The Best Worst Love

“That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

As a future teacher I have heard several teases-slash-taunts about me being a spinster. At first I didn’t mind, I always felt before that I was destined to be alone. Not in the sense that I pitied myself for it, or that I lost hope. If it’s the way to go then so be it. Besides, I’ve got reasons to justify this possibility.

First of all, I’m not sweet. You can’t expect me to make baby voices at you, not unless you’re my dog, and of course you wouldn’t want that. You can’t make me cuddle, especially in public. I find those kind of couples gross and show-offs and just parading their extreme excretions of their pheromones. I try to lean on people, but I end up stiff, like my body is saying not to force myself into melting into someone’s arms because I was stronger than that. Cheesy lines turn on my upchuck reflex and make me want to punch somebody.

Second, I will probably not care whatever you do. And if that’s cool with you then that’s good, as long as you don’t keep meddling with my life so much as well, like I have to tell you what I’m doing every minute of every day. I like the distance, I like the mystery– so much so that I think no one ever figured me out because they didn’t bother to stay longer. I will probably show off as cold and careless and a frigid bitch, but I have rights of freedom, and this is a free country so I would like to practice it.

And oh my glob third, I do not get jealous. Maybe I do at some point, but it passes and it doesn’t come back. It hasn’t come back. I think the ounce of jealousy I have is so small that once it is consumed, it takes a long time before it fills up again. Like Mexican food, hard to make but easy to eat.

All of those things made me realize that maybe I shouldn’t be in relationships as I do not fill the so-called standards that girls must fulfill. I sometimes think I must be destined to be a lesbian, but I rejected that thought before I could even prove it because I am in all ways a girl.

But I guess the one thing that really hit me, like a big boulder, was that I didn’t want to settle into something repetitive and constant. As much cute and cuddly as it is to wake up to good morning texts, movie dates, and strolls on the beach, it’s not something I would like to spend the rest of my life on.

I want to see, hear, feel, touch and be anything and everything. But I am so terribly limited, that I can only be myself. And it’s still never enough. Does that make sense?

I want the messy parts, the ones that make you scream and cry and throw things and kiss and then fight again. I want battles of whose voice is higher, who throws better, who can think of a better, wittier comeback. I want the worst because I feel like it’s the best. Most of all, I want it because it feels real.

A silly little request, and yet I will never settle for anything else. Once I’ve found that, then maybe I could face the fact that I am destined to be with someone, and do whatever it is other girls deemed appropriate. Or at least try.