Answer Girl

Editor’s Note: Out of love and respect, the woman formerly referred to as Don’t Answer Girl will now be known as Answer Girl. – nuff said 

I’m happy. I’m not used to being happy. I’ve been happy for less than a day and I’m already starting to worry that by being happy I’m inviting something really bad to happen. I need to start spreading this joy around and cultivate some good karma.

 

I didn’t even know how happy I was until I picked up Entertainment Weekly. The first of my film school classmates to have a feature film in national distribution made EW’s top ten must see list for the week. It wasn’t until I noticed my utter lack of jealousy, rage and over all playa-hation that I realized that I must be really happy if his success isn’t ruining my day.

 

After playing phone tag with Answer Girl, we finally met for coffee at around midnight. Answer Girl is one of three people on the planet who I truly feel I’ve wronged and owe something to. I was going through a self destructive, manipulative, Machiavellian head-fucker stage and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was pretty awful to her. Anyway, we met for coffee and she introduced me to her new boyfriend. At the time we were introduced, I didn’t know he was her boyfriend, but he knew who I was the minute she said my name and it was a little awkward. Apparently he’d heard a lot about me. I guess he sensed that we needed to talk and he left us alone. We talked for two hours. It was by far the best conversation we’d ever had, made possible in part by the mood stabilizing drugs she’s now on which make actual conversation possible. Out of the blue she started talking about our relationship and how she realized that she was partly to blame for my cheating on her and our break up. I still think she was being too hard on herself but she would have none of it. It was the first time we’d really talked about our relationship in years. She told me how special I was to her and how I’d always be her first love and I held back the impulse to apologize for that fact.

 

We started talking about the first time we had sex and we laughed so hard that people were starting at us (it’s actually a very funny and horrifying story). She called her boyfriend over and I begged her not to tell him what we were talking about. He came over and looked at me and asked her if the conversation was making me uncomfortable. She said, “I think so. And things don’t usually make David uncomfortable. This may be a first.”

 

I’m really glad that I met Answer Girl’s boyfriend and that he seems like a cool guy, cause she was looking good and even though I already knew that sleeping with her would be a terrible idea, it crossed my mind even before we had this amazing conversation. But seeing how happy she was with this guy sealed the deal. I’ve finally reached a point where I can be happy for her with someone else and not feel left out because she’s sleeping with someone other than me. Ordinarily in this situation my first impulse would be to talk her into sex just to see if I still could so that the center of the drama would be me again. Before, I would always cut down any guys she was seeing so that she would subconsciously compare them to me, her first love. It was all part of my M.O. to keep her emotionally dependant on me and I confessed as much to her that night. I told her that this is the first guy she’s ever dated that I approve of, myself included.

 

I drove her home, gave her a hug and told her how much I love her. And I do. My love for her is profound. It’s actually quite strange to love someone so much who is female, attractive and not a blood relative and not want to sleep with her. I mean, I do want to sleep with her but I know not to. It’s weird to feel this kind of love for a woman. I’m sure normal, emotionally mature people feel this way all the time but it’s a new one on me. It’s like the feeling you get when you first start coming down with a cold or the flu. This love is so strange it’s like some foreign contagion has entered my body and I keep feeling like I need to take something for it.