This May Sound Crazy (10 page)

In this book, I reference what I like to call a Non-relationship Relationship, and I thought I should clarify what this is—even though I missed my deadline to write this and my editor is going to murder me. (Sorry, David.
.)

To get straight to it, a Non-relationship Relationship is when you are seeing someone but the other person doesn't want to “label” what the two of you together are. I have been in Non-relationship Relationships a couple times, but the last one was the most intense and, at this point, it's the last time I'm willing to do it for a while. *sigh*

This is a really tricky subject because there are a lot of people, both male and female, especially at my age, who have no problem with this kind of non-status. There are people who can successfully and happily just date someone without a commitment and be cool with it. And that's awesome. And I am super jealous of that.

But what I'm talking about is something really specific.

A couple days after I turned seventeen, I met this guy. Let's call him Greg. We became really good friends, and eventually I developed feelings for him.

It's weird cuz it wasn't that immediate, like,
“Oh my god, I'm in love with him”
thing.

It was a really slow progression, but I knew we were becoming more than just friends. We never even spoke about dating. I thought maybe he liked me, too, because even though we didn't see each other often, he would still try really hard to keep in touch. But at the same time, I thought maybe he just liked me as a person, which is (~weird~) possible.

I dated someone else while Greg and I were just friends, and I talked to him about those relationships, which is a very friendzoney thing to do. I told him about bad dates I'd been on and weird things guys said to me, and he always listened and made jokes and gave pretty bad advice. But still, it was appreciated. Things started to change, though, after about nine months. We started hanging out a lot more. He was someone super fun to bring to movie premieres I had to go to. Movie premieres may sound exciting—and they ARE; I mean I'm super grateful I get to make movies and go to these kinds of events—but they aren't just fun. It's kind of super stressful to go out and have a ton of photographers take your picture. It's a lot of work, and I'm not gonna lie, more people end up talking about what my shoes looked like with my dress than how the actual movie was, which is something that will hopefully change soon.

Lolz.

But he always somehow made it fun, and we could joke and hang during the after-parties, which really ARE fun.

Anyway, after a while I started to get super confused. Sometimes he'd act like he was my boyfriend entirely. Just giving off that VIBE, YA KNOW. It wasn't in any specific thing he did or said, but more just the way he acted toward me.

It was freaking me out, because I was starting to seriously like this guy. But we were such good friends and I didn't want to lose him as a HOMIE—but I also kinda liked him as a BOYFRIEND. We ended up having a talk, and he said he didn't want to label things. He said he did like me, but he didn't know if he was ready for a relationship but he kind of wanted to be in a relationship and could we just keep going how we were. UGH. CONFUSING. IT SUCKED. And we had the
same talk a bunch of times after that. And it always ended in us arguing and me crying and drama, and then we would always end up going back to just being friends.

I don't know that I'm always going to feel this way, but for now, for me, the Non-relationship Relationships do not work. I'm the first to admit that I'm a hopeless romantic. I always see things as a movie where eventually the guy will stand outside my house holding up a boom box and blasting a love song. But the reality is we don't live in the eighties and life isn't a Cameron Crowe/John Hughes movie. TRAGEDY.

Sometimes what you want isn't always what somebody else wants. I think it's really important to be fully aware of what it is you're looking for in a person and to
be brutally honest about it with yourself. As much as you may think you're fine with someone not labeling your relationship, realize that kind of gives them license to go out and do whatever. And if you're fine with that, by all means go ahead. But if you're like me and you tend to realllllly fall for someone and every song you hear suddenly reminds you of them and you find yourself trying to work their name into every conversation and you wake up in the morning scared to check your phone because you don't want to feel that weird aching disappointment in your stomach if you don't see their name on your home screen and all you wonder about every day when you're walking home is “Why am I not enough for him?” . . .

Then I think you should rethink it. Everyone deserves to have someone who wants to be with them, just them. We all deserve someone who's proud to call you a boyfriend or girlfriend. And if you don't want that, that's
cool. But if you do, be honest about it. Life is too short to be anxious about your relationship status. Relationships should be fun and comforting, not confusing and terrifying.

As for me, right now, I am just trying to maintain a healthy relationship with my cat, Gizmo, who is currently, definitely, emotionally manipulating me. Some days you cuddle me, Gizmo! Some days you scratch me! What do you want from me!

Why am I
single?!?!

 

Okay . . . Well . . . Maybe I know why.

He loved her when he needed to love her

When the spaces between his fingers grew lonely

And his lips too cold at night

When the space in his bed was free of visitors

And her phone was still on

When 2 A.M. drew near and the fear of waking up

alone startled him

He loved her out of fear

The terrifying prospect that the others who

amused him

Would have others who amused them

The thought that she would be the only one there when his charm couldn't get him by

Because she was

Because she loved him

All the time

Because the spaces between her fingers were

always lonely

But they only longed for his touch

Like a puzzle

Every other set of fingers before him

Fit like the wrong key in the right door

Because the space in her bed was reserved

Only for the shape of his body

Next to hers

Because when 2 A.M. drew near

She turned off her phone

Because the fear of not hearing it ring startled her

She loved him because she needed him

He loved her

When he needed to

And the difference startled her

There's a quote from a Semisonic song that has always meant a great deal to me. It's from the song “Closing Time,” which is VERY important and nostalgic to me. It came out when I was only two, but it's been on so many sound tracks to so many rom-coms and I used to be super into the nineties and all emo so . . . ya. Anyway, one of the lyrics is about how every new beginning means something else has to come to an end.

I am a hopeless romantic. I choose to see the good in people. I love the idea of love and of being in a relationship. I love the comfort of having someone there all the time. I am a masochist when it comes to nostalgia. You know that feeling you get when you hear a song that reminds you so perfectly of a certain time in your life? The kind of song that whenever it's on it brings back
so many waves of memories that it almost makes you nauseous? Racing through your mind, suddenly, are all these images of you and the people who once upon a time meant everything to you. I listen to those songs on repeat cuz . . . Well, IDK why . . . I guess I just ENJOY making myself miserable.

For me, another song that trips the synapses is “Texas” by Magic Man, which I was actually in the music video for—though that's not why I love it. (I fell in love with it first and tweeted about it so incessantly that the lead singer DM'ed me on Twitter to ask if I'd want to be in the video. And obviously I was like, “OH MY GOD! YESSSSSS!”) I can listen to “Texas” and the happy memories just start to stir. I can remember the times we had—Summer, Joel, Adam, and I—and think, “Wow, we were such idiots” in the best way possible. Then there are other songs that bring back this weird-messed-up-shakynauseous-all-consuming-sadness-cut-with-the strangest-happiness-I've-ever-felt feeling.

It's this feeling that this song reminds me of the happiest time in my life—and now that time is over. And I miss it—all I can think about whilst listening to those songs is how much I miss that happiness. It's songs like “Oblivion” by Grimes and “See You Soon” by Coldplay. Also “When I'm With You” by Best Coast—but Bethany from that band is HELLA dope, so I still listen to her music ALL the time (except for said super-sad song that makes me ugly cry in bed at four in the morning). Every time I hear those songs start to come on I skip through them. Even just the opening chords can send me into a downward spiral. Which reminds me of a quote by Dante, “There is no greater sadness than to recall in misery the time we were happy.”

That's not to say I haven't been happy since my time in London. I have. I am happy right now. But it's a different happiness. Because I still crave this thing I cannot have.

I miss that time in my life. I miss the beginning of 2014. I miss who I was before everything that happened. (Ignorance is bliss, right?) Sometimes I get so sad about how different I am now. I used to only believe there was good in the world. I still do see life that way. I still believe . . . But I also see it differently.

I also know that I romanticize the past, and I know that it wasn't as good as I remember it.

I also know I fall too hard for people and think they are the ONLY people in the world I could ever love. I still feel that way sometimes.

But I would rather be that way.
I would rather feel everything TOO intensely than to not feel anything at all
. I'd rather be a hopeless romantic and get hurt a million times, pick up the pieces, rearrange them, only to have someone break me again rather than believe there's nothing romantic about the world.

There is so much romance in life that has nothing at all to do with ~romance~. Let me explain.

I have fallen in love with strangers in coffee shops. I've fallen in love with the stories I read behind their eyes. I've fallen in love with couples I've seen on the streets of New York City. The way they fight on the corner of Park Avenue, screaming at one another in the cold December air before succumbing to the warmth of one another's arms. I've fallen in love with Christmas and Thanksgiving and Halloween and New Year's and the traditions they hold. The familiarity of celebrating the same thing the same way every year. I am in love with the cappuccino from a restaurant called Supper on the Lower East Side. I fall in love with songs all the time—“Holocene” by Bon Iver being maybe the first love of my life.

I've fallen in love with New York City eight hundred times over. I can't describe how much love I have for my hometown. When
I'm away sometimes, I think about New York. I imagine myself back home. I travel down her avenues, down her crooked downtown streets. I miss New York with my whole body when I'm away from her. Nowhere else in the world can I roam freely knowing eventually, no matter where I get lost, I'll find myself again. At the edge of Harlem or over by the concrete dividers on the West Side Highway. Madison Avenue or Union Square. Central Park or the center of SoHo. I can get home. I AM home. I can be wherever I want, whenever I want. And that's the closest thing I'll ever get to time traveling, I think. I feel so blessed to have been able to grow up and fall in love in my town, in my city, in New York.

I've fallen in love with my friends. I have fallen in love with nights on Lily and Raya's living room floor. Sweatpants on, my hair in a bun, no makeup, hot tea, gossip, advice, stories, anecdotes, and happiness, and hours of Cards Against Humanity. Lily, Raya, Denise, Kaleigh, and Jenni . . .
I LOVE YOU.

The point is, love is so much more than just dating. Yes, I still believe in “The One” and I still hope to meet him. I hope to meet MANY loves of my life. I mean I'm nineteen so no need to settle down, even if right now I'm sitting in a robe drinking an espresso and reading a
Gluten-Free Living
magazine. I'm actually fifty-three. Jsyk.

Jk.

Maybe.

I hope to fall in love a million times. I think love is so wonderful and gorgeous and exciting. I want to meet many people who excite me, entice me, and make me fall for them.

The reason I wrote this chapter is because I recently have gone through a breakup. It is
so hard and awful; endings are not my forte.

But it's made me realize as much as I hate endings I love beginnings. I love first hellos and the idea of starting over. And EVERY SINGLE DAY is an opportunity to start over. I believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason. So if something has just ended in your life, know it's because it was MEANT to end. It ended so that something better could take its place in your life. That has always proven to be true for me. It's that thought that guides me through the hard times. And I hope if something is ending in your life, you are able to realize that, yeah . . . That SUCKS. I miss THAT. THAT was supposed to be mine forever. It's not always FAIR. BUT . . . Know that your loss is making room for something else. No matter how much it might hurt right now.

Every new beginning means something else has to end.

So, c'mon.

Let's make a new beginning.

<3