Love, or something like it

I should have known when she walked into my aikido class that she would be the one to break my heart.

Let me tell you about the woman who ruined my life and my summer. I was filling in as instructor one week in May, while Sensei Jeff was away auditioning for Deadliest Catch. Jeff didn’t get on the show; the producers saw that he was awesome, but they said they were hoping for someone with six weeks fish experience. It’s all politics. Anyway, I was in charge of the dojo and everyone knew it.

I was giving the class a lecture about ki, the life force, and how to smash it out of someone’s face, when I saw her.  She was stunning… breath-taking… heart-stopping this old man who had no business taking the class to begin with.  As we waited for the ambulance to arrive, I was digging out the old man’s liability waiver, and I realized she was probably in love with me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she said back.

Yep. Love. I asked her out immediately. Seven no’s and an exasperated sigh later, she could finally admit her feelings to herself. A lunch date. We were a power couple.

Orem, je t’aime. Some toe-tapping types might call Paris the true city of love, but not me.  I’m all man, and a man can’t ask for a better city to love in than Orem.  Keep your outdoor café’s, your nose-blown cigarette smoke, and your striped-shirt accordionists, Paris.  I’ll take my love in sexless boxy architecture, surrounded by stout patriarchal social norms, thank you very much. Orem became our lovers’ blanket.

Three weeks in, and she says the words I’ve been dreaming of. “You know, you’re a little less obnoxious to date than I thought you would be.” I could see the stars in her eyes.  She was hooked, and I started planning.

I have a secret lovers’ weapon that I rarely bust out, but this girl was special. She could do, like, twenty squat thrusts and only get a little sweaty.  Her future wifedom was at stake, and it was time to get serious. For her sake, I planned a murder mystery group date dinner. Me (was) Tarzan, She Jane. It turned out that Dorian Gray did it, with the corner of his picture frame, but Sensei Jeff was playing the part, and he always takes things too far.

Afterwards, as she and I swept the broken pieces of the picture frame away, she turned to look me in the eye.  “I don’t know if it’s the sight of you in a loincloth, or all that potato vodka you wouldn’t touch, but I feel like making a serious mistake with you tonight.”  She took me by the hand, and led me to the lovesac.

“Casual sex” is a real misnomer.  There’s nothing casual about part four of your seven part plan for marital bliss.  And part four is key:  Entrapment. I don’t think it can be considered “out of wedlock” if it’s essential to your prospects for entering wedlock.  It’s all under the wedlock umbrella. That’s what I plan to tell Reverend Young, anyway.

It was late July. I should have sensed the danger. Sensei Jeff had just been disqualified from UFC, and the Public Option loomed large over the nation’s healthcare system.  Chaos was in the air.

I had been frenziedly executing part four of The Plan every chance I got.  Every morning, noon, and night, and sometimes after hours in the dojo parking lot, I was red-facedly sacrificing for the greater good.  Until one fateful day.

I had a brief respite, though. She was showering, and I took the opportunity to search her medicine cabinet for medicinal evidences of diseases I should be aware of.  What I found there was worse, and shook me to my ab-blasted core.

Birth. Control. Pills.

How could this be?  How could this girl, this wonderful girl whom I was desperately trying to cement into a shotgun eternal marriage, how could she undercut my efforts like this?  What was all that loving for?  What did she think; we were just two adults making responsible decisions about expressing their feelings and sexuality? Could she really have debased us like that? It was just too much.  She was still showering as I put my kimono back on, and slipped out the back door.  I haven’t called her, and since I was the one who would call her for dates, we haven’t spoken since.

She broke my heart.  So I smashed her windshield. Some call it love.