Everything I Never Learned About Love
photo courtesy of unsplash / michael fenton
Everything I thought I knew about love, I learned from Disney Channel Originals and terrible rom-coms from the early 2000s, where going back to someone awful and rooting for a chiseled guy who did the bare minimum was ALL the rage. I’m a hopeless romantic who’s never been in a relationship--a love story obsessed, cries to Taylor Swift, active Notes App user type whose most impactful situationships could be boiled down to a yearbook signing and set to Pinkfong’s seminal “Baby Shark.”
Love today is lost on me. The term “relationship” seems dated, and the narrative of being consistently single is totally warranted--because, like, God forbid someone drew your focus away from your career of selling vegan shampoo on Instagram and overthrowing the patriarchy.
So when I was asked to “go out for ice cream” in my favorite beach town last summer by a boy who I’d known since I was ten, I naturally assumed that he was taking me out to profess that he hadn’t noticed how I’d “been there all along.” It seemed so innocent-- “let’s get ice cream!” To me, that initial invite was sweet, almost romantic...how was I supposed to know that “let’s get ice cream” was some sort of universal code for “LET’S GO TO THIRD BASE IN A PARKED CAR?!” I’m from the city. It’s not like we “go get ice cream” and then go to third base on the Subway. At least... I don’t?
It became painstakingly clear after a kid who was spending a summer in The Hamptons didn’t pick up my $4.00 cup of mango sorbet that the ice cream was simply an “I’m not a total douchebag” detour that would ultimately grant him what he wanted. The sheer humiliation of this interaction, however, did not end there. While we were hooking up in the back of his Mom’s minivan (classy!) he felt the need to clarify that, uh, “this isn’t a DATE, Chloe.”
Though my friends made fun of my constant belief that these pseudo-intimate moments would result in the quintessential love story, it seemed to be a collective victory when the first boy I kissed in college--someone I really cared about--invited me over one fateful Thursday evening. I had seemingly achieved the “end goal” that night, however, it was once again blatantly obvious that one night with a close friend didn’t mean “love.” I wondered what I could’ve possibly done and why sex was the ultimatum to what had been over a year of build-up--but it was so normalized, the sudden casualty of it all. This time, it wasn’t “Ice Cream,” however a damp towel so chivalrously handed to me after I used his bathroom--an act of pure heroism to a girl who didn’t know any better--to him, probably a forgotten detail of some not very enchanted evening.
It occurred to me then that I really never knew what it meant when someone liked you or how to decipher something real from a rebound or a romp in the car. I don’t even understand Snapchat! I once sent someone a message that was almost about my underwear, but I definitely did it wrong--there was a comma in there somewhere. I mistook love for a friend with a messy bedroom, ice cream, and even earlier on, the textbook “hate crush” who knew my coffee order.
Much like my icon, Cher Horowitz (I also can’t drive!), I was completely and totally clueless. The first boy I ever loved for real would come to my house when my parents weren’t home, but we never made it to my room--we’d sit on my couch, inches apart, he’d tell me that he “really just GETS me,” (YEP!) and he never even kissed me. Of course, the relationship was built on my finally admitting to myself and everyone around me that I didn’t hate him--so with that in mind, why WOULD he kiss me? It was this all-too-familiar “almost, but not quite” feeling again--why would he come to my house and buy me a coffee if he didn’t like me? But then again, if he did like me, why didn’t he kiss me? Am I the one projecting such a constant stream of naivety that I deflect any possibility of finally understanding this apparent secret code to romance? At least this skinny Jewish stud had the decency to buy me a latte.
Why can’t “let’s get ice cream” just mean “let’s get ice cream?” Did I miss the moment where they leaked the insider how-to guide on not-so-love or was there never a code at all and I’ve just been brainwashed by a lethal combination of podcasts, rom-coms, and one borrowed sweatshirt? In a world driven by cynics and thriving on one-night-stands, I hope to find someone who “gets me” enough to know that I’m lactose intolerant.