musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part ten

My ego boost from being the only guy in Dakota's life that wasn't trying to fix her and the subsequent comfort level that we achieved based on our mutual neuroses didn't last long. Jeremiah was constantly pushing her to quit her childish behavior with regards to her relationship with me and to admit to herself that she loved him already so they could get on with their life. I found his efforts to be laughable. She couldn't tell me enough about his solipsism and how turned off she was by his "you-know-I'm-the-one-for-you" attitude. I would sit on her living room floor listening to her speak with disdain in her voice for him, all the while taking comfort in the fact that I wasn't like that at all. I would never tell her that I was perfect for her (even though I thought that I was) and I would never strut around with the kind of self-aggrandizement that comes with being in the company of a beautiful girl even though I did that every time we were out at that point.

The stories of Jeremiah's narcissism were doing nothing but fueling my own inflated sense of self-worth. We would go out to bars in San Marcos, she would see people she knew, and I would sit silently with the smug self-satisfaction of someone who really did think he was some cool guy from Hollywood, a guy who just swept into town and charmed the pants off the prettiest girl in the room, the one all the locals wanted but could never get. I was so confident in myself, in fact, that during one of the days I was stuck in her apartment while she was away at work, the toilet became clogged, and unable to find a plunger anywhere in her place, I made the decision to knock on the door of one of her neighbors instead of calling her. I don't know if I was afraid to call her and incur her wrath or if I really did think I could charm the neighbors with a little bit of the nonsense I had been feeding myself.

I'm from Los Angeles staying with Dakota and aren't you just so impressed with me and my uber-coolness that something this embarrassing doesn't bother me at all and don't you want to invite me in and know all about my great Hollywood life and how I came to be staying here in boring old San Marcos?

Of course, they were impressed, or at least that was my impression of what transpired, plunger notwithstanding. Regardless, the couple was polite and invited me into their place for a beer. We talked for a while I and regaled them with stories of the Hollywood life. I was so proud of myself when I told Dakota this "funny story" of "how I was able to meet new people" that I told it as if I had met her favorite band in the hallway and convinced them to play a private concert in her apartment that night. She wasn't impressed. She said I could have just called her since she had a plunger in a storage area outside and I could have saved myself the embarrassment. I paid no mind to that. I just thought about how cool I was and told her that they were still up there and had invited us both to pass around a joint with them. She said she was happy that I found someone to get high with as she no longer smoked but since I had been asking if there was anyone around who had weed all week, she'd be happy to oblige. I had been half-jokingly asking about a way to get some marijuana, but it wasn't anything that important to me and she was taking me at my word and had tired of hearing about it so she joined me with her neighbors. After the smoking session, she asked if I was happy now that I had gotten high and I said yes. I suppose I was just a bit too high to detect her frustration with me, frustration with the boy who was on a maturity level so much lower than hers. She had long since become bored with such things as getting high, having left those drug hazed days behind as part of her youth. As a late bloomer, I had a hard time processing the fact that she had long since left behind all the silly things I was taking joy in years and years ago, and she was only 22. How could she possibly be done with all the things you're supposed to enjoy at that point in your life? Here I was, a 28 year old guy looking like a stupid child to a 22 year old woman.

As I began to act more comfortably in her presence, she began to show more hostility towards me. If she was frustrated and I would attempt physical contact, she would brush me aside. If we both needed to shower, she would insist we did it at the same time only to express her disappointment with my grooming while she swept the floor of her bathtub with her feet.

"Boys... with their hair..."

If I would change clothes in her bedroom without shame, she would mention that she could see my bare backside, only in a manner to let me know that that was a bad thing. She didn't think much of seeing my skinny white ass in the light. If I would wear the ripped pair of jeans I had that were torn at the kneecaps, she would take note of the bruises just above my left knee and ask if they were the same as on my wrist. I would say yes, and she would ask me why I told her my wrist had become damaged because of drumming.

"That's what I tell everybody."

That was true, but only because I didn't know what to say. She told me that she "noticed everything" about me, and while I had become comfortable with her so as to not let my flaws bother me because I didn't think they bothered her, the more time we spent together the more I realized that she was growing tired of me and less tolerant of all those flaws. It came to a point where she would project her intolerance onto me. If she was upset with an aspect of herself that she didn't like, she would tell me that I couldn't handle it, that I was disgusted by her. Things were becoming tense. I didn't think too much of it. I was still confident in the fact that she liked me, and I liked her.