Conor, part one

I don’t mind waiting if it takes a long, long time.
And I don’t mind wasting the best years of our lives.
And I don’t mind racing through our goodbyes.
-Rilo Kiley

This is a long one, so settle is and adjust your screen to decrease the glare.

I don't know if I believe in soul mates, but if, in fact, they exist, mine would be Conor. We're so much alike. And because we're so much alike, we often hate each other. I mean, I know I despise the flaws in him that I see in myself. But, on the other hand, we also love each other most of the time because we're both reluctant narcissists (we will swear up and down we're not). It's odd how much of our lives have traveled parallel to the others for the past seven years, and, in fact, even before that. We grew up similarly, in upper middle class towns with loving parents who had already raised a relatively well-adjusted child with no major problems. We were both the second child, both precocious and moody, and our parents had no idea what to do. That's how the two of us ended up at Yale at an academic summer program in an attempt to get us to recognize our potential and, I suspect, also to get two difficult teenagers out of the house. The problem with being a precocious kid is (as is outlined wonderfully in Franny and Zooey), you go from adorably wise beyond your years to a general wise-ass know-it-all during the course of puberty (Please note that I not only made a Salinger reference but ALSO compared it to my life) (yes, sometimes I don't even like me). And before you know it, you begin to think you're some sort of undiscovered, tragic genius who no one understands and start to hold onto your fucked-up-ness as a badge of honor. But I'm getting ahead of myself a little.


A message to you: Conor,(and I know you're reading this because you asked me to write it, and have been waiting for me to write it) this is not going to be nice. I don't know why you want to read all of this. When I talked to you today, you told me it was ok if I was mean, if I hurt your feelings, because, you said, you've hurt mine. And then you said that I've never hurt yours in return. I told you that was the main problem in our friendship. You have a sick need to read about how much you've meant to me over the years. I know writing this will make me look like an idiot, because how could I have put up with you for so long? That's always been the question. Writing this is feeding into your ego, but, like always, I can't help it. Please don't think of this as a love letter of any kind.


I met Conor the first day of camp. He was in the same dorm group as this kid I had known the year before, Taris. Taris was the worst. But he was a boy, and my roommate Lauren and I just wanted to meet some guys to hang out with, so he was better than nothing. Conor was playing frisbee in a group, and he had taken his shoes off and was running around in the dirt wearing only socks. When he came over to introduce himself, I told him I thought he was dirty. Apparently I was not past the phase of teasing as mating dance. I was immediately attracted to him, which was weird because he was so different from the other boys I had liked. He was short-ish, with a slouch and (although apparently I'm the only one who hears it) a kind of weird speech impediment lisp-like thing. I think he was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, which even then I found ridiculous (middle class communists piss me off. Shut the fuck up and shop at the mall already), but also oddly appealing. And because the friends you make the first day of camp are you friends for the remainder of the time (in this case three weeks), we spent a lot of time together. I was really, really infatuated. But he never really seemed to reciprocate. I was confused, because at that point I thought I was pretty hot shit. I had hit my stride, so to speak. I looked wholesome, fresh, with barely a trace of makeup. I had gotten the attention of boys in my hometown and beyond, and I didn't get what the fuck his deal was. So I obsessed over it, over him, over my hair, over my outfits, everything. I had never lost mt shit like that before.
They took us on weekend trips to keep us busy, and in lieu of any actually interesting trips, me, Conor and Lauren signed up for a Mets game. Okay, at this point in my life I enjoy basketball games (I really just love muscular black men),like soccer games okay (the Spanish soccer players are hot, but no one ever scores, so it's kind of just a cock tease), tolerate football games (barely tolerate, that is, because all the black men are covered up), but still fucking hate HATEHATE baseball. It's not even athletic. It's all hand eye coordination and jogging. I'm not saying I could do it, but you don't even need an healthy BMI to be a pro player. All you need a beer gut and synthetic testosterone. It really fucking figures that the great American pastime is slow, lazy, and involves boiled, emulsified meat.
ANYWAYS.
I don't remember the actual game, or who they were even playing, because all we did was stand in the concession area and throw pieces of pretzel off the balcony onto people below and then climb to the top of the balcony seats a bunch of times. But what I DO remember is the two hour bus ride there and back. Conor and I sat next to each other, him by the window (Or was I by the window, Conor?). I know that each of us talked a lot about ourselves, tried to explain what we were like OUTSIDE the confines of nerd camp. I told him about my friends, my family and he showed off how much he knew about “alternative” music (a.k.a he liked Thrice. Brutal.) That night, or maybe a night shortly thereafter, they screened “The Score” on a screen in the quad. I sat on the dry, yellow grass next to Conor, and I felt like I was about to jump out of my skin. You see, I had already become acclimated to drunk hookups, which, looking back, is kind of sad, but inevitable. Laying next to Conor on a blanket, achingly aware of each millimeter between my arm and his, I was yanked back to the days before my body had stretched itself out of awkwardness.
The funniest part about all of this was all my dorm-mates were totally confused by the whole thing. They were busy lusting over boys from Long Island or California. A lisp-y kid from Maine was not on their radar. But there was something about him that appealed to me. He was confident even though he was a little different. I had begun to feel, even then, that sacrificing my true self for the greater good of popularity was not worth it. Don't get me wrong, I was still going to do it. I was scared of what would happen if I didn't. I'd go back to anonymity at the best, of go back to junior high level harassment at the worst. So Conor fascinated me.
Let me take a quick minute to say that I envy the way boys who are different are considered some sort of mysterious hottie, and girls who are different are fucking weirdos who get ignored. The more complicated a boy is, the more girls want his attention. Complicated girls end up Francis Farmer'd with cultural lobotomies or like Natalie Wood in Splendor In The Grass. It's the lesser known double standard. But I only started resenting that later on. But I just was aware of it's existence then, the way I knew I was already walking a fine line between prude and slut.
We finally kissed at “Club Night” which was when they trekked all of us over to some college bar to “have a good time”. There was grinding and hook ups everywhere on the dance floor and, I don't know if you know this Conor, I made out with this one kid named Christian while we were dancing.He was vaguely Latino and from some part of the Tri-State area. He hgas spikey hair and was a beta-guido. He was still hot. My roommate Lauren liked him, and I got in a lot of trouble for that kiss. But then I saw you, wearing dickies and a short sleeve button up. And everyone inhibitions were down. And we kissed. I don't remember our first kiss. I just know we had one.
Of course, after that, Conor played me hot and cold the rest of camp. I was a woman (girl) posessed. We kissed a few more times, and each one was a validation to me. I was more than a drunk hook-up. I knew it meant something.
We left camp all too soon. I was getting shipped straight to cheerleading camp, and my three weeks of listening to the violent femmes unashamed and making jewelery from bottle camps I found in the road was over. I was yanked back to my own personal reality. But the first night of my second camp of the summer, in a dorm room at BU, I called Conor. And we talked. We talked for an hour. And thus, everything started.

Right now, I'm half-way through my second Hendricks and tonic, and I can't do this anymore. I know I have a lot to finish in order to complete the dots from beginning to end. I'll write when I'm sober, and less emotional. I'm trying to be honest, not bitter. I hate knowing that you are going to feel important when you read this. On the plus side, I just found out that I can find lifetime original movies on Torrent. So I guess I'm breaking even tonight. Ugh, the more I write, the better you're going to feel about yourself.