Dawn

In honor of "Bitch Season" as I call it, I have decided to share an ex-girlfriend story. At least part one of the story. I didn't go back and edit it after I wrote it, so if it is jumpy, T.S.

I can count the number of people that I have said "I love you" to, who aren't family. I have meant it when I said it to every person, except one. Her name is Dawn, and she was my first real girlfriend.

I met Dawn through the internet. I used to write on a site called open diary. You set up a diary that people could read and comment on. I used to write about my life at the time, and whatever random shit was in my head. I tried to write something everyday, and I kept up with it fairly well. Dawn was one of the people who would read what I would write and comment on mostly everything that I wrote. On the front page of my diary, I put my AIM sn, and one day she decided to IM me. We talked almost everyday over AIM and I found out more about her. She recently moved back to Long Island from Tampa, where she was a student at USF. She moved back home to go to school at SUNY Stony Brook which was a bit closer to home (an hour ride on the LIRR). She lived in Bellmore, New York which is on the south shore of Long Island near Freeport and Wantaugh. She had a brother who was significantly older than her, and her parents were a bit racist, which is why she was probably one of the most Liberal people ever.

The first time we talked on the phone was a bit odd. After talking online for a few months, she asked me if anyone was up at my house because I lived with my family at the time. She was a bit freaked out that someone other than me would answer if she called the house. I had to reassure for a few minutes that I would be the only one who would answer the phone. The first time we talked for 2 hours or so. It was cool to finally hear her voice, but I don’t remember any of the conversation. It was probably just nervous rambling.

After a while of talking online and on the phone, we made plans to hang out. We were going to Times Square to see the ball drop. The location made sense since I was in New Jersey and she in Long Island. That never happened, because she got flaky and I ended up hearing from her less and less. Apparently she was hanging out with some guy she went to school with. But after that didn’t work, she started talking to me again, apologizing for not following through on the New Years plans. That year, I was house sitting for my mom’s boyfriend as they went out to a party. I was on the computer burning mix cds. I don’t remember if I watched the ball drop or not. Now that I recall, I was talking to her online that night and she was apologizing to me for not following through on plans. I was playing Robbin’ the Hood by Sublime most of the night, so I was content for the time being.

We eventually made plans to hang out a few months later, in February. I went up to New York with a friend of mine, Vannessa, because she was going to hang out with the guy she was seeing at the time. I met her in Penn Station, and wasn’t all that impressed. She was wearing a light blue Stony Brook hoodie, she was about 5’5" and was a bit on the dumpy side. I wasn’t all that impressive at the time either, I smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day and wore size 44 jeans, I also had zero self confidence. After we met up at Penn Station, my friend and I split up, and I went back with Dawn to her dorm out in Stony Brook, since we didn’t really have plans. We hung out and talked for hours. Most of the conversation was about how she was upset at this guy Matt and how she didn’t like Florida. It was a bit uncomfortable, but then again she was a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t plan on staying that long, but I forgot to do my research and missed the last train back to New York, which was somewhere around 1. I had to wait until 4:30AM for the train that got into the city around 6. I probably should have just made it a one night stand, but I didn’t. All we did was talk and watch the first part of Memento until the train came around. She kept on acting like she didn’t want me there, but her actions contradicted what she was saying, so I didn’t know what to think about this girl.

We did make plans to hang out again. This time we would go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, since she liked Egyptian art. I remember that day pretty well. It was bit awkward, because I still didn’t know if us would lead to anything or if I wanted it to lead to anything. We walked around the museum and looked at the paintings. It was a hot, dry day outside and I was going around to the water fountains putting water on my hands because when it gets hot and dry outside I get dry skin, and I didn’t have lotion with me at the time. We walked around the museum and eventually went outside to the park to find Cleopatra’s Obelisk, an obelisk somewhere in Central Park. We sat on a bench and asked me if I wanted to be her boyfriend. I was really surprised that she asked me that. I said yes mostly because she asked. I’ve always liked girls that are a bit aggressive and show interest in me.

The first time we hung out after we were officially a couple was a bit much. She had this big sappy thing planned. She played me the song "Do I have to say the words" by Bryan Adams and showed me the lyrics. The song was supposed to show how she felt about me. Remember we hadn’t been dating all that long. I got embarrassed for her, like I should have. I was just looking to hang out and get laid, not have her act like I was her true love, I was 19 and she was 18 after all. I still can’t listen to that song, if it comes on when I am in a store or on the radio, I get uncomfortable.

We hung out every weekend, one weekend in New Jersey and one in Long Island. Being in Long Island was cool, it was in her dorm and her roommate would go back to the eastern end of the island every weekend. But when we were hanging out in New Jersey, she had to deal with my family. She first came to New Jersey around Easter of 2002. I remember that day really well. That is the day that my dad left to go live in Virginia, because he lost the divorce. He actually didn’t lose as much as he stopped paying the lawyer and ran away. I still don’t know why it happened like that, but I write on that topic later. Dawn was nervous to meet my family, but she was usually nervous. On top of the nervousness, she started her period that day and didn’t plan on it. She had a giant red stain on her sweatpants and had to borrow a pair of jeans from my mom. Looking back on it, it is hilarious, but not so much at the time.

On top of hanging out all every weekend, we also talked on the phone a lot. I didn’t have a cell phone when we first started dating. In fact, I refused to get one. The event that made me get one was my van breaking down on the side of Interstate 95 in Delaware coming back from my dad’s house in Virginia. Dawn had a cell phone, but we were still there for like 12 hours waiting for a tow truck, but more on that later. I originally bought phone cards from Wal-Mart as to not drive up the long distance on the phone bill. After I got a cell phone, we would talk for hours. I got Verizon because she had it, as did my sister and mom. Being in constant phone contact was terrible, she would ramble for hours. I know I am a rambler, I go on for hours sometimes, but she was worse than I was and am now. She would go on with stories that you had to be there for to find funny, the type that always make for a bad conversation. I would often throw the phone down on my bed or a kitchen counter and wait until she stopped talking. She would talk, sometimes not breathe and would not wait for me to acknowledge that I was paying attention. Not only would she ramble on, but I couldn’t get off the phone with her until I told her that I loved her. It isn’t that big of a deal to tell someone you love them, but it is when you lie everytime you say it. She would call it "the phrase" when I wanted to end a phone conversation, which is something that still bothers me.

The first time I told her that I loved her I just wanted to get laid. We were in her dorm room, things were getting hot and heavy and she stopped me. She told me that she didn’t want to have sex with someone who didn’t love her, so I told her that I did. There was this big emotional thing on her end, and she told me that she loved me also. For a while she kept telling me that I smelled bad, and that when she said that she meant that she loved me. Not only did she love me, but she told me that after six months, we were going to talk about getting married. Marriage is something that is a bit horrifying to me now at 27, back then I was freaking out and planning a way out