Hope dies last

A couple of days before I decided that I needed to sit on the bench for a couple of games, I accidentally gave my number to Ronaldo.

Ronaldo is a regular at The Bar who I met a while back through a friend. He is Spanish, supports Barcelona in the Champion’s League, is sweet and speaks English in that sing-song way that only Spaniards do. Yet, on the outside, he looks like any other Greek. Short, lean, brown hair, brown eyes.

On this particular night, I was on a high. On a temporary, Real is sitting directly opposite me so he’s definitely going to talk to me high. And so I did what any self respecting girl does in such a situation.

I used that high to attract other males in the hopes that that would encourage Real to notice me.

I chatted with Ronaldo at half-time and before I knew it I had made a bet with him; breaking one of the few rules I actually have in regards to talking to men.

[Never take a bet with a man who you do not want to see naked. Ever.]

Of course, he lost the bet. And of course, that meant that he had to buy me a beer. And of course, he did not mean right now. And of course, now I had to give him my number so that he could call me for that drink at some future date. And of course, by this point, I could not say no.

***

I cancelled on him last week because I! AM! SITTING! ON! THE! BENCH!  But, he called again. And again. I had a feeling that he was not going to give up.  Seeing as I was not attracted to him at all,  I decided that one drink could not hurt. I would either hint delicately or tell him forthright that I was not interested in him, in that way.  And that, that would be that. Back on the bench I would go.

***

“You here alone?”

“I’m waiting for Ronaldo.”

“Oh cool.”

“He said 6.”

“I’m sure he’s on his way.”

“Yea.”

“He really likes you.”

“Oh yea?”

“He’s definitely NOT going to stand you up.”

“I forgot my mobile at home. So he has no way of getting through to me if he does want to cancel.”

“He’ll be here. He’s really into you.”

***

An hour and a half later, I took out my wallet.

“You leaving?”

“I think so.”

“Why?”

“I was supposed to meet someone at 6. But he’s still not here. I think I should go.”

“I think so too.”

***

I got home and there was a lone text message. Sent forty minutes after we were supposed to meet.

I’m an hour away. Leaving now. Will you still be there?

It took all the strength I have to keep my hand from throwing my mobile phone against a wall and my voice from screaming indecencies out the window into the setting sun.

***

If the ones that are supposedly into you, if the ones that are chasing you, if the ones that seem safe because they are genuinely nice guys begin to play the game in this way? If the ones that you don’t even really care for begin to get under your skin in this way?

Then my boots are remaining off and I am staying as far away from this bloody game as is humanely possible.

“”Where are you?” my PIlates instructor scolded on Wednesday as he observed my hips rising and falling from across the room. “You are not concentrating on the movement.” My mind was elsewhere; tangled in a mess of fears and lists and wants and obligations and pain and disappointment and frustration and needs and an unwanted suffocating helplessness.

His voice bought me back to the room. My hips still rising and falling–slowly–as if on autopilot.

“I have to concentrate on the movement?”

“Yes, my dear. All your focus should be on what your body is doing.”

“But, I’m tired.” I whined. “My shoulders hurt. My back hurts.”

He did not even blink before barking,

“Let’s strengthen those areas then.”

“Erm. OK.”

“Try this.  Stand up straight.” His hands pushed my lower back upwards and forwards. “Suck in your stomach. Breathe. Let your arms carry the weight.”

“Like this?”

“Exactly. Now give me ten more.”

“Ten more? But, it’s too heavy.”

“Focus. Share the weight.* Breathe. You can do this.”

And I did.

And I will.

(*Thank you so much, all of you, for your awesome words.)

1. Begin by almost allowing yourself to fall in love with an emotionally (and physically) unavailable man. Move passed that by…

2. Latching onto another–literally–unavailable man (Pick your poison in either thought, word or deed. I picked thought and had some remarkably pathetic ones. Eg. “If he has already been unfaithful to his girlfriend and he doesn’t want to do that with me? Then I must be a really unattractive, un-everything type of woman.”)

3. Receive comment on blog “Maybe you should take dating hiatus”. Reply: “You don’t know me. Shutup.” (No, I didn’t say that. I’m a lady even in a personal crisis.)

4. Ignore the early warning signs that is Denial and Defensive Behaviour. Run into Literally Unavailable Man. Remind him–gently, of course–that he has your number. He still does not call.

5. Feel like total loser.

6. Gchat with Peter about infidelity. Peter will say something like, “I have way too much respect for relationships.” Peter is annoyingly wise.

7. Receive email from Best Friend. One line will cut your already jagged breath into one thousand pieces. “You keep temporarily having pick me ups–through friends, or someone flattering you etc–and that’s wrong. You need a genuine, permanent pick me up. And that can only come from you.” Best Friend is annoyingly wise too.

8. Discover the song ‘Slow Me Down’ through Barbie’s post. Watch video ten times. Begin to cry at exactly 0:38 because you realize that all this time the words ‘Save me’ are the words to the beats of your own heart. You think that those are also the only words you would never actually say out loud because come on? That’s a little melodramatic. It’s not like you’ve been kidnapped by pirates now, is it?

9. Listen to song over twenty times. Continue crying because you realize that this ‘Save me’ that your heart is tapping out into your chest is not for some other person to hear. No mother, no friend or lover, no brother or sister, or therapist. No, all this time your heart has been beating, pumping just for you. So, you listen.

10. Lie in bed. Alternate between cry and sleep for ten hours.

11. Decide that boys are stupid and it would probably be a good idea to stop thinking about them for awhile.

12. Crap. Come to the realization that boys have just been the distraction, distracting you from the fact that your life is crap. Crappity crap.

13. Lie in bed. Alternate between cry and sleep for ten hours.

14. Feel a bit better. Also known as the Famous Last Words Step because…

15. PANIC ATTACK AT THE HAIR SALON! (No this is not some new and upcoming pop indie band. This is an actual, panic attack at the hair salon where one flees with black robe fluttering in the wind and strips of silver foil still in hair in an almost crazy, Harry Potter homage.

16. Drive home with one thought on repeat. “I am weak and pathetic and my life is a sham.”

17. Breakdown. Alone.

18. Then, in front of mother.

19. Make mother cry.

20. Congratulations! You have officially hit rock bottom.

In Grade Two, there was a boy in my class who was a Jehovah Witness. At seven, I didn’t know what that meant. All I knew was that he did not have to go to Assembly and that he could sit on the carpet in our classroom and draw. For an extra half hour every Friday. I wanted that.

So one day, I told my teacher that my mother did not want me attending Assembly either. (My mother had made no such declaration. ) When the teacher asked me for the reason, I puffed up my little chest and said as mightily as I could with a mouth lacking several important teeth, “Becauth I am Greek Orthodoth.”

Earlier that year–on the first day of class–the same teacher had called out the anglicized version of my name during roll call.  A name that I had been using for the entire first year of big school.   “Hope? Hope? Is there a Hope in the room?” Yet, that day, I refused to acknowledge her. Once she had gone through all the other names on her list, her eyes landed on me. “And who are you?” she said.  I puffed up my little chest and said as mightily as I could with a mouth lacking several important teeth, “My name ith Elpitha, not Hope.”

There is a tendency for Greek somethings to change their names–streamline them, if you will–into neat English sounding names.  But, not I. Elpida it was, Elpida it remained.  I don’t know what happened to that hugely patriotic (and clearly trying to milk it for all it could be worth) seven year old in the years that followed.

“I don’t want to do Greek dancing, mama.” I would whine. “I hate Greek school, mama“. “Why don’t I get cheese sandwiches on white bread with the crust cut off like all the other children, mama?”

At 9, I was obsessed with the name Michele so much so that I turned it into an occupation.  “When I grow up” I would think, “I want to be a Michele”. In my mind, a Michele was tall and thin and blond. I didn’t know exactly what a Michele did, but I knew what she didn’t do.

She didn’t go to Greek dancing on Friday afternoons where a short woman with impossibly strict hair–achieved by a kilo worth of hairspray–would push and pull me by my arms so that I could properly learn the steps to a traditional folk dance that we would have to perform on some national holiday celebration.

“Ena, dio, tria, HOP!” she would scream. “One, two, three HOP!” Except, she didn’t say hop using the English ‘H’ sound that is so similar to the whisper of a noise we all make when we exhale through our mouths.  No! She said hop using the hard, I am simultaneously clearing and collecting saliva from the back of my throat before getting ready to ricochet it across the room Greek ‘H”.

A Michele did not have to go to Greek school twice a week after actual school. She did not have to learn a second alphabet. (Alpha, beta, gamma, delta erm… epsilon?) Or the rules of another language.  A Michele would not have been confused on her 11th birthday party and proceeded to extend her hand for an informal shake before kissing all her 11 year old (non-Greek) guests twice on the cheek as she had seen her mother do.  Can you say awkward?  Well, I can say it in two languages.

I don’t know what happened to that Michele-loving, Greek self-hating, adolescent in the years that followed.

“Aw, I wish I sounded Greek when I spoke in English” I would say. “It sounds so cool.” One night–four years ago–I even begged my friend, R, to teach me a dance native to her island. “It’s my favourite! Pleeease!”  When I get to kiss good looking men on both cheeks for no other reason than to say hello?* And when I get to spend as much time as I want discussing how close to the side of my mouth the kiss actually landed with my girlfriends? I am extraordinarily grateful that I can make both the soft and the hard H sound.

Now, if I could just stop insulting my Greek Greek friends by saying insensitive remarks like, “Oh those fucking Greeks!” in reference to the twenty six thousand aspects of Greek life I don’t get?** Then that would really be something.

***

*OK, OK. One mention of boys. You should have seen it coming though, if you know me at all.

**Throwing whatever garbage has accumulated in a car out the window while doing 80 km/h on a busy three lane road.

Yea. I really don’t get that one.

I was there because I had no where else to be. I was there because he had mentioned–in a passing comment–that he might be there too. The Bar was filling up. Five minutes to kick off. Four minutes to kick off. Three, two, one. The ball dropped. The match began. Distraction can be good, I thought, and settled back, my eyes on the screen.

The screen reminded me of some other nights. Nights where I could feel his presence occupying the same space as me from my first step in. There is an excitement–isn’t there?–before watching a match between two giants. Palpable tension written on the faces of spectators. I sense him. I know he is there–before seeing him–because the room suddenly crackles with the same type of electricity. But this night, it is quiet. The energy absent. He is not in the room. I feel it.

I feel it the entire first half. I watch the numbers on the left hand of the screen. 33:42, 33: 43, 33: 44. Seconds that crash into minutes. Minutes that slowly tick into hours wasted. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want to be here. But, I can’t seem to stop myself because it is easy. To come as I do, to watch, to wait my turn.

I turn my eyes–as the players run off the field to hear a new strategy–away from the screen. Two older men discuss stats. Attempts, fails, successes. I think of my own goals, my own misses. There is a group of four or five people at a near table, each so different from the other that I can find no visible reason for what brings them or binds them together. Perhaps, it is as simple as ‘for the love of the game’.

The game, the one that I seem to have been playing all alone for far too long, has begun to tire me. I pick up my bag and say my good nights. “You’re not going to watch the rest?” “I’ll watch it at home”. Home is safe, it holds no expectations and at home I won’t buckle under the pressure that the absence of a person absurdly creates. For at home, the absence of a person is just another night.

Another night turns into yet another day. The bitter quietness, the angry disappointment still there foreshadowing an uncertain resolve. Perhaps it is time to slip off my boots and step away from the game?

I haven’t decided.

You said the things I wanted to hear, even though I didn’t ask you to say them. Then, when I needed , when I asked for you to say something–anything really–you said nothing.

You didn’t fight for me. You let me go as if I meant nothing to you to begin with.

You and you and you and you and you and you, you all didn’t want me.

You and you and you and you and you and you, you all didn’t even notice me.

You hit on me. You asked me for my number. Then, you never called.

You did that too.

You went out with me for awhile because I asked you to. Then, you just stopped returning my messages. No explanation.

You did that too.

In exchange for taking me to a movie, you asked me to proofread your essay. I kept my end of the deal. You didn’t.

You said that you couldn’t because my brother was your friend. Then, you dated another friend’s sister for two years.

You said that you couldn’t because my brother was your friend. Then, you kissed another friend’s sister.

Over a home cooked lunch date you told me that you weren’t looking for a relationship. I said I wasn’t either. But you didn’t even try get into my pants.

You left me. You just left. To live your life. A year later, you came back–life, from what I could tell, unlived–telling me you never loved me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to forget that. Because you were the only one I’ve ever really loved.

***

Ghosts whisper within us.

But sometimes?

Sometimes, they really shout.*

(*Paraphrased from something I once read in a journal article by David Barash. Original quote: ‘Our genes whisper within us, they do not shout.’)