The Life and Death of Romance
by Daniel Beadle - Thursday, September 6, 2007
"There she is. Look at her. My god, just look at her."There’s something so… captivating about the female form. But you didn’t notice that when you first saw her, did you? In fact, you barely acknowledged her existence. And you were right to do so.
"You’re a shy one, aren’t you? Not quite the kind of guy who approaches women with confidence. So why should you have cared about this new one? You didn’t. But you could feel that slight tug at the back of your mind. And you heard that question, like a demon whispering in your ear: 'What if?'
"And so it continued. Your lives slowly intertwined, like two snakes in heat. Your paths crossed, and coincidences occurred. She smiled at you, and you said stupid things that made her laugh. You began to wonder, 'Why would someone as beautiful as her ever like a guy like me?' But you pushed that question aside, because you felt that it was irrelevant.
"But was it?
"I’m sure you shared jokes, shared experiences. Before you knew it, you joked about sex. And that’s how the flirting started.
"You felt something growing within you, an emotion, an intuition. Something was taking you over, controlling you. You failed to acknowledge it completely. All you did was focus on the side effect: euphoria.
"You began to exaggerate the common ground you shared with this woman, with this female. You felt that you and she were a match, because she made you feel happy. She made you feel complete. As if your entire life was in anticipation of meeting someone so thoroughly beautiful. You pretended that she was everything you could ever ask for. You pretended that she was all you could ever hope for. You were lying to yourself. But you failed to notice.
"And then it happened. Something blossomed in that first kiss. Your lips joined hers in a silent celebration of mutual attraction and affection. It felt so good to both of you, but that would be an assumption on your part. It was a relief, because up to that point, the correlation between you two could be confused as friendship. But with that first kiss, all questions were laid to rest. And now the happiness rolled back, and washed through you thoroughly. You got the sense that life was everything it should be, and you wanted nothing more.
"From this point onward, the happiness morphed and shifted. New experiences, shared experiences brought both of you closer together than you ever imagined. Every bad thing that had ever happened to you, every negative experience fell away. All the stresses of the world got their volumes turned way down. You could barely hear that nasty, grating noise that reality makes, and all you knew was her. She was your world. She was your salvation.
"But it didn’t stay that way, did it? Before you knew it, it started to crumble, and you recognize that now. The beginning of the end was with those words, those little words that hold such an esteemed place in this world:
"I. Love. You.
"Some people wait their entire lives to hear that. And when she looked at you with those hazel eyes, and tried to explain that she felt strongly about you, and wondered if you felt the same… you could almost have read her mind. And so you told her those words, and at the time, maybe you even convinced yourself that you meant it.
"But did you mean it?
"I’ll bet you ask yourself that every day. I’m sure you wonder now what love really is. You have no reason to believe that it exists, given your past. But does it? And do you love her? Did you love her?
"Regardless, that was how it started to crumble. Because once those words were uttered, there was no new ground to cover. You were exposed, and you had become a rerun of yourself. The euphoria sustained, but it was coasting at this point. Even you didn’t realize that the engine that propelled everything forward had sputtered and died. Your relationship had become a glider, and now it was only a matter of time. A matter of decay.
"I wonder how many times you looked in her face, and resented her. I wonder how many times you wanted to escape. Because at the outset, you sought commonalities. But at the end, all you could recognize were differences.
"Do you remember that weekend where she told you that you had nothing in common? I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you think of little else. How much it shocked you that the end had arrived. How hateful you felt that fate had finally caught up with you. I’ll bet you wish you could’ve strung it along a little longer. But it didn’t, did it? It ended abruptly, and now you lie awake crying at night, just like a female. Your emotions control you, torture you, remind you of her. Every night. You can’t escape her; no matter how hard you try.
"But you knew that even then. And you couldn’t stop yourself. You felt compelled… driven. So you sought her out. And you watched her, you watched everything she did. You logged her every movement. I’m sure that it must have felt amazing to see her replace you with a new male.
"How did that feel? Which of your myriad of emotions did it conjure up? Despair? Rage? ...Disgust? I’d like to know. It amuses me. You go around thinking that your emotions have weight. I used to be exactly like you.
"...And then you killed her. Did you know that? Or did you make some futile attempt to erase that little fact from your memory? Her body is stiff from rigor mortis, stinking up a dorm room somewhere.
"Maybe you’ll meet her again in whatever afterlife scenario you care to imagine. Maybe you’ll stroke her body one more time, and listen to her tell you she loves you. Maybe you can hear her lie to you one more time when you rot in the hell that you created for yourself.
"You call me Mr. Dark. And I will always remind you of everything you try to deny. Remember your past well, because it only serves as a prelude to your miserable future. I’ll see you around."
“She's my summertime girlfriend. (I hope summer never ends.)”—A.M. Sixty
