Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Michele

Why should I stay and pre­tend?
You make me laugh again
My dar­ling, truth is we are not even friends
Love comes and it goes
Where your heart stops no one knows
How did I wind up in this mess, here with you?

Just a moment of weak­ness
I should exam­ine my head
Just a moment of weak­ness
I nev­er meant a word I said

—Bif Naked, Moment Of Weakness

The first thing about you that caught my eye was your plat­form shoes. More specif­i­cal­ly, the lanky way you walked in them with your plaid skirt on. You had such a fun­ny gait that I would study when I was walk­ing behind you in the halls. Sometimes you looked like an injured fawn, vul­ner­a­ble and awk­ward­ly run­ning away with your long, slen­der legs. It was the very def­i­n­i­tion of sex­u­al­i­ty to a depressed, hor­mon­al teenage male.

Those shoes gave you an extra cou­ple inch­es, and I resent­ed every time you sub­tly knelt so you would­n’t be taller than me in any pic­tures.

I only have a sin­gle good mem­o­ry of our rela­tion­ship. You were sit­ting on my lap in the jacuzzi at Cammy’s place. It was February, and there was snow all around us, but we were warm and wet. Every few min­utes, we would dunk our heads under the water, then style each oth­er’s hair, the win­ter air freez­ing it with­in sec­onds.

The more I got to know you, the more I learned that it was all a big mis­take. I stuck it out because I did­n’t want to break up with you in the months lead­ing up to your exams. It was espe­cial­ly hard when Lisa start­ed show­ing inter­est in me, but I could­n’t do it.

You were a sex­u­al bore. No sound, no reac­tion, noth­ing in bed. Your friends were all snobs. Your thoughts were trite, and your inter­ests were shal­low.

You nev­er knew it, but I had to decide between dat­ing you and Marina. It tore me up for a week, know­ing that one of you was going to be hurt. I chose you in a moment of weak­ness.

It was the biggest mis­take of my high school career.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen

5 comments

  1. Wet hair in win­ter real­ly freezes in sec­onds? I’ll have to try that some­time.

  2. I was think­ing what Mike was think­ing. That sounds pret­ty cool actu­al­ly.

    Meanwhile I’m SO glad this isn’t writ­ten about me. I think the last thing I would want peo­ple to say about me is that I was bor­ing. I hope for Michele’s sake that she got some per­son­al­i­ty and a bit of lust for.. ahem.. life after you guys part­ed ways.

    Still, every expe­ri­ence like that just lets us know what it is we are *not* look­ing for, eh?

    You con­tin­ue to amaze me with your writ­ing. So easy to pic­ture .. more than pic­ture.. feel what you are writ­ing about, the peo­ple, the moments in time. I wish I could take a leaf out of your book.

    Thanks again Jeff :)

  3. @Mike — It works extreme­ly well, although I think it has to be at least ‑8°C. It’s real­ly use­ful for try­ing out dif­fer­ent hair­styles with­out doing the whole gel→wash→repeat cycle.

    @Bean — I hope Michele has changed for the bet­ter too, although we broke up because I did­n’t think it was in her capac­i­ty to do so.

    You’re right though, every expe­ri­ence teach­es us what we don’t want, and that rela­tion­ship was a very good les­son.

    Thanks Beanie. :)

  4. I won­der what she thought of you?
    I’ve often lament­ed that young guys choose girls based on the most sub­con­scious, inex­plic­a­ble reasons…like the sexy gawky gait of her walk that got you.

    I was mad about a guy once, thought I’d even mar­ry him, when I was young. He broke up with me at col­lege when sum­mer came and he want­ed to do…whatever he wanted…I was so shocked. After three years of my utter devo­tion. And stranger still, when I con­tact­ed him years lat­er just to talk about a mutu­al friend, we dis­cussed our rela­tion­ship. He had­n’t remem­bered ANYTHING of my devo­tion or affec­tion­ate things I did for him. He had NO IDEA I was that attached to him. I had thought I was­n’t pret­ty enough for him — but he mar­ried a very plain look­ing wife when he was old­er.

    Funny thing was — he did remem­ber how he’d first seen me in a pair of black pants and a sil­ver and black sweater. I have to think boys are just more hor­mon­al and less self-aware.

  5. To be hon­est, I won­der what she thought of me too.

    I’m sure there’s some­thing to your the­o­ry about sub­con­scious­ness deci­sions. Men’s ties are big arrows to their penis­es, dan­gling neck­laces draw atten­tion to breasts. We hard­ly real­ize these things nowa­days.

    It always amazes me how some rela­tion­ships may be so one-sided. When one per­son puts all the effort into it and nev­er sees a break-up com­ing. I think my rela­tion­ship with Michele was like yours, except I was on the oth­er side.

    I think most peo­ple, not just boys, are hor­mon­al and less self-aware.

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