Math, Geeks, and Learning to Move On

The story goes like this: I’ve been lonely and depressed for the last two years after losing my best friend and the person I loved from one comment made by me. I’ve been confused and missing this lost friend since the moment he left and I’d pretty much given up on the idea of finding anyone ever again. Why bother? I was supposed to continue my life with Blake; I could picture myself being with him forever, that kind of bond can’t be found twice.

Just don’t bother. I would tell myself on a daily basis, Get used to how things are now because it’s not going to change.

I mean there were moments, fleeting moments, where I thought I had found someone that could fill this void in my life and make me feel normal again. But most of the time that person was scared off by my intense excitement at the idea of having a best guy friend again. Scaring that person off tended to just feed into my delusion that I wasn’t good enough to have a guy friend again and I definitely wasn’t stable enough to be in a relationship.

I’d tell people I was damaged goods. Blake did too much damage to me, I wouldn’t ever be normal again.

I’m sure the depression I have didn’t help any. It tends to make me feel hopeless and pathetic even in the best of situations. When Blake first left I didn’t get out of bed for a whole day, I just couldn’t bear the idea of facing the world alone. And this isn’t true, I wasn’t alone I had my family and my friends, but there was something about my friendship with him that made me feel empty when I realized he wasn’t there. I was completely co-dependent. I needed him and he didn’t need me.

So, this feeling of being utterly alone continued for two years and I had gotten used to it. I accepted the fact that this was how things would always be. I wouldn’t have a best guy friend again.

I graduated from college wishing that Blake was there, I got accepted at grad school, and I moved up to Rochester and started classes. I avoided talking to a whole lot of guys because it seemed pointless and I made some friends. Now, while I’m a grad student I’m focusing on mathematics education and I need 30 credit hours in my content area so I was placed in Foundations of Calculus I at 8:00 AM with a bunch of freshman boys. It was the opposite of my experience in undergrad where my classes were mostly girls with a gay guy thrown in there every once in a while.

I was sitting in class and minding my own business and graphing polynomial functions when I hit an issue with my one problem. I raised my hand for help and discussed it with the teacher. When she walked away the boy sitting in front of me turned around and started talking to me. He started our friendship like this:

“I’m Nate… you’re Rebecca right? I saw your name on the sign in sheet when you passed it to me just before.”

Weird. Cute. Probably the best thing ever said to me.

I come right out and tell him I’m a grad student and that I’m four years older than him which I’m expecting will scare him away. I’m also prepared to throw in the fact that I’m fluent in another language, I’m going to be a teacher, and I’m published in a book. If the four years age difference doesn’t scare him away I have plenty of other intimidating things to tell him. He is not at all fazed by the age difference and continues to talk to me and I forget about the other scary things I want to use to scare him away because of one really weird fact: I like talking to him.

The next week in class he turns around in the middle of the lecture and tells me I should check my phone before I leave class. I have a text message from a number that isn’t one of my contacts. He informs me that it’s his number even though it’s pretty obvious he text me since he told me to check my phone. Being the sarcastic human I am I can’t control myself with the awkward things he’s doing: I tell him he’s slightly creepy for stalking my facebook and getting my phone number. He responds with: “I’m a creeper, what can I say?”

I’m really beginning to like this.

We do math homework together and end up hysterically laughing the entire time. I invite him to watch Big Bang Theory with me and we have a pillow fight. He invites me to go into downtown Rochester with him and we stand outside in the cold forever waiting for the bus and right before I’m about to give up the bus shows up and we end up getting dropped off at the Marketplace (which is a mall about a mile from the school) after coming back from downtown and not getting off the bus and we have to walk all the way back to campus in the 40 degree weather. We get back and he shares a blanket with me and we watch Hocus Pocus.

He makes me laugh when I want to cry. He makes me smile when I’m really grumpy. He’s quickly becoming the person I get excited about seeing. I have a guy friend, holy crap how did that happen?

He called me when I was crying yesterday just to tell me a joke. It started with “Three nuns died in a car accident and are at the gates waiting to get into heaven…” and ended with “Maybe I should have picked another joke, hold on.” He tells me things he’s thinking and laughs at all my jokes. He looks at me and I ask him what he’s looking at and he always responds with “nothing”.

Today during class the two of us were the worst students a teacher could ask for. First, neither of us could stop laughing at the student who walked into class late with a bottle of Dayquil in his hands and then we started to pass notes back and forth to each other. This is what the note said:

Me: Obviously only really cool people bring Dayquil to class with them.

Nate: Well yeah I keep mine in my bag all the time

Me: Well, I’m not so open and accepting of my addiction to cold meds so I keep it hidden in my medicine cabinet. Also, I’m old enough to swallow pills so I wouldn’t have the liquid form.

Nate: Yes, but with the liquid form you get the 2% of alcohol too!

Me: For someone who doesn’t drink alcohol you sure make a lot of booze jokes.

Nate: What does that tell you about my parents?

Me: That they’d get along with my parents and the rest of my really Irish family.

I haven’t felt this feeling in a long time. This sense of belonging with someone else, like I can tell them things and they can tell me things and together we can bond. Even when I had my moments with other people, I don’t think I felt as comfortable as I do now. I don’t worry about what I’m saying or how I’m saying it because Nate likes me the way I am. I’m at a level of comfort with myself and with him that I haven’t felt in years.

What does this mean for me? I’m not really sure yet. I’m taking things one day at a time. I have my moments where I regress and become the sobbing mess I was before I met Nate. Nate keeps the depression at bay but he doesn’t make it disappear and there are moments where I become insecure and I want to run away. Luckily he’s consistent and stable and he makes running away difficult to do. There’s still so much I need to tell Nate but I don’t want to overload him with information because a majority of my past isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I need to ease him into it but make him realize that with him around I can deal with all of it.

I’ve noticed this amazing ability to think about all of the sad things in my life from this new perspective when he’s around. Recognizing and respecting the sadness but also the importance of not wallowing in it. I feel almost weightless.

I hate saying that he’s made these significant improvements in my life because that means I couldn’t make myself happy and I’m depending on someone else to make me happy. I know what happens when I depend on other people, and that’s the scary part about making a guy friend again. But this feels different; I’m not compromising myself to make him happy like I did with Blake. I’m not lowering my expectations or feeling as if I’m not good enough. I feel like me.

Next quarter I won’t have a class with him which brings out all of my insecurities about growing apart but part of me knows that we won’t because the two of us are close and we won’t stop hanging out just because we don’t have a class together.

What about romance? Like I said, I’m taking things one day at a time. I’m happy. He makes me happy and I make him happy. Right now I’m okay with that and if in the future something else happens I wouldn’t be opposed to it.

I never would have expected for this blonde haired freshman band geek from my Calc class to change my world completely around, but I’m really glad he did.