Great Love

In the fall of eighth grade, an astrologer told me I would never find a great love.

Fortune-tellers with turbans and crystal balls were the ones you had to watch out for. This guy was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and working out of a shop that sold self-help books and organic soap. That made him real.

“I want to know about my future husband!” I said. “When will I get married? I want five kids!”

I had a feeling we would meet in veterinary school.

The astrologer studied my chart on his computer screen, and then looked at me. He opened his mouth and then closed it.

“What?” I asked. And again: “What?”

“I’m not showing anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not everyone has a great love,” he explained.

I swallowed, felt my eyes fill with tears.  I was 13-year-old and fat.  Hope for the future was all I had.

“Hey,” the astrologer said, his voice softening. “In the end, you control your destiny. You change what happens.”

Ever since then I’ve been trying to defy the odds so that I can write a story that starts just like this one – only with a happy ending.

I thought that was going to happen when I met Jared.

“Was your grandfather’s name David by any chance?” Jared asked on our first date, where I was already giving him scary gaga eyes.

He swore he hadn’t been doing crazy research. It was that he belonged to the same country club as Poppy had in Florida and remembered seeing his name on a plaque. When I got home I tried every possible Google combination to see if he was telling the truth. He was.

I’d never felt so comfortable with a member of the opposite sex. Jared was BOY-ME.  After my friend Jen witnessed us playing “guess what the couple across the room is talking about” she grabbed my hand and said: “Don’t screw this up, Rach. No crazy text messages. You’re perfect for each other.”

And we were.

EXCEPT there was this one issue. The physical stuff was way off. The first time I brought him up to my apartment he stood there huddling by my bookshelf. “Got a lot of titles here!” he observed, as I patted the seat next to me on the couch. And it only got worse.

I know you are thinking, oh Rachel, he sounds gay. But that wasn’t it.

Jared had decided he liked me as a friend. Not because he had been married and divorced and was still aching. Not because he was afraid to let me in. He wanted to be friends- because to him- our chemistry was all wrong.

For an entire, mortifying year I tried to make Jared fall in love with me -doing all the crazy things girls do. (“I was in the neighborhood!” “Yeah… I’m seeing this DOCTOR again. He’s REALLY into me.”) I analyzed our Google Chat conversations for hidden meaning. I was taking control of my destiny! And then I just couldn’t take it anymore.

“STOP!” I said.

Jared stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

I took a big step forward and I kissed him hard on the mouth until Jared gently pushed me away.

“Lets get you to a cab,” he said, softly.

That kiss? It was horrible. It was like using my lips to hold a piece of paper up against the wall. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. I was heartbroken. I  was certain he was my soul mate.

But I did what I had to do. I cut him out of my life. Because even if I have a bad love chart – at the very least, I deserve passionate kisses.

And then like something out of a romantic comedy Jared remembered my thirtieth birthday. “Can I see you?” he asked. “Okay,” I wrote back. What I wanted to write was: “Why do you want to see me? Have you decided you feel differently?” But I didn’t. Instead I just ended up backing out all together.

Because in in the end it comes down to this: I’m still me and Jared is still Jared. We will always have the kind of relationship where he deletes my messages midway through and I save his for years, listening to them over and over again & playing them to my friends.

Case in point:

This morning an email with an invitation to an event!

Hey, hope you had a great weekend and nice holiday.  This is an organization I got involved with last year and now am part of their committee.  Thought you may like to come and obviously feel free to pass along to anyone you think might be interested.  Also, let me know when you’re around to get together and catch up.

Jared.

So I called my mother like I always do – and Bernice said this:

They need more people to attend. Wake up and smell the coffee missy. He does not want a romantic relationship with you.  If he did – he would have asked you to be his date. “Catching up” is not romance. He wants to be friends. End of story.

And there you have it.

Follow me on Twitter!

Advertisement