When my friends started referring to my new boyfriend as ‘Hospital Boy’ I knew there was something terribly wrong with the scenario… although I wasn’t yet ready to take off my rose colored glasses. The fact was, Lucas and I had not slept together yet, and I had all the heightened passion of unexpressed desire, which made everything appear so much prettier and more romantic.
After saying goodbye and declaring his love, Lucas had left on a Greyhound bus for New Jersey to undertake his first hospital study. He claimed that he was tired of working menial jobs and that by doing medical research studies he could actually have time to write his screenplay and eventually afford to buy film-making equipment.
“I feel uncomfortable leaving you so early on in our relationship,” he said sweetly. “I’ll text message you every day.”
While he was gone, I alternated between pining away for him and being repulsed.
My friend M had stronger opinions.
“So, what does he do?” she asked.
“Um...he’s a writer.”
“What has he done?”
“Nothing you could read…he’s writing a screenplay.”
“What does he do for money?”
I breathed in sharp. “He volunteers… for medical research?”
“What are you doing, Andrea?” she chastised me. “You need someone with a normal job.”
Reactions were mixed, ranging from incredulous laughter to genuine concern. My guy friends immediately dubbed him ‘hospital boy’ and told me I could do better. The girls were a bit more sensitive, though genuinely worried about my future.
“Won’t his sperm be affected by the drugs?” they asked. “Are you going to marry him?”
“Are you going to have to SUPPORT this guy?”
“Why doesn’t he want to work a real job? Sounds like an excuse for laziness to me!”
The study lasted for about a month, during which time I received regular, distended messages from Lucas, sent during different phases of experimentation.
‘The Vampires are sucking me dry – they take so much blood I am faint.’
‘They won’t let us go outside – I need fresh air!’
‘The animals are fighting over the remote control and I can’t get any sleep. Luv, I miss you. I hate this distance.’
It sounded horrid, especially since the group was largely comprised of recently released convicts. I pictured him in a scene from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’ When he was actually being let out, I felt like a prison girlfriend waiting for her guy to get out on bail.
“So, did you get any writing done?” I asked.
“Well…not the way I had hoped,” he confessed. “I couldn’t really concentrate with all those people around, bugging me.”
“Oh.” Suspicion suddenly weighed down my shoulders. Was he a writer after all?
Not only did I worry about his health (he was sometimes rejected as a test subject due to high liver enzymes and random complications), I increasingly found fault with him. He moved so slowly…it drove me crazy to walk with him down the street. He was always late – sometimes by hours. He didn’t know how to handle himself around my friends and would bore them by getting all New Age-philosophical in a strange way. And even though he was secluded in the hospital for weeks at a time, he didn’t seem to be getting much done in the way of writing. His goals were vague and he didn’t seem to have a plan for his life.
We had a fight one night after seeing a documentary about the Ramones. He wanted to go to this café where he practically lived, spending hours with one cup of coffee. I told him I was sick of going there and he got angry with me.
“In my experience, when a girl doesn’t want to go somewhere, she’s avoiding running into another guy! Do you have something else going on the side, Andrea? I’m always away, after all!”
I nearly killed him right there in the East Village.
Lucas went home for a few days to his mother’s house in Wisconsin. I pretended to be very busy when he tried to call, and my text messages grew more distant and infrequent.
“How could I think I was so in love and be so disgusted now?!” I lamented to Rhiannon. “I think I need to break up – I am starting to hate him!”
“Andrea, he’s not that great. He’s kind of weird, not tall enough for you, and have you ever seen anything he’s written? He’s a fake, trust me.”
Oh my god.
Lucas called me when he got back into town. “I missed you,” he started.
“I am having doubts about our relationship,” I said. “I don’t think I can handle you doing these studies. It disturbs me.”
“Well, I don’t want to keep working jobs that make other people rich!” he said, angrily. “Are you saying you don’t want to date anymore? You said you were in love with me!”
“What do you see happening with us, Lucas?”
“I want a future with you.”
“I feel nothing for you right now. I need some space.”
“Well, I am not the kind of guy to wait around,” he proclaimed.
I never spoke to him again.
Am I doomed? Will Hospital Boys and other weirdos forever plague me? While I have tried time and again to date ‘normal’ men, I always end up in the arms of some gorgeous artist who leaves me weak in the knees. It’s as though beautiful men have something terribly wrong with that I forgive because their eyes speak volumes of poetry, and their mouths are full and soft. It’s as though I attribute positive character traits to a man with a pretty face. Call it a cruel joke from the universe. My new resolution is to only go out with men who have day jobs…
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