EPISODE THREE: FROM ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE
Can I tell you something? You’re probably going to think I’m really corny and sentimental, but I feel like I can be open with you. I feel like I can tell you anything. I want to tell you things I’ve never told anyone before.
This going to sound silly but...I love love. In fact, I’m obsessed with it. I’m what people would call a ‘hopeless romantic.’
I especially love romance films. I like the neatness of an onscreen romance – the predictability. Two people meet, they get to know each other, they date, perhaps they will, perhaps they won’t, their faces come close, there’s a spark, a moment, the beat drops and they kiss. Perfect. The credits roll and everything is perfect. Neat and unspoiled.
But the union of two people can’t stay like that forever. If you looked beyond the credits then you’d see it falls apart. It always falls apart. You’d see that he’s actually cruel and self-centred, and she’s possessive and jealous. There is no happily ever after. 42% of marriages end in divorce. The marriages that do stay together only do so out of convenience. If they say differently, they’re pretending. After the flush of love at first sight, and the honeymoon period, in the end, the best a person can hope for is to die with someone they tolerate by their side. Most people don’t even get that. They’re abused and manipulated. It's not neat! And I can’t stand it not being neat.
Listen to me, I sound so negative! I still love love. I still lie on my bed listening to love songs. I still cry at weddings. But I know the truth, that falling in love is a temporary activity. It’s like going on holiday. You get butterflies in your stomach on the plane because you’re going to a new place and it’s exciting. You get there and everything is wonderful, and new, and interesting. You’ve finally found the best place on Earth. You’ve finally found paradise. But maybe if you were to stay there for longer you would find out that some of the locals are rude, the food is over-priced and it gets cold and windy during the off- season. Nothing beautiful is permanent.
To love someone completely is to love their bad traits, and why would anyone love something that’s not perfect?
So, when I fall in love, I treat the sensation as a temporary frivolity. I treat it like holiday. And what do people do at the end of their holidays? They take a souvenir of course! Just like your Eiffel Tower key-ring or the castanets you picked up in Spain, I too have my own special collection. My collection consists of items I have taken from every man I’ve ever fallen for. I’m drawn to take things that encapsulate the first reason I loved them. A material representation of that first realisation – the sweetest of epiphanies. Now, whenever I feel the urge, go to my special little collection. I gently lay out all the items and remember all the boys I’ve loved before.
The first person I ever fell in love with was Jamie. All loves have their own unique flavour, but there is truly nothing as intoxicating as your first. It’s like taking the first bite of what will soon become your new favourite food – except 10 times the rush. Like you could always want it and never be sated by it. It’s indescribable.
Jamie was the roommate of my best friend’s boyfriend and we ended up spending a lot of time together. He wasn’t like the other guys. He was real gentleman; well put together, polite, chivalrous. It as if he’d been plucked straight out of another era. He would hold doors open, offer you his arm, walk you back to your dorm. And the coat! He always wore this beautiful vintage coat. A really good quality coat. It was long and created such a perfect silhouette. Oh God, he was so handsome.
I would have died for him. That is how much I adored him. Have you ever felt that before? Have you ever had someone you would willingly – happily – die for? It feels so good and so bad.
But, even back then, I knew there was no such thing as happily ever after. The thing is when you find your favourite food – even as you take the first bite – you know the more you eat it, the more commonplace it will become. Until it’s not even your favourite food anymore. Until the thing you loved now tastes like ash in your mouth.
After my love for Jamie had peaked, I knew it could only deteriorate. I knew that one day I would grow to dislike Jamie’s quaint, old-fashioned ways. To dislike Jamie would have hurt my soul. Therefore, I decided to put an unequivocal end to my infatuation. I don’t think that it was completely unreasonable to take a souvenir; something to remind myself of how it felt to love him.
I didn’t set out to take his coat.
But come on! It had to be the coat. The thing that represented my love for him, the reason why I fell for him in the first place.
We were both at a mutual friend’s house party and I decided to leave early. The flush of my first love was fading at that point. He was in the kitchen explaining the Battle of Waterloo to a group of fawning sycophants. I went to collect my coat and I saw it there, lying on the bed in the spare bedroom right on top of the pile. All of a sudden it was like my actions weren’t my own. Something had awoken inside of me and without pausing to think I swiped it. Nobody noticed. It’s amazing what you can do if you just move with confidence. Everyone is always in their own world.
And just like that my infatuation with Jamie was purged from me, it became a fond memory encased in the trench coat.
I never meant to cause harm to Jamie. I mean, how was I supposed to know his inhaler was in the breast pocket? The inhaler that he so desperately needed shortly after I left, when he was struck by a sudden, severe asthma attack.
Do you think he thought about me, as he struggled for breath? I wonder if he tried saying my name with what little air he had in his lungs.
I think it’s romantic that my first love lies six feet under. Think about it – my love for him was so intense that one of us would die from it. And now I can’t ever stop loving him. All that he was is frozen in time, and all that he would have been is no more.
It was years before I loved again. My second love was Duncan. Ours was a workplace romance.
I loved Duncan because he was passionate. He had a spark; a lust for life that most people don’t have. When he spoke about something he was passionate about his face lit up. The way he gesticulated, the angle of his grin, the gentle creases around his eyes; it was, in my opinion, a masterpiece. He’d stop by my desk and talk my ear off. He liked me because I was a good listener. It was my pleasure; I could listen to him for hours. Besides, he didn’t really need me to be a good listener. He just needed someone to talk at. A potted plant would have done the job just a well if it had as pretty a smile as I do.
What Duncan was most passionate about, above anything else, was cars. He had recently spent all his savings on a vintage car – his dream car. It was nice to see him so happy, but we were never going to be happy together. My love for Duncan would not have aged like fine wine, it was something to be consumed quickly. With time, I would have found out that Duncan was selfish and obsessive. So, like with Jamie before him, I purged myself of my love for him by taking a souvenir. Something that represented why I had loved him.
It’s funny, who’d have thought something so small would turn out to be so integral to the function of a car? Despite my relationship with Duncan, I still know nothing about cars. I guess I was looking at his face rather than listening to his words after all. I don’t remember taking it. That strange instinct kicked in again. There was a smoothing voice in my head that said: ‘don’t worry I know what to do.’ All I recall was lifting the hood of his car. The next thing I knew I was part way up the street holding a little cap in my oil-stained hand.
How could such a small thing cause such a big pile-up? From what I heard Duncan had driven for only a mile before his car stalled on the highway. A lorry slammed right into the back of him and he died on impact. I didn’t intend for that to happen, of course not. But is it not perfect that he perished in such a fiery and passionate wreck? Is it not fitting? He died in the twisted, metallic embrace of the thing he loved the most. I think it’s beautiful. The perfect full stop to our love.
Maybe it’s what happened to Duncan that led me to do what I did to Michael.
Michael, my third love. What could I possibly say about Michael? He was an Adonis. He was a Greek statue that had magically come to life. He was the most beautiful man that I had ever seen, and I have loved my fair share of beautiful men. I loved him for that, and only that. I know, I know, I’m incredibly shallow. I would have done anything for that man. Pretty privilege is a very real thing. I know this because the world worshipped at Michael’s perfect feet. He had a perfect face, a square jaw, hands that only a master sculptor could have made.
But his beauty was never meant to last forever, and once I had gotten my fill of adoring this visage, I most certainly would not have stayed for his vapid personality. Therefore, it was time for me to take something for my collection
Of all the things I loved about Michael, the thing I loved the most was his hair. It was long, soft, golden hair – like a Nordic god. One night, while he was sleeping, I cut a lock of it off. When I got home and went to add it to my collection that familiar voice growled within me. Something was very wrong. The lock of Michael’s hair did not belong in the collection. I thought long and hard and had a moment of dawning realisation. A lock of Michael’s hair was not specific enough. What I loved the most about his hair was the way it framed his face.
I don’t remember buying the plastic sheeting, or the cable ties...or the saw. I didn’t plan it. It just happened in a fit of passion.
When I came back to my senses, I was panting and sore. My arm ached, and it wasn’t car oil that made my hand slick this time. My souvenir was now much more than a lock of hair.
It’s a shame he’s pulling that terrified face but, you must agree, the way his hair frames his face is divine.
Anyway, I did the world a service, Michael was never meant to grow old and ugly. That would have been the real tragedy, no?
The coat, the cap and the head.
When I miss them, I go and look at my collection. The gifts from all the boys I’ve loved before.
I told you it was corny. I bet you think I’m really silly. A completely hopeless romantic. But you’ve stayed and listened to me. Such a good listener. I love that about you. Such a rare trait in this world. You’ve not once interrupted, or cried, or tried to run away. I appreciate that, I really do.
From the second I started talking I knew that I was in love with you. You might think our love could last forever. I wish it could. You might try to convince me of that but I know it’s not true. All things wither and die – it better to pull it up from the roof.
So, will you give me a souvenir? Can I take something to remember you by?
