014 - Scary Movies

I had never been that close to anyone, let alone a girl. And it’s not as if I was some perennially “friend-zoned” person, I didn’t even get that far. I wasn’t even in the friend zone with my friends. Because I was never open or vulnerable enough to get there. I was always putting on to fit in subtle lies about my life to better fit the narrative of who I wanted to be — anyone but me.

I remember that night, Tuesday, we went to Kilwin’s — a chocolate and ice cream shop — and got sundaes with extra hot fudge and sat outside on the sidewalk in the warm night air, the white noise of a fountain behind us filling the stillness. And we just talked. It’s crazy to say, but I had never done that before. Two people just experiencing each other and sharing themselves. I never let people in, too afraid that the haunted house of my upbringing and my mind would scare them off. So I locked all the rooms and decorated the entryway, put a couple folding chairs in it, and that’s as far as anyone got. Stuck in ****’s waiting room reading old magazines. Keep them in the shallow end so they don’t drown.

I was so ashamed of myself. Everything someone my age should have done and experienced, I hadn’t. I was an unpopped kernel at the bottom of the bag. And who could I talk to about it? No one, really. Whether it brought ridicule or a sympathetic pat on the head, neither option would make me feel better or whole. I could only hope that things would start to change.

That doesn’t mean my guard was down around V, or that I was completely comfortable. There was still heavy editing and strategizing, fear and anxiety. Honestly, I Was afraid of her. Intimidated. I had somehow jumped from Little League to the Super Bowl — never been on a date, never romantically involved, and now I’m staying at this gorgeous girl’s house on the opposite end of the country, spending every moment together and sleeping in the same bed? Out of my element doesn’t begin to explain it.

Now, nearly five years later, it’s almost unbearable to revisit. Cringeworthy things are unwatchable for me; my whole body folding in on itself experiencing the secondhand embarrassment of others, reminding me of my own greatest gaffes. It was that night, after the ice cream, that V suggested we watch a scary movie. This is before “Netflix and Chill” existed, so popular culture had not yet informed **** of just what implications sharing cinema might have. Assuming we’d be watching in default orientation, I sat down on one end of the couch. V came back and said “No, no, lay on your side”, and then she laid down in front of me — y’know, like how someone would if they wanted you to hold them? Y’know, spooning? A position of emotional intimacy?

Not me though — like a hover-handing Mormon boy scout, I once more refrained from closing the distance between us, because at that point in my life, I was so unaware and unconfident that if someone walked up to me and said “I think you’re hot”, I’d probably ask for clarification: “You mean like temperature? It is rather toasty in here now that you mention it. What’s the thermostat say?”

I was always reacting to the cards life dealt me, calling as others bet, checking the flop, turn, and river, never confident enough in my hand to raise the stakes or to bluff my way to a better result. I was backpedaling through life, taking only what it gave, never pushing, never mustering so much as a “Please Sir, can I have some more?” unable to fight for my own happiness and agency, too determined that any change in course would send everything tumbling down. Scarcity thinking — that it could all go away at any second, that any mistake on my part would be seen as unforgivable by the universe. On a tightrope between two skyscrapers.

Now, is a little hesitation a bad thing when it comes to the complicated world of intimacy?

No. Especially if you’re a man. Kicking myself over teenage naivete is a much better alternative than the opposite — to have been someone who acted impulsively and inflicted serious emotional trauma from signs wrongly read. That said, my hesitation was not only of trying to untangle the knotted headphones of the strange ways we indicate interest — is it weird if I hold her? Is it weird if I ask? It’s probably weird to ask, am I some kind of robot? REQUESTING PERMISSION FOR EPIDERMAL INTERFACE — it was the confidence. The view of myself. In my own mind, I had a pretty shit exchange rate. If everyone else was an American Dollar, I was closer to a Venezuelan Bolivar. Whatever was in my mental checking account simply didn’t have the same buying power, my credit card wasn’t accepted; I felt I was unrecognized in the world.

Crashed on a desert island, waiting for a ship or plane to come close enough and rescue me. The world will never rescue you from yourself. I couldn’t even be bothered to spell out HELP with stones on the beach. I just sat there, waiting for a Carnival Cruise of octogenarian shuffleboarders to see me sat on a rock and send a lifeboat.

Unlike other time in my life you’ll hear about later, V knew I was heterosexual. One of the first things we found in common was a shared opinion on Keira Knightley and how beautiful she is. At some point, likely tired of jumpscares and feeling creeped out while Respectotron 3000 remained stone-still behind her, V took it upon herself to close the gap, and end my blockade of her body. Remember in Talladega Nights when Will Ferrell says he doesn’t know what to do with his hand? Well, you get the idea.

Let’s take a quick strawpoll though: does **** take this escalation as a sign that perhaps someone has romantic or sexual interest in him?

If you answered no, you’d be correct! 2 AM, in just an oversized t-shirt, V is there, on the couch, in my arms. Granted, I will add the caveat that on neutral ground, without the fear of a good Old Testament ass-whooping looming from her parents’ bedroom down the hall, I may have reacted differently. The Jury’s still out on that, though. It absolutely complicated things — I have a healthy distaste for authority, but I respect people who show it to me, and was not about to do anything that might invite frontier justice. It would be quite the scene though, her six-foot-four dad chasing me into the cul-de-sac in cargo shorts and New Balances as I tried to talk my way out of a fight.

I should probably say more about her parents while I’m here. Fear of fisticuffs with her father aside, they were really nice and accommodating. Her mother was always trying to give me money for gas, lunch, or what-have-you, and they both genuinely wanted to get to know me. They seemed invested in me. I think they liked how I carried myself, my independence, and how I acted as a guest. I cleaned up after myself, washed the dishes, all the kinds of things parents probably don’t expect from one of those “damned millennials with their selfies and Instagrams”.

They liked how I took charge in things, how I treated V, all of it. As the other days passed, I found everything about Florida growing on me. The fact that I could cook was found to be quite impressive — I made pizza from scratch and they marveled as if it was manna from heaven. They were like a lot of dual-income families who had kids in the nineties, went out to eat a lot, carried out, or picked up some odds and ends of ready-made things from the store that could be quickly thrown together for a weeknight dinner.

Her dad was an engineer, and a total dad. Loved his car, his family, cold beer, and had long lost any sort of shame or need to impress. You know exactly the kind of white everyman I’m talking about. Went to the same place probably four or five times a week for lunch or dinner, had a favorite place to sit, knew all the waitresses by name — the very picture of American Fatherhood. He was a nerdy guy, he told me about how he and his friends in college would make their own custom stereo systems and do all the electrical work themselves. He was the one who go V into World of Warcraft, and loved using the voice search function on his phone as if he were the Captain Kirk of Coral Springs. Didn’t curse unless he had a few beers in him, tucked in his polo shirts. One of those guys who you could tell used to be quite the life of the party, then shut it down after college and kids.

Her mom was very much the compliment, originally from Alabama I think, she was the Southern Belle turned professional. She hadn’t lost all her southern drawl after decades in South Florida (which to any of you Yankees listening, is one-hundred-percent not the South, despite its relative geography), like to playfully comment whenever a slightly risque or sexually-charged scene popped up during a movie or show, got her hair done almost weekly it seemed, and her nails, went to church three times a week usually, and often drove across town to visit Grandma.

V’s brother was a lovable meathead Channing Tatum look-alike and act-alike who as in ROTC, but never around when I was, usually having a different break schedule from college than me. Like most siblings, he and V would get into mild misunderstandings or little spats over stupid things, but to me it seemed like the ideal modern American family. What more could you really ask for?

I held V that night as we slept, wondering just what life had in store for me. For the first time it felt like things were in motion and I wasn’t at the wheel. Like I could feel the momentum, but had no idea the direction.