Male, 30-years-old, recently married, spiritual but not religious, fourth generation Japanese American, Los Angeles born and raised, no children currently but wants children. I am as close to being a woman a straight/non-metrosexual man could be. I am most comfortable around women but my best friends are men. So I see myself in the middle of the gender war. I had a very tumultuous and always interesting love life before I found happiness with my wife. My ultimate goal: a writer/filmmaker/house husband who takes care of the kids and coaches Little League.

An Interview with my: Third Girlfriend

My Third Girlfriend: Adriana.

Name: Adriana.

Her age when we dated: 19.

Race: Half-Italian/Half-Mexican.

Current Occupation: Retail Manager.

Length of Relationship: 3 months.

Who broke it off?: I did.

How did the relationship end?: Not well.

Still friends?: Not enemies.

Would I get back together? No

Michelle’s abrupt exit from my life was the beginning of my depression, and my desperate need to be with someone. I spent the summer after my freshman year being sad and drinking myself stupid.

I held onto fantasies that when school restarted, Michelle and I would get back together. In those daydreams, I wouldn’t take her for granted. Or maybe it was just her presence that I would appreciate.

Being with Michelle was better than being alone. With no dream girl in sight, I chastised myself for not having treated her better. I made the mistake of pushing her away without a backup woman or at least someone to humor me until I found one.

School started and Michelle wanted nothing to do with me. An end of one fantasy. Needing someone to help take the edge off the sadness and loneliness, I reached out and embraced Adriana...

Adriana sits across from me now. Neither one of us is prepared to fire the first shot. I’m watching her watch me. She’s doing the same. Our conversations were the best part of our relationship, but we both know this isn’t going to go well.

I begin: “Adriana.”

She looks at me questioningly.

“I blame you for everything,”

“You did it to yourself.”

“I hate you,” I tell her.

“I’m gonna leave.”

The first time I met Adriana she raped me. She snuck in my room during a party at my apartment while I was passed out on my bed. I had drunk too much too fast, and was trying to sleep it off. She slipped into bed with me, and I remember waking up with her giving me a blowjob.

In my mind, it was Michelle. It wasn’t that I wanted it to be her or that Michelle and Adriana looked anything alike. Adriana was Michelle. For that one night I was happy. It was Michelle and I against the world.

The next morning, I read a note Adriana left for me next to my bed. She apologized for what happened and wrote that she hoped that we could remain friends.

I grab Adriana’s arm as she stands. She stops. “Don’t go,” I tell her.

“You’re too angry.”

“I am,” I admit.

“What do you want?”

I want to know why she raped me. How she thought it was okay to do what she did. I was so intoxicated I called her Michelle. This should have been a sign that I couldn’t think straight.

If I was a woman and Adriana was a man, this is a criminal matter. Anyone I would have told this story to would have felt outraged and recommended that I seek both help and justice. Instead, men say I’m overreacting. Think of it as an amazingly unique sexual conquest. It’s something out of the ordinary yes, sinister no. Women laugh, and ask how I could have gotten an erection.

Adriana affected me. Because now when I’m intimate with a woman, I have to make sure I’m sleeping with who I think I’m sleeping with. Adriana taught me that sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I can’t trust my own senses. And because of her I’ve learned to associate the act with desperateness. It’s become something to endure because the opposite means I am alone.

I can’t blame Adriana completely. I saw what I wanted to see. Yes, she took advantage of me, but I used her too. For all those nights we were together, I pretended she was someone else; someone who I thought made me happy: Michelle.

Adriana sits.

“I want to know why you raped me.”

“Rape?” She asks.

“The first time we hooked up, you came into my room and took advantage of me, remember?”

She nods.

“I was so drunk I didn’t know who you were. That’s rape.”

The reason I got so drunk that a woman could rape me was because I was sad. And the only reason I was sad was because I felt alone. So alone that when given the choice I would rather be with my rapist.

Adriana was my best option. She had shown “interest” in me. And since I wasn’t sure when the next time that would happen, I held tightly onto her.

So Adriana became my life. I spent most of my time with her and I wrapped my fears in the belief I couldn’t love her.

I never did.

Instead, I fell in love with the lies. The ones I could spin until they started to look good. Adriana was that type of good. My life was that type of lie.

Somewhere between Michelle and Adriana I lost myself.

After Michelle, I made up a new life. I had always been good at telling stories that were part fictional and part truth. But the tone suddenly changed. I started lying about everything. Made up friends. Recreated my past. Justified my behavior by citing fake beliefs. Mentioned fake events that shaped my fake outlook on life. My tales became so complicated and intertwined with reality soon they became real to me.

“If I raped you,” Adriana says. “Why’d it go on for so long?”

I remain quiet.

“The next party it happened again and the next and the next and the next. At what point did it stop being rape and start being mutual?”

“After the first time,” I say reluctantly.

“So what’s the problem?”

“That doesn’t take away from what you did.”

“Everything I did, you allowed me to do.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“You want to be a victim,” she says. “It’s time for you to take some responsibility.”

“Not till you admit what you did was wrong.”

Adriana thinks about it. “What about what you did to me?”

I never cared about Adriana. She was my rebound relationship. She was the crutch I was using to get over Michelle. I knew that I could control my feelings for her until I found someone better, my dream girl. But by then, I was losing hope that she was real.

“What do you want me to say?” I ask.

“That you’re sorry about using me.”

“But I’m not.”

Adriana squints her eyes.

I wish I were sorry. But she saw what she wanted to see in me. She saw the potential I had to be all that she wanted me to be. And I saw what I wanted to see in her: a warm body.

“You could be an asshole,” she says.

“I can be.”

“There were good times, right?”

I nod.

I remember laughing with her and enjoying the time we spent together. We were friends, and we shared a lot in common. But the best part was the space she afforded me. She provided the safety I needed to get over Michelle.

I could never love Adriana. I was never attracted to her. Never thought she was smart enough or special enough to be someone I’d want to spend my life with. That’s why I never held her hand in public. Too much of a commitment. What if I ran into my dream girl and was holding Adriana’s hand? I couldn’t risk it.

“What good times do you remember?” I ask.

She thinks. “I liked thinking about who you could have been.”

“What do you mean?”

“I fell in love with the real you, or the person inside you. I enjoyed my time with him.”

I never show that part of me to anyone. I presented her with the person I knew she wanted to see. It’s a mistake everyone makes. That’s why every time a person commits an atrocity and the local news interviews the neighbors, they inevitably say, “He was a nice guy. I can’t believe he did that.” He was never nice; he just didn’t go around doing bad things in public. He was smart about it.

I was an asshole with Adriana. But I gave her enough of a glimpse to see my good side, gave her hope that someday in the future I would change for the better.

People expect others to change for them. I liked Adriana for who she was. It was easier not to get attached if I didn’t think there could be anymore to her.

There wasn’t.

“Do you see that real me now?” I ask.

She looks at me and then away. “More than before.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Because you were sad and couldn’t get over Michelle.”

I smile, she’s right. “I’m over her now.”

“Now her name’s Lily.”

I ignore that comment. There will be plenty of time to talk about her.

“What did you like about me?”

Adriana was my college pseudo-mother. She cooked for me, cleaned the apartment while I was away at school, and even washed my clothes. In return, I had sex with her, the lights off of course.

Call me Oedipus.

Adriana laughs. “You were like my little boy.”

This mother-son theme is frightening.

“Would you date me now?” I ask.

She nods and then asks, “Would you be willing to date me again?”

“Are you still a woman?”

She chuckles. “Yeah.”

“No way,” I tell her. “Not if you were the last woman on earth. I would rather die a slow painful death.”

Adriana shakes her head.

“Don’t take it like that.”

“How should I take it?”

Take it like I made a horrible mistake once and have learned my lesson. I sincerely believed that I could hold Adriana until I found someone better. And as soon as I found someone better, leave Adriana. No consequences. No consideration for anyone else’s feelings. I figured Adriana would be happy that I was happy.

“Look Adriana,” I begin. “I’m not sorry about what I did or didn’t do to you, but I am disgusted by how I treated you.”

“I’ll take that.”

“Are you sorry for ruining my life?” I ask.

“No,” she says with a smile.

Every hero has a villain, Adriana’s mine. She has caused so much heartache and problems I assume she was put on earth to spite me. Even though we still talk, I can never trust her. There will always be the feeling that she’s waiting to finish me off.

“I did what I thought was right,” she justifies herself.

I shake my head, amazed.

“Don’t you want to ask how you were sexually?”

“That was going to be my next question.”

“You were a four.”

“I’m improving.”

“And advice for future girlfriends?”

I nod.

“If you’re lucky, you’ll get the good one, hold him. If you’re not, hurt him before he hurts you.”

This is the theme of Adriana's story.

An Interview with My Second Girlfriend

Name: Michelle.

Her age when we dated: 18.

Race: Half-Japanese/Half-Caucasian.

Current Occupation: Unknown.

Length of Relationship: 9 months.

Who broke it off?: She did.

How did the relationship end?: Not very well.

Still friends?: No contact.

Would I get back together? No.

-------------------------------------------------------

Reagan (my first girlfriend) made me realize that I needed what a girlfriend could bring: love. In my childhood innocence, I thought each progressive relationship would get better. Culminated by a marriage.

My second girlfriend, Michelle, refuses to meet. She refuses to communicate after what she says I put her through. However, she did agree to speak on the phone.

“Long time no talk,” I say cheerfully.

Michelle doesn’t respond.

“How are you?” I ask.

“What do you want?”

We met on the Internet before it was cliché to do so. Here’s some free advice: Don’t date people you meet online. E-mails and pictures are never good ways to get to know someone. E-mails tend to skew a personality. Insane can look quirky. Stalkerish can look caring. Psycho can look personable. Everyone (whether intentional or not) tries to make themselves sound better than they really are. And pictures are never good representations of their beauty. No one ever sends bad pictures.

I didn’t know any of this back then so we decided to meet on the first day of college (it just so happened we were going to the same school). We were perfectly mismatched. Freshman boyfriend and girlfriend, we spent every moment of our freshman year together.

“What do you remember about us?” I ask.

“I remember the good times.”

After a relationship is over, I focus on the bad. The good was obviously fleeting.

“Name a single good time,” I demand.

“When you were nice to me.”

“I was nice to you?”

“In the beginning.”

I try to remember a time I was nice to her and can’t.

“You would listen to me. Think of me before you thought of yourself. You even held my hand.”

“Wow! I was a good guy,” I admit.

“I want to know if that was an act.”

“Being nice to you?”

“Yeah.”

No one is ever who they say they are. Everyone’s acting. And when they say they aren’t, it’s a different kind of act.

During the courting process, both parties are on their best behavior. Nice, sweet, caring, thoughtful, open, that’s part of the game. If you can’t convince someone that you posses most, if not all, of these qualities, you’re going to be single for a very long time.

“It wasn’t an act,” I reassure her.

“Funny, you don’t make me feel that way now.”

“How was I the rest of the time?”

I was an asshole. I disagreed with her, just to disagree. I made her angry, just to make her angry. There was no reason for what I did.

“You were an asshole,” she confirms.

“Did you ever love me?”

“I won’t answer that until you answer it yourself.”

“Probably not.”

I liked her. A lot. We were close. Maybe best friends. We liked the same things. But is that love? I would rather have her around than not. So I did to her what I’ve done to everyone else I’ve ever loved: brought her close and then pushed her away. Kept repeating this until she got tired of pretending there would ever be anything more.

There’s not much of a difference between friends and lovers. Michelle and I fucked. Not often, but just enough for there not to be any confusion as to what we were. We were friends. I enjoyed spending time with her. More than anyone else at school. And since we were both single and shared a common space more often than not, it made sense for us to think of ourselves as a couple.

We never talked about children or marriage. My fantasy of a happy life didn’t include her. I believed my dream girl was out there, and Michelle was a good person to be with while I waited.

“Fuck you,” she tells me.

“What do you want to hear?”

“You were my first, so I would expect more sensitivity.”

I was the first for many of my ex-girlfriends. It’s not a sign of a sick pathology. I don’t seek them out. Contrary to what my friends have suggested, I can’t smell them. It just happens that they are. I’d be surprised if they’re any more going forward considering I’m getting older. There are very few thirtyish virgin females left.

Everyone is so infatuated with the idea that the first of anything is special. I used to tell women they were the first. What that first was always changed, depending on who I was talking to. But it didn’t make any difference; it made each of them feel special. It instantly bonded them to me. It was never an outright lie, more of an exaggeration. Besides, they believed what they wanted to believe. I merely provided that. It’s getting harder to tell anyone that they’re a first of anything anymore without being completely dishonest.

“Do you wish you never met me?” I ask.

“Of course not.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Can I think about that?”

I don’t blame her for hating me. I never treated her as she deserved. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know how. I was a freshman in college and much less mature than that.

We should have never gotten past the one-month getting to know each other stage. It’s easy in hindsight to write that. The lack of a spark, the lack of feelings on my part, both should have been signs that it wasn’t going to last.

“I don’t hate you,” I tell her.

“Why would you hate me?”

“You broke up with me,” I say.

“You were going to do it eventually.”

“But I didn’t.”

Michelle broke up with me. I remember locking myself in my room crying that first night. It wasn’t her leaving that made me sad. It was just the leaving.

I tried to talk to my mom about it once. She said she never liked Michelle anyway, not pretty or good enough for her son. And it was my mom who let me in on the secret that I never really liked her until she left.

Abandonment is a big deal. My mantra is: “Everyone I love leaves me or dies.” Michelle was the first girlfriend to confirm that.

The thought of being alone scared me and suddenly I wanted her back. I convinced myself that I loved her or that I could love her.

Anything was better than being alone.

So Michelle was the beginning. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I was so sad. But that sadness was really just aloneness. And it was that aloneness that scared me.

The fear was not having someone/anyone around to take my mind off of it. I soon replaced Michelle with alcohol, and found they both caused me to ignore the signs. I never drank in high school. Nor did I experiment with other drugs. It’s not that they weren’t available, everything was. I just knew I had an addictive personality, so trying anything meant that there was a chance I might fall in love.

Alcohol was my first love after Michelle. Each drink bolstered my self-confidence until I became a person I could I love. And I loved that part of me. Or I could pretend. Close enough.

“I don’t hate you,” Michelle assures me.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“I won’t forget about you. I find myself wondering what you’re up to,” she says.

“Me too.”

“What’s your best memory?”

I remember when we made out on her mother’s couch after coming home from a late night in San Francisco. We must have made a lot of noise, because I remember looking up from Michelle’s eyes only to be staring into her mother’s. Too bad her mother wasn’t one of those young-pretty-looking-sophisticated-hippie-types. She might have wanted to join in. That’s a story I would have loved to tell you now.

“I remember when my mom caught us making out,” she says.

“Breakfast the next morning was weird.”

She laughs, which makes me smile. I remember now why we dated.

“How was I in bed?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

“My first girlfriend said I was a two out of ten,” I say to reassure her.

“That sounds about right.”

There was no passion. It was an act. More of a thing to do. I don’t write this out of spite, although I am spiteful. The truth can sound that way. I write it because I hate to think that I was in a nine-month relationship because I was afraid of being alone. I didn’t have the clarity to see this until many years of therapy later. I convinced myself it was love. This frightens me because it means every future relationship I have, I will have to ask myself whether I really like her or whether I’m with her because I’m afraid of being alone.

“I’ve gotten better sexually,” I tell her.

“Congratulations.”

“We should date again,” I say as matter-of-factly as I can muster.

She laughs.

“What? Am I ugly?” I ask.

“You put me through a lot. I wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

There should be three strikes to every relationship. Three opportunities to fail. God knows I’m not perfect, most men aren’t.

“You broke up with me,” I say. “Via email,” I add.

“Only because you told me to.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You said that if I was going to break up with you I should write an email.”

“You’re lying.”

“You know it’s true.”

She wants me back. I can see through her. It’s so high school. I would never take her back. I’ll never be that desperate. But check back in another six months. If I’m still alone, I might reconsider.

“You called all the time,” Michelle says.

“Because I wanted an explanation as to why you broke up with me.”

Michelle was the first in a long line of girlfriends to break up with me.

“You called all the time,” Michelle repeats.

“I wanted to speak to you.”

“Wasn’t it clear that I didn’t?”

I don’t answer her.

“And then you sent me emails.”

“Because you never called me back.”

“And you spoke to my friends and had yours call mine.”

“Yet we never spoke again.”

“What did you want?”

“I wanted to know why we broke up.”

The end of a relationship should be treated like the end of a war. First there’s a cease-fire, and then a formal peace treaty. Both sides should be aware of all of the terms and be given the opportunity to walk away with dignity.

Michelle left. And I couldn’t understand why she was gone. The more she pushed herself away, the more desperate I got.

Was it me?

For the first time, I thought maybe I wasn’t as smart, handsome, or funny, as I has previously assumed. Maybe I was worthless. Unlovable. And I had thrown it away because I had taken Michelle for granted.

“Do you still need an explanation?” Michelle asks.

“If you could.”

“You’re a good guy,” she says. “But you’re a self-centered asshole who can’t let anyone else in your world because you’re so full of yourself.”

“That’s what I was looking for.”

“But I want you to know that I still care deeply about you.”

That’s the consolation prize when a person no longer loves you. They say that they care about you. As though having someone care about me is almost as good. Just once I want an ex to say: “I hate you and I never want to see you again.” I can respect that kind of honesty.

“I still care about you too,” I lie.

There is an uncomfortable moment of silence.

“Any advice for future girlfriends?” I ask.

“Run,” she says without hesitation.

I don’t blame her; I tell them all to do the same.

An interview with my first girlfriend.

Name: Reagan.

Her age when we dated: 19.

Race: Filipino.

Current Occupation: Advertising Account Manager.

Length of Relationship: 6 months.

Who broke it off?: I did.

How did the relationship end?: Better than most.

Still friends?: Yes.

Would I get back together?: Probably not.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reagan was my first girlfriend. Or at least the first person outside of my fantasy. She sits across from me now studying me. She smiles and I remember why we dated.

“Your smile makes me smile,” I say.

She laughs.

“You were my first girlfriend.”

“I was,” she confirms.

“How was it?”

“What?” She asks.

“Everything.”

“You were young.”

I was sixteen and she was a couple of years older. She was the first girl I’ve ever held hands with, kissed, made love to, and broke up with. That’s rare.

Reagan continues, “You had an innocence about you. I liked that.”

I nod.

“But you could be a self-absorbed asshole.”

“Could?” I ask.

She remains quiet.

“Was I lovable?”

She shrugs, “I guess.”

She guesses? I’m lovable or I’m not. No gray there. It’s just a matter of Reagan not wanting to hurt my feelings. I hate when ex’s do that. What’s the point? We broke up; things couldn’t have been all that good.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“There was something about you.” She stops to collect her thoughts. “You didn’t love me. You could never love me. It wasn’t in you.”

Only because I didn’t know what it meant to love. I loved history but hated math. I loved basketball. I loved Japanese food. Love at times seemed rather arbitrary. I was sixteen-years-old, in my first relationship with a real person who liked me back. It was a difficult thing to get used to. It still is.

As kids we’re given this make-believe idea of love. The sequence of events are supposed to go something like this: Two individuals (always a man and a woman) fall in love, they go through some terrible adversity that threatens to split them up, but somehow they work out their differences and end up staying together, and then the story ends with happily-ever-after.

Happily-ever-after really means pain, pain, and more pain. She’ll dump you, leave you, hurt you, or die on you. That’s what I’ve found love to be. Yet, I still chase it. I still bother to describe it. I’m a stubborn fool who hopes to win the lottery of love someday.

“Did you ever love me?” Reagan asks.

I don’t respond.

“Say something.”

“What do you want to hear?”

She looks at me painfully.

“I can tell you the truth or what you want to hear.”

“Humor me,” she says.

“I loved you.”

What does it really mean to tell someone you loved them? The fact that I was there and not running the other way probably meant I liked them enough to stay. Maybe even liked them in that junior high school crush sort of way.

So maybe instead of “I love you,” I should say I crushed you.

“I don’t believe you,” Reagan tells me.

“Did YOU love me?” I ask.

“You have to love yourself first.”

Do you have to love yourself before you can love another person? Not at all. Love is nothing more than the hope that the future will be brighter than the past. And when you have those funny feeling down there, you’re able to overlook their flaws. You see what you want to see, and that’s the person you fall in love with.

You can’t do that to yourself. You can’t look in the mirror and try to convince yourself you’re anything more than what you are. You know your flaws.

So falling in love with a stranger is easy, but falling in love with someone you intimately know, yourself, is impossible. Love then serves as a personal wet dream: that the love you feel for them will somehow translate into happiness (inner and outer) sometime in the future for yourself.

“Did I ever tell you that I loved you?” I ask.

She has to think about it.

“It’s not a difficult question.”

“It’s been more than a decade.”

I nervously chuckle. “You don’t think of us still?”

She shakes her head, no.

Back when we were dating, I believed love was sacred. I never told girls I loved them when I didn’t, and conversely I never told them when I did. It was reserved for my true love. No, I wasn’t using drugs back then. I really believed this.

There were these reoccurring dreams of a woman I called (rather unoriginally) my dream girl. Many of my poems were written for her, and I assumed that it was only a matter of time before I met her.

She was perfect in every way. I felt the clichéd half a soul syndrome. She was my other half and I needed her to be a complete human being. I didn’t know how, but everything would work out when I met her. And I would live in that painfully blissful happily-ever-after. So although I was dating Reagan, I couldn’t love her because I had a crush on a woman I was dreaming about.

“I don’t think of you either,” I lie.

“Liar.”

I shrug. “You were my first.”

“How cute, you’re attached.”

“You’re not?” I ask.

“You’re a good friend.”

“I don’t mean anything more to you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Please lie to me.”

She reaches out and touches my hand. “I might as well say what I’m thinking, right?”

I’m fishing for an answer. I want her to say that she loves me and will always love me. Even something as cheesy as, “There will always be an eternal flame burning inside my heart for you,” would be a nice thing to hear now and then.

These high school relationships are a joke. Hormones, plus immaturity, plus general stupidity makes anyone involved in them unqualified to be in one.

I propose sex education be sex education. Prostitutes for everyone. It would be so romantic. Sex with a professional who could teach you how to please and be pleased. No embarrassing pregnancies or for men “early mistakes.”

“How was I?” I ask.

“Sexually? Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“The truth or what you want to hear?”

I lean close to her. “Truth.”

“You weren’t that good.”

I wasn’t. I’m man enough to admit that. Sex was a mystery to me. I mean I knew what it was and I had taken a class at school, but my only experience with it was what I watched in the porno movies my friends brought to my house. That’s the equivalent of trying to fish and only having watched Jaws.

I was bound to fail.

“On a scale of one to ten,” I say. “What would you give me?”

“There’s more to life than sex.”

“That low?”

“A two.”

Everyone remembers their first time. Mine was in her room on the night before my sixteenth birthday after having just watched the Brady Bunch movie. It happened so quickly and ended so quickly I didn’t know what to think. It had been built up so much the let down came fast. Literally.

When I left Reagan’s place, I was in tears. I remember sitting in my car wanting to throw up. I cried because I felt as though I had cheated on my dream girl. I thought I had impregnated Reagan and didn’t want to have children with her. The funny thing is we had used a condom and the chances of her getting pregnant were slim.

Overtime I got better and more relaxed. That’s not saying much. All I knew was that it felt good and that I seemed to enjoy it despite my concerns.

“Would you say that I could get better?” I ask.

“What are you asking?”

“Can we do it again?” I say half-jokingly.

She frowns. “What would be the point?”

“I’ll show you how good I am now.”

She laughs dismissively.

“I’m joking,” I lie.

“You weren’t.”

Everyone I’ve kissed I’ve had sex with. Everyone I’ve had sex with I’ve convinced myself at one point or another that I’ve also been in love with. Then I’ve loved six women. Is that a lot? I know a lot of people who have had more experience than me, but have they loved as many as I have?

That’s why I can’t have one, two, or three nightstands. I get attached. As soon as it’s over I feel love. It doesn’t matter that if moments before I loathed her. All that matters is that I love her now.

“What advice do you have for me?” I ask.

“Figure out what you want and go for her.