for the love of football

Super Bowl Sunday. My friend Skyler was having a party at his house. It was my first real Super Bowl party to attend. Luckily, the top floor of the house was showing the game, downstairs was showing a variety of comedy movies. I stayed there and avoided the game entirely. It was a lot of fun.
Skyler and I had known each other for nearly a year and had become good friends. Skyler should be a model. He is six foot three inches tall. Perfect skin. Black hair. Completely and utterly GORGEOUS! I had had the tiniest crush on him since I met him. It would have been a huge crush, but I knew he would never look at me twice. Ever. It was very simple to not think about it and just be his friend. The conversations were always easy and I never felt insecure around him, which I always found odd. This remains true in our friendship today, as well.
After everyone else had left his party, while I was helping him clean up, he kissed me. My world view crumbled and the constellations played yatzee and rearranged themselves. Since when are lions attracted to guinea pigs? We kissed for a long time and he asked me to stay the night.
I literally laughed. “Oh, yes! I am going to spend the night with you! As if, Skyler! You have been drinking and are not thinking. You would regret it in the morning. No, if I am ever to spend the night with you, it will be because there is a chance for something real.”
“I have been waiting. I have wanted to do something for a long time with you. I knew I had to figure it out first. You are not the bed-them-and-leave-them kind. You are the marrying kind. I have been talking to a lot of friends about you. They said that I needed to be sure before I acted on anything, that I could hurt you.” (I find out later, that these conversations actually took place—I know, shocking right?)
“And now you’re sure?”
“We’ll, I’m not asking you to marry me or anything, but I would like to see where it goes.”
Long story short? I stayed the night. No, I will not tell you every detail of what sex with a super model is like. Not that I wouldn’t, I guess, it just that we never had sex. Never even came close, though we would end up spending four nights together in all.
In addition to the four nights together, we went on two dates. They were, no question, the most ‘movie-quality romantic’ nights of my life. He took me to fancy dinners. We went to the theater, as in not the movies. When he spoke to me, it was like I was the only person that existed in the entire world. He put me at ease. I did not even think about how he was out of my league. I did not think about how clumsy and awkward I am. Get this, for some reason, when I was with him, I wasn’t those things. I was funny. I was quick and clever—smart even. I was desirable. Who wouldn’t have wanted me?
The four nights and two dates were spread out over a month amount of time (he goes on a lots of business trips). During that month, I felt like a different human. I did not feel five foot and five inches tall. I think I might even have had a tan for those thirty-odd days!
Did I fall in love with Skyler? No. I didn’t even think I did. However, I thought it might actually go somewhere. I had never felt the slightest inkling of that before. He wasn’t trying to use me for sex (since we weren’t having any), he didn’t need my money (he has more than me), he simply enjoyed being with me (never look a gifted horse in the mouth—whatever the hell that means!).
Everything changed while I was in the middle of a phone conversation with Meryl, telling her all of what I just shared with you—including about the text message he had sent me the night before: ‘Sigh. I like you.’ I know! I know! Just like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail—just better looking!
I heard the call-waiting beep and saw it was Skyler. I took half of a millisecond to disconnect with Meryl and click over to Skyler. What I thought was going to be a more thorough explanation of his charming text the night before turned into: “I am so sorry. I thought I was over this guy who lives on the East coast. I’m not. I can’t do this with you. I am sorry; I don’t want to hurt you, so I have to end it now.”
As I hung up the phone, my tan faded, I shrank back to my normal height, I tripped over my shoelaces, the guinea pig once again stared back at me through the refection of the mirror.
I was a mess for nearly two weeks. I had started to believe the fantasy. I wasn’t in love, I didn’t think we were meant to be, but I thought there was maybe a chance for that after all. Maybe the crushed dreams that unsettle you the most are those that don’t even begin to flourish, because they are the ones you never even let yourself begin to formulate—out of the shear ridiculousness of their chances of coming into existence.