Pour one out for the sidechicks

Being the side chick of some older guy, is a sad but complicated existence. You have your expectations of where things are going. (Nowhere). You know where you stand with them. (Not High) You can get treated special (but never have your relationship out in the open). I saw things differently being 19 and still a freshman in college. I graduated from high school, already sped through two summer romances and acquired my first job working at the information counter on campus.

The work schedule worked around my class schedule, and it would get busy on certain days, and the same faces would show up around specific times. I got used to seeing this one pair of bright blue eyes around lunch time. They never stopped and asked a question or even bought a snack. We would lock eyes, they would nod at me as they passed by and would disappear around the corner to the common area. He went to hang out with his girlfriend and friends around that time. I didn’t put much stock in him giving me looks; I was still seeing my boyfriend and he was with someone else.

Being the other woman means, never knowing what you mean to the person.

If you are screaming at my obliviousness. In my defense, confidence in my looks back then did not exist, I just started getting used to the idea that because now I was gainfully employed at a job that paid (not well) it meant having control over what I could wear or how I wanted to be seen. (Makeup still scared me.) But I perceived the prolonged eye contact as his attempt at being friendly. Even at the college dance and he sat a few feet away, with his girlfriend in his lap, while I sat in my boyfriend's lap, he seemed more concentrated on me. She chatted away with other people; he held her close but kept smiling at me.

My breakup eventually happened, and one day he popped by the counter and asked if we could hang out. If you are wondering if I was still oblivious, absolutely. I assumed he wanted to hangout because of a mutual love of comics, not anything sexual or romantic, right up to the moment he kissed me and I kissed him back. Unspoken attraction is very much real, this being my first real life lesson from college.

(Before writing this, I had to go look him up and see if he really was that attractive or was it just my memory playing tricks on me. He definitely had some nerdy charm and his eyes radiantly blue. A 19-year-old with low self esteem; didn’t stand a chance.)

We kissed, and it confused me. He explained that he found me attractive because I was cute and nerdy. (I did not hide the fact that I read comics on the clock.) He also explained that he didn’t really love his girlfriend, and that they had little in common with each other. The obvious solution to this would be just to break up to free her and yourself for the right people, correct? No, he started asking me out on dates and ‘hangouts’. He pushed for sex but I never was ready. He was attractive, and we had fun but the fun was weighed down by the happy, oblivious girlfriend who would tell him ‘I love you’ over the phone while he was in a parking lot getting head from another girl. After a few months it took its toll, and the final straw for me was the most obvious problem: we couldn’t do anything in public during the day.

I pointed out to him it was getting tiring because despite his repeated remarks about how he wanted to break up with her, he never did. One day, I bluntly told him I was done, we were in the hallway, people were passing by, he grabbed my arm and pulled me in for a deep kiss. Just to show that he didn’t want this to end, and neither did I, but I was tired of waiting for him to decide.

And once you realize how much you mean to them, it is in the worst way possible.

One drunken text rant later, he texted me and told me to come to make his friend “happy”. After a brief fight about basic respect, his friend took over the conversation and apologized for his behavior. (To make things simple, I'm calling his friend B and calling the playboy wanna be D) B explained that I was the major subject of a bag and it made him curious about me, and had asked for my number. A few problems with this: our tryst was supposed to be a secret. The whole point was to avoid getting caught. Getting drunk and bragging about the action you’re getting to your friend defeated the purpose.

B laid the charm on quick and asked to hang out with me in person. Because I was done with being a secret, I accepted and stopped talking with D altogether. B was interested in me sexually but we got to talk about each other's interest. But because they understood I was not ready for sex, they settled on just naked cuddles. And honestly, it was one of the more romantic times I’ve had. We just napped together in between classes, in a dorm room.

That didn’t last too long. D was furious over his ‘friend’ stealing his girl. He had to be reminded that I was not his, and he already had a girlfriend. D resorted to calling me a whore because B was also attached. His girlfriend didn’t live in the state and he forgot to mention that detail with me. I was crushed, and he apologized to me for what he did, but it meant the warm fuzzies times were over. D didn’t win because I was done with both of them for the time being I just wanted to forget that two ‘friends’ were both cheating assholes who were fighting over a girl they couldn't have.

B left the state after graduating. I never heard from him again, the last bit of news about him was that his girlfriend dumped him. (Karma exists. Goddess bless.) And D popped back up on my radar, apologetic for how he acted. I forgave him, and for a moment we got back together. Until he proposed.

To his girlfriend. The woman, he complained about. Who didn’t like the same music, wasn’t a nerd like him. The same person he would vent about while holding me, he would now marry. I remember getting angry and yelling about how it made little sense to continue anymore. And in the middle of my rant he surprised me:

“Do you wish it was you I proposed to?” He didn’t seem to joke. He wasn’t laughing, or smiling, he seemed dead serious about this. I was just 20 and terrified but I also wasn’t blind to the obvious. (Thanks mom.) He was the person who would ask for a blowjob from someone that is in comparison to a stranger and tell his girlfriend at the same time that he loved her. Imagine being under someone, in bed, and they're on the phone with their fiance, blatantly lying about what they're up to you. You're holding your breath while they’re stroking your cheek to make sure you don’t feel unwanted while they feed bullshit into the phone. Even if it was true, and I had said yes, there was no guarantee some other girl wouldn't be in the same position as I was then if he committed to me.

Being the sidechick means, at some point it’s over.

We saw each other one last time. This time we actually just hung out. He married her and all I could have the strength to do was tell him that this was pointless, and we both knew he didn’t care about me. Because he always enjoyed surprising me he said:

“Is that what you truly think?” I ignored the fact that he couldn’t look me in the eye when he said it. I even ignored the slight tremble as it came out.

I answered, yes and asked to be taken home.

He’s married with two kids. He moved out of state. And the last word I ever from him was from his wife. Turns out the day he impulsively kissed me to get me to stay, someone she knew had seen us. Whether he was in trouble at the time and she wanted to do a background check or someone told her accidentally after a night getting drunk, she wanted to know if we had sex at any point.

It was a relief to say no. I didn’t tell her all the gritty details, but we never got far. She thanked me and left it at that. They are still married to this day.

I still wonder if he was serious about proposing to me, and what would have happened if I took the chance to not just be the sidechick.