122 glamour.comLife / Yo u , M e , W e
But before that, I actually had con-
versations with friends that sounded like
this: “Do you think I’m coming across as
overeager?”
“Maybe? Why don’t you just not call
him for a while and wait for him to get in
touch with you?”
“Well, if I didn’t call him at all, we’d
never talk again.”
(Oh. S we e t A n na .)
When we first started hooking up, I
was 20. He played in bars at night, which
meant that he’d spend most of the night
w ithout me and then inv ite me over once
he got home. I reasoned it wasn’t a booty
call since it was just the law that was
keeping us apart; a fake ID was out of the
question, since I looked like a fifth-grader
on my best day. So at a certain point, my
only goal became to not get dumped
before I turned 21—because then I’d be
able to really get my hooks in. Oh God, it
hurts to write.l
ooking back, it’s hard for me to under-
stand what I was doing. Why on earth
would I pursue someone who had no
int erest in me? It ’s not li ke we ha d f un
together; the man didn’t like me so much
as tolerate me. I suppose the easy answer is
that I hadn’t had a decent relationship yet,
so I thought bagging a “cool” and attractive
male was the whole objective. We would
have made a terrible couple, but his indif-
ference blinded me to all the red f lags.
He drove a BMW but slept on a futon. He
watched the History Channel like it was a
reliable source of information. Part of me
k new I wa s on ly det er m ined t o br ing him
around because he was resisting, but the
idea of acknowledging the rejection hurt
more than pretending the relationship
might be going somewhere.
I’d been so nervous when we met (and
only got increasingly nervous as I tried to
w i n h i s a f fe c t ion) t hat a s a re su lt I have no
idea what I was even like around him. If I
could see tape of us interacting, I doubt I
would recognize myself. Who was I trying
t o m a ke h i m fa l l i n love w it h? My s t rat eg y
was to just be agreeable. I had this fantasy
of a braver parallel-universe version of
myself, but around him I became the most
sterile, inoffensive version instead.
When he said things to me like, “You
use humor as a defense mechanism,” I
should have said, “Yeah, and you use pithy
proclamations that let you maintain your
sense of superiority as a f--kin’ defensemechanism.” Instead I made a plan to be
more serious from then on.
We saw each other sporadically. Some-
times I’d send a breezy text and spend the
day staring at my phone until he invited
me over. Our group of friends got together
a few times a week, and I’d invariably end
up going home w ith him af ter, so I didn’tmiss one group hang-out that summer.
At the time this group seemed impossibly
cool; now I know their allure was wrapped
up in my desire to st ay connec ted to C on-
nor. Also, I don’t know if being motivated
by amazing sex would have made my
desperation more pathetic or less, but I
cannot say that was part of it.
As time went on I alternately gained
and lost ground. He had some setbacks
professionally, and he opened up to me
about some of his fears and insecurities.
This is awesome, I thought gleefully as I
held him.
A couple of weeks later, he was still
feeling down. To cheer him up, I offered
to come over early one morning and cook
breakfast. This was partially a gesture,
something to make him feel cared for,
and partially because he was so strapped
for cash that I knew he’d appreciate a free
batch of groceries. He’d taught me how to
make his favorite breakfast burrito, and I
went to the Gelson’s Market by my apart-
ment to pick up everything we needed.
Normally I walked there every morning
to buy a Power Bar. That day, when the
checkout girl saw my basket—the torti-
llas, the eggs, the spices—she said, “Trying
something new?”
“Yeah...” I paused. “I’m making break-
fast for my boyfriend.” What was the harm
in saying it, right? Unlike, say, all my
f r iend s, t h i s g i rl ha d no re a son t o bel ie ve I
was kidding myself. She nodded conspira-
torially. Yes, I thought, it is adorable.
I made the breakfast, and he was
grateful, but it wasn’t quite how I’d pic-tured it. He had somewhere to be that
af ternoon, so we both headed out. I was
in the car, waiting to make a left-hand
turn, when my phone rang. It was him!
He never called me f irst! I snatched the
phone out of the cup holder. “Hi, stalker,
just can’t leave me alone, can you?” Nice
one, Anna, perfect play.“ I w a s j u s t b e h i n d y o u. Yo u’r e d o i n g m y
most hated thing—when people turn left
onto Sweetzer but don’t signal, so no one
knows why you’ve stopped. I just had to
go around you.”
I’d thought he was calling to say thank
you for breakfast, or to tell me something
f u n ny he’d ju s t se en t hat m a de h i m t h i n k
of me, or maybe just to say it was nice
to see me and could we hang out again
tonight. But no. He was calling to critique
my driving.
Why was I trying to spend more time
with this person! I debated even tell-
ing this part of the story because I hate
admitting that I forgot to signal; on the
upside, it shows what a spineless doormat
I w a s , s o it s t ay s!w
hen I finally turned 21, the
dynamic did not improve.
Connor started showing
interest in a girl named
Erika, and I could feel him pulling
away even more. The next time we had a
vague talk about “what we were doing,”
he seemed to debate himself Sméagol/
Gollum style in front of me: “Well, we get
along...and I’m not saying that I want to
be with anyone else right now...but I guess
I don’t want to miss out on any opportu-
nities.” I should have screamed, “I’m the
opportunity, you asshat!” But I clenched
my teeth and convinced myself once again
that I didn’t need a label. Before I left, I at
least managed to ask the question.
“OK , so I h ave t o a sk ...E r i k a ...i s ➻“Who was I trying
to make him fall in love
with? My strategy was
to just be agreeable.”