kirkwise<p><strong>“They’re Wrong About Us”</strong></p><p>Even before we started running around together, Shelly and I were two of the most visible people in our high school. Heck, it seemed like everybody in town knew us: we couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. At the time it was a town of about twenty-five thousand people, and we had both been born there. Our dads were highschool teachers, so even when we were young, people knew our families. Both of us were deep into the performing arts and were used to being photographed by the local newspaper for publicity purposes several times a year, starting in junior high school. The fact that nobody would have imagined us as a couple prior to our now very public getting-together made us the subject of much gossip and speculation. As Tom pointed out, everyone figured we would last about three weeks. If “everyone” thinks a thing, there might be a basis for it.</p><p>Shelly took it as a challenge. </p><p>From the vantage of decades of hindsight, I think three to six weeks would have been appropriate. She would have graduated and headed to Europe for the summer, then to UCLA in the fall. I was preparing to attend the piano master class music camp that summer, with another year of high school after that. The fling would have served as a sweet coming-of-age memory for both of us. You are guessing correctly that it went a different way.</p><p>Neither of us minded the public attention our liaison received. We revelled in it. We were both accustomed to the rumor mill, she for being a “slut,” I for being “queer.” The cognitive dissonance that had people marveling over our odd pairing was hilarious to us, not least for the irony of it. From the outside, everyone assumed that Shelly, being a year-and-a-half older and “very experienced” was “robbing the cradle” and corrupting a previously innocent nerd who was painfully awkward with girls. Many were surprised because it was widely assumed I was “gay” — not entirely without reason, of course, since I am bi. She was well-known for her brash and assertive manner, and I was generally quiet, my goofy antics not withstanding. It certainly seemed I would be overmatched and swept away by her passionate intensity.</p><p>But as soon as we got to talking it became clear that the reality was quite different than what people thought. About the only part they got right was that I was indeed swept along by her intensity. I would push back, but in any clash of wills or perspectives, she usually won out. But while she had been the one to “make the first move” on me, she quickly hit the limit of how far she could go with it. In an earlier post I described how she was actually “terrified of men,” and she had kind of painted herself into a corner socially. She could never have lived up to her reputation. If she had gotten with an experienced man it would have become immediately apparent that she was sexually walled off. She would have been traumatized by the humiliation of it. She felt safe and comfortable with me, and I never pushed her past her boundaries. I am a sensitive guy with “great hands” and even greater patience. And I had done my homework. Her understanding of sexual matters was what she had learned in health class, wrapped in a thick layer of cultural myth and dirty jokes — cartoonish at best. On the other hand I had studied every bit of written material I could get my hands on, from legitimate to sketchy. I had read “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” “The Joy of Sex,” “The Sensuous Woman,” the “Kama Sutra,” and lots of “Penthouse Forum.” From Langenscheidt’s Medical Encyclopedia I had memorized all the diagrams of female anatomy, internal and external — to the point that I could have sketched them out and labeled them correctly from memory. I had even read Freud. She didn’t even really know what she had “down there,” and had never explored it beyond a quick scrub in the shower. Her very large breasts were an annoyance and an encumbrance to her, and not in any way a source of pleasure. As I described in a previous post, I could feel anxiety gather in any part of her body I touched, so I proceded with care. Because of the disparity, the power dynamic was reversed when we became physical: I was the one in control as I spent the next few weeks gradually initiating her into the experiences of intimacy, first clothed, then gradually, not.</p><p>This bifurcation between the public and private aspects of our relationship set a tone that persisted the whole time we remained together — a sense that “the world” just didn’t understand us. “They’re wrong about us.” It became a kind of trap. We both cared very much about how we were perceived, both as individuals and as a pair, but we each harbored dark secrets that wouldn’t see the light of day for years to come. In a sense there was a transactional nature to the relationship: we were both ashamed of our inadequacies and “weirdness,” and we hoped each would help the other overcome them. We came to be defiant in our defense of our partnership, and the more people looked askance at the way we began to cling to one another, the more we dug in.</p><p>Many years later my dad and I had a conversation about the whole relationship. He was comparing it to his with my mom. He said, “Sometimes when two people find they have complementary neuroses it can lead to a strong bond, deeper than codependence. Very unhealthy, because the mutual adaptation keeps both people stuck in their neuroses.” I had majored in chemistry at UCSB before dropping out, so I made an analogy. “Hemoglobin has an active site where oxygen temporarily attaches to an iron ion to be transported through the bloodstream from the lungs to the cells, where it is released for metabolism. Cyanide kills by attaching to the hemoglobin and never letting go.”</p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://kirkwise.com/tag/high-school/" target="_blank">#highSchool</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://kirkwise.com/tag/memories/" target="_blank">#memories</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://kirkwise.com/tag/relationships/" target="_blank">#relationships</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://kirkwise.com/tag/self-esteem/" target="_blank">#selfEsteem</a></p>