Greg

Greg went to my high school but we didn’t meet until after he had already graduated. After he graduated he dated my best friend for quite awhile. He was strange. Cute, but quirky in bizarre ways. Well-meaning, but ignorant about the world. He dreamt small and felt like he was aiming high.

Eventually, he and my friend broke up (and my friend wasn’t my friend any more) and Greg and I were friends. Friends became flirty, flirty became friends with benefits, which turned into dating.

I don’t know that that man did to me to make me fall for him as hard as I did. He was charming and gentlemanly, but embarrassing in his small-town mindset and lack of intelligence. He was a generous, passionate lover, though. He wasn’t my first.

And, man, did we have great sex. At least, I thought it was great at the time. He was maybe the third or fourth person I had ever slept with and we were having fun. If we had had chandeliers, we would have been swinging from them. He would come visit me at school and I would go visit him at his apartment over a towny bar in the town he went to college in.

Then one day, Greg told me he was getting back together with my ex-friend. I was devastated. I cried for days.

It quickly ended again between the rekindled couple and Greg came back to me just as I was still in the throws of missing him. I took him back, stupidly. The relationship was never the same after that, though. I tried, I really did. I think I was too young at the time to realize it, but the trust had been broken and I was now able to see his flaws. But, because I was stubborn and cried for him for so long, I refused to admit that the relationship was no longer what I wanted. It felt like crying over getting exactly what you want.

Greg and I booked a fancy exotic vacation to St. Martin to have a romantic time and go somewhere I could also drink (I was only 19 or 20 at the time). We flew to St. Martin with a layover in Puerto Rico. In the airports, on the plane, and in Puerto Rico specifically, Greg was ultra embarrassing. Making fun of things that were different, being loud and American, dressed ridiculously…just bad. It was a long day of traveling and me putting up with his ignorance. When we got to the hotel finally, Greg flopped down on the bed and proposed we have sex then and there.

I broke up with him on the spot.

I then went downstairs to a payphone where I called my mom in the US collect to cry about being stuck with Greg in St. Martin for the week.

It was a weird vacation after that. And, no, we did not get back together.

A few months later, Greg cornered me at the diner. He asked me out to his car to talk. I vaguely remember him saying he didn’t know what happened and that he was upset about it all still. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. It had been months. I didn’t miss him. I had already outgrown him. In that moment, as far as I was concerned, Greg owed me an apology for breaking my heart the first time around and ruining what could have been a great relationship. But then again, if he hadn’t done that I might have gotten stuck and not had the life I went on to have. So maybe now I owe him a thank you?