I really enjoyed the school I went to.
There was a lot there for me.
Whereas I felt like the school that I'd gone to before was very small, insular.
And I'm just really grateful that I had another opportunity to experience something different.
And the first time I had, I guess you could say like a really intense crush or like really intense feelings for someone was in my art class.
And we're going to call him Glenn.
Okay, this is going to be his name.
I was just instantly kind of just drawn into his energy.
I found him really interesting.
I found him attractive, just just all of the things.
And every time I had art class, I would just want to spend more and more time with him.
And I was just like, oh, tell me things about your life.
You know, I was super into him.
And I think he had no clue at all.
And we weren't really in any other classes, maybe a few other classes.
I remember getting really sick my first year of high school.
That was actually quite scary, and no one really knew what was wrong with me.
But I had to leave school for at least a month, maybe six weeks.
I don't remember.
But my biology class or something wrote me a card that said they missed me.
And I remember he had signed it.
His name was one of the names in the card, and I cherished that.
I just remember staring at it over and over and just dreaming about this person.
And I spent so much brain power over the next couple of years strategizing how I could be with him.
Somehow I thought, okay, I can do this.
I want to be in a relationship with him.
I think he's so amazing.
I will find a way.
And I did.
I just kept plugging away in my brain with this intense crush, thinking of ways that I could get up the courage to somehow just get closer to him.
And that first summer after high school, I went on a trip with my parents.
We ended up going back to Scotland, and I spent so much, well, an indecent amount of time and savings trying to pick him out a present.
And we weren't friends at this point.
We had just been in the same couple classes together.
But I thought, okay, if I pick him out a present, then I can give the present to him, and it will be an excuse to talk to him.
And so I did.
I spent all this time in Glasgow in this record shop, trying to find him this really expensive, elusive, rare, like Red Hot Chili Peppers B-side LP, something like that because I knew he liked that band.
And I found one for him.
And we went back to school the next year.
I brought him some iron brew, a Scottish soft drink and this CD.
And I just went up to him and was like, hey, I brought you back something for my trip because I knew you'd like it.
I saw it and I just couldn't help but buy it for you, as if I hadn't been planning this for an entire year.
I gave it to him.
He's like, oh, cool.
Thanks.
It's really nice.
I don't know how much he thought about that, but I had thought about it for a very long time.
And after that, I just worked in with his friends.
Like, we got closer together.
I knew who his friends were.
I befriended his friends.
And we ended up all hanging out.
And there was an excuse to see him all the time.
And I just put more and more energy into that friendship.
I even got to the point where I joined the Science Olympics so that I could have an opportunity to be closer to him.
And I just want to say, like, I am hopeless when it comes to anything related to physics.
It was a mistake.
I think we did quite well, actually, but it was not in part to me.
We had to design some sort of car, and I was able to make it look really nice, but I had nothing to do with the planning or building of this car in any way.
But those are the lengths that I was going to at that time to get close to Glenn.
And eventually, in grade 12, so, you know, after almost three years, it happened.
Like, we got together.
We'd become friends, and there was definitely something there.
And we got together.
So, on our first date, and keep in mind, like, up until this point, we just all hung out in a friend group.
We go to the movies, watch movies, play frisbee in the park.
All of those things, we'd never really hung out alone.
So this was a very big deal.
My parents, I think they were away for the evening, and I wasn't supposed to take the car, but I did.
I was like, okay, I'm going to take this car because he wants to take me on this date.
And I'll just return it.
Obviously, I'll be back by the end of the night, and they'll never know.
So I pick him up, and he's like, oh, I'm going to take you on a date.
It's going to be special.
And he directs me to this strip mall.
I'm like, I know where we are.
And we go to subway.
And we've been there before.
There's nothing really standing out at this point.
And he goes in, and I'm like, I already know what's going to happen.
So he orders this sub.
I think it's a meatball sub.
And then he does what he does, which was order every single sauce.
That was like his thing.
And he's very proud of this.
He's like, oh, it's my thing that I do.
I get every single subway sauce on my sub.
I think there's like at least eight sauces.
Maybe there's 12.
He's like Southwest and Chipotle and ranch and mustard and Dijon.
Yeah, then we sit outside on the sidewalk and eat subs.
And I was a little disappointed, not gonna lie.
It was pretty disappointing.
And then we go to get in the car, because I'm like, okay, I gotta return the car before the end of the night.
Otherwise, my parents will know.
And I realized I've locked my car keys in the car.
So that was not good.
So he has to go into subway and I'm starting to freak out.
I'm like, oh my god, my parents are gonna know, like, how are we gonna get the keys out?
Just one of those dilemmas, a teenage dilemma that feels like the world is ending.
And he calls his dad from subway and his dad drives all the way there and has a coat hanger and ends up unlocking the car.
And I make it home in time, all the things work out as far as I remember.
I did not get in trouble, no one knew, but it was so stressful and so not worth it.
And, you know, that kind of like set the tone a little bit for what the relationship was like.
And I was still obsessed with him.
It didn't matter that he took me to subway on the first date, again, we're teenagers, like who cares, right?
But I really thought everything about him was just amazing.
It's like the way that he could kick a soccer ball, or he would wear these leather driving gloves and listen to Phil Collins.
And I thought that was just, I'm like, oh, so weird.
Like, I love this so much.
He loved science fiction and Star Wars.
And I loved the way his windbreaker would smell like cigarettes and downy, fresh dryer sheets, because that's the way his house smelled.
And I like the way his hips were kind of shaped like a pear.
Like, all of these things about him, just his uniqueness.
Like, I just loved it.
I was just obsessed with him.
I would bake him cakes and cookies.
I would bring him special presents.
I would want to go to different places to get him his, like, favorite cookies and, like, give him a cookie each day to get through, like, a series of midterms.
I wanted to, like, I don't know, just do everything with him.
And I would plan these elaborate experiences or dates that I would want us to go on.
And this is a little telling and embarrassing, but I had this list of things that I wanted us to do together.
And on this list, I wish I'd kept it.
On this list, it was things like, I want to go get Slurpees, Slurpees with every flavor, from root beer to Coke to Sprite to Blue Raspberry.
And then I want to go to the park and swing on the swings.
And I want to make this very specific craft together one day.
Or I want to spend an entire day just baking bread together.
I want to go play hide and seek in the flower park, and then go to the mall and take photobooth pictures and eat yoghurt fruits.
And I want to go to the thrift store and have a photo shoot.
Like, these were the things that I wanted to do with him.
And it was like I was dumping all of my dreams and wishes about what it was to be in a relationship on to him.
I would just project all of my desires and assume that doing all of these things would then make me feel a certain way, and it would make us have this relationship, because that's what I thought a relationship was.
Like, I didn't know.
I'd never been in one before.
So this is coming into it at the purest form of like, what is that?
This is what I want it to be.
I want to create experiences with this person.
But he never fit into that mold, and he didn't want to do a lot of those things.
And he was just way more interested in like, watching movies and hanging out in the basement with his friends.
Like, that was where he was at.
And yet I still like, I wanted him to fit into my narrative.
Like, this is the experience I want.
And like, I have chosen you to be in this experience with me.
And yet he like, just wanted everything to stay the same.
And I didn't because I had finally like, gotten to this point where I'm like, I get to be with you, and now I have to do all this stuff.
Like, it's going to change everything.
And yet he just wanted it to stay the same, but then we could like, you know, make out on the side.
That was the thing.
He's like, oh, we just get to hang out with our friends all the time, do nothing, and then we can make out.
And for me, it was the opposite.
And yet I had kind of set everything up this way.
Like, I had morphed my life around his in trying to get close to him, right?
Like, from the very first moment, I was, I don't know, scheming, essentially, to get him to, like, be with me.
And so I had gone along with all these things and met his friends and gotten into these friend groups and done all these activities and joined the Science Olympics, like things that I would never have done.
And so it was very disingenuous, the way I was approaching this, and then so disappointing that he would want to do all this other stuff, because he was like, oh, we've already been hanging out for three years.
Like, of course, we're just going to keep doing that.
But now, like, we get to, like, maybe hold hands, you know?
So he never made any sort of additional effort to do anything with me, but I had really set him up to fail and set up, you know, set our relationship up to fail.
And I felt like the rose-colored glasses were lifted from my eyes, and I soon realized, like, how unromantic this relationship business was, because there was, like, only so many times that you can watch the director's cut of Lord of the Rings, right, before you're like, okay, is this the relationship I want?
Like, no, apparently, I want to be off lying under the flowers and dancing around baking bread.
With you, I don't want to be in the basement eating Doritos.
Like, that's not my thing.
So we dated for about six months, I think.
And, you know, we went to our graduation together.
So he was my date.
We hung out over that summer.
So high school ended and we were together over that summer before we both went to university.
And it's funny, I feel like we didn't see each other as much as I thought either.
Like, we didn't also do a lot of sexual stuff together.
I feel like we were both actually quite shy.
And I had just assumed, I was like, oh, he'll just be, like, confident about this.
But that isn't fair, right?
Why would he be more confident than I was?
And why would I put that on to him for no reason?
So we were both a little shy and tentative.
And I was definitely naive about things, you know, wanting him to live in this, like, fairy dreamland with me.
But also, I was still within my power at that point.
And I don't know really how to describe this, except for the fact that I never assumed that we would have sex at any point, really.
Like, I guess I just wasn't there yet.
I didn't feel mature enough, or I always felt like it was a really big deal in terms of it felt like it was going to open up something that maybe I wasn't ready for, or I really, I don't know, I took all of the sex ed very seriously, and I was like, I do not want to become pregnant.
I do not want to get any sort of infection.
I took that very seriously.
And so I think I was like, there's so much we could explore here.
Like, we're not going to actually have sex.
Like, that's just, I'm not there yet.
So I look back and I'm like, oh, I still had that within me.
Like, I was still in my power in that way.
I knew I wasn't ready and I wasn't going to get anyone to pressure me or anything.
And I didn't, he didn't in any way either.
But I just think about that now and I'm like, wow, I didn't give myself away at all at that point.
I wanted to experiment, but I didn't actually want to have sex.
And I still believed that within myself and held true to that.
I hadn't even thought to buy any sort of different underwear.
You know, like I didn't feel the need to dress up for him in any way or sexualize myself.
And that to me is also really fascinating.
I was like, wow, I was really innocent in that way.
I didn't perform for him.
I'm sure in small ways I did, right?
But I didn't go over the top or I wasn't sexualized in that way yet.
It just didn't cross my mind.
I just had normal like gap underwear with like polka dots on it.
You know, I wasn't wearing like lacy thongs or anything that just didn't come into my awareness.
And so we were kind of together.
We didn't see a lot of each other, but we mainly hung out as friends.
And then sometimes we would leave and go like hang out together in his basement for a few hours and like hug and like kiss and all the like very awkward things I've written about in my journal.
And then one day we were sitting on the edge of his bed and he just started talking about he's like, well, when we have sex, I remember being like, I don't know when that's going to happen, you know, in my head.
I'm like, I don't know about that.
I don't know if I'm going to have sex with you.
But he was like, well, when we have sex, you know, and then we're going to be having children.
And, you know, when that day comes, you know, I'm really excited to just be living in this house with you, and we'll be married, and then I'm going to be working as this engineer.
And I just remember being like, what?
Like, what is he talking about?
And right away, I was like, oh, wow, like, he's in a completely different space than I am in terms of what he sees.
And I was like, I don't, why would we have kids?
And I'm like, why would we be married?
Wait a sec, why would we be living in this house, the house that your parents live?
And I'm like, I'm so confused.
Like, my brain was like having all these mini explosions.
And I was like, no, no, no, like, I just want experiences.
Like, I want to be with you now, and let's make this as amazing as it can be.
And then I don't know what's going to happen.
But I don't want to live here.
Like, I don't even want to live in this city.
I just want other things.
So I realized we were really not on the same page.
We had these different versions of the future, different visions for our own lives.
And it felt really confusing to me because he mentioned that.
And yet I was like, he never came to my house.
He never made an effort to go outside of the zone of the friends and like where we had started.
He never came to visit me.
We never really went out and did anything.
He wasn't interested in a lot of the experiences I wanted to have.
And, oh, I've written about this.
I was so upset all the time because he wouldn't really pay any much attention, to be honest.
Even at school, I've got pages of this in my drama-ness of, oh, I saw him today.
He doesn't want to talk.
He's grouchy.
He's in a mood.
He doesn't want to hold my hand.
He doesn't want to be seen together.
So there was a lot of that too where I was like, he's not even making an effort.
It doesn't appear that he's even interested in doing anything with me.
Why on earth would he see a future for us?
It was very confusing.
And so the shininess of all of it was wearing down.
I kept trying to project all my stuff onto him and want him to fulfill all these things.
And yet he was telling me very clearly, I don't want to do any of that stuff.
Everything's fine.
And I was like, no, this is really boring and disappointing.
So we started university that fall.
And right before I went to my first day, the week before, I got my wisdom teeth out.
So I went for this surgery, my face swelled up, I looked like a chipmunk.
And I remember him promising, like, I'm going to come visit you, don't worry.
Like after the surgery, and he never came, he never called, nothing like that.
And I just remembered that for me at some point being like, this is the last straw.
Like you're not interested in a relationship with me at all.
And we ran into each other that first week of university on campus and he just kind of ignored me.
Like he didn't make any effort.
I'm like, wait a second, I am so confused.
We are in a relationship and you don't even want to talk to me in public or be seen with me.
You don't touch me.
It was so confusing.
So it just seemed like he wasn't making an effort.
I was super disappointed.
I was like, having a boyfriend is stupid.
This is not magical.
What is the point?
So I had this like empowerment moment.
I was like, oh, it's time for us to break up.
This is my first breakup.
And I worked myself up for like a week.
And I'm like, I'm going to break up with him.
It's the right decision.
I'm going to rip off the bandaid because I need to go live my life.
You know, 18-year-old me, so mature.
So I made cookies.
I took them to his house.
And I remember being like, I'm going to say goodbye.
Ugh, I'm going to say goodbye to everyone because he had two siblings that were younger that I really loved.
His parents were amazing.
And I'm like, I'm going to say goodbye to all of them and bring them these cookies.
And it's going to feel really good.
You know, for some reason, I thought this was going to go really well.
I thought I was going to feel amazing.
And I was just going to share how I felt with him, and it was going to be so cathartic, and he was going to understand.
Again, so naive, right?
I had never broken up with someone, and I was living in my own narrative, my own world.
So when I actually did break up with him, he was very cold, and it felt like he was very mature about it.
He just kind of shut down.
He's like, okay then, all right, yep, that's fine.
And I wanted to spill my guts to him, thinking that he would accept all of this.
I could tell him why the relationship wasn't working, and how confused I was as if he would want to hear all of that.
And he didn't.
And I remember being very frustrated and upset by that.
I could not control the experience, and he was not listening to me.
And yet, I had just broken up with him, right?
Of course, he's not going to want to sit there and hear me talk about my feelings, but I had thought this was going to be an opportunity to share and maybe actually connect in a weird way, like breaking up with him, but connecting emotionally, which I hadn't felt.
I hadn't really felt seen or heard the whole time.
So that did not go as planned.
And I remember asking, I was like, can I just have something of yours, just to remember you by?
And he gave me a grad photo.
And then I went home and I just like cried and sobbed so hard because I just felt disappointed.
I didn't understand why he was being so cold and it was just shut down.
And then I remember lifting open my chest pocket and pulling out this picture and being like, at least I have this.
And I turn over his picture and assuming there's going to be some like love poem on the back or something.
And he just signed his name, just said, Glenn, word.
So, you know, he never really talked to me again.
I think I requested back my lava lamp at one point in like some meager effort to connect with him to maybe have a conversation.
And then he was like, just come by and get your lava lamp.
Who cares?
And it was like a really rough way to start my entrance into university.
Like, I again was so naïve into thinking what that would be like.
And I was devastated.
We had the same friend group, and no one would want to hang out with me when he was around.
Like, it was really rough.
And I had assumed during our relationship, again, very short lived, six months, but we'd known each other for, you know, three plus years.
But I had assumed, like, over time, I was like, he doesn't really care.
Like, he doesn't make an effort.
He doesn't seem to be bothered.
He makes commitments or promises to me.
He doesn't call.
He doesn't show up.
He doesn't want to go do the thing.
He's grumpy.
He doesn't want to be seen with me.
He doesn't hold my hand.
I guess he embarrassed about me.
There's something there that just wasn't matching up.
And so I assumed when I broke up with him that he could care less.
And I'm like, oh, now we can just go back to being friends.
Like, we won't make out anymore.
And we'll just go back to the way it was.
And so when he completely cut me off, I was just, I was really shocked because I had nothing up until that point.
And no basis of understanding about a relationship with someone else.
And I just didn't understand.
It was really confusing to me.
I just thought it would be fine and that we could be friends, but it wasn't.
So what I kind of learned from that experience or what I remember taking away was, I have to make the effort.
I was the one that from the very start was making all of this effort.
Like, I need to do things or be a certain way.
I need to make the effort to get guys to like me.
I have to try really hard because I'm also not enough as myself.
Like, me running into him would never have been enough.
That's how it felt.
I had to go over the top.
And with this, I spent years courting him and like slowly reeling him in and just trying so hard.
And then even when we were together, I still got this feeling like he's not that interested.
He's not making an effort.
So I learned I was the one that had to go above and beyond or to change myself or to do all the things.
And it was also my first, I guess, feeling that pain, right?
I think we all probably remember that first time we break up or experience that kind of pain.
I don't know.
I really did not expect it, which is so funny.
I thought I was being empowered.
And yes, I was.
I obviously shouldn't have been in the relationship, so I did make the right decision.
But my expectation of what that would feel like was very different.
So I think feeling that pain does kind of rock your world a little bit.
So just from those two experiences, you know, before, you know, age 19, I had already felt this humiliation being attached to guys, this feeling of, I'm not attractive.
They don't want to be with me.
I have to make a lot of effort to be more interesting or to try harder to get them to like me.
And essentially, like, there's something kind of wrong with me, and I'm just, like, not enough as myself.
And really, there was this deep underlying fear underneath all of that, which was, oh, I can get hurt.
Like, it's really dangerous to like someone, and it's really painful.
I can't really show who I am.
I can't really be vulnerable in that way because I'll get hurt.
And that's kind of the starting point for the next leg of the journey, which I will talk about in another episode because I think it just builds, and it's so fascinating to look at where it starts and then to kind of see where we get led and why we end up where we end up.
So yeah, thank you for listening.
And there will be another one coming up soon.
Okay, bye.
