The One - No one said it would be easy (5 page)

Number Four: Disgusting crumbly kisses

The thing with Number Four took place in parallel to Number Two and after Number Three. Astonishingly, I had no qualms at all when it came to getting involved with Number Four. After all, I was going steady with Number Two and intended to continue doing so. Then again – I’d already shown how unscrupulous I was with Number Three, alongside Number Two. In that regard, I’m still unscrupulous to this day. Me, having a bit on the side? Absolutely! But if HE should dare to cheat – big disaster, naturally! I met Number Four – watch out: cliché! – at a disco. Honestly. One of those battered old alternative discos where you were supposed to rave it up with DepecheMode & co. It was kind of dark but I couldn’t help noticing that he was the best-looking guy on the dance floor. We checked each other out but were way too cool to make a move. I didn’t get going until my friend said, “Oh, I’d have him!” Then I started to be more overt in my flirting. Moved over to the edge of the dance floor so he stood next to me, and very offhandedly he uttered T H E line: “Damn hot here, isn’t it?” Yes, it really was damn hot in that place. I bet it’s this line that has launched a zillion disco romances. Or maybe not. “Yes, pretty damn hot!” I replied and, since we’d established how the both of us were apparently too hot at the same time, he pulled me out onto the terrace where we small-talked and exchanged phone numbers. Number Four turned out to be a smoking would-be philosopher and seemed a trifle confused. But somehow I thought he was cute and we agreed to keep in touch. All my flirtations at the time had to be conducted at home, on the family telephone. I kept having to come up with suitable stories as to who all these young men were that kept ringing up. What a pain that was! The phone was located in the hallway and the entire family could listen in, which made for shall we say extremely inhibited telephone conversations. Looking back now, I have no idea how we ever managed without the current electronic carrier pigeons called email and text messages.

Number Four called the next day. We arranged to meet straight away, and so I thought up some flimsy excuses for boyfriend (Number Two) and family as to why I suddenly had to take the train into town every night. We were living in one of the suburbs and I didn’t have any wheels yet, so my nightly adventure trips had to be undertaken by train. My parents actually let me do this – in retrospect I can’t forgive them for this. God knows what could have happened to me! How come you just let me go like that, mum? Today, I can only shake my head in disbelief of my own idiocy, in fact I kind of worry about myself retrospectively, in a post-puberty kind of a way. It seems that my excuses were so good that nobody was worried about me. And so I spent many evenings traveling around on my own. Back then, the fashion was for stuff that was “tight, tighter, skin tight” and, of course, a bare midriff. Bloody unbelievable, how stupid was I! I spent my evenings with this weird guy and went back home on the train in my girlie outfit, all alone, in the middle of the night. Passing cozy locations such as Central Station, lonely streets and fly-overs. Had it been me I’d had to ask for permission back then, the answer would have been a strict NO. Too right! Should I ever have a daughter, I’ll keep her chained up!

Number Four, as it turned out, was a spaced-out dope head. He kept coming out with all this wild philosophical stuff and frankly I wasn’t all that keen on him. But still, for some reason I felt compelled to keep meeting up with him. Why exactly was that? He had his own flat, well OK, that was impressive, but nothing else. At some stage, we had our first kiss and that was my worst kiss to date. Absolutely gross. Hard and somehow crumbly. I felt as though I was kissing a vacuum cleaner bag. Every kiss seemed to generate little disgusting crumbs in his and my mouth. I don’t even want to know what kind of molecular cell structure that was. Also, since he smoked and I didn’t, the taste of him made me want to puke. In fact, the whole thing was a complete disaster. We petted some, but I didn’t let it develop further. At that point I seemed to drag up a small piece of residual common sense. All in all, Number Four was a complete washout. I have no idea why I still made up ludicrous stories and put myself in grave danger night after night, just to see him.

The whole thing went so far that, after spending the day with Number Two, I thought up some excuse, raced home, changed and stumbled out again, to be with Number Four during the night. Unscrupulous hussy that I am, I had this down to a fine art, which I practiced liberally in future relationships, too. Number Two would drive me home, and half an hour later, Number Four would arrive to pick me up. Mum! Didn’t you see any of this? Where was my moral authority, the one supposed to stop me? But then, the whole thing with Number Four came to an end anyway. It was just too dreary and too exhausting and too disgusting. And again, I asked that they’d say I wasn’t in when he phoned. Recently I found Number Four in one of the many online networks. The once so beautiful druggie is now an ugly, bloated, boring looking, freaky little management consultant.

Number Five: Great love, great sex, sad little ending

Number Five was the most magical of all loves. He was the perfect love, the love of my life. Sadly, it only lasted three years. The magic-chocolate-box principle came into effect mercilessly. For the first two years, I could draw on limitless resources, took chocolate after chocolate and savored each one. But then, sometime during year three, suddenly my box was empty. The tragedy was that his box was still full to the rim, and so our parting was a terrible loss for him whereas for me, it was liberation.

There is a simple explanation why my box of love was exhausted so quickly. When we got together, I was seventeen and he was twenty-two. He was already at university and was long past those great personal changes that hit you after you leave high school. His life was burbling along quite leisurely, while for me, after graduating high school, my life was awash with change, like water jetting from a fountain. I started university, got to know amazing new people, and generally moved in a completely new and much more thrilling environment while detaching myself, bit by bit, from my old life. Sadly, that included our relationship. All of a sudden, everything to do with him seemed kind of dull and boring, and anyway, there were so many interesting boys at university drawing my attention, and I didn’t miss any opportunity for outrageous flirting. From then on in it was clear that Number Five would not last much longer. We were like two railroad tracks that had happily run parallel for 10,000 kilometers. But at 10,001 kilometers, mine separated from his and sheered off into a completely new direction, while his kept on going straight ahead, along the same old line.    

Ultimately, love is always a question of timing and also of outer circumstances. Sometimes everything fits perfectly and sometimes it just doesn’t fit anymore at all. Sure, I could have fought for our love, could have worked at it, so that in spite of the many changes in my life, there would still have been room for loving Number Five. But once the attraction has gone, you don’t really feel like working to fix it so that it will function again. Which is why I always wonder how, once the love has gone out of a relationship, marriage counseling is supposed to work.
And now my love for Number Five had vanished. With hindsight, that was a good thing, because today we wouldn’t be the slightest bit compatible anymore. He has grown into a fully-fledged wimp and his constant bleating would drive me insane. And to think that once he was everything for me! It fascinates me, how feelings come and go. Today, all that’s left is the knowing, the remembering that once there was this really great love between us. However, I can’t evoke that feeling again. When I look at photos, I know that, at that time, I was incredibly happy and so completely in love, but I’m just not able to recreate that feeling. It has gone. And the only thing left is a rather sober and yellowed black-and-white document in a drawer in my heart: “This is to confirm that this was the love of my life.” But just like a marriage certificate does not reveal how you felt when you said “I do”, this document doesn’t reveal anything about my love to Number Five. Pity!

But I begin at the end. So – from the beginning: I first noticed Number Five when he was still at my school and belonged to those super-cool graduation-class guys that we girls were so enamored with, admired and lusted after. I was fourteen at the time, in eighth grade and smack in the middle of bloody puberty. A first-class spotty-bunny and without the faintest chance of ever having any success with the opposite sex. Most especially not those big guys in thirteenth grade!

 
  
I suppose everybody feels like this, but what used to fascinate me during my school years was that we girlies thought the boys in the upper grades the coolest in the world, so grown-up, so sexy, so interesting. But when “our boys” were in thirteenth grade, we still regarded them as little boys. Nothing about them seemed particularly masculine, cool and exciting. It was great fun to watch the little girls drool over our boys, just as we used to when we were little. And – how mean and unfair! – there were several boys who actually got involved with those silly chicks from eighth and ninth grade. We girlies still used to look like proper little girls. Clothing in children’s sizes, chosen and bought by mum from the kiddy’s section of the big mail-order catalogues, sweaters that sported nice gaudy iron-on appliqué designs, worn with tapered jeans and colored fabric belts. Hair fetchingly tied in a ponytail with colorful elastic hair ties and a Scout satchel with mouse motif on our back. Our heroes were those among us whose parents bought them highly fashionable Levis 501s. Or those expensive Chiemsee and Oxbow sweaters. And for the girls, the absolute latest in high fashion was stuff from Esprit, which back then was still very middle-of-the-road. And extremely expensive for the time. But if you wore a shirt with the “Esprit” logo on the front, you were someone and you felt like you were someone. And that was all the fashion support available for young people in the merciless throes of puberty.

But then, just before our high school graduation, H&M, Orsay and Pimkie stores shot up like mushrooms from the fertile ground of pedestrian precincts everywhere and allowed the up-and-coming generations to acquire that Madonna and Britney Spears look at the age of twelve. Your monthly pocket money would allow you to stock up with entire ranges. From then on in, it became almost impossible to tell a fourteen-year-old from a twenty-one-year-old. This is why it’s understandable that those little Lolitas from eighth grade were willing prey for our boys. No need for envy – if those shopping possibilities had existed at the time, we’d have dressed up the same and thrown ourselves at thirteenth-graders. Maybe the cheap-clothing industry is responsible for all those completely porned-up pussy-double-penetration-up-the-arse-gangbang-hard-core-blow-me-now teenagers and our hyper-sexualized society?

To cut a long story short: I had noticed my Number Five years before we became a couple. Back then he didn’t even know I existed. And I didn’t have the faintest idea, or rather, didn’t dare dream that this puppy love would one day develop into a great love affair. My best friend had a similar experience: for years, she was enamored with this guy from thirteenth grade. He was her heart’s superstar, adored and out of reach. And then, many years later, she actually managed to get together with him. For her, that was like landing on the moon, her highest score, her arrival in the ultimate love paradise. And during those giggly puberty reminiscences we sometimes indulged in, we would have loved to be able to send a message in a bottle from the future to our puberty selves, giving them courage: “Don’t worry girls, be happy! You’ll get your adored thirteenth-graders. But – they too will eventually bore you to tears and you’ll be the ones leaving them...”

Years later – Number Five was at university and I was in twelfth grade – our paths crossed. I’d since left the spotty-bunny-phase well behind and thought I was quite pretty, had gained experience with a handful of men and practically bristled with self-confidence. One night I was due to meet up with some girls in a pub. Luckily I had managed to obtain full freedom of movement by then, no more of this annoying “back home at eleven o’clock at the latest” – that was over and done with. I was able to do as I pleased. By coincidence, that evening Number Five was at the same pub. As he was vaguely acquainted with my best friend, he came over to talk to us, but then had to leave. When he was about to go, I gathered all my courage and smiled at him, cheekily. I wouldn’t take my eyes off him. And he did the same, smiling back at me. In that tiniest of split seconds I forgot everything around me, things happened in slow motion. A shiver juddered through me and if this had been a movie, the violins would have started up. Right until Number Five ran full-blast into the door. Which he hadn’t noticed because he’d kept looking at me. I burst out giggling and he was terribly embarrassed. He waved awkwardly and disappeared. And that was it – I was sunk. I was at a loss as to how and where I would ever see him again. I didn’t dare ask my best friend, as I was vaguely aware that she, too, might be interested in him. And when two friends are seriously after the same guy, even the best of friendships comes to an abrupt end!

There was no such thing as Internet research, texting, social networks or email to contact your beloved or at least find out more about him. What was needed was patience and creativity. A real pain for fidgety old me! But one thing was for sure: I was in love. Head over heals! I absolutely wanted this guy. So really, I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands – enough of hoping and waiting for a happy twist of fate to let our paths coincidentally cross again in a few months’ time. My need to get together with the man of my dreams was greater than my fear of rejection or of making a complete fool of myself.

Meanwhile – thanks to the good old telephone book - I had after all managed to discover his phone number and where he lived. I wanted to find a special way to remind him of who I was. For hours, I sat at my desk, scribbling, until I suddenly had this flash of inspiration: I drew a picture of a guy running into a door, with the legend “great performance – I want more!” and signed with my name but without address or phone number. With good reason: I had no intention of having to answer the phone yet again, bright red in the face, heart beating like crazy, standing in our hallway surrounded by my nosey family. And so I grabbed both my rolled-up catch-a-dream-guy letter and my little sister, who was only ten years old at the time, and walked off in the direction of Number Five’s house.

En route I primed my little sister for her important mission that she would be happy to accomplish for her beloved big sister, and explained to her that my entire life’s future happiness depended upon it. She was a little doubtful, of course, but my enthusiasm was catching and in the end I managed to convince her to agree to do as I asked. What also helped was my promise to buy her as much ice-cream as she could eat, to the point of throwing up. That really impressed her! Little sisters are so gloriously easy to manipulate...
 

Together, we looked for Number Five’s address and the entrance to his abode. I gave the rolled-up letter to my little sister and sent her out. Her task was to ring the bell, and, when the door opened, to hand over the letter with the words: “Here. From Father Christmas.” The recipient was written on the envelope. Brave and full of courage – again many, many thanks, little sis! – she toddled off. I hid behind a hedge around the corner. Halfway there, she turned around and came back – her courage had deserted her, she felt just too silly. Understandably. Even at ten years of age, she could see how idiotic and silly this was. She asked why I couldn’t do this myself. And I tried to explain why that wouldn’t work. Well, of course it would have worked, but I REALLY didn’t dare, which is why I’d decided to send my little sister in the first place! We could of course have just posted the letter, but I was way too impatient, it was already afternoon and the letterbox probably wouldn’t even be emptied until the following day. No, that was out of the question. And so I begged my brave little sister to do this for me. I used all my powers of persuasion. I even repeated the promise of all that ice-cream, several times, almost like hypnosis. In the end she sighed a simple “OK, let’s get it over with” and made a second attempt. My heart leaped into my throat, I hardly dared breathe. My sister accomplished her mission brilliantly and virtuously. Then she came steaming around the corner and, giggling and snorting, we ran home as fast as we could. Back home I bombarded her with questions. She had to tell me every little detail again and again, which annoyed her no end. Apparently his mother had opened the door and was somewhat perplexed to find a small girl thrusting a letter at her, which she took and, before she could even close the door again, my sister had turned around and sped off.

And then? Then I sat at home, nervous as hell, and could do nothing but wait. I kept envisioning how Number Five might react, what he might think, and so on. The kind of nerve-wrecking head-movies that drive you completely potty. Secretly I had hoped that he’d now take the initiative, that he’d now – encouraged by my funny note – make enquiries to find out my phone number or address. The opportunities were there. I had hoped that, in some way, shape or form, he’d get in touch. Yeah right! Days of miserable waiting, hoping and worrying went by, still no word from him. For reasons already explained, I didn’t dare ask my best friend to find out whether he had asked after me. Great – what’s the matter with you guys? No lust for conquest? Not even when the red carpet is practically rolled out for you and there is no need to worry about rejection? Do we have to do every damn thing ourselves? The princess finally couldn’t stand it anymore in her terrible ivory tower of uncertainty and plucked up all her courage. If the gallant prince won’t fight for her, she’ll fight for him. So there! Damn. And blast! I grabbed the note with his phone number and a heap of small change, plus a huge lot of courage. I cycled to the nearest phone booth because I really wanted to be able to make this world-changing phone call without the usual audience. Like I said, back then cordless phones and mobiles were still futuristic visions available only in silly Hollywood sci-fi movies.

In the phone booth, I resolutely switched off all my common sense as well as those cautionary voices in my head (Are you crazy?! You’re running after him like an idiot and making a complete fool of yourself! What exactly are you going to tell him when you call him?!) and block-headedly hammered his number into the scratched and dented metal keypad. My heart beat as though it was trying to escape from my chest. As it happens, he answered the phone himself and I stuttered: “Hello, this is J. .” Pause. Then a surprised “Well hello! What a surprise! How did you get my number?” I replied cheekily, without thinking: “I dreamt this number last night and I thought, better dial it and see who answers!” Silence the other end, then an incredulous: “No kidding? Cool!” Crap, how dumb is he, I thought – he actually believes that? This in turn baffled me to the point that I couldn’t think of anything to say at all. Then he seemed to get the idea that it was up to him to say something, because after all it was me who had gone out on a limb as much as I was prepared to. “Nice to hear from you, I’m totally surprised, and thank you for the funny note,” he said. I replied, embarrassedly, “Not at all, it was my pleasure,” while my brain screamed: “You damn idiot, what else am I supposed to do, when the hell are you going to ask me on a date?!” I had absolutely decided that this was a step HE had to take. I’ve done enough now, this is up to him. Long silence. He just didn’t say anything. Disappointedly, I started to end the conversation: “Oh, well, I don’t want to disturb you any further. Bye!” Just before I put the phone down, he suddenly realized that it was up to him. Finally, finally, he came out with the most crucial of questions: “Yes, erm, hang on, don’t put the phone down! How about meeting up somewhere?” Yippee! Finally! Fireworks! Bells ringing! Confetti raining down! Pointedly offhand and cool, I said OK. And so we arranged for our first date in a few days’ time. Happy and grinning blissfully like a chocolate Easter bunny, I cycled home. Mission accomplished. My dream guy and I had a date.