The Story of M

Well, he has decided to spend the evening playing video games, I am done working on thesis revisions for the night, and there is a break in Olympic coverage--so it seems as good a time as any to write the story of M.

After T, I spent about six months without any interest in guys. I spent most of my time with my female friends, especially R, and focused on my academics.

In my junior year of college, R and I decided to both sign up for an outing club trip, which was happening over our one-week break from classes in February. We were going to go sea-kayaking several states away with a group of students, and two non-student advisers, who had been hired by the school to run the outing club. Neither of us had done anything like that before, and we were really excited.

About a week before the trip, the group got together to talk about the trip and to get to know each other. That was the first time I met M. I recognized him as someone I had had a class with the previous term. All I knew about him was that he was incredibly smart. We had one mutual friend who I remembered telling me that he was the smartest person she knew when she found out we had a class together (which said a lot, considering the fact that she was one of the smartest people I knew). M didn't say a whole lot during the meeting, but I was curious to talk to him. I didn't have any initial romantic interest in him, but I was interested to get to know him in a friendly way.

When we left for the trip a week later, I sat next to him in the van for the first leg of our ride down to our destination. I talked to him a little bit, but everyone in the van was more interested in sleeping than in conversation. I didn't really get to know him until the trip was well underway.

When we got to our destination, we kayaked five hours away from shore, out to a small island where we were going to camp for the week. I really got to know M on the island, at the campfires the group sat around every night.

Halfway through the week, we switched kayaking partners, and M and I wound up (or decided to--it is still unclear) kayaking together. We talked during the day kayaking trips. At night, we started staying out later than the other campers. Several nights, we were the last two people out at the campfire. We were also assigned to the same camp cooking group, meaning that we cooked and ate all of our meals together.

Things were getting pretty flirtatious between us, but I still didn't feel overly interested in M in a romantic way. He seemed almost... innocent. For some reason, that was kind of a turn-off to me. I liked his intelligence, and his ability to carry on a conversation, but I felt like I needed someone grittier, and more experienced with women. Maybe I felt like my own past made me a better match for someone who had some relationship experience--and some scars. He just struck me as rather inexperienced and undamaged.

One night, when we were the last two sitting around the campfire, M surprised me by kissing me as I was about to head off to my tent. I was taken completely by surprise. I really didn't think that he would have the guts to make a move. I don't remember what I said. I remember staying out on the beach for a few more minutes and then going to bed.

The next day, things were awkward. I think we were both unsure about how to act around each other. Things always seem different in daylight than they do at night. What had seemed relatively benign the night before now felt like a source of awkwardness.

There was not much time left in the trip. I didn't stay out at the campfire the next couple nights, partly because I was exhausted from staying up late every night and kayaking hard every day, and partly because I didn't know if I wanted a repeat of that kiss.

In the long car ride back from the trip, he asked me for my phone number. When we got back, I emailed him just to say hi. I am not sure why. I was still unsure of the situation, but I was also drawn to him. The guts that he had shown in kissing me on the beach partly counteracted my hesitation over his innocence.

We got together for coffee a few days later, and were pretty much together from that point forward. I don't really know if either of us decided to be in a relationship, or if we just kind of fell into it. On my part, I think I felt safe with M. After T, I guess I needed to feel secure. M was supportive, caring, and there for me whenever I needed him. I hadn't exactly decided that I was ready for a relationship, but this felt good.

M was a virgin when we met, which gave me flashbacks to A--but at least this time I knew in advance. We waited for a couple months before we took things to that level.

I was M's first serious girlfriend, which made me a little bit wary of the relationship at times. M was loving, and attentive, and smart, and motivated, but I often questioned the long-term potential of our relationship. I could not imagine staying permanently with someone who had had no serious girlfriends besides me. I loved M, but I came to realize that I loved him in a different way than I loved D. I didn't know what that really meant at the time, I just knew that it felt different. It wasn't as consuming as the love I had felt for D.

We spent the summer together, as we both had jobs in the area that our school was in. When senior year started, we had been together for about six months. My friends liked M a lot, and he and I hardly ever fought. Things were stable and smooth. We spent the majority of our time together. We went out to dinner, made meals together, went shopping, watched movies, and even read novels aloud to each other on some nights. We supported each other academically, peer editing one-anothers' papers, and easing each others' stress over undergraduate theses and graduate school applications. On the surface, everything in our relationship was great, and for the most part that was true, but there were problems in the physical arena. M and I didn't have the type of sexual chemistry that I had had with other guys, and I honestly didn't really look forward to doing things with him physically. That fire just wasn't there. But M still treated me better than any guy ever had, so I figured it was a fair trade. I could deal with a vanilla physical connection because everything else was so good. I convinced myself that I loved him enough to make up for the sparks that weren't there.

As the year wore on, and we both applied to graduate schools, he started to worry about what would happen after we graduated. I was worried as well. Long-distance had not worked with A, and I was wary of trying it again, but I cared deeply for M, and I thought that I wanted to try to make it work. I got into this one-year program, and he got into a PhD program in a different region of the country, but since my program was only one year, we figured that I could move to his state after the year was up.

We both visited each other over the summer. When the time came to go to our respective graduate schools, we handled it well. After all, we told ourselves, it was only a temporary separation.

Spending our first significant chunk of time apart since we had met opened my eyes. I realized that as good as M was to me, and as much as I wanted to love him like he loved me, I was really just fooling myself and being unfair to him. I needed the sparks more than I thought I did. I also started to crave independence. I had been with M for about a year and a half, and I was ready to prove to myself that I could handle the stress of my schoolwork and my new city alone. M had supported me all through my senior year of college, and I felt like I had come to rely on him too much.

When I met my new neighbor, I got the final shove I needed to break up with M. I found myself instantly attracted to the guy next door, and it wasn't so much that I wanted to be free to do anything with him, but the fact that I remembered how important real attraction and sparks were to me. I needed butterflies. I missed butterflies. I had never had those with M.

So, M and I broke up. We were both upset, but I knew that it was the right thing to do. I had come to realize that M was not the man I was going to marry, and I felt that he would never leave me if I didn't leave him. He was talking about moving in together and getting engaged after I was done with my graduate program. I was not ready for that with anyone, and I realized that I would never be ready for that with him.

In the end, I think it was the best thing for both of us. He has a new girlfriend now, who he seems very happy with. We ended on pretty good terms, and a couple months ago he sent me a Facebook message to say hi and suggest that we get together the next time I am in his area (which is, incidentally, the area where my parents live). M and I had a good relationship, but, in the end, it just wasn't quite right. When we broke up, my Mom was not surprised. She told me that she knew M wasn't right for me. She said, "He was too vanilla for you. When it comes to ice cream flavors, you tend to prefer chocolate with all kinds of toppings mixed in." Kind of a goofy metaphor, but she is right. He was wonderful, and smart, and caring, and an all-around great guy--but with no sparks, none of that was enough to make me want to be in a relationship with him forever.

Now what remains to be seen is whether or not I will ever find the right mix between excitement and stability.