Attraction

The song was called Dublin Sky, by Darren Hayes. I had bought his album because of one particular song, a song called Darkness, and I don't think I really listened to the rest of the album. Maybe I played it through once, I don't remember. Either way, I didn't remember hearing Dublin Sky before.

As I do when I buy a CD (which I still like to do - I like having something tangible, a physical object with the liner notes, lyrics, and artwork, as opposed to just downloading music online) I usually just put it onto my mp3 player. That's how, months after I bought the album, I came to listen to that song for the first time.

I was on a bus in Seattle, Washington, where I was spending a week or so after a working holiday on the east coast of the USA. The previous couple of months had been really good for me - I'd worked really hard and, though tired, I'd enjoyed the experience immensely and had met a lot of great people. Most importantly, I'd been so busy I hadn't had a lot of time to think or worry and as a result I was enjoying myself. That enjoyment continued as I transitioned from the work portion to the holiday portion of my working holiday. Spending most days exploring the city of Seattle, each night I rode the bus back to where I was staying and I passed the time in transit listening to music and writing my notebook.

I heard the song for the first time. When it finished I played it again. I don't know how many times I listened to it but I remember really connecting with it, and thinking it was strange that I'd never listened to it before. Why I bring this up is that whenever I think of that song, or even think back to riding the bus in quiet contemplation of each night that week, it makes me think of someone I didn't meet until a week later. I associate that experience and those lyrics with someone I met once I got home to Australia. It's as if, in my memory, I was thinking about this person while I was riding that bus and listening to the song, even though I hadn't met them yet. Of course, you know I'm talking about a girl.

Two days after arriving home, we were having a quiet little gathering at home and this girl came around with a family friend with whom she was staying for a week or so. She was Canadian and had just arrived in Australia for a three-month vacation. I had come home from the US feeling quite optimistic about my life, and although I didn't have any idea of the direction I wanted my life to take I had a pretty open mind and almost anything felt possible. I felt like I was finally getting some self-esteem. Maybe that's why I wasn't intimidated by the fact that she was gorgeous and I could actually act like a normal person in front of her, laughing and joking and happily telling stories about my recent overseas trip. I wasn't overcome by my usual anxiety and nervous mannerisms.

As an aside, I don't know whether I should take a leaf out of OnePic's book and give my friends (and anyone else I may talk about in this blog) pseudonyms. I don't like constantly referring to people as 'he' or 'she' or 'my friend', etc., but I don't think I want to assign everyone new names either. And I can't use their real names because that endangers the anonymity of this blog. For now, I think I'll just keep doing what I'm doing but I might change my mind down the track.

Anyway, since this girl didn't know anybody besides the woman she was staying with, I agreed to spend a couple of days showing her the sights of the local area. A couple of days later I picked her up and off we went. We had been driving maybe fifteen minutes when she commented that I was much more reserved than I had been when we first met. She wasn't wrong. The more I'd thought about spending time with her, the more nervous I became. Now that she was actually in the car with me I was pretty much keeping my mouth shut so as to avoid saying something stupid. But, now that she had mentioned it, I made an effort to relax a little. There was something very disarming about her and in no time at all we were getting along like old friends. It was quite amazing how much I felt I knew about her by the end of the day and even before I dropped her home that night I was already looking forward to spending the next day with her.

The following day it was more of the same. We went down to the beach in the morning and spent the afternoon talking and looking through the photographs she'd bought from home. I figured she must have known I was attracted to her - I couldn't stop myself from smiling while she was around - but she hadn't said anything about it up to that point. I also figured that someone so beautiful and wonderful would never be interested in me. What can I say, old insecurities die hard. It also occurred to me that she probably had a boyfriend but I felt too nervous to ask her about it. It turned out I didn't have to.

I was looking through the photos on her laptop, asking her about the people and places they featured. She happily narrated me through her albums until I came to a picture of a her and a guy and asked, "Who's that?" For a second she didn't answer, and then, "I don't know who that is." It was obvious she wasn't trying to tell me that he was a stranger but I was puzzled by her response and asked her to explain. "Is he your boyfriend?" She fumbled for the words. Assuming that meant he was her boyfriend, I dismissed my question and told her she didn't have to explain anything to me. I was disappointed that she wasn't single but I didn't let on. But she continued. "I don't know who he is. I mean, I don't know what we are..." and she began to explain the situation to me. He was her boyfriend, or at least he had been until a few weeks earlier when he had moved more than a thousand kilometers away from her, leaving things unresolved in the weeks before she left for Australia. He hadn't tried to contact her at all (phone, e-mail or otherwise) in the intervening weeks. She didn't know what he was thinking and wasn't sure if they were still together. From the way she was talking, it sounded as though she wasn't sure she still wanted to be in the relationship at all. The whole situation was... complicated.

Despite that, I started to get the impression that my feelings for her were being reciprocated - although perhaps not to the same degree. We went out for dinner with some friends of mine and the more time I spent with her the more I felt she was the person I wanted to be with.

She was planning to go away for a few days and visit a friend who lived about two hundred kilometers away. The night before she was due to go, as I was dropping her home, I wanted to say something to her, just in case she didn't realise how I felt. I didn't want to come on too strong so I settled on, "I really wish you were staying a little longer so I could spend some more time with you." I knew that she understood what I meant but she didn't say anything about it. I dropped her home and a little while later I received a text-message from her: "You know it could never work, I belong in Canada. I'm sorry." I took it as her way of politely telling me she wasn't interested, trying to protect my feelings in the process. I suppose it had been foolish of me, based on the circumstances, to think that anything could happen between us. But I couldn't help it and I took the rejection personally. I knew she had tried to let me down gently but I was still hurt.

While she was away for those few days we talked via text-message and she even called me a couple of times, just to chat. She had decided to come back for a few more days and I suggested that we get together again. Although she didn't know what her plans were she told me she'd think about it. Over that same weekend I attended a local film festival and heard that in the upcoming days there would be some evening entertainment, including a fire-twirling show. I mentioned this to my friend and she agreed to come with me. I picked her up, very happy just to be seeing her again, and we went to the show. It came time to take her home and I suggested that, although it was late, if she wasn't in a hurry to get home maybe we could do something else.

We ended up getting something to eat and then driving around for a while before parking the car under a tree (that for some reason was decorated with fairy-lights) and talking for a couple of hours. It had been on my mind for the past few days so I asked her if the distance was the only reason she didn't want to get into a relationship with me or whether she wasn't attracted to me. I don't remember the exact words of her response but she told me that if she didn't have to go home, I'm the sort of guy she would go out with. I didn't know whether she was just trying to protect my feelings or whether she genuinely felt that way. She told me something that she had been wondering about: that I seemed like two different people, sometimes outgoing but most often significantly less so. She told me she didn't believe that I was a shy person at heart and asked for my explanation. I told it to her as best I could, that I wanted to be more outgoing but for whatever reason lacked confidence and self-esteem. I sensed that she was attracted to the outgoing side of me, which was in fact the real me, that had become concealed behind a facade of shyness and introversion. I tried to forget about all that and just tell her how I felt about her, so that I didn't forever regret not putting myself out there. I told her that although we'd only known each other a very short time I felt there was something between us and I didn't want it to end with her just going away.

As I dropped her home in the early hours of the morning I felt glad that I'd been honest with her. She hadn't exactly given me an answer one way or the other but gave me the impression that she was conflicted about the situation and that she did have feelings for me. I hardly slept that night. We had one more day together before she was moving on and I wanted to make the most of it. First we had breakfast together and then we visited a friend of mine who had just had a baby. That night I took her to meet the people I'd traveled through Asia with and we all played a couple of games, including Trivial Pursuit. It's a favourite of mine and I think I impressed her with the amount of (trivial) information stored in my brain. She kept joking that I must have wasted days of my life memorising the questions and answers. In what was the most imperfect end to what had been a pretty good day, I got sick and had to go home early. I didn't even get a chance to really say goodbye.

As luck would have it, after spending a week with a friend elsewhere, she and her friend decided to come back to my town and I got to see her again. Thankful that I at least has a second chance at saying goodbye I pained over what I should do. Since she was only back for a day or so I decided, against the advice of a friend, to write her a letter. I didn't want to seem too serious but I felt like I still had so much to say to her. I chose my words very carefully but perhaps, as my friend told me over and over, the letter was a mistake. I told her how beautiful she was and that she was one of the most amazing people I'd ever met. I think I was way too honest. It probably erased her memories of me as a more outgoing person who she had connected with and replaced them with images of someone so obviously depressed and heartbroken. I try not to regret it because it felt right at the time but she never responded to what I had written. We remained in contact but neither of us brought it up. I guess I had my answer.

Soon, she left to spend a couple of months practically on the other side of the country. Immediately after she left, I became a wreck. I basically stayed in bed for two weeks and I couldn't bring myself to eat anything for days. I had never felt such depression. It was so pervasive - I felt broken. I cried a lot. I think it bothered me so much for a few reasons. In only a couple of weeks I'd developed incredibly deep feelings for this girl and they obviously weren't mutual. But more than that I think I viewed that rejection as symbolic, signifying that I would never find the love I was searching for because I didn't deserve it. I told myself she had rejected me because I was unattractive and unlikeable. I began to despise myself - I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for weeks. I think I blamed myself for not being worthy of the person I desired. The progress I had made during my time away, the self-esteem I had finally found, was all gone. I think that made it worse, the fact that when I got back from my overseas trip I was happier than I'd been in quite a while. I had further to fall. All I could think of was that I was being punished for something, like I was being told, "This is what you get for being happy."

We remained in occasional contact while she was still in Australia. She sent me a message explaining that she was going home a couple of weeks early because her boyfriend had asked her to move in with him. I guess that meant they didn't split-up after all.

That was about a year and a half ago. We've stayed in touch since then. I got an e-mail from her a couple of days ago, asking how I was going. It's hard for me to know what to say to her. I want for us to be friends but, even after more than a year, I still have deeper feelings for her. Of course, I know better than to bring them up. I still wonder how she really felt about me while she was here and how she remembers me. I don't suppose I'll ever know.