Poem B

[Teratogen]

you're right. i can't help it. i'm always attracted to these girls. i had figured this out after the first 4 or 5 girls with problems. but still... i become attracted to them BEFORE i ever find out anything about them. see wherein this problem lies? it's in the stars. i'm cursed, as i have said before. i was born like this, i had no choice, as a man wiser than i once put it. hahaha.

anyway, i think it's time to continue the old story. by the way, diane... if you want to hear my song version of it, i'd be happy to send it to you somehow. if you've got a good internet connection speed maybe we can work something out.

so anyway, now that i've gotten up to angela, which is where this story really began anyway, it's time for a blast from the past. before i get to this part of the story, which i'm trying hard to recreate in chronological order, i must mention something i forgot to mention before angela even came into the picture, and (i think, but don't quote me) before i began talking to maegen again. i believe it was 2002, most likely after i graduated high school. i began talking with rachel again. i can't remember how it began, but there we were talking again. of course, it was mostly on the internet, a little on the phone. we talked a bit about the same things maegen and i talked about, being "a little older and a little more mature" and all that. well, i had no expectations with rachel, but we decided to go out to lunch one day. i remember the day that we planned it she was gonna come pick me up. that day i remember my boss had called me in to work and i told him i'd be in. this was back when we had too many people at the store, but most of them were flakes and my manager at the time was the worst manager we ever had. so very impersonal and didn't give a shit about any of his employees. he was a nice guy and did well with customers, but he had just gotten demoted from district manager to store manager and i don't think he liked that very much. anyway, i was always his go-to guy to come in on days off. i gained many brownie points for doing that stuff. hahaha. but anyway, i had come home for lunch that day and my sister told me a girl came to the house looking for me. instantly i went, "OH SHIT!" my sister told me that she told her i was at work and that she asked my sister where my store was. my sister told her, thinking she'd come to see me at work. i told my sister she didn't come in at all, but then again, this had all happened about 10 minutes before i got home for lunch, and that's about how long it takes for me to walk home. i was so upset with myself. i called rachel back instantly with apology after apology. anyway, we rescheduled our lunch, and the second time it went down as planned.

we went to applebee's, talked a bit, so on and so forth. she told me that she used to date this one guy named camden that went to junior high and high school with us. i remember in junior high my friend ben (remember him? hahaha) started talking to him because he felt sorry for him, because camden had no friends. he was this really little, fair-skinned boy with curly hair and a girly face and always walked around wearing a trench-coat. he reminded me of the kid from "the omen." but camden started talking to all of us, giving us cheat codes for video games, and he wouldn't stop talking to us. ben got annoyed at him. he was like, "i felt sorry for the kid but now he won't leave us alone!" well, in high school he hung out with the group i was with, including rachel and all her friends. he still looked the same, but started listening to heavy metal and classic rock and hung out with all the potheads, for he was like them. anyway, rachel was telling me that she was dating him for a while but that he was real childish. i never EVER thought he was her type. just goes to show, i guess.

so anyway, we went to applebee's (i dunno if there are these restaurants anywhere else in the u.s.) and we talked about this and that and whatever, i don't really remember much of it, except that i found myself once again taking a liking to her. well, i did not hesitate this time, nor did i hide or freak out and i told her that i realized i still had feelings for her. she did not want anything to do with it, and after only maybe a few weeks oof talking to her again online and on the phone and stuff she stopped talking to me. i did not see her online anymore, and i figured it wouldn't be a great idea to call her up. so, that was it. i was rejected by her a second time now.

so here now i'd like to get to the part of the story that comes after angela. of course, i'm sure you can imagine what it may be about since there was a reason i mentioned this piece that i forgot to mention before. but before i get to the beef of it (which i may have to save for later), i want to mention a few other things here. so, by the time angela came around it was my first year out of high school. i was a full-time college student now, and that meant more college classes, more time on that campus, and mostly... more girls. i was alone most of the time because unlike the past 12 years going to school with the same people the majority of the time, i didn't know very many people. and it's funny because obviously the same kids from my grade from my old school had graduated as well and a lot of them now came to this community college. i recognized most of them, but never really talked to any of them. i did see pat and talked to him. he seemed to have changed. he was a lot more docile. hahaha. if you don't remember, pat was a friend of ben's i talked about from a junior high experience with giving a ride home to tiffany. anyway... there were some people i'd see and just say hello to, but that was about it.

as far as girls go, there were quite a few things (perhaps too many) that amounted to nothing very quickly. for example, i'd often sit up by the library and have a cigarette. this girl came up to me one time (very beautiful, too) that i had recognized from my old high school. i didn't remember her name and i don't think she even knew who i was. but she bummed a smoke off me and started talking to me. then i'd begin to see her up there a lot and i'd give her a smoke all the time. we'd always talk and i learned after a long time that it was not in my best interest to hold anything back. it was like, at this point i really don't give a shit anymore. in the presence of a pretty girl i was not going to tell her a lie or hold back something just to come off as a decent guy or whatever. but see, i also didn't give much away. i knew that some people viewed me as a mysterious person. i wouldn't just say things, but if someone asked me something i had no problem talking about it. this girl talked about herself quite a bit though, and i had no problem with that. i was just happy that she was talking to me. after a while there was one day i gave her a smoke, we talked a bit, and then said, out of the blue, "i'm expecting a call from my boyfriend." i thought to myself, "uh, what the fuck. whatever." i mean, i thought this girl was interested in me, but i never had any disposition of infatuation or attraction with her as i had with every other girl. i thought she was attractive, yes, but it wasn't like it was with the rest of them. but when she blurted out something about a boyfriend, i thought, "why the fuck are you talking to me?"

every semester when i had a new class i'd make sure to pinopint all the attractive girls. then, after people would drop classes i'd see who was left. then i'd decided if any of them were worth going after or anything like that. there was an english class i had with this really good-looking girl named abby. i guess she was kind of hispanic because she had light brown skin, kind of reddish brown hair with light tints in it. here's a funny story though. i never got out of my house much except for work and school. one day i saw her get into her after school and leave. then one day i saw the same car about 3 houses down from me. i thought it was weird. then another day i saw her in the driveway of that house. i was freaked out. then i finally fucking realized that she LIVED there. hahahaha. every single day that i walked to work i was hoping she'd be outside of her house. i dunno why. there was no reason why she'd just be outside of her house. i think it was because one day as i was leaving she was just pulling up in her driveway and when she got out of her car she said hi to me. i wanted that to happen every day. hahaha. after that semester was over and she was no longer in my class there was one day i saw her outside of her house and we briefly spoke about school, but that was the most we ever talked to each other. then she moved away.

i mean, pretty much there was at least one girl in each class i had that i liked to see every day. besides the main reason one would go to school, i enjoyed going to my classes just to see the presence of one other girl. i can't really tell you names or faces anymore because there were so many of them. most of them i never spoke to. it was just a reason to make me smile or feel good about being in class that day. know what i mean? i used to go visit my 12th grade english teacher, too. since the high school i graduated from was on the campus of the community college i'd go visit sometimes between classes. i'd sit in her office with her and we'd talk. i was attracted to her, too. she was young. i'm sure i mentioned her before in this story, but i can't even remember anymore. she was about 26 or something like that, blond hair, wore red lipstick, sometimes wore big black leather boots. it turned me on. i had a little crush on her. she would tell our class about her personal life a lot, so we got to hear about this wonderful guy she met. later on, when i'd go to visit her, i found out she was getting married to him, and i lost most interest. i enjoyed talking to her because i'd give her my cd's and she really enjoyed a lot of the stuff i wrote in that class and i felt like she understood me. but when i mentioned i wanted to get out of school and not go on to graduate school and i wanted to work on my music she gave me the same speech my parents gave to me about how i should have something to fall back on and i should go to graduate school. i can't say that it upset me, but i just didn't want to hear it. i haven't talked to her in a while. i'm sure she's married by now. when i'd sit in her office with her, just the two of us, i used to fantasize sometimes that she'd ask me to pleasure her and all that stuff. hahaha. i mean, i was 18, she was 26. the last time i saw her i was 20, she was 28. it wasn't like there was a huge age difference. but anyway...

my last semester in college i was taking the second part of a british literature class and there was this beautiful girl in the class. she seemed half hispanic, half asian or something. i can't even remember her name but i really dug her. she had black hair, wore red lipstick, had a guns 'n' roses sweatshirt, nine inch nails and tool stickers on her folder. i thought, "THIS is my kinda girl." for the first few weeks i didn't say anything to her. i figured, this is my last semester, i ought to say something to this one. so, i had just finished my last cd. i made a copy, brought it to school that day, and went to class waiting for her. she came in, and when she sat down i went up and accosted her. hahaha. i immitated the way i'd seen sean talk to girls for the first time. it's kind of like this: i had a deep voice, i seemed 100% disinterested in the tone of voice, but also completely humbled by everything about her. awkward sounding, isn't it? i said, "hi. my name is jason. i saw the stickers on your folder, i thought you might like this," and handed her my cd. she said, "oh, cool, who is this?" i said, "it's my music." she was like, "oh, cool. thank you." i said, "yeah, hope you enjoy it. by the way, i like your sweatshirt." she said thanks and i went back and sat down and was nervously twitching during class the whole time.

after class that day i was leaving and she came up from behind me and started talking to me. i was like, "yes!" we talked for a bit but she had to get to a next class. i remember i had this class on tuesdays and thursdays, only twice a week, so i'd have to wait a while just to see her again. and i remember that this happened on a tuesday, because i really wanted to hear her thoughts on my music. i put a piece of paper with my e-mail address and instant messenger screen name inside in case she wanted to talk to me online, but i got nothing over the weekend. tuesday she wasn't in class. then on thursday i saw her again and she told me she really liked what she heard but hadn't listened to the whole thing. i was like, "yes!" and we talked a little before and after class. the next tuesday we talked again, and i decided, "nex time i'm gonna ask for her phone number. i'm really gonna do it, and i'm not gonna be afraid, and hopefully she'll be interested enough to give it to me." the next time she wasn't in class. so i figured i'd wait until the next class. she wasn't in that one either. in fact, she wasn't in class for two weeks. i went up to my teacher to ask him if she had dropped the class and he said, "i dunno. why, she owe you money or something?" he was a funny guy. i loved him. i took every single english class with him. he was this old white guy with white hair from new york that was always cynical and made jokes out of everything. he was so much fun. he loved beatnik poetry, classical and jazz music, show tunes... he was an accomplished pianist. one time during a pop quiz in our brit lit class he put in a bob marley tape. he gave me an a minus on every single paper i turned in. my papers were twice as long as everyone else's. he said he never gave me a straight a because he wanted to let me know i was human and still made a few mistakes and didn't want me thinking it was all that easy (but it was!). hahaha. he and my old psychology teacher (who i had for 3 different psych classes as well) were the only two teachers i ever had a great deal of respect for and visited them both even when i did not have classes with them in a given semester. they loved what they taught and you can't ask for more than that from a professor. anyway... that being said, she never showed up to class again, and there never was a "next time" for me to get her phone number. i felt like shit. i thought, "god fucking hates me. even when i try i get nowhere." i felt like a failure. of course, it was nothing new. it's just that perhaps i had expected more out of things once high school was over. well anyway, i haven't yet gotten to the meat of what i was going to say, but this was all mostly just the potatos. hahaha. so, until next time...

[Diane]

you're right. i can't help it. i'm always attracted to these girls. i had figured this out after the first 4 or 5 girls with problems. but still... i become attracted to them BEFORE i ever find out anything about them. see wherein this problem lies? it's in the stars. i'm cursed, as i have said before. i was born like this, i had no choice, as a man wiser than i once put it. hahaha.

Well, Leonard was being ironic about his golden voice, if not about the dissapointments of love. But my point is that you do know about these girls, before before you consciously 'know'. It seems we have come full circle now, back to Angela, and back to you saying you are 'fated' to be a loser in love, and that you were born that way. Can you distance yourself from what is happening to you enough to understand the unconscious dynamics of what may be going on? If you continue to have this problem, Jason, a psychotherapist will be able to help you with it. A good shrink is worth their weight in gold. Choose one with decades of experience. Even if everything I have guessed about your mother is false (I doubt that it is, but, as I said, I can't know), you do know the source of your problem, and in the course of a relationship with a therapist you will gradually discover it. If you continue to be thrown into pain and despair about this, just be aware that this is an option for you.

I think I have said all I can usefully say that might be of help to you, without repeating myself. I will try to catch up with your story every once in a while, but probably comment less. Reading your story and responding to it certainly has made me feel quite 'motherly' towards you, Jason. I suddenly have a fantasy of inviting you and, who knows, a lovely young girlfriend of yours, around for Sunday lunch with my family. That would be great. (Everybody say, "aaaaaah".) As you live so far away, this probably ain't gonna happen, but do let me know, if ever you are in the UK!

by the way, diane... if you want to hear my song version of it, i'd be happy to send it to you somehow. if you've got a good internet connection speed maybe we can work something out.

Sure, do send me your song. I have a fast internet speed (but quite a bad record of downloading things successfully, and I definitely was born that way, and can't do anything about it ).

I only skim-read the rest of your post to catch up for now. Yes I can see how the 'unrequited love' theme keeps repeating... .

*Added on Wednesday: I've now read your last post to the end. I've caught up properly now...

Love,

Diane

[Teratogen]

well i'll try my damndest to keep this short.

ok, so i got up to the part where i mention all the classes with all the girls and all of that. well, i was gonna get back to rachel. i had mentioned something about us going out to lunch and i had a reason for mentioning that. it was because what i am about to tell you reminded me of it and that i forgot to mention it before. so, within my last year in college i spoke to her once again. it had been a while and i didn't recognize some names that kept popping up on my buddy list whenever i'd sign on to aol instant messenger. so one of them i looked up and saw that it was rachel. so i thought, "what the hell," and sent her a message. brace yourself...

so, to make this long and interesting story short, she basically told me that she was glad that i decided to talk to her. she told me that she had been thinking about me for the past year or so and that she felt so guilty about the ways she had treated me in the past and that she wanted sooo bad to make it up to me. in fact, i believe she said something similar to "i want to tie you down to a chair and show you how much i've been thinking about you." yeah, i know. you can imagine the look on my face. it was a mix of and and . i couldn't believe what she was telling me. she went on and on, asking me if there were any more weddings or bar mitzvah's or something that i can take her to where she can dance with me (as she didn't dance with me at my aunt's wedding when i brought her). i felt incredible.

then she says, "buuuut... i have a boyfriend and i've been with him for the past year and i love him very much."

i instantly went to a mix of and and . i didn't get it. y'know, i've always thought of myself as the kind of guy (which is rare) that when he gets with one person he stays with one person and NEVER cheats. and i'd think less of someone who would. but at this point, i was like, "fuck the other guy, let me have some!" it was the most i've ever been teased. the count now is rachel: 3, jason: 0. third time's a charm, right? she's got the record now for most rejections of me. first it was high school, then it was after high school, and then now in college. actually, it was 4 because it happened once in 9th grade and in 10th grade is well. jesus, that's more than i thought!

so, for a few weeks i was trying to convince her to not hold back and let her inhibitions go and to act on her passions or whatever and she wouldn't do it, and i guess i gotta respect that, but why would she tell me such things and then say no? i didn't get it at all. so, i tried to no avail, and ever since then it'd been just a few hellos here and there online and whatever.

one day during my last semester in college i was leaving my health class with a woman talking about music or whatever. she was about twice my age but she was cool. she was going to the parking lot up by the library and my next class was in the same direction so she walked with me. going up the steps to the library i was talking to her and i hear someone say out loud, "jason!" i turned, and it was rachel. she was smiling and was like, "oh my god!" and i was like, "hey!" and the woman smiled at me and said, "see you later," and i said, "yeah, see you later." and then rachel and i got to talking. i mean, i had 5 minutes between classes but she wanted to talk and i figured i could be late to class just this once. so we each had a cigarette and sat around the corner outside the library where hardly anyone goes. she was wearing this pink outfit i think, and looked very '80s retro, which i never knew her to be into that stuff. i remember her cleavage was showing. but anyway... we finished our cigarettes and she wanted to walk me to my class. she was worried that i'd be late. i said "if i was then who cares?" i can't even remember what we talked about. i really can't. i remember that she said she was only on campus during that time of the day to drop off something for a professor of hers. she took night classes at that time. i don't know what she's doing now though. so anyway, we got to my classroom and i looked in the window on the door and saw people just talking or doing nothing and then my teacher came down the hallway and smiled at me and i looked at rachel and said, "see, i wasn't late." in fact, class had started 5 minutes prior and the teacher was late. but it makes no difference. in the end i just get forwarded e-mails from her every now and then with cartoons or funny pictures that her boyfriend sends her.

oh, and here's another thing. the guy she was with when she told me all of those things had went away to arizona to go to school not too long afterwards and she said they were gonna still be together and all that but i knew it wouldn't work out, and it didn't. so, after they broke up, instead of coming to me or asking me if i wanted to be with her still she gets with some other guy that she worked with. in fact, this boyfriend she worked with in the mall. i think it was the mall. that was probably one of her first jobs. then she moved on to a hardware store of all places and subsequently moved on to a new guy at the hardware store, too. whatever. she later got fired from there because she screwed up something, i don't remember what it was. she had no business being there anyway. i dunno. a lot of the things she did and said when i knew her never made sense to me.

we're getting closer to the present time now in this story, but there is still a bit more to cover. til next time.

[Diane]

Hi Jason , just saw you there as I was about to sign out. Can I reveal to everyone that the song you were talking about above is a song version of the poem at the top of this thread, and it's lovely .

Later,

Diane

[Teratogen]

you can reveal whatever you wish, diane. hahaha. and thank you.

[Diane]

Hi Jason,

Reading your latest post, it strikes me how annoying Rachel's behaviour is. Maybe you should stop wondering why Rachel (or any other girl) would give continuous double messages like that, and decide to stop getting drawn in time and again. Don't let girls give you the runaround. You'll gain more than you will lose if you 'draw a line' at some point, you really will.

I hope you are having a good weekend.

Love,

Diane