Where the Hell I Have Been All Year, Part III
by Scott Hardie on August 27, 2006
This is a long story of interest only to friends of mine and people who really want to spend fifteen minutes reading about my life, but I've been promising to reveal this secret for the better part of a year and the time has come: Kelly Lee and I were a couple again this past spring. I kept it secret because A) it was difficult to tell the friends who had supported me during her breakup that we were dating again and B) for the duration of the relationship I didn't know where it was going and I wanted to know this before I said anything. Anyway, this story is solely my point of view and may not be fair to hers.
Longtime friends know pretty well about my relationship with Kelly, but others may need some catching up. We were high school chums, a year apart, who started dating in the final months of my senior year. We broke up a few times in college and tried seeing other people, but we kept coming back to one another because we fit each other so well, like old shoes. She was my kind of woman all the way: Tough, good-humored, smart, able to spend all day with us guys and still be feminine, and full of endless creativity. It helped that we had most the same hobbies and values, and that I found her incredibly sexy. We grew closer, and became engaged as college drew to a close for us both. We had a few arguments, mostly over her friends that I disapproved of, but I was the "good boyfriend" and didn't interfere.
Our relationship came unraveled after college, when we moved to Florida in 2002 to start the rest of our lives together. Kelly was miserable. She had never lived anywhere but Illinois, and worse, she despaired of ever finding friends here, even though we were quick to hook up with a gaming group. (She's extroverted and needs to see friends every day; I'm introverted and prefer to lock myself in my apartment for days at a time.) She left after three months and a major investment in furniture and residence, but I was the "good boyfriend" to the end, refusing to manipulate her into staying. Without a reason to stay, she moved back to Illinois, and I soon found out that the catalyst was one of those very bad-influence friends I had so distrusted, a man who had made it clear he wanted her in bed and came very close to succeeding just before we left Illinois. She slept with him upon her return and he didn't call her again; well geez, I could have told her that was going to happen. Angry about the betrayal and money lost, I resolved to move on with my single life.
I had dates for the next three years, and friendships with women who seemed to want more, but every time I found myself disinterested in a relationship and decided not to pursue them. I just didn't like the women – one was bossy, another had a drinking problem, another was obsessed with having kids – but beneath these reasons was a larger problem that only gradually dawned on me: I wasn't interested in any women. I got along fine with women professionally or socially, but I wasn't sexually attracted to any of them, and there wasn't one I wanted to spend any more time with than I did already. That might have been normal for a month or two, but after three years, something was wrong and I didn't realize it.
What opened my eyes was finally meeting a woman in December 2005 that knocked me head-over-heels. She was an artist with a great sense of humor, comfortable in a group of men and full of energy. She was also far sexier to me than any other woman I'd met in years. I quickly learned she was married with kids, so I didn't pursue a relationship with her, but having such a lightning-strike of longing for one woman made me think, and it dawned on me: Give this woman red hair and she'd be Kelly. She looked like Kelly, talked like her, walked like her, had the same values, had the same interests. I'd fallen for her because she seemed like the perfect woman for me – but did that mean Kelly was the real perfect woman for me? I had once made up my heart to spend the rest of my life with Kelly and never want another woman, and apparently ending the relationship didn't change that.
For two months, I agonized over how to act on this revelation. I had made the final breakup with Kelly pretty damn final, and my life was firmly entrenched here in Florida, with a blossoming career and many more things I wanted to do with my free time than I had free time for. Finally, a little after Valentine's Day, I reached an emotional low (coinciding with a depressive rant on Tragic Comedy that brought supportive messages from friends for which I remain grateful). I found her online, read no evidence of a boyfriend in her LiveJournal, and wrote her a long message explaining why she remained the only woman I wanted to spend my life with after nearly four years. I didn't know if we could be a couple, but at the least I wanted to talk to her for a while and find closure to my attraction to her so that I could move on and be with other women.
The response was immediate and affirmative, if reluctant. Kelly had been though plenty of failed relationships during our time apart but never found any of them as satisfying as her time with me, and she also longed for the familiar comfort of her "old shoe." But she was even more worried than I was about the incompatibility of our lives; her new life in Illinois was as set in its ways as mine in Florida, and she would not give up her friends or her hobbies for a relationship. We talked for hours every night on the phone, laughing and crying together, and helping each other through crises like her father's injury on the job or my public humiliation at a party. I sent her a big bouquet for the tenth anniversary of our first date, and then I visited for a long St Patrick's Day weekend. It was the best time I'd had in years: We spent days driving around the Chicago suburbs laughing and reminiscing and doing couple stuff. At the beginning of the weekend, she told me she doubted we would make it as a couple because our lives were too different now (not to mention she wasn't much attracted to me any more because I had gained so much more weight), but we agreed to play a couple for the rest of the visit, and we had such a good time that I convinced her at the end to keep it up.
The next month was wonderful. We talked adoringly on the phone every night until late, we exchanged gifts by mail, we talked about the possibility of a future together. I was willing to uproot my entire life and move to Illinois, as long as the willingness was mutual, which she claimed it was. When I visited again at the end of April, it was even more fun: We tried a comedy show and her favorite restaurants, and I bought her a Gamecube that we played for hours in the hotel room. But there were signs of her unwillingness to commit to a relationship, such as still going to club meetings and work even though I had put no small expense into visiting. I didn't mind paying all the way for the things we did together, but I expected her to make small sacrifices in other ways like her time, and she made none. May continued the pattern with nightly phone calls that were happy but tinged with doubt, and I reluctantly decided not to visit that month because it, especially with mutual friend Jackie's wedding coming up in mid-June.
The end finally happened in early June. Kelly had complained for weeks about how miserable she was in Elgin: Terrible job, very low pay, no closeness with her family, no friends except hours away, a squalor for an apartment, a perpetually-broken-down vehicle. Then a position opened at my company that she was perfect for, which would have paid her twice as much with half the aggravation. She was excited, so I helped her punch up her resumé and praised her to the department head and HR director until they were all but ready to hire her if only she'd move here. She found one excuse after another to delay calling the HR director and being flown down here for an interview, until after several days I was so incensed that I forced her to admit she wouldn't move to Florida. Her friends in Springfield, who she saw once a month if she could afford the gas, were more important to her than putting behind the constant daily misery of her Elgin life and getting on her feet here, even when I told her she'd make enough to fly to Springfield once a month if she wanted to. It was a difficult realization for both of us, and for a week it was difficult for me to even talk to her on the phone, so I barely did. She told me she wouldn't continue the relationship, and I slipped back into "good boyfriend" mode and didn't argue with her decision.
Getting together for Jackie's wedding was the worst of it. We had never argued much during all our years together, but for some reason that day was one passionate fight after another. She was upset I had spent a day touring Chicago with Erik Bates and not invited her (thank goodness because the poor man would have had to listen to us argue), then I was upset when we arrived a minute too late to the wedding and she wouldn't even stay outside the doors to listen, then I was upset when she tried her damnedest to weasel out of the reception, then she was upset when I danced at the reception without her and made her feel tiny. We only saw Jackie for a few minutes at the reception and the one question on her lips was whether Kelly and I had a future together, and I tried calmly to leave it at "no."
The weird thing was I still wanted her. She was still everything to me that I wanted in a woman, and I liked her even more in 2006 than I had in 2002. But she wouldn't discuss our relationship, even in the past tense, and that made phone calls too difficult for me, so I asked not to have them for a little while. When I sent her an email a few weeks later, she replied saying that she wouldn't have future contact with me. The relationship had ended with the same cold silence from which it came, and worse, I still had the same feelings for her that I started with, as strong as ever. Not only could I not have the woman I wanted, but I was still doomed not to want anyone else I could have. I'd give up just about anything to have her back, including my life in Florida, but as far as I'm willing to go for her, she won't meet me there. I can't blame her for not being attracted to me at this size; all I can do is reluctantly accept her decision and hope that someday she'll either change it or I'll finally be free of her spell.
FIN footnote: Kelly was going to join the game as a new character, a British aristocrat & safari hunter who she happened to name Harrington. With Scott Baumann's permission to allow her character's background to tread on his, I eagerly looked forward to the meeting of her real Harrington with his fake Harrington, but Kelly lost her Internet access and didn't regain it until we were barely speaking, which explains why the character only amounted to a passing reference in the Birmingham asylum. Kelly has declined to play, so I shall use her Harrington for my own devices.
Seven Replies to Where the Hell I Have Been All Year, Part III
Lori Lancaster | August 29, 2006
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Scott Hardie | August 30, 2006
If he has a minute, would you send him over here to fill in some of mine?
Jackie Mason | August 30, 2006
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Scott Hardie | September 2, 2006
It's all good, Jackie. I didn't feel put on the spot at all; instead I felt a little weird talking about my relationship on your wedding day. :-)
And you're right, I'm sure in mind now, if not in heart.
Amy Austin | September 3, 2006
You can't really choose who you fall in love with (man, doesn't that suck!) -- but you *can* make a wise evaluation on it... even if it does mean doing it The Hard Way! (Or is that "The Hardie Way"??? Ah-ha... I'm sorry, Scott -- it just came to me as I wrote it... Hope you're back on track with your life -- love stinks.)
Jackie Mason | September 4, 2006
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Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
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Steve Dunn | August 28, 2006
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