friendship

We’re Dating!–No, We’re Not. Yes, We Are. ACK!–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–October 1992, Part 4

I wrote in my diary on the 11th that “the situation with Shawn is finally clear now.  We have different definitions of terms in our own minds; to me, we’re dating; to him, we’re friends; but we both have the same idea of what it is.  We’ll have to get the word out that we’re only dating…we’re not boyfriend/girlfriend!!

“Oh, yeah.  Anna said that just the fact that I’m here at school still, and not anorexic, is a testimony to God’s strengthening power.”

The next day, I saw Shawn, and we started walking together.  I was happy.  But then he said, “This is not gonna work.”  So much for dating.

Yet, despite getting rid of the term “dating,” things still went on the same as before.  He would still come over and see me or invite me over, oftentimes every weekend, we’d watch TV or talk about all sorts of things, and he’d start kissing me and touching me and fooling around with me.

So did we really stop dating?  And were we dating or not the whole time?

He also would call me late at night sometimes and we would talk for hours.  But it seemed like nearly every time he did fool around with me, after it ended he would go on and on about how he didn’t want me, and criticize everything about me.

It also seemed far too analytical of him, making things far too complicated: Calling someone your “girlfriend” doesn’t mean you’re practically engaged.

You can just be going on casual dates with a bunch of people and call them all girlfriends.  It just means you have some sort of continuous romantic involvement (as opposed to one-night stands); it doesn’t have to be serious.

And saying that we’re “friends”–um, “friends” connotes no romantic or sexual involvement at all.  Unless you want to call it “friends with benefits,” but we didn’t have that term back then.

A few years after I graduated college, I watched a call-in advice show on MTV called Loveline, hosted by Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla, along with a woman whose name I forget.  To my surprise one night, a guy called in about the very same kind of situation:

He had started by giving “kissing lessons” to a girl across the hall; these lessons continued, and progressed so far over time that they did the same things Shawn and I eventually did, though they had not had vaginal intercourse.  He said she had feelings for him while he had none for her.  He said it wasn’t a “relationship.”

Dr. Drew said that if two people are physically intimate on a regular basis, they are indeed having a “relationship”–and it would hurt the girl to break it off.  Drew said to stop and cut off contact for a while, to give her time to get over it.

He said there’s a lot of BS going around these days, people saying “this is just for convenience, we’re not really in a relationship.”  He did say girls need to realize that sometimes guys will kiss and carry on with girls they’re not interested in.

Yet testosterone-driven Adam, on the other hand, the one you’d think would agree, didn’t buy that this guy was not attracted to the girl.  He said, “Isn’t it funny how guys’ll go and bang someone every night and then say, ‘Oh, I’m not attracted to her.'”

He didn’t believe it was possible, but that if you’re physically intimate with someone it’s because you are attracted to them in some way.

Then there was Sharon Stone’s character on Basic Instinct, who said, “He wasn’t my boyfriend.  I just f**ked him.”

And my old friend Becky from South Bend, who was still in high school, told me about guys who’d tell her, “That’s not my girlfriend.  I just f**k her.”

I guess there are a lot of Shawns out there, when I once thought there was only one.

It was hard for anyone in my group of friends, least of all me, to understand Shawn, because we thought kissing meant something and you didn’t do that to someone you weren’t attracted to.  You didn’t want to, because that would be icky.

So we couldn’t conceive of Shawn telling the truth when he said he wasn’t attracted to me or didn’t want to go out with me.

And if he was telling the truth, then why did he keep coming over and starting things with me all the time?  I normally waited for him to call me over and to start things, to let him set the pace, since he was so ambivalent.  In fact, after I graduated, one day I visited Sharon and she referred to him as “Shawn, who you were going out with.”

After Shawn called me senior year and said he hadn’t had a girlfriend in two years (ie, since he left Roanoke, rather than since he left high school), Pearl said,

“That’s fishy.  Maybe it shows there was something going on there.  Maybe now he thinks of you as an ex-girlfriend?…I always knew there was something there he wasn’t admitting to.”

And Pearl would know better than anybody else, being the confidante of us both about our relationship.

This blog post, about people confusing each other with varying definitions of the same dating terms, sums up the whole thing very well.

In September, Shawn had said, “Do you want everyone to know we’re dating?”

So, why couldn’t he just tell me to use that term (or “seeing each other”) instead of the completely platonic term “friends”?  It would have meant we were more than friends, but available to date other people, and been far more accurate.

But no, he couldn’t simplify it like that.  No, he had to complicate things by telling everyone we’re “just friends” and make me feel like some tart because “just friends” aren’t supposed to be fooling around every weekend.  I didn’t want to be exclusive; dating around was fine.  But I was not just your “friend”!

When I hear the song “Ah Leah!” by Donnie Iris, I realize that was Shawn and me:

Don’t you know we’re playin’ with the fire? 
But we can’t stop this burnin’ desire, Leah! 

Ah! Leah! Here we go again! 
Ah! Leah! Is it ever gonna end?  
Ah! Leah! Here we go again!  
Ah! Leah! We ain’t learned our lesson yet!  

Baby, it’s no good. We’re just askin’ for trouble.  
I can touch you, but I don’t know how to love you.  
It ain’t no use! We’re headed for disaster. 
Our minds said, “No!” But our hearts were talkin’ faster, Leah! 

But if he’d let me, I could have loved him.  I could easily have forgotten Peter completely in Shawn’s arms if only he would have stopped pulling me toward him and then pushing me away.

We could’ve had a lot more fun, without all the guilt and shame.  And Shawn was more like what I was looking for: similar music, similar religious backgrounds (I was Nazarene and he was non-denominational evangelical), love of sci-fi such as Doctor Who, sharing each other’s religious convictions–He even liked Monty Python, unlike Peter.

***

Each year in October, Roanoke held a Writer’s Festival.  This year, we had Billy Collins (poet) and W.P. Kinsella (novelist).  Two guys stopped me once and asked where Krueger Hall was.  Only later did I discover they were Collins and Kinsella.

Collins played the piano once in Krueger lounge, and Pearl hung out with him for a while.  When Counselor Dude and maybe Rachel took Collins to his room in Krueger, they found there’d been a mix-up: Some (unmarried) couple on campus had rented the guest room so they could have sex in it, which they were doing right then.

Collins joked about it, and Counselor Dude didn’t open the door.  Rachel thought it was sick.  Rachel and Counselor Dude wanted the flowers, at least, since they were for Collins.

The guy made a weird smile and almost threw the flowers at them.  Collins told Rachel to keep them, but it wouldn’t look good for the RA to have them.  He told her to come and get them later, I guess, and “slip into something a little more comfortable”–just a flirtatious joke.

So now Rachel had his pretty flowers.  Collins writes humorous poems; I could imagine him writing about this whole incident, and immortalizing RC (and maybe Rachel or Counselor Dude).

W.P. Kinsella wrote Shoeless Joe, the novel which inspired the movie Field of Dreams.  He read from Box Socials.  Every time he said the town’s name, Fark, he would pause and then say it significantly.  The readings were so funny that I bought the book from the Campus Shop, and loved it.

This, and a later presentation called “The Devil You Know,” became part of the backdrop for my story Alexander Boa, which was based on a dream.

***

One night, as we stood outside the suite after he had walked me home, Shawn said, “I would love to go on a date with you” (as opposed to just making out in our rooms all the time).  So one day, I went up to him in the cafeteria as he was at the salad/ice cream table where people would set down their trays before getting drinks and such.

I don’t believe anyone else was nearby, and I’d fallen behind my friends, who were leaving, so they weren’t nearby.  I asked if he wanted to go to Homecoming with me.

(Either that year or the year after, Pearl and I were talking about how we’d like to ask guys to the Homecoming semi-formal dance, and she said with a laugh, “I love you dearly, but I don’t want to go to the Homecoming dance with you.”)

He said he had to see whether or not he’d be going home over Homecoming weekend.  But a whole week apparently passed before he gave me an answer, and I believe I had to ask him for it.  He said he didn’t want to turn me down and embarrass me in front of my friends.  This is part of a diary entry I wrote about it:

I’ve never been that good at expressing myself verbally.

Maybe my status as a youngest child, not listened to as much, has caused me to concentrate more on developing my natural writing talent than on developing my speech, since on paper, at least, I can finally be ‘heard.’  [I got this idea from an article I read once on birth order, and it seemed to fit my own life.]

A pencil and paper–my form of eloquence.  Since I have a hard time organizing my thoughts, and making them understood, during conversations of an important nature, my journal is probably my best place for arguing my side of an issue, so here goes:

No matter how you tried to ‘do it right,’ you still forgot the number one rule of rejecting: a quick and painless death….

When I asked you to Homecoming, I wanted an answer right away.  Pearl had told me you like dances or dancing, and we’d agreed that we could go on dates, so I thought, Why not?  He’ll probably say yes, and we’ll have a great time.  If he says no, then so what?  If the Group doesn’t go, maybe we’ll all do something else together, or maybe I’ll do something else.  Or maybe another guy will ask me to go.  I’d just better ask him quick, before he asks someone else, or I might not be able to go at all….

You were alone; I’d fallen behind the Group while contemplating asking you.  A simple, ‘No, I don’t like dances,’ and I could stop thinking about the dance.  I wouldn’t feel personally rejected.

Why did you say you had to see whether or not you’d be going home that weekend?  Hogwash!  That just made me think, if he will, no; if he won’t, yes.  And what was the good of that?

Why do you feel you have to treat me so differently than everybody else?  A little special treatment is obvious, considering our past, but you act like I’m some bundle of neuroses, that’ll [be upset] if you don’t stop your conversation with someone else and give me attention for a while.

And the way you ‘assume’ things, just drives me crazy.  Did you think I sat with you at lunch because I have a crush on you?  I sat with you because I supposed you were my friend and wouldn’t mind, and because no one else from the Group was around yet.

I was soon quite glad I sat there, because a certain person–James–sat there that I’d been wanting to get to know.  As a matter of fact, I’d basically forgotten you that weekend, in favor of this person.

One week you said you’d love to go on a date with me; tonight, you said just the opposite, and made me feel like you didn’t even want to be around me.

You’ve confided things in me, and I’ve confided things in you; I don’t want you to blow me off, and I don’t want to blow you off.  Am I really beautiful, as you recently said, or am I totally repulsive to you?

No matter what other feelings I might have towards you that week, what I value most is our friendship.  Friends don’t hurt each other; they spare each other pain.

And friendship means I can sit by you anytime, talk to you anytime (without me suspecting or you expecting that we’ll probably end up making out), tell you anything.  Catherine made a flippant comment once about you not liking it when I talk about Peter (‘the other guy’)….

Remember, when I say I want to talk, it means I want to talk.  Making out was never my idea, even though I went along with it; you always started it.

Don’t make it into another ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ thing; one’s too much.  ‘Over’ Peter?  [Someone] told me you don’t ever really get ‘over’ someone you’ve loved.

But that doesn’t mean you’re always going to be on the rebound.  It’s been eight months, almost nine, and I’m sick of having no one to think of fondly.  It’s probably unhealthy for me to stay away from dating much longer.

***

On the 20th, I had a disturbing dream about a vampire, which I quickly turned into the first draft of my story Candida.

***

Darryl and Ned occasionally did comedy skits as “Virtual Reality.”  I don’t remember if they did skits the following semester; they did none the next year.  My friends in the Group thought they did too much Monty Python, but I loved the skits.

During a campus talent show, they did the famous Parrot Sketch from Monty Python, and a sketch about the Registrar’s office.  Ned played the guy working at the desk, and when someone pointed out that the sign was spelled “Registar’s Office” instead of “Registrar’s Office,” he said, “Well, this is Roanoke.”

Their sketch of the campus president was hilarious.  It featured Darryl playing a clueless president, constantly offering people coffee.  The “president” would get this dopey, open-mouthed grin on his face and kind of tilt his body a bit as he walked, a coffee pot in one hand and coffee mug in the other.

The most hilarious part of it was, the second time they did it, the real president was there to see it–and he loved it.  He must have been a good sport.

Also in that performance, Ned’s new girlfriend Melissa played Ned’s “Piece of Fluff,” or ditzy girlfriend.  (She obviously agreed to this, so don’t go crying sexism.)  At one point, Darryl picked up Ned’s glass of pop and noticed the backwash.  Darryl said, “I feel sorry for Melissa.”

***

No matter what I thought of Peter as a person, no matter if I loved or hated him, I felt he was my burden and I was supposed to keep praying for him until he finally realized that he needed God again.  It wasn’t about me so much; it was about God.  I thought he was just in a phase; I didn’t realize he never would return to Christianity.

One day, we heard a lecture on “Job and the Mystery of Human Existence.”  The speaker was impressed that Roanoke students all read Job our freshman year, so we already knew what he was talking about.

One day, Rachel and Sharon, both RAs, took a master key and got into Pearl’s room while Pearl and Cindy were gone.  They then hid behind furniture.  When Pearl came in, Rachel started lifting up a pillow.  Pearl stared with a blank look, thinking, “Oh-kaaay….”

A year or two before, this Clinton fellow seemed to have no chance of winning against the popular incumbent George Bush who had won the Gulf War.  His run was a waste of time.

Now, opinion polls showed him pulling ahead of Bush.  But I knew he would lose, because Pat Robertson had said so, along with other predictions for 1992.  He had said the same thing soon after the Gulf War.

Each New Year’s, Pat gave predictions for the year to come, things God told him during a time of fasting and prayer.  He never seemed to be wrong.

Since I taped the show, I copied down every word of what he said each New Year’s.  He and his co-host would name the previous year’s predictions, and say they had all come to pass.

The only prediction I wondered about came right before the Gulf War.  Had he really said the Stock Market would plummet, or had he said, rather, that gas prices would plummet?  Had I written it wrong?  Had he thought one thing and said another, which I often do?

Whatever it was, I wrote down one thing, another thing happened, and he claimed to have predicted what happened.

I thought MTV had gotten too political.  This, and the message that everyone should vote, wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t 1) shown political shows instead of getting back to videos, and 2) shown an obvious bias toward one candidate.

But here’s something good that MTV showed a lot that year: Joe’s Apartment, a comedy short about a guy whose apartment is overrun with cockroaches.  It’s hilarious; enjoy!

Even college students like a little trick-or-treating once in a while.  Since I wasn’t in the group who went that year, I don’t know where they went to (perhaps to houses on Prof Row).  Someone this year dressed as a mummy, wrapped head to toe in toilet paper.

The disgusting but funny antics of MTV and Nickelodeon’s Ren and Stimpy now came to MTV, and became popular at Roanoke.  We loved to imitate Ren’s “STEEEM-pee!” and “STEEM-pee, you EE-dee-uht!”

Ren and Stimpy’s song “Happy Happy Joy Joy” became popular to sing–and I believe WIXX played it.

One evening, while passing through the Campus Center lounge, I found a group of students all gathered around the TV, watching Ren and Stimpy.

This wonderful popularity, however, was shortlived: Ren’s voice changed, the cartoons began to be more for kids, and a new cartoon arrived on MTV: Beavis and Butthead.  But more on that one later.

I kept setting aside a tenth of my paycheck to be given either to the S– church, or to my church back home when I went home for vacations.  Some guy on The 700 Club (Benny Hinn) had predicted a dark economic time for the country, saying that only the givers in the church would survive.

Of course, in the fullness of time we see that though other parts of the world did see recessions in the 90s and the US went through its own recession for a time, it wasn’t so bad as all that.  Most people in the US seemed to survive, and I don’t think being a giver in the church affected that.  Heck, the 90s ended with a booming economy.

Clarissa and I heard awful stories about Krueger, that girls on the mostly-freshman third floor would get drunk and poop in the hallway instead of the bathroom, that somebody on the second floor puked or pooped in a shower stall….

It turned out that at least one of these stories wasn’t exactly true.  I believe the shower stall story (and possibly the other one as well) could be explained by someone taking peanut butter and putting it in a shower stall as a prank.

Some people didn’t even bother getting dressed for their 8:00 classes: They’d roll out of bed and go to class in their pajamas!

In high school, I had felt like an oddball for not wearing makeup like the other girls did.  That was the 80s, after all, when you were “supposed” to wear it, and lots of it.

But in college, I was no longer the only girl who didn’t wear makeup.  Rachel didn’t wear it, Catherine didn’t wear it, Clarissa didn’t wear it.  I finally felt normal.  In the late 90s, I’m told, college girls commonly went without makeup.

Clarissa and I hated it when our suitemates would hold seances in the lounge.  They’d turn off the lights and light candles, and Clarissa and I would hole up in our room until it was over, afraid to come out even to go outside or to the bathroom.  We feared what they might stir up.

We also heard that Carl, Dirk’s roommate, was a witch, and he and Dirk held a seance in their room in Grossheusch once.  Carl said he went to bed in his nightclothes.  When he woke up in the morning, his clothes were on, and all the drawers in the room were open.  (He assumed Dirk had been asleep.)

***

On Halloween, right before Hell Week started, Shawn called around 12:45am, asking if I wanted to watch a movie in the suite, in Maggie’s old room, which had been made into a guest room with the suite lounge’s old furniture after new furniture was delivered.  There was a big, old, comfy couch.

We used my TV and VCR.  He came around 1am, so I got myself ready for bed before he came, even in my nightgown.

We lay on the couch watching the movie, me about to fall asleep; afterwards, there was a little fooling around, though not much so I could go to bed.  He finally left around 4:30!

It was Saturday, but I had to get up in time for lunch, so didn’t get enough sleep.

It sounds very much like what a real couple would do, not just friends, just some simple little scenario of hanging out together all nice and cuddly.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year 

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

Friends With Sexual Benefits: Fun at First, But Began to Destroy our Friendship: College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–October 1992, Part 1

About the song “Give It Away” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, which after a year was still getting a lot of airplay on MTV: Though I still wasn’t so sure that a song that said things like, “Give it to your dog,” “Take what I got and put it in you,” and other such questionable lyrics (questionable because you couldn’t be quite sure if it meant what it sounded like), was something for me, it was fun to play with.  I amused Clarissa by rolling my tongue just right to say “Give it away,” and then transforming that into,

“Put it away, put it away, put it away now!”  I rolled my tongue for both “put” and “it.”  It was surprisingly easy.  So if what he “got” was really what I first thought it was, I was telling him to put it back in his pants and leave us alone.  It was fun to say, and it was fun to make Clarissa laugh by saying it.

(Though, many years later, I heard that “it” was actually stuff you have, sharing freely with others, not what I thought it was.  Whew!)

Each year, Turning on the Heat was the event of the fall.  It usually didn’t happen until October.  Catherine’s roommate Carrie inquired about it.

The administration’s story was that the school’s ancient steam heat system took time and effort to start up each year.  Turning it off again right away because of a return to warm weather would be a pain.

“People would open their windows because it’s warm again and the heat would just be wasted,” they said.  Carrie said, “They said it has to be consistently cold.”

But this was little comfort in late September to cold students wrapped in blankets.  A little wasted heat sounded pretty nice around that time.

That year, a new thing began in the Muskie: weekly open mikes for writers.  The following year, it moved into the Pub, and was opened to other arts as well, such as music.  On October 1, I read one of my Fiction class stories, as suggested by my teacher.  I believe I read other things on other weeks as well.

***

On Friday, October 2, I had to sit with my Humanities class presentation group instead of my usual group during lunch, for a meeting.  Along with the presentation group, there were others.

At the table were Steve, N., Ned, Melissa, a guy I’ll call J.–and Peter!  Only one empty seat, and next to Peter, of all people!  Of course I had to sit there.

J. handed me the sheet with my part on it.  “We’re thinking about having you do ‘Singin’ in the Rain,'” he said.  (We were doing some modern take on Greek plays.  I was supposed to be a girl pretending to be a boy at an audition because girls didn’t act.)

Shocked, I cried, “That’s weird, because that’s just the one I was thinking about doing!”  I think Peter looked my way as I said this.

Soon, Peter said, “I’m going to take my tray up.”

He was gone an awfully long time for just taking his tray up, and, with a partition in the way, I couldn’t see where he went, or even when he went to the window.  I began to wonder if he’d run away from me.  But he finally came back, a newly-lit cigarette in his hand.  Maybe he got it from someone.

“No, Peter.  Bad,” Ned said.

Peter put it close to an ashtray, and the smoke billowed my way.  And this from the guy who used to complain about people smoking in the cafeteria.  I waved it away, sitting forward in my seat and making exaggerated lunges for it.  Everybody laughed.

“See that?” Ned said.  “Nyssa knows it’s bad.”

“They’re all bi***ing at me for smoking,” Peter said to me, “I guess so I’ll quit.”  He knew it was bad, but it was a long story how he got started smoking.

“Especially since you hated them before,” I said.  Then, with a smile, “Maybe you should try one of those nicotine patches.”

“No,” he said with a grimace.  He tapped the ashes into the ash tray again.  “Just willpower.”  He started blowing his smoke upwards to spare us.

We chatted a bit about my broken jam box; I wanted to know if he could fix it, but no, he could only fix cameras.  Then a short time later, after some more chatting, he said he was going to shoot pool, and left.  (Until my dad could fix that jam box, I relied on MTV for music.)

Once he was gone, I said to Steve, “It’s such a relief to be able to talk to him again.”

“Yeah,” Steve said.  “You know, I didn’t even notice that.”  He raised his eyebrows.  “Hm.”

Soon, the presentation group was left, and began rehearsing.  We went through the script several times.  J. was supposed to say at the end, “My sympathies to your father.”

He told me to say my lines in a deep voice, which, he said, would make my “uh-huh” sound like Elvis Presley.  I told Steve I should have an umbrella, and I did a little embellishing of the part I had to sing, trying to remember some of the things Fred Astaire did in the movie and the different ways they sang the song.

At about 12:30, N. had left, and my bosses Arthur and Nancy were the only other people sitting in the cafeteria.  Nancy came up to me and said, “You know, Nyssa, I’m really disappointed in you.  You, of all people, should know better.”

I blanched, wondering what in the world I’d done.

She said, “You should know better than to hold your tray!”

I jumped up, and J. and I took our trays back.

Before Steve came back with our mail and copies of the school paper, J. and I started talking about The Omen, which he’d seen, and the person whose mailbox number was 666.

“We’ll have to find out who it is,” I said, “and kill them for being the Antichrist!”  (I was joking, by the way.)

Steve came back with new, orange directories, and J. and I started looking for this person, who, however, didn’t seem to exist.  We found 665 and 667, but no 666.

You’ll note that the directories didn’t come out until almost a month into the semester.  Every semester, this was a problem, and you’d be stuck without people’s extensions if they changed rooms since the previous year or you didn’t have a copy of last semester’s directory.  You wouldn’t even know how to call the information desk from your room to find out somebody’s extension–if you even knew that you could do that.

Steve lent me a hat, tie, jacket and a dress shirt for my part.  I dropped them off in my room, and began working on a note.

****

I got the idea for the note from an issue of the magazine Campus Life, in the column “Love, Sex and the Whole Person,” written by Tim Stafford.

I wrote the note before re-reading the column; later on, I wished I’d read it first to get the words just right.  But I still thought (and think) that the note I did write was well-written.  This is the column:

Q: Is it possible for a guy and a girl who were going out once to become friends again–to be just as close, if not closer, than they were before?  I’m beginning to think it’s not.  

What suggestions do you have for two people who used to date, but now, several months later, won’t talk to each other?  

A: It’s possible to reestablish a friendship, but it’s very hard.  The more romantically involved you were, the more difficult it is to find a non-romantic way of being together.  Too many feelings get in the way.

A few months isn’t enough time to deal with powerful feelings.  Often a year must go by before you can let go of anger and disappointment.  Don’t try to force a change.  But keep the door open to friendship.

I thought enough time had already passed, since now Peter was talking to me–heck, chatting with me like a regular acquaintance.

The column went on:

A good way to keep the door open might be a note.  It could say something like:

“Just wanted to let you know I have good feelings about you and hope that we can be friends again someday.  I don’t think we’re ready yet, but I hope to see the day when we can sit down and talk like old times.  Let me know when you’re ready to try.  In the meantime, I hope things are going well for you.”

Then, when you think you’re ready, ask your old friend if you might have a soda together.  Keep it light.  Don’t go over the past.  Just try to talk as friends.  And if things feel comfortable, do it again in a week or two.  Gradually you may be able to reestablish a friendship.

I thought we already had the equivalent of that first soda, that day at lunch.  This is the note I sent to Peter:

Dear Peter,

I want you to know I’m praying for you, and that everyone misses you at the Nazarene church in S– (now known as the “Good News” church!).  I miss our friendship, and I think we should meet for a Pepsi at the Muskie sometime (not a date, dear friend!).

I put “Don’t Panic!” on the folded letter so he wouldn’t think it was a beg letter or anything like that.  I checked with Pearl to make sure it sounded just right.  When I asked if I should say “dear friend,” she said, “If he takes that the wrong way, that’s pretty sad!”

The letter took so long that I had to hurry to Humanities class, though I think I mailed it before or after class.

****

I changed in a room across from the classroom, putting Steve’s clothes on over my own.  Steve had put a slipknot in the tie, but it came out–one end was too short.  I put my hair in the hat, and came out of the room.  N. did the tie for me, and Steve made an OK sign to me.

We waited outside the door for our parts.  While N. was inside doing hers, some teacher came by and smiled.  Then she turned around at about the end of the hall, and came back by us, still smiling.  I finally went in with a smile, and did my part.  J. jumbled up his lines, confusing me once or twice.  N. shook my hand after class.

****

That evening, as I did some reading for Sophomore Honors, Catherine and her roommate came over. Most everyone had gone home for the weekend, so they were visiting those who still were left.  I asked to go along.

There was no one to see at Muehlmeier, so we went on to Grossheusch.  In between the two dorms were a bunch of guys playing a game, and someone was running a little, red, remote control car around the parking lot.

Catherine said, “Is that Shawn over there?”  I said, “It probably is.”  We got to the door at the same time as Shawn and another guy, cars in hand, and we spoke to him.

Catherine distributed her “HAPPY” signs: signs with “Happy Happy Happy” written on them, and covered with stickers and drawings.  I put mine on my door each year for at least the next two years.  When Elizabeth moved into the suite later that year, she saw my Happy sign and thought I must be a really happy person.

But back to October 2.  Catherine slipped a “HAPPY” sign under the door of Jennifer’s brother, then we went down a few doors to 212.  That person wasn’t there, so she was about to leave, when I suggested we visit Shawn in 211.

Catherine wanted me to visit Shawn by myself, doing her little matchmaker thing, so she tried to talk me into it, saying, “At least one of us oughtta have a guy on a Friday night.”  She didn’t succeed.

She said, “We’ll all visit, then leave you there after a few minutes.”  She knocked on the door.  “I have a gift for you, Shawn!” she said.  How embarrassing!

We all went in, and her roommate sat in the green chair.  Catherine and I stood by the wall for a few minutes, as Shawn did something with his red RC car.

I told Catherine about seeing Peter at lunch, but she said, “Don’t talk about Peter.  Shawn doesn’t like it.”  As if he even cared if I did or not!  Then she said it was time to leave, and Shawn once told us, with a smile, to leave.  I tried to follow them out, but Catherine turned around and said, “You stay!”

“But he told us to leave,” I said.

“He wouldn’t say anything like that.–Would you, Shawn?–You stay!”  She practically threw me back into the room, and slammed the door behind her.

I looked sheepishly at Shawn.  He told me to sit down, so I sat in the chair.  What else could I do?  So we tried to start a conversation.  It was about 7:00.  He asked what Catherine was trying to do, always trying to get him to see me and me to see him, but I didn’t want to tell him.  “Why don’t you ask her?” I cried.

“Because she won’t tell me,” he said.

I wasn’t completely sure myself, but I tried to reassure him that I didn’t think she was trying to get us to sleep together.  Then we started talking about my day, including Peter.

I mentioned the sunset, seen through a crack in the curtains; he told me to open the window so I could see it.  He meant the curtains, confusing me.  He acted like I was silly, and opened the curtains for me.

He lay down on the bed.  I still couldn’t see the sunset with the back of the chair turned to it.  He said, “You can see it better from over here.”  I wasn’t sure if this was an invitation, so I stayed put.

We talked for a bit; it had nothing to do with our makeout sessions or twisted relationship, but was still full of misunderstandings and my hurt feelings; he said, “I’ve interrogated you so much already, that it’s your turn.  Start questioning me, ask me anything you want to know.  Try to see from my answers, just how I think.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but began.  But he wasn’t satisfied.  Finally, he said he wanted me to lie next to him on the bed, so I could see the dying sunset and we could talk better.  So you see I waited for him to give a clear invitation, did not force myself on him.

He kept the lights off as the sunlight dimmed.  I climbed over him onto the bed, and lay against the backrest.  I gazed at a star; he said it was probably a planet, that the stars weren’t out yet.  I said no, it twinkles, and planets don’t twinkle.  He said planets twinkle, too.

He said the best sci-fi comes from stories with a moral; I said we downplayed that very thing just recently in Fiction class.

He said we now know humanoids could never have lived on Mars, that we know too much about it for successful sci-fi set there; this upset me because of my Martian stories.

I told him that I asked a girl in my high school Astronomy class about this, because I wanted to publish my Martian stories, but we now know they’re not plausible.  She said not to worry, that my stories are just the sort of thing people want to read about.

I asked him why he was voting for Bush; he said he’s the best candidate, and on the right side.  He said, “That’s politics, go deeper!”  I couldn’t figure out what more he wanted; these were indeed the things I wanted to know.  Wasn’t that what he told me to do?

Finally, when I asked why he kept dismissing me as being “as mature as a 19-year-old,” when I was 19 and for years people called me mature for my age–he revealed what he wanted me to probe for.  With only a little provocation, he opened up his heart.

I won’t reveal his private thoughts, just that it was about his time in the mental institution (which was no secret at Roanoke anyway), and that he only told people what they needed to know about it.  Obviously he felt I needed to know far more.  The feelings came pouring out, and the tears.

At the end he said, “I guess this is what I wanted you to find out about me.  I seem to have a gift for finding out how people think, from the simplest replies, without them even knowing.”  He turned to me.  “But I’ve overwhelmed you, haven’t I?  They say not to do that.”

I agreed, but did not answer.  I didn’t know how to react, so I said and did nothing, thinking that might be best.

Then he began asking me to do things, some I was fine with, but some which made me uncomfortable, so I did not do them.  The conversation became more intimate as he tried to get me to experiment.

I followed his lead, though I kept trying to stop him when he wanted to do things I did not want.  He was persistent, however, and I finally let him do some things he’d been begging to do for months, admitting I did actually want them, too.  Things got more heated and…

The phone rang.  It was his parents.  At almost midnight!  He told me to be very quiet, but I couldn’t help snickering now and then.

It was a very long call, with all his parents and siblings, so eventually I got hungry and thirsty and had to go to the bathroom.  As I tidied my hair before going out, he told someone that Heidi called him way too analytical, even more than her!  It was so true that I could barely keep from laughing.

Then Samuel, Anna’s friend, began going up and down the hallway, yelling, “Fleeee fornication!  Fleeee fornication!”  That made it even harder to contain my laughter.

When Shawn hung up, saying he wanted to get up for Saturday breakfast for once, he scolded me: “You were noisy.  I could hear you!  But it’s all right; you were still quiet enough.”

This may be when I went to find the women’s little bathroom.  I tried to get enough information from him that I would not get lost, but he said the dorm was so simple that “if you get lost, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were!”  But I kept having trouble finding that little bathroom that year, depending on whether the sign was on the door.

I was feeling melancholy about Peter, and expected to now move to the guest room in the suite to talk and cry about that.  But Shawn kissed me “goodnight” a few times and that plan was set aside.

I even fell asleep for a time; as he tried to wake me up, he said, “You know, I could take advantage of you now, really easily.”  I said, “But I know you won’t.”  He said, “No, it’s really tempting right now.  Really tempting.”  So I quickly roused myself and got up.

He said, “I thought we agreed this wasn’t going to happen again.”  Which was maddening, because he’d been driving the whole night.

Eventually, we began talking again, about old love interests, then he walked me home.  I said something I should never have said: Somehow, after all this, I was thinking of Peter!  “Reality hits at 3am, so I know what I really feel for who,” because I felt strong love for Peter, and not much of anything for Shawn.

I just want to go back in time and slap myself for that.  Here Shawn could very well have been falling for me, with all he did and said that evening, and I said I was still in love with Peter, who didn’t care two bits about me anymore??!!

Sometimes I think I sabotaged my own relationship with Shawn by talking too much about pining for Peter.  But eventually that did end.

But I was definitely attracted to Shawn, always had been, or I would not have fallen so easily into temptation with him, again and again and–as the following school year would prove–continuously until he left Roanoke for good.

As we passed Chase, we saw a kitten, but it ran away from us.  I said, “I want so bad to pet something warm and furry and cuddly.”  Shawn said, “You’d better not say that to your friends.  They might misunderstand.”

He said, “Maybe you should tell Catherine that we had a big fight and you hate me.”  He left me at the door.  He said he was going to bed, but there were lights on in the Beta suite, so he went there instead.  He missed breakfast.

The next day, at dinner, I wanted to tell him a couple of intimate things relating to the night before.  I hung around him in the Campus Center lounge waiting for my chance; once, at the information desk, the worker there asked me, “Can I help you?”  Shawn said, “She’s just hanging around.”

Then he headed back to his dorm, and I went with him part of the way.  He said, “No, you’re not coming with me.”  I was miffed because I didn’t plan to; I just wanted to tell him those two things.  Which I did, then left.

****

So you see how I tried to be good when Catherine shoved me into his room, but he called me over, confided in me, made me his toy for the night, exhibited quite a bit of passion for me, then scolded me as if I had started everything, and treated me with scorn and derision the following day, trying to push me away from him.

He would say I was beautiful and pretty, but didn’t want to be my boyfriend.  Once or twice, later in the year, he even said he wasn’t attracted to me–but his behavior belied this claim.  What he got from me, he could’ve gotten that and much more every weekend from the easy high school “pop tarts” who came around the guys’ dorm looking for college boys; he didn’t have to come to me.

He was always completely sober, because he never drank or did drugs.  He didn’t do this with anybody else, and neither did I.  So you can’t blame it on inebriation.  If he didn’t find me attractive in some way, then why did he keep lusting after me?  Why did he call me pretty?

(I was also thin and curvy, and kept myself clean, so there was nothing to turn him off physically.  After him came several boyfriends, all of which considered me beautiful and sexy.)

Why did he come over every weekend, or ask me over, looking for some more?  Why did he seem to want me so intently?

If I was so unattractive to him, then why didn’t he just stop coming over, cut me loose, only talk to me on the phone or at mealtime, and pursue some girl he actually liked, leaving me to pursue other guys who might like me?

In fact, before Christmas Break he insisted it was all going to stop and we would get to know each other as friends, only to–as soon as we got back to school–start asking every night for me to come over, until I finally did.

Even now it makes no sense, because usually you hear about guys either getting drunk first, or one-night stands, if he’s not attracted to her physically.  Neither applied here.

And we ran in the same circles, so it would be impossible to avoid each other; why do something you’d regret–over and over again–while in full possession of your faculties?

He wasn’t some handsome, muscular stud–No, he was an ordinary geeky guy, getting pretty flabby around the middle, who seemed to annoy a lot of people, was considered obnoxious by my friends, and had an awful time finding dates.

I believe one or two of my friends didn’t like him at all.  They especially didn’t like him coming over all the time, behaving like I was his girlfriend, and then telling me he didn’t want me except as a friend.

Other than two girlfriends in high school, there had been nobody else, and would be nobody else for quite some time after he left Roanoke; I was the only girl at Roanoke known to be interested in him.

Some guy saw a picture of his ex and said, “How did you get a girl like this?  You’re butt-ugly, man.”  But I thought he was cute: He had dark hair, glasses, and big, Irish blue eyes I could get lost in.

I had a huge crush on him, which is why I kept taking him in every week.  That, and I liked doing what we did.

We kept going farther and farther, but did not want to lose our virginity through vaginal sex (that would be sinful).  However, we were extremely naïve to think that what we did eventually do was not “sex.”

It was, according to medical definitions, and far too many Christian kids are going too far because they think only one thing (vaginal) means “sex” (or that it’s the only way to get pregnant).  I write about this here, with links to various articles.

Such things as we did are meant to lead to a certain end point, and stirred up our passions to boiling.  And according to Wisconsin law, what we did qualified as sexual contact and intercourse, so legally, we were mistaken that we were still virgins.

The following year, I let my fiance Phil lead me into more things with this idea that only vaginal penetration=sex and only sex=sin.  He made me feel silly and uneducated in sex for thinking otherwise.

I never did this stuff with Peter, because Peter and I felt it was going too far.  They were all Shawn’s idea, and it took him months of convincing to get me to start giving in to him.  And Phil found it a lot easier to break through my reserve because Shawn had done all the work before him.

Even Christian boys can be just as persistent as non-Christian ones, so if you’re dating only Christians expecting to never have this problem, think again.  Don’t be naïve like I was; know what you’re getting into.  And if you’re under 18, be warned that what you’re doing could be illegal.  At least we were 19.

Once Shawn got it in my head that these things were not sinful, I only wanted more–and we got deeper into trouble as we went.  Then afterwards, he would tell me in a long lecture why he didn’t want to go out with me and criticize everything about me.  He’d also tell me about other girls he was attracted to–who included some of my friends.

The problem, as we discovered later, was that he knew my body but he didn’t know me, my soul, how I thought about things.  All he knew was what other catty people thought, people who weren’t even my friends.

When I think back–especially now that I’ve been married for years, those youthful indiscretions were nowhere near as satisfying as what I do with my husband, and I haven’t actually been haunted with disturbing “memories” which church leaders always warned teenagers would follow them into their marital beds–I don’t really regret it so much anymore.

It feels like I regretted it for so long that it just got tiresome to keep thinking so negatively about it.

It seems like, after many years, continuing to beat yourself up for past sins becomes overkill and unhealthy, especially if those sins did not really hurt anyone, have now been set aside through marriage and never had negative impacts on that marriage.

Hubby doesn’t seem to care that I did these things before him; by the time he came along, what I did with Shawn was overshadowed by Phil, and Hubby sure wasn’t innocent, himself, putting us on an equal footing.

Rather, I’ve just put it into my past as something that happened and shaped who I was.  In fact, I don’t find the memories disturbing at all; I’m supposed to, yet instead they are pleasurable reminders of a colorful past, not promiscuous but monogamous.  Even my “friend with benefits” was monogamous.

What I do regret is that Shawn did all these things with me but kept insisting he didn’t care for me the way I cared for him, that our friendship was damaged by it.

If he had not been so disgusted in May 1993 by what we did, seeing it as a grievous sin and an impure relationship, while I was not disgusted, maybe he would have been kinder to me.

Many of my readers will say I was an adult and did nothing wrong.  That’s fine, especially in this day and age.

But if you want to save yourself for marriage, don’t do what I did, because one thing leads to another, and Shawn and I both felt that our “impure” relationship damaged our relationships with God.

And in any case, this story is meant to show two things: 1) how easy it is to get out of control with lust if you want to save yourself for marriage, and 2) how adding “benefits” to a friendship can destroy it.

I have no regret over the first ten months, which were a lot of fun.

But things began to take a very dangerous turn in January 1993, not just taking away any innocence and purity that might still have been left to us and our relationship, but damaging our friendship almost beyond repair.

It’s a miracle that things finally turned around eventually, long after the sexual aspect was removed–but more on that later.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

 October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound

January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD

 February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year 

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

Today’s Fun: Highland Games, Weird Friends

What a full day today:

First I bicycled to church (so I get to sleep in tomorrow), a new thing with my brand-new bike after years of no bike.  I got to visit with the people at coffee hour, practice Greek, try to understand Greek, and chat with a new friend, a very spiritual young man who’s become close enough to know my struggles with faith and the loss of a meaningful but abusive friendship.

I spoke to him about it back in February, told him the whole thing.  It’s hard for a shy introvert like me to make that close of a friend.  Facebook chats help a lot.

It’s good to find another spiritual, potentially close friend, to have someone to talk to who’s close enough to actually help.  Just his presence at church is quiet moral support as I go through this tough time.

My priest has also known for the past two years about my struggles, the various things that have come up, since I’ve been going to him for advice, prayer and counsel over this ever since July 2010.

They were my support system since long before the ex-friends (Richard and Tracy) found my blog.  So I’m not all alone there, even though Jeff goes to a different church.  There’s nothing the ex-friends can do to me with my support system in place. 

They have threatened to sue me if I tell members of the church about what they’ve done, but I told my priest and this friend long before they made that threat, and I’ve also told them about the threat and the blog stalking and intimidation they’ve done since.

It is my human right to confide in whomever I choose about my problems, so such a lawsuit would violate my free speech, would be frivolous, and would be thrown out of court.

Such threats are often used by bullies/abusers to keep their victims quiet and fearful.

That woman, Tracy, even pressed up against my back in the communion line and started breathing loudly–literally breathing down my neck and snarling!

It is a huge relief to connect and re-connect with normal, nice people who do not abuse their friends, who just have the usual human foibles.  The more I see them, the better I feel, the farther along I get on the healing process.

Then I went to another friend’s annual Highland Games/caber toss thing.  Stoneput, spear throwing and another tossing thing were added, and the usual caber tossing (big pole like a utility pole, in various weights/sizes).  Extra points if you wear a kilt.

The usual/annual jokes about men tossing their wood and what’s under that kilt.  (The rules stated that you cannot go commando because it’s unsanitary and could subject the people behind you to an unwelcome view as you toss your caber.)

And the usual fun was had by all.‎…Oh, and Jeff got a plaque (homemade by my friend, T., a gifted craftsman) for coming in 1st place in mini caber.

I tend to have unique friends.  I’m not used to the rougher types T. hangs out with, but my friends are usually geeks of some kind, computer geeks, British comedy fans, Dr. Who fans, roleplaying geeks, reenactment geeks (SCA, Renaissance Faire).  I even married one.

That’s also why my friends tend to be guys, though sometimes girls are this way as well. 

T. is one of these unique friends, met years ago through other geeky friends I met on a local BBS (back before the Internet made BBS’s into a bunch of crickets chirping, around 2000).  He also has Scottish ancestry, and even claims to go back to King Nebucchadnezzar.  I believe he goes back to King MacAlpine as well, which makes us cousins in a way, because so do I.

Though I couldn’t help wondering–after discovering that not only does my dad’s line go back to royalty, so does my mother’s–if some of the records coming down have been fudged.

Why is it that everybody I know, who has records stretching back that far, goes back to royalty?  Or is it just that if you can trace your records back that far, you must be from royalty, because the records of common peons would not be so carefully kept?

[Update: I recently read some Internet article which demonstrated that, based on math and probability, EVERYONE goes back to some kind of royalty.]

T. also comes from a unique family: Today he told the story of his stepfather, I believe it was, who likes to go into the pharmacy, let a nasty one go in one aisle, then go to another aisle and watch in the security mirror to see people’s reactions.

Once he did this while T.’s mother was bent down looking at a bottle.  An old lady came along, said, “Well, I never!” and started hitting her with her purse.  The response: “Maybe you should, and then you’ll be in a better mood.”

Another of my unique friends, M., seems to know other people I know as well: the youth pastor I used to work with 12 years ago, and a new convert at my church who almost went to live with him.

He is the kind of person who started out with a completely normal, ordinary name, hated it, and legally changed it to a name from myth (which if I named to you, would identify him, so I won’t give the name).  He also wore a beautiful kilt to T’s first Highland Games, in October 2010.

We used to play Dungeons and Dragons with him, his sister, his sister’s boyfriend (now husband, who was the first one I befriended on that BBS), T., and a teenager who also hung around in our little group on the BBS and in person, back around 2000.

The teenager was obsessed with Star Wars, wore a Jedi cloak to my birthday party in 1999, and to this day, despite being a mature adult, insists on being called the name of a certain Star Wars character.

In maybe 2001 or so, there was a rift in this group when everyone except me turned against one of the members.  I felt like, because I did not want to cut him out as well, I was also jettisoned, because after that, there were no more invites, no more showing up for our invites.

But in the summer of 2010, having reconnected with all these people through Facebook, and finding the rift repaired because the outed member had greatly matured, Jeff and I invited them to a party.

M. had a sunburn, claimed that grass was good for sunburn, then went out and rubbed his back on our little closed-in lawn.  While doing so, he lost his iPod, but didn’t realize it.  That night, it rained.

The next morning, we found his iPod on the lawn, and returned it to him.  I don’t know if it still worked.

I’m told by T. that M.’s wife was a very serious person in high school, the last person he would’ve expected to marry M.  Yet they were together for many years before getting married, so she must’ve had both eyes open.  Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?

 

Quirky “Friendship” with Shawn Heats Up Again–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–May 1992

Year-End Parties

I never wanted to go through again what I had just gone through in the past few months since the breakup.

Soon after the breakup, I discovered the British 70s sitcom Are You Being Served?  While looking for a distraction, I turned on the TV, and in walked Mr. Humphries (the flaming gay character) in an outrageous outfit.  What the heck was this show?  It soon became a favorite, and Catherine also watched it.

On May 1, Pearl, Sharon and I were talking about the warm weather while on the sidewalk after a party, so I suggested we go for a walk when we got back to campus.  We gathered up a few others there, including Catherine, Rachel and possibly Cindy, and went over to the bridge over the lake.

We talked about the ghost of the football field and probably other ones, which freaked out someone, probably Cindy or Sharon.  The cattails in the lake were now dried, big, round, cottony things which stuck up high out of the water.  I said, “Aah!  They look like human heads!”  This freaked out Cindy or Sharon even more.

This is probably the time when the wheels of Pearl’s scooter got caught in between the planks of the bridge.  This bridge was soon blocked off because it had become unsafe and had to be fixed.

On May 9, I visited Pearl in her room, and mentioned the prayer meetings with Mona.  Pearl wanted to join, and spoke to the Rev about starting a campus group (since there were no Christian groups on campus at that time).  Eventually, Anna and Shawn would also join this prayer group.

This meeting sparked the founding of an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter at Roanoke.  Details to follow.

Quirky “Friendship” with Shawn Heats Up Again

The following evening, a Sunday, Shawn came over again, almost two months after the last time.  Around 7 or 8pm, I was in my room watching TV when Shawn called.  He said, “I stopped by your room several times, but you weren’t there.  Want me to come over?”

I kept thinking, But we’re not even prayer partners anymore because Mona is now.  I wonder what he wants to come over for?  

We set up a time for 9:30, when nothing was on TV.  He came over late, as usual.  We started talking.  There is a rather icky note in my diary: “I think it was before our last meeting as prayer partners, and not this, that I had to fish my decorative button out of the toilet.”  Ewww!  What button?  How did that happen?

Anyway, after a few minutes, Shawn asked if I’d written anything about him in my diary, and if he could read it.  I didn’t let him, but I did read some things from it to him.  He just didn’t want to hurt anybody in the way he’d been hurt.  He asked what I didn’t like about him, and I told him.

Then after I checked on a recording of Dr. Who and he looked at my music collection, all of a sudden he said, “Do you feel like you need to be kissed again?”  I made my “you silly boy” look, smiling and looking at the floor like I couldn’t believe he just said that.  But I didn’t say no.

For the next two hours, we acted like we were dating.  Then he asked if I wanted a hug.  While we stood with our arms around each other’s waists, he told me there are times when he has deep feelings, and would like to go out with me.  “But I’m only here for two years, and we’ve only got two weeks left, so it’s a little late to start anything.”

Though of course, looking back, he seems to be jumping the gun, thinking if anything is started, it’ll be serious and/or go long term.  Two years is plenty of time for most college relationships to run their course!  Couldn’t he have just let things happen and stopped finding reasons for them not to?

I wrote in my diary, “This time, no misunderstandings.”

The next day, we sat together at lunch, next to a group of visiting high schoolers, and I said we should scare them with stories about the campus ghosts and the “horrors” of Roanoke.

Before he left, as he rested his hands on his bag and his chin on his hands, he winked at me.  I smiled back.  I was happy again, as I hadn’t been since the breakup.

I told Mona what was going on.  She said it was normal and would probably strengthen our friendship, but be careful.  “Don’t let him break your heart, and don’t break his.”

****

The college sold May Celebration T-shirts which had “53082” (the college’s zip code) in a logo similar to the one for Beverly Hills: 90210.  My friends and I all got one.  That shirt lasted me for many years.

****

On May 15, a Friday night, Shawn came over again.  We were supposed to talk about something unrelated, but it turned playful yet again, with this conservative Christian–no sex before marriage, etc.–using my belt to tie me to the bed post and then–tickle me, then release me.  He said, “See, I’m a nice guy.  If I weren’t, I would’ve taken advantage of you.”

After a rather intense make-out session, during which it sure felt like he was in love with me–I asked, “What are we?  We’re obviously more than friends.”

Shawn said, “We act like we’ve wanted to go out for a year but we’re trying to make up for it in a week.”

He said this would probably happen again and again.  He couldn’t figure out why his feelings (heart) were so cool, and he said, “Whenever you want to get serious, I don’t, and whenever I do, you don’t.  We just haven’t connected.”

I wrote in my diary,

I still relish the memory of Shawn’s arms tight around me, and him wanting more and more….

Man, this is fun, this “secret romance.”  I suspect Heidi thinks we’re dating, from the things she says.  If she does, I’ll have to swear her to secrecy.  But the idea of rumors and puzzled whispers is so intriguing, and I’m hoping for it….

I’m starting to have so much fun again, and it’s getting easier to maintain my shaking happiness.

On the 18th, a Monday, I had Persuasive class with Shawn and a couple of my new friends: Carol and Sharon.  Shawn was late every day, so I said to the others, “Let’s see if Shawn’s late again today.”

Carol said, “I don’t see how anyone can be that chronically late.  I mean, they should know by now, the class starts at 1:45.”

Sure enough, he was late.  Another time, he was on time and somebody else was late; he said, “Even I was on time.  Where were you?”

On the 20th, I wrote,

This guy’s a handful to control, for a conservative Christian.  I suppose maybe this is training for dates that don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves.

(If I have any children that’re now reading this, you should be ashamed of yourselves for reading your mother’s old diary.  But you’d better take my warning: You need to set your limits and make a date conform to them (…the person with the strictest standards must win).  Know how to slap hands and say a firm “no.”)

This was after what happened on the 19th, Tuesday.  First, Shawn was half an hour late to Bible study in my room, but then so was Mona, so it all worked out.  Pearl came as well.

He read Philippians 4 from my Bible, but was so stressed out from a terrible Calculus test that he kept making funny mistakes–and I kept teasing him by correcting him (for example, “Cement” for “Clement”).

Then he prayed, and I couldn’t help smiling mischievously as he said, “Thank you for what’s going on in this room.”

Pearl left, then Julie called to say she and Dirk were going to show Black Adder.  Mona, Shawn and I talked about the prayer group/Bible study; we thought of names to call it, such as Campus Lite (instead of Campus Life), then Mona left.

I asked Shawn if he wanted to watch Black Adder, but first he wanted to watch Home Improvement in the suite lounge.  At 8:00 I wanted to go see Black Adder, but he found the movie The Jerk and wanted to watch that instead.  So I consented, feeling rather helpless: It was my suite’s lounge, and I didn’t want to just leave him there.

I thought we were just going to watch for a few minutes, but we ended up seeing the whole thing.  Shawn was a mischievous rogue the whole time, being an octopus, throwing my belt in my doorway, spinning me around (making us both dizzy), holding me upside-down, etc. etc.

Once, I got up and said, “You’re a handful!”

He said, “That’s the trouble.  You’re not letting me get a handful.”  And this from the same mouth that prayed at Bible study just a few hours earlier!

He’d keep asking me why I liked him.  It was hard to figure out, since he didn’t fit my ideal as well as Peter did (or, at least, how Peter presented himself to me before the breakup).  I didn’t like sports, but unlike Peter, he was into sports.

He acted like a little boy sometimes, and kept misunderstanding my signals.  But he was a spiritual Christian and knowledgeable.  He’d even been told he should be a pastor.  And this whole clandestine thing was more appealing to me than getting back with Peter: It was exciting and fun.

Heidi and Nicole had only planned to stay at Roanoke for one year.  But now, Nicole decided to keep to this plan, while Heidi decided to stay on another year.  Heidi had a new boyfriend, and Shawn thought he was the reason she wanted to stay.  By the way, this guy and Heidi are now married and live in the States.

Even though I kept warning Shawn that someone might walk in, he put his arms under my shirt and around my waist.  Before I could get away, the door opened!

I jumped away, wondering how much was seen by Heidi’s boyfriend.  He went to Heidi’s door, and I said to Shawn, “See, I told you!”

The boyfriend left, and we started laughing.  “I think Heidi already suspects something,” I said, “and with [her boyfriend] seeing us….”

Another time, Nicole walked in.  Heidi wasn’t around, so she left as well.  In fact, Shawn and I were alone.

After the movie and making out in my room, we heard Tom come in the lounge, and to avoid the appearance that we were more than friends, Shawn went out in the lounge.   He came back in the room and was about to open the door again, but I wanted a good-bye kiss first.

“What do you want?” he said.

“What do you think?” I said.

He said, “I think–I think–Nicole and Heidi are here!” and opened the door.

We all watched television for a bit; once, he followed Heidi to her room, and she said, “Did you come to see Nyssa or did you come to bother me?”  He said, “I can do both.”

At some point, Shawn mentioned the Kama Sutra; she said she read it once, but threw it away because the positions would hurt somebody.  He also made some saucy joke that made her cry, “I am still virgin!”

Shawn was my first exposure to conservative Christians with a wicked sense of humor–so perhaps you have him (and Phil) to blame for me developing one myself.  😉

On Wednesday, I went to Krueger Hall to watch Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in the lounge with my friends.  I invited Shawn to watch it with me in the suite, but he preferred to go to Krueger, saying, “There’s safety in numbers, you know what I mean?”

He and I were the only ones who’d seen it before, so Pearl, Rachel and Carol told us to be quiet.  Shawn, who didn’t know if his family was recording Quantum Leap’s season finale, kept flipping to it during the commercials.

The others left after the movie, but Pearl said she might come back after her shower, so I stuck around and watched more TV with Shawn.  I went to the bathroom and came back to find him gone.  So I watched the last few minutes of the show, hoping he wouldn’t make me remember all the details for him.

I did not know he had hidden in the room, and was watching to see if I talked to myself, or would leave without waiting for him.

I spilled some Orange Slice on my face and wiped it off, glad no one was there to see me (wrong-o!).

I flipped through the channels a bit, hoping he would return.  (He later told me what channels I flipped through.)  He didn’t, and I feared he’d left without saying good-bye, so I left.

I started down the hill behind Krueger on the way to the suites, when I heard running behind me on the sidewalk.  I either stopped and turned around, or was jumped on.

It was Shawn.  We went to the main suite lounge, and were in there for a minute, him wanting to pants me, something he had become obsessed with wanting to do, but which I did not want.  He gave me a hug, keeping his arms by my waist.  I put my hands in my jacket pockets, nervous.

“You’re not supposed to put your hands in your pockets,” he said.  “Why?” I said.  He moved to pull my pants down, but I grabbed them and stopped him.

We watched some TV with Tom in my suite, then I asked Shawn for his address, even though he said he wouldn’t write back.  We went in my room for that, I wanted a kiss, but he ran out, saying, “It’s safer this way.”  He told Tom, “You’ve got to watch her.”  I cried, “What?!”  He poked his head back in the door, grinned at me, then left.

On Thursday the 21st, as I packed for home and swept the floor, I turned around to see Shawn standing in the doorway.  “You startled me,” I said.  He said he’d just scared his friend Yukari, too, by walking behind her and matching her footsteps before making his presence known.  (What, trying to be a ninja like Peter, there?)

He closed the curtains to hide the hot sun and dried egg on the window, which I believe came from some unknown person during pledging.  I continued packing as he read to me the teacher’s comments on his Persuasive paper.

I really wanted to clean out the “Peter drawer,” which I’d left for last, so I did that while he talked.

No, I did not throw away my mementoes: I kept them, still have them.  Before the breakup, I felt that burning pictures or throwing away mementoes would be like a betrayal of the good, happy days in the beginning of a relationship.  I felt the same after breaking up with Peter.

I had to rinse off my hands in the bathroom after cleaning out some stuff left over from a vase, then after I came back, Shawn lifted me up again.  He loved doing that.  He carried me between the beds and spun me around, and put me down on Candice’s old bed.

The usual followed, him trying to push my limits, obsessed with getting to second base, me trying to keep him under control.  He said, “I’ll be gentle, not grab or pull or tear or bite or chew,” which made me laugh, but I said, “Not without a wedding ring.”

Afterwards he grabbed a Teen magazine and looked to see if I’d filled out some personality test.  We stood by the door.  He’d open it, and I’d push it back, until he finally admitted he knew what I wanted.

“This’ll be the last one for the year, so it’ll have to be special,” he said.

We took our leave of each other for the summer, unless we saw each other at dinner.  He wished me a safe trip home; he lived near the Illinois border, while I had a much longer trip.

I went to dinner right away, just to see what it would be like to go there with his kisses fresh on my lips.  Catherine and I went to get an Eskimo Pie.  Catherine said, “I smell roses.  Do you?”

I sniffed, but smelled nothing, so she said, “It must be just me.”  But I wondered if it was just me: the scent of Shawn’s cologne.

He did come to dinner, late as usual, so he had to drink diet pop.  He sat between Catherine and me.  He made some racy comments to her, so twice I hit his arm playfully (not out of jealousy, but because he was a conservative Christian and not “supposed” to say such things, so I had to tease him).

He helped put the reflector back on the back of Pearl’s scooter seat while she sat in it (she had rheumatoid arthritis and needed the scooter to get around).

Once, she said one of our catch phrases: “Don’t touch me theeeere!”  Rachel gave her a high-five, and we all laughed.

He left, saying, “It’s been real fun.”

Catherine said, “It’s been real and it’s been fun.  But it hasn’t been real fun.”

Ah, Shawn, why did you over-analyze our relationship and put so much pressure on it, refuse to even tell the world we were seeing each other?

Why didn’t you make me a legitimate girlfriend instead of (sophomore year) having a good time and then treating me like you hated me and we were sinning and it was all my fault?

We were having so much fun in the beginning.  It could have been all laughs and fun, not the psychological hell it became sophomore year.

****

That night, we had a sleepover at Krueger Hall.  We put beds or mattresses in the main lounge.  I don’t remember who all was there, but I do know Steve, Pearl, Rachel and Tara were.  Carol may have been there.

It was partly Sharon’s idea, but she had to work on the yearbook and couldn’t come.  Some other girl was there.  She said the girl who lived in her room before her wrote “so and so loves so and so” on the mattress.  “She must have loved him quite a bit, because the bed’s all broken down,” she said.

We played several board games.  One had the question, who would you like to see get a pie in the face?  I voted for Rachel, and she voted for me because she wanted to see how I’d react if I did get a pie in the face.

We then tried to start gossiping.  I wrote some of the gossip in my diary, but probably shouldn’t tell it here.  Then Steve left, but not before giving each of us a hug.  Rachel told ghost stories.  We finally went to bed, but stayed up talking until around 3.  I got four hours of sleep, but had to travel some five hours that day.

Afterwards, somebody said, “You probably talked about guys.”

We said, “No, we talked about ghosts and UFO’s.”

We woke up to the alarm at 7, but the person closest to it turned it off.  That is, Pearl and I and that person woke up to it.  Rachel was dead to the world.

I wondered if we’d sleep through Poetry.  Pearl woke up about 15 minutes later and woke up Rachel, then I got up.  Pearl later said, “If we were late to Poetry, how would I explain it to Counselor Dude?”

Somebody said, “Think of how embarrassing it would’ve been if we’d slept until noon right out there in the lounge.”

****

For Poetry finals, we would do a normal workshop class during the scheduled period, and also do individual meetings with Counselor Dude.  Everybody in the class got together and conspired what to put in that day’s Poetry packet.

Counselor Dude had told us he had this thing about women’s toes.  I guess they freaked him out.  So all the poems were about–toes!  He was amused.  Mine was,

Mermaids once had toes
Back when dinosaurs roamed.
The evolutionist knows
Man’s ancestors had to separate.

Dinosaur woman on land
Heard the continent’s call,
But by the sea, dinosaur woman
Was lured by ocean’s cry.

Feet divided by toes
Became fins.
Legs merged together; toes merged with toes.
Legs became tails; feet became fins.

Dinosaur woman became dinosaur mermaid.
Toes transformed into fins,
The spaces between now like marmalade.
Toes once there, are toes now gone.

After I read it, Counselor Dude said,

“That is the–” his voice boomed–“BEST poem you’ve written all semester!”

All the poems were awesome, mostly demented (such as disembodied toes (Rachel) or sucking toes), all funny, but it would probably violate copyright to publish them here.

Summer Begins

I longed to go home and get away from Peter, though I would greatly miss Shawn.

Soon after returning home on Friday the 22nd, I sorted through all my school papers, circulars and mementoes, tossed what I didn’t want, and put the rest in a box.  Everything Peter gave me went in the box, as well.  I marked the box FRESHMAN YEAR; for the next three summers, I would do the same.

When I wrote these memoirs, these boxes were very helpful.  So, packrats, even when your mother complains about all the things you keep, don’t let this stop you: You just might need them.

Sophomore year, I would no longer have a male suitemate.  Though it seemed a bit weird at first, it hadn’t been all that different from living with a brother–a flirty brother who didn’t tease me mercilessly, that is.

I already missed “Big Ben,” our campus clock, bonging the time every hour; the campus; seeing everyone at meals; Shawn.  I’m not sure why I still thought about Peter, maybe because Shawn refused to call our relationship anything beyond “friends.”  I missed cable and Mystery Science Theater 3000, Donna Reed, Doctor Who.

I looked forward to getting letters from my new friends, and writing to Shawn.  My mother had just been given an old family trunk, full of stuff going back 110 years, including a stereoscope with a series of slides of a funny courtship.

It ended up in my room, where I put my sheets on top of it, instead of in my drawers (which were infested with those little segmented worms which get everywhere in houses, including in the trunk).

I had expected in March that by May things would be so much better, that I would love being home again.  At first, everything was fine: We had a new, powerful antenna instead of cable, and it picked up Wisconsin PBS stations, such as channel 10 and sometimes 36.  Whenever I got channel 10 in well enough, I would watch it.  Both it and channel 34 from Elkhart played different episodes of Are You Being Served?, so I would often see it twice a day.

However, summer began to drag.  I missed everyone, and felt bored doing my usual things.  I had too much time to think about Peter, though I rarely cried.

You’d expect my thoughts to revolve around Shawn after everything, but no, I still thought of Peter.  Shawn was that intimate friend I would tell everything to, but not a boyfriend, since he would kiss me and flirt with me and turn into an octopus and act like a boyfriend–but kept resisting, kept the relationship a secret, refused to make it anything beyond “friendship.”

I wrote long letters to Shawn and my other friends, writing them late at night when the house was quiet, about whatever struck my fancy, deep thoughts or happenings around town or church or home.

Most of the people in the college/career class at church were several years older than I was.  My friends were still in the high school class, or left for college and then rarely showed up even in summer.

I had lost track of all but one non-church friend.  I thought I was just weird, until I went to my 10-year high school reunion and discovered that lots of people lose track of their friends when they leave high school.

So I was lonely, and began marking out days in my calendar, each one a milestone that would bring September closer.

There was a bit of excitement in Sunday School one day: One woman in my class had just decided to divorce her husband.  It sounded like he was cheating on her.

But even though she made the decision, she sounded just like me back in late January/early February: devastated, barely making it through the day or the night.

One of my old youth group friends was there (a guy I once had a crush on), and several of us sat talking with her even during the church service, because the woman needed support.

So much of the advice she got from people at church was confusing and contradictory; we seemed more united.  I told her I went through something similar with an ex-boyfriend.

She smiled and said something soothing, your typical cliché, but I didn’t want her to sympathize and try to comfort me.  I was just trying to make her feel like she wasn’t alone.

I loved to listen for the South Bend accent during the singing at church.  I wondered if I now had a bit of a S– accent that would be noticeable as I sang (as if anyone could hear me sing anyway).

This may have been the summer when a squirrel in the tree next door seemed tame.  It would go up to our neighbors, probably to get treats.

One day, as she hosed off her car, the neighbor lady played with him.  He’d run up to her, she’d turn the hose on him, he’d run off, then he’d run up to her and do it all over again.

From my diary entries, you could say I was obsessed with Jesus.  This was because I had almost no one else.  (Actually, I think many Christians would say I was not obsessed with Jesus, or that how I felt was a good, natural thing.)

After all, according to Shawn, some people would get upset when they saw me coming over to sit at their table, because I would “bring them down” (not a good thing to hear when you’re already depressed).

Shawn would listen but was far more concerned in changing me and tearing down the way I was than letting me grieve; I didn’t want to annoy my family or friends by talking about Peter; my friends were in another state; Peter treated me like a pariah; people told me I shouldn’t get this way over a guy; yet I could not shake the feelings I had.

Nobody understood me.  It’s normal, especially for women, to process emotions verbally after a breakup or trauma.  But for those with nonverbal learning disorder, talking becomes especially important for releasing anxiety, and we don’t know when to shut up.

That’s probably why I talked about Peter so much in the early days.  But when people began telling me not to, the need to process the situation did not stop, so I had to pour all my feelings into journals.

I now know that what I had was depression, not just the blues, and that I tried to deal with it alone when I should have had the help of a counselor.

Various things can work together to make a person so depressed that she can’t function properly.  The depressed person doesn’t want to be this way (though some, like Shawn, might think she does), and would give anything to be normal again.

As I wrote this part of my memoirs in 1999 and read articles about depression, I saw that I was not odd or at fault for the things I felt, did, and said.  The “words of knowledge,” though they misguided me, were an attempt to find something to hold onto, something that said this would pass.  I believed in those days that this could only pass if Peter came back to me.

The writer of the article “When Depression Hits Home” in a 1999 issue of Today’s Christian Woman expressed my feelings exactly when she said, “I wasn’t crazy–I was depressed!”  I had feared I was crazy.  Now I know that I wasn’t.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year 

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

Recall Primary Tomorrow–and how this nastiness is affecting friendships

[Update 6-29-18: Looking back, it seems this was–unfortunately–only the beginning.]

We are on the eve of a primary to nominate the Democrat who will run against our governor [Scott Walker] in the state recall election.  I intend to vote for the Democrat who has the best chance of winning, and then vote for the Democrat in the recall election.

I find the governor’s behavior to be disgusting, bullying, violating rights which had been held by public unions in this state for 50 years–human rights to prevent them from being bullied by Scrooge bosses.

He and his fellow Republicans ramrodded through their despicable elimination of these human rights, violating the rules of the state government procedures, not giving the Democrats a proper chance or say in the matter, ignoring the voices of thousands who protested for weeks outside and inside the state capitol building.

I saw the disgraceful way the governor and Republicans tried to malign the poor for needing help, and tried to remove various environmental regulations and social programs that had made our state such a wonderful place to live.

…These are views which would alienate Richard and Tracy, if we were still friends.  If the Incident had never happened, or if nothing else had happened (though something must have eventually happened, given Tracy’s cycling back into frequent rages during that time)–this would have done it.

Considering the current political climate of our state during this recall process, and that Tracy backs the Republican governor and Richard is almost sure to back him as well (the TEA party backs him, and Richard, a Libertarian and TEA Partier, also hates unions with a passion)–Our friendship would have been chucked by them by now, whether we were still friends after the Incident of 7/1/10 or not.

The political climate is so volatile that close friends and family members are no longer speaking to each other.  And since Richard, as early as spring 2010, told me that he considers his political opponents his hated enemies (which might explain why he grew so cold to me that year and stopped calling), he probably wouldn’t want to speak to me at all if he knew how I felt about the governor after spring 2011 (and the Republicans after his beloved TEA Party took them over).

I remember how Richard spoke to Jeff and me because we didn’t agree with his kooky Libertarian/Anarchist politics.

I’m staying friends with and still speaking to friends/family who back the governor, basically avoiding the subject with them, but there are many people who are letting politics divide close, loving relationships.

I have seen enough reason, from their past behavior and comments, to believe that Richard and Tracy are behaving the same, and that they would have ended our friendship in 2011 or 2012, even if we had not ended it in 2010–but over politics.  Politics!  So it’s just as well that that toxic friendship is over.

Wisconsin Recall Election Pits Friends Against Each Other

The Wisconsin recall elections are being called an “epic battle,” a “civil war” and even an “un-civil war.”

While no one is firing upon each other with muskets and cannons, neighbors are being pit against neighbors and relationships between family members are becoming strained over competing visions for the future of the state…..

“I’ve never seen a state torn apart in such a short time,” said Pat Nolan-Burger, another lifelong Badger State resident who attended the Clinton event. “This happened within months of Gov. Walker taking office.” –Amanda Terkel, Wisconsin Recall Divisiveness Affecting Personal Relationships

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