Chapter 1
** Listen to Genevieve - Habits **
As with many others, this is not a love story. It’s not one of those series of events that somehow puts all the pieces together and the boy will eventually realize he loves the girl as well, and they get together and marry and have a house, two kids, and a fluffy dog.
Don’t get me wrong, those things are happening in real life. More often than you’d like to admit. But it only happens if the girl is attractive, nice to others, or has a great personality. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, we only have THE STORY. The story of how we met him, tried not to set us up for disappointment, and finally felt for him just so the end we’ll be left heartbroken. Most likely, you’re left in the same position I am: a messy room, full of things you just cannot be bothered to throw out and a beer in front of you, a slightly warm bottle of beer that is begging for a break.
But I guess a story will not be THE STORY unless I take you to the very beginning.
Before him
As a 25-year-old girl, you should have already had 1 or 20 past relationships, but at least one of them with the guy that destroyed your reality. I think it also works for the male audience, but I am pretty sure I am right when I say that our heartbreak is worse. Not because we cannot be that awful. We are even worse, but society is expecting us to grieve after a breakup like we lost a limb. Days or even weeks of agonizing, fueled by the constant “it’s gonna be ok”. So we stay in our miserable state until they get sick of us and we can finally say we moved on. On the other hand, if we move on too fast, we’re just some bitches who took advantage of the poor guy, we didn’t care enough. Regardless, a breakup is hitting us the worst.
I’ve had that guy. I was 22 and quite confident I was amazing. I thought I cannot be the victim of anyone just because deep down I knew I was a bitch. I didn’t necessarily care about anything or anyone, with 2 exceptions. My brother to whom I would gladly donate one lung, even though when he’s asking for some water the standard answer is “get it yourself”. The second person is my dad. He is an ex-alcoholic who finally was able to get his shit together after he destroyed mine. Nevertheless, he still did it and now it just cannot be better.
Most people will also include their mother in the list, but I can’t. I mean, she’s not dead or something, just..she doesn’t love me. And I chose not to love her. Not like a mom, at least. She abandoned me when I was 11 and even today, more than a decade later, she’s still blaming me for it. She just didn’t know how to be a mom. Or maybe she just didn’t care. Regardless, my relationship with her is a constant try-fail. We try to bond one day, it works for a while until one of us gets bored of accepting the behavior of the other one. Then we just explode in a flight, don’t talk for weeks, then start again. It’s tiring.
Anyway, this guy I had at 22 was not special at all. But he was a musician. And for a tech girl, an artsy boy is like the promised nirvana. Why he appealed to be my soulmate is just too hard for me to understand.
