sad flaccidity

People are cruel.

All of us.

There isn’t a one of us that can say they aren’t. At least for a moment at some point in their life we’ve all done it. Crushed someone’s hopes. Broke another’s heart. Taken someone for granted. Stolen a possession.

I don’t care who you are. It happens.

Most of us don’t admit that about ourselves. We only see the victimization part of it. “There’s no way I’d ever do that to someone,” we say. Then we turn around and do it.

Life’s funny like that.

It’s why sad songs sell a hell of a lot better than happy ones. Disco, notwithstanding, and even some of those damn songs are hella depressing.

My thoughts drifted to this feeling while I was driving back to Florida. The second time in two weeks I’d done the nearly 1,000-mile trip to Gainesville. The couple of times I’ve been back to Florida since, I can’t help but think about this same feeling. It’s an empty feeling. As empty as it can get, I think.

She dumped me on the phone one night after work. I was ready to tell her I was ready to follow her. Instead, she told me not to bother. I felt the walls close in on me. The cliché became my world. I stammered into the phone for what seemed like days, but when I got the phone bill a few weeks later, found out it was 51 minutes. That was what six years was worth to her now, not even another hour.

I cried for days after that. Trying to talk to her each night, each call having less and less said. The second call was 33 minutes. The third was 11. The next time, she didn’t answer, so it went down as 1 minute.

“How could someone be this cruel,” I howled into the air. “I’d never do something like this to her,” I cursed into my pint glass at the local hole.

Yet all along, I knew that wasn’t true. I’d done the same to someone else. I killed someone’s ability to function, just like mine was now dead. This revelation didn’t come quickly. It was tapping me on the shoulder over and over, but I didn’t look back.

I wasn’t ready to admit that about myself. That I too was just as self-centered as everyone else. That the only time you truly can find “it” whatever “it” is, you have to give up on that. Maybe that’s why I’m still alone. Still scared to ask a girl for her phone number. Go up and say hello. Or even tell the girl that I like that I actually do like her.

Sitting alone some nights, I think about her. The girl that took my heart. And I try to wonder what she’s doing. If she ever thinks about me. If she has even an inch of regret. Then it dawns on me that she most likely doesn’t give a shit.

That, I guess, is what I don’t understand. I still give a shit. About them all. Even the girl who was my first kiss. At the ripe old age of 19. Her name, I have no idea. I just know she was wearing an N.C. State sweatshirt and jeans. She had brown hair. Was short. And went to Midlothian High School outside of Richmond.

We kissed in front of a fraternity house. I was in Charlottesville last year and I walked around. At one point I flashed back to that night. I was drunk. Very drunk. But I remembered that moment when we saw each other. I got her a beer and we started talking. Soon, we were outside. Holding hands. We kissed. I have no idea if I made the first move. But I doubt it. We made out in the streets, friends saw me, giving me the thumbs up.

I don’t remember how we got back to my dorm room, but we did. Made a beeline for the bedroom. Soon we were naked. I was quite nervous.

I tried, unsuccessfully to put my dick in her. It was soft, so it wasn’t going to happen. She pulled it away.

“You have a condom?” she asked.

My roommate walked in as I was grabbing her tits, she was sitting on top of me. I remember she had large nipples and a bit of a belly.

I started laughing. Riotously.

She got up and left.

That was my first attempt, and failure, at sex.

But you see, even in my failure, I was the asshole. I was rude.

Then I found out she propositioned one of my other suitemates on the way out.

Ha.

I wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

Or at least I could tell myself that.