Chapter 3: Unrequited Love

So Brad and I became friends. We hung out, on occasion, worked together and enjoyed a casual friendship. Eventually, I became interested in being more than just friends, so we went on a date and saw some terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger movie... Collateral Damage I think? And we had Mexican food. But apparently Brad is some kind of Cassanova because he informed me after our super-fantastic date that he was already into some other girl, Kristen #2. He was only going out with me for fun. What a jerk....

However, at this point, I was quite in love with him. I don't remember when it happened. But I do know why. He was the first guy I'd met whom I felt I could stand on equal footing. I saw more in him than I did myself. I guess I really hadn't encountered much from the male gender in my short years. I always imagined I'd have marry someone I'd have to settle for rather than someone I aspired to be like. I'd been in love before, but I could actually picture myself marrying Brad. I always say you can fall in love with just about anyone but that doesn't mean you should marry just anyone you're in love with. Brad had some kind of "it" factor. I just knew he was the one for me.

But given the situation, there was nothing I could do. I remember talking to my mom about it, and she told me that if I really loved him, I should pray that he would be happy whether or not that happiness involved me. So I did. Every night.

In the meantime, Brad was in love with this Kristen girl who wasn't so sure Brad was the one for her, and some other guy who often helped me with my computer science projects was rather smitten with me, and I was in love with Brad. One big crazy love triangle or something.

Ah, but it gets crazier. Spring break was approaching and Brad wanted to go visit his parents in SC but his car wasn't the most dependable thing and was having some issues so he asked to borrow mine. My Spring Break involved flying to Colorado with a high school friend to go snowboarding. So the plan was for Brad to drop me off at the airport and then drive to SC to spend the week, and then pick me up at the end of the week from the airport.

The drive from Cullowhee, NC, where we attended school, to Charlotte, NC, where I was to fly out, was 3 hours. Brad tells me that that drive was when he fell in love with me. I can see that. During the course of my spring break week, we called each other daily. I probably annoyed the two guys I was vacationing with. What can ya do though? I was in love.

When I returned to Charlotte, I waited for Brad to pick me up and he didn't show! I had a cell phone back then but Brad didn't so we had no way to coordinate. He knew what time my flight got in but he wasn't there. I finally ended up calling the friend I'd traveled with who was staying in Charlotte that night and asked if he had heard from Brad. Brad was there, looking for me, having driven around and around the terminal for hours, because you know, those security guys at the terminal get upset if you park even though there was NO one there at midnight or whatever time it was. The issue was because the terminals all have two levels so every time I was on the top level waiting, Brad drove around the bottom level, and every time I went to the bottom level, thinking I was missing him there, he drove by the top level. It's pretty uncanny that we missed each other and it was literally HOURS I was stuck there. It was kind of a traumatic experience, getting abandoned at the airport in the middle of the night.

Fortunately we finally found each other and made the long drive back to Cullowhee during which we both expressed our feelings for each other. The complication was that Brad was still in love with Kristen #2 (via long distance relationship as she lived in another state, I know... weird) and she was Mormon. That was the kicker. Mormons believe everything goes better if you just marry another Mormon. And that's usually true for pretty much any religion. For us, marriage in the Temple is of utmost importance and when you marry a non-member, you forfeit that opportunity to be sealed in the Temple unless they join the Church later. So if Brad "chose" me, he might never be able to be sealed to me because I had no intention of joining the LDS church. Nevertheless, Brad was kind of a fringe Mormon at the time, having spent a lot of time going to other churches and being completely inactive because of the persecution he had faced in his recent past. So he wasn't Temple-worthy anyway and that kind of bothered his Mormon girlfriend. So he was kind of in a pickle, and I was in love with a Mormon who was in love with me but didn't really want to marry a non-Mormon. Sheesh. Drama.

Brad was going to have to choose, sooner or later though.

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