It’s always strange when we look deeply inward at our own preconceived notions and then realize they are not practical anymore. I would never have considered even being with a younger, just-out-of-college man until I hit my mid-twenties.
But I still felt like I was doing something wrong, hanging out with a twenty-one-year-old. I thought of him as a kid, and I resisted holding Devon’s hand when we walked around the East Village in the evenings on our live band excursions, or while shopping in the afternoons.
I did not invite him out with my friends, though they were all curious about what they referred to as my ‘sweet young thing.’ I certainly did not miss the knowing looks of his friends, who we frequently ran into. They were intrigued that Devon was hanging out with a full-blown woman.
“They think it’s hot that you’re older,” he said, trying to tongue-kiss me on the Bowery while I blushed and pulled away.
“Not in public!” I insisted.
We had a very adolescent relationship in that we were not sleeping together. I just couldn’t. We made out on the couch as though I was seventeen again, and that was pretty much it. I didn’t want him to stay over. I didn’t have desire for him. I was still hung up on his questionable maturity.
He told me his parents were suspicious of me, especially since they were Catholic. When he called, his mother often listened on the extension phone and he had to yell at her to hang up. Attractive.
“What am I doing?” I thought.
Devon burned persistence.
“Usually a chick doesn’t last more than a month with me,” he said one day.
“Have you had a lot of groupies?” I teased him. His rock band was doing very well.
“I’ve only slept with one woman. I hope you'll be the second.”
Wow.
He was the exact type of energy I needed in the summer heat. He stopped by my house frequently with gifts of bottled water, and often left his bass in my kitchen between gigs.
When my roommate went away for a couple of days, he convinced me to let him stay over. I relented, and all of a sudden we were a full-blown couple. I still wasn’t entirely comfortable, but he was so attentive and would do these romantic things like pull me into a photo booth in a bar and kiss me while the camera snapped away, then tear off half the photos and give them to me as a memento. He was sweet.
I realized how serious I had been for so long and it was amazing to be around someone who had that fresh type of joy that seems to unfortunately dissipate by the age of twenty-four (or even earlier in the case of those who leave home at a young age). I was the type who grew up too early, and so I was excited by the spontaneity and disorganization that only those who still live at home possess.
After those sweaty nights together, Devon developed a pattern of frequently showing up to help me with my errands.
“What’s on the agenda this afternoon?” he’d call and ask. “I’ll meet you.”
I would be on my way to go buy a lamp or a stereo or some random electronic device, and he would rush into the city to help me carry it home. I didn’t ask him - he insisted he loved to do it.
I had my own personal slave.
How inappropriate.
How convenient.
But after helping me lift some items that weighed more than sixty pounds, and after tenderly holding my hair back when I threw up one night after having too many margaritas, Devon began to complain that I was not giving him enough emotional attention.
“I need you to show me some love,” he insisted.
“What, you don’t think I’m nice to you?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, you’re nice. But you’re kind of cold. I don’t feel like you’re really into me. I drop everything for you, and you just kind of fit me in when it’s convenient.”
Oh.
Apparently resisting holding his hand in public, and the fact that I was starting to usher him out of the apartment by 2 a.m. was getting to him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, truly worried that I had done some irreparable damage to his fresh young heart. “I’ll try to be more…affectionate.”
I tried, I swear I did.
I went out to meet him and his friends, who decided I was okay even though I had a grown-up life, and they were on the verge of first cars and moving out of their parents’ houses, and they still got allowances.
Devon proudly proclaimed later that his friends had given me a nine out of ten.
“What?”
“You know…the rating system. And you got a better rating than any other girl I’ve introduced to them.”
“You guys still rate chicks?”
“Yeah, man,” he said. “And most of mine only get a six.”
He didn't realize that by his saying he usually only got girls who rated a six, he was on his way out with this nine.
There were two more things that brought us to our bitter end.
One night his parents were out of town and he wanted me to trek out to the family house in Queens and stay overnight. I politely declined. It had been a long time since I had dated a guy who lived at home, and I just couldn’t do it - what if they came home early? Awkward.
Which would have been fine if he didn’t sulk and leave me petulant telephone messages for a full week after.
The other thing is that he started wearing a headband. A girl’s headband.
I just didn’t look at him the same way after that.
He took the breakup badly, and refused to ever speak to me again.
I realized that barely legal just wasn’t my thing, and that maybe I needed someone more jaded and cynical. Someone more like me...
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