Baby, I’m Made of Bad Decisions
I make bad decisions quite often. Sometimes it’s in a seemingly harmless way, like eating that extra piece of chocolate or buying a pair of shoes I didn’t need. With age, I’ve gotten better at spreading out my bad decisions between months, sometimes years. Looking back at my past relationships, I’ve begun to see patterns in my behavior, expectations, and shortcomings.
My first girlfriend didn’t like me very much. This might be because she wasn’t actually gay or because she just didn’t care for me, I guess I’ll never know. For these reasons, I thought being in a relationship with a girl was mainly a lot of hand holding and being cheated on by your significant other. What’s worse is that I went out with this girl not once, but three times. 16-17 was obviously not an age marked by intelligence for me.
Approximately one week shy of being a senior in high school, my best friend and I threw a hotel party at the Ilikai in Waikiki to celebrate. We pooled together our money, bought tons of cheap liquor, and filled the bathtub with bags of ice from 7-11. We invited a bunch of friends, who invited other friends, and I somehow caved and invited my ex-girlfriend.
By this time, we had already broken up twice (because she had cheated on me) and she said she might come by if she could bring a friend. My friend insisted on telling her the wrong hotel room, but I told her that the invitation didn’t seem to be met with much enthusiasm and not to worry about it.
Around midnight, I got a text from Jamie saying she was in the lobby of the hotel. I responded with our room number and waited for the obligatory knock at the door. She made small talk with my other friends and I watched her from across the tiny room, as if it was a surprise that she showed up.
After flirting with the majority of the guys there, she finally made her way over. “Hey you.”
“Hey.” I was pretty drunk.
“Can we go somewhere quiet to talk?” she asked. She grabbed the nearly full bottle of tequila and tucked it under her arm. “Come on, let’s go.” She took me by the hand and took the elevator together downstairs in near silence. She swirled the tequila around, watching the li hing muis bob and race along the inside walls of the bottle. The pool area was already closed, but there were a few tables right outside the gated area.
She plopped herself down and took another swig, then reached for my hand. We made small talk while she hogged the bottle of tequila. “I still have feelings for you,” she admitted. Her hands felt clammy and nothing about this felt romantic or sincere. “I want to go out with you, but there are a few things I need.”
“Like what?” I asked. My head was pounding from the cheap Vodka and my heart was racing with anticipation.
“I still like you. I mean, I love you, but I need to be able to be with guys still.”
It felt like my brain separated itself from its stem and was spinning wildly inside my skull. I leaned back in the pool chair to steady myself, but my hand slipped through the plastic slats of the seat. “What does that even mean?”
“I want to be with you, but I need…to be able to be with a guy sometimes,” she explained it so nonchalantly that it made me feel like I was the crazy one.
After talking for about an hour, I agreed. We sealed it with a sloppy Tequila kiss.
Unsurprisingly, we broke up about two months later. I remember crying for days, as if I were surprised that she left me for a guy. She was the first bad decision I ever made and she certainly wasn’t the last. My first relationship set the bar pretty low for my future relationships. The sins of my ex-girlfriends’ weighed me down and I, in turn, made equally selfish decisions to those who didn’t deserve it.
At 27, nearly 28, I am beginning to feel too old to be making such self-destructive decisions. Although, I admit, my natural attraction still pulls me towards girls like the Hot Mess, addictive and impossible to keep up with.
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