Today I listened to a CD. I usually listen to my iPod, but on the way to work my battery, which typically lasts only three twenty-minute rides to and from work (approximately two hours total), died in the middle of Justin Bieber singing "One Time." I believe it to be a work of God, trying to smite me for my terrible taste in music. Putting that aside, on the way home after a surprisingly pleasant eight-hour shift, I shuffled through the stations on my presets--twelve of them ranging from Top 40's to hard rock to hip-hop to country. On twelve stations there were either consistent commercials or what I would consider to be crappy music. So, while poking along behind an incredibly idiotic driver trying to merge out of my lane, I peeked up at my CD wallet attached to my visor.
I don't have a lot of CDs in my car: about four mixes I've made for myself, all my Linkin Park, a couple 90s boy bands, all of my Carrie Underwood, and a miscellaneous artist who was giving out free CDs at Baltimore Pride a year ago. At the front are my mixes, but just before them are three white CDs with the words "Just Listen" written in messy print across the front in permanent marker. The CDs had gone untouched for over a year. A Christmas gift from my ex-girlfriend, they were a sort of taboo--the only thing from her that wasn't stuffed in a box in my basement.
Now, it's not like I haven't listened to the songs on these CDs since we broke up a year and a half ago; they're all on my iPod, in various playlists, played whenever I feel like it. But there's something different about putting in the CD and listening to the compilation she composed. What the hell, I figured. Either I'd bawl my eyes out in reliving the past from our first kiss to our last, or I'd enjoy the music because they were actually pretty awesome CDs. So, I pulled the top one out of the sleeve. "Just Listen 2" was sucked into my car's CD player. This was my favorite CD of the three, particularly for Josh Gracin's "Brass Bed," because his voice makes me melt, but also because of Nickelback's "Far Away."
I just heard every single one of you groan at the word Nickelback, but the song was very significant to our relationship, so just let it go.
I didn't cry a single teardrop on the way home. In fact, apart from moronic drivers, it was a great drive. But all of these lovey-dovey songs got me to thinking about my past relationships and the possibility of future ones.
People always talk about love at first sight; every Nicholas Sparks book is triggered by a love at first sight moment; Romeo and Juliet is a love at first sight story. Love at first sight is the ultimate test of true love. Wasn't love at first sight? It wasn't real love then.
This is my "Fuck You" to the love at first sight notion. Have I experienced love at first sight? No. Have I experienced attraction at first sight? Yes. I was attracted to my first boyfriend from the first look on what would become our college campus--in a classroom in Schewel. Then, again, with my first girlfriend, when she friended me on Facebook on a whim and we began talking. However, those are my shortest relationships, and also ones in which I was the least emotionally invested.
The relationships that mattered more were ones in which the attraction wasn't there at first. I first met my second boyfriend at a young age. We're talking when I was in diapers. He wasn't. He was in elementary school when I was born, probably about third or fourth grade. Before you get your panties in a twist about my pedophilia; I was eighteen, and with him I thought I experienced love. It was the closest to love I had ever felt at the time anyway. I obviously didn't have that initial attraction to him--not for a long time, in fact. It took us eighteen years for us to find that chemistry.
My last relationship was by far the most interesting turn of events. I hated my second girlfriend before we dated. At the time she was dating one of my friends, and not treating her very well. My friend now admits that the chemistry wasn't quite as right as she thought at the time. However, up until the moment we first kissed, we were fighting. Hell, even after we kissed we fought all the time. That's a story for another day--like when I write my memoir. The fact is, I hated her for how she was treating my friend, but I fell so deeply in love with her. Deep enough that I feared listening to those mixed CDs might tear me apart.
So, this love at first sight business just isn't for me, and maybe that's a good thing. How would you like to look at someone and realize, I'm in love with you, and then come to find out that person's a douchebag? Better to get to know them first and find out you really could come to love those douchebag qualities.
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