This week’s column is written in mid-air on American Airlines Flight 533 from Bloomington, Indiana, to Dallas, Texas. In last week’s episode, I briefly mentioned that I was on my way to visit Adam. Adam is a guy who I’ve been talking to online for awhile and who I felt more than ‘just friendly’ about. To make things clear, I’m not into ‘Internet dating’ boys I haven’t met, for reasons that I'll reveal in a future issue. And taking this trip was a major gamble, as I did not know what I was signing up for. Nothing was set in stone.
The week started out with an exciting evening. My flight arrived at 7:30 pm, and I was picked up by some of Adam’s friends who drove me the hour and a half to Bloomington. We stopped in at Adam’s work, and as I walked in through the revolving door, I instantly knew I had made the right decision in my visit. The look in my eyes must have been just delighted.
That night, I found myself in the company of every hip Bloomington collegiate at a hipster house party that could give Vancouver’s Ice Cream Social a run for their money. The venue, a run-down beater shack known as The Clinic, played host to a DJ upstairs and bands in the basement. The place was packed. Within hours, Adam and I were half-drunk on the dance floor upstairs, with Crystal Castles blaring in our ears, making out as if nobody else was in the room. I couldn’t have been happier. I spent that night, and each subsequent night of my trip, in his room, despite ‘safe’ plans for me to stay with his friend Madeline.
That night, I found myself in the company of every hip Bloomington collegiate at a hipster house party that could give Vancouver’s Ice Cream Social a run for their money. The venue, a run-down beater shack known as The Clinic, played host to a DJ upstairs and bands in the basement. The place was packed. Within hours, Adam and I were half-drunk on the dance floor upstairs, with Crystal Castles blaring in our ears, making out as if nobody else was in the room. I couldn’t have been happier. I spent that night, and each subsequent night of my trip, in his room, despite ‘safe’ plans for me to stay with his friend Madeline.
The week spent with Adam and his friends was both exciting and relaxing. Essentially, I was living in a date that lasted a full eight days long. Things became routine at a speed that could almost be considered scary. We would wake up entangled in each others’ limbs, he would go to class, and I would make the bed, before finding something to busy my morning with. I would meet him, and sometimes his friends, for lunch. He would go back to class, and I would explore the city in the afternoon.
Evenings were spent hanging out in his dorm room following dinners. The repetitive aspect of this schedule might seem mundane to some, but it was more than enough to pacify me and keep my interest piqued. I was here, in person, with someone I had talked to in length over emails, and just being in his presence felt more special than any other date I’d been on... in my entire life.
Evenings were spent hanging out in his dorm room following dinners. The repetitive aspect of this schedule might seem mundane to some, but it was more than enough to pacify me and keep my interest piqued. I was here, in person, with someone I had talked to in length over emails, and just being in his presence felt more special than any other date I’d been on... in my entire life.
Although many of my meals during the week were standard American college meal plans, which I was more than willing to eat, Adam and I made time to go out for a few special dates – which felt so natural and special. Walking back up to his room from town, hand in hand in fresh fallen snow, is a moment I’ll be treasuring for a long time.
Before I left on this journey, some of my friends were worried that I would become so emotionally attached that coming home would be painful. These friends know me best. Yet at the same time, the phrase is true: “The heart wants what the heart wants.” I knew that if I never made this journey, I would never know what I was missing. I knew that if a bond could develop between two people from so far away, who had never even encountered each other physically, that I had to know what that feeling would be like. Any reservations I had were cleared by the time we embraced for the first time. I knew I had made the right decision when he would look up at me across a table with a look that told me our hearts had the same idea of what was right.
Last night, Adam and I attended a screening of Where The Wild Things Are at the campus theatre. In the scene near the end of the film, where Max sails away to go home and the wild things howl in distress, I knew exactly what my goodbye the next day would feel like. That comparison turned out to be very true. The hardest part about leaving Adam was the realization that here was the person filled with the qualities I’d been looking for all along, and the only person to hold my interest, but who lived almost as far away from me as possible within this continent.
Leaving a budding romance just at it begins is no easy task. Believe me, I sit here on an airplane, typing this out while listening to Phil Collins, crying into my laptop and making the passenger next to me rather uncomfortable. Sure, I knew what I was signing up for going to visit a boy I liked, giving myself a one week time limit that ticked in my ear every minute of every day. The ending was inevitable, yet I sit here still upset at the realization of having to go home.
I don’t know what comes next for Adam and I. At one of our dinners, this exact topic came up, and we decided not to talk about it. Perhaps it was too hard dealing with the reality of emotions while still in each other’s company. I’m sure when I get home, we will have some sort of conversation about it all. But for now, it’s up in the air.
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