1. my story - beginnings

I’m thinking of the beginning of him and me. The improbability of it all.

I put up an ad on a dating site four years ago. I’m not exactly sure why I had it up. I had a couple other profiles on other sites too. It was tempting and addictive and I meant for it to go nowhere.

I was 18 and had never been in a relationship. I wanted to know what it felt like to have someone attracted to me. I wanted to know what kind of guy would respond to a person with a profile like mine. It was an insecure selfish need.

I put all my thoughts and dreams into these profiles. Years of inexperience had left me hopeful. I wanted to be reached out and touched. I was tired of being missed out.

My ‘reasons to get to know me’ read something like this:

i would make u laugh, i'd always smile, i'd believe in you, listen to you, talk to you, i'd hold you, i'd set you free and if things were bad i'd make sure you pull through, i'd try to enjoy every second i had with you, i'd offer u gum, i'd find sexual innuendo in anything, i'd always answer if u called at 2 am, i'd play videogames with u and kick ur ass, i can probably eat more then you (and enjoy it more too), i'd travel the world with you, i'd speak to u in french, we'd go for walks, we'd count the stars, u could be urself around me, i'd mudwrestle with u if u like, or we could just sit here in my room on my bed and think of what to do next and that'd be cool too


I roll my eyes at it a bit now, but I could do every one of those things at the time, I could be this person, this was my ideal, untouched by life, maybe fed by a movie and a book here and there… but mostly mine.

Except it didn’t even feel like an ideal, just the future lurking around the corner, waiting to take me away.

And maybe I haven’t changed as much as I’d like to claim because I know in some ways, I'm still holding on.

But my imperfect ugly side has reared its head too many times for me to have complete faith.

And through it all, I never thought about what I wanted. Except that I wanted someone who could always bring a smile to my face.

I still don’t know, really.

(… to be continued)