When I Learned I Love Different 2.1

My goal is to put all these one day into a TV series.

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Part of a series. You can read part 2 here and part 1 here.

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As good a memory as I have, I don’t exactly remember how I met Carolina. My first memory of us interacting was a snowball fight. Then talking on Sconex— in the mid 2000s, Sconex, was not the name of an antidepressant but one of the original social media sites only for HS students. Shortly after that, it’s late night phone calls through the AM—texting intermittently to get to know someone didn’t make sense in 2006.

One day in class, she would ask for my iPod, saying she’ll take it home and give it back overnight. I obliged. I got it back the next day with 1000 new songs that I had never head of, reggaeton classics that would become canon to my adolescence. Misspelled artist names like ‘AlexisyF ido’ from limewire downloads (*allegedly*) would populate my library alongside existing rap, rock, R&B, and Sinatra tracks. And then, it was our first “unofficial” date.

We went to Baskin Robbins and put ice cream over each other's faces on the bench in the back of my building until we ran out of napkins. I was going to go upstairs to get some and she asked if she could come with me. As much as I wanted that to happen under different circumstances, I knew my parents were up there, who were also separated—making an awkward situation even awkwarder. I had also never brought a girl home before. But she persisted, and I said ok. I gave specific instructions: “fine, but please just waive hi and go to my room.” Of course, when I get out of the bathroom, she does the exact opposite, swirling on my Staples computer chair in the middle of the living room. But that was Carolina. She exuded playfulness—literally dressed in her famous ‘spin the bunny’ Playboy belt—and I loved that about her.

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I asked Carolina to be my girlfriend via poem using AIM speak. Now, I need you to understand, this looked like if you took a bunch of Prince song titles and threw them on a piece of computer paper and handed that to another person. But it came from a 15-year old heart. Looking back, I’m embarrassed. Not because I wrote a poem or letter to someone I liked—that’s just who I am—but because of how it was written.

But nearly two decades later, Carolina would show me she kept it in a shoebox, like I do with my special things, and still loves it as is.

After reading the poem she gave me a big hug, the kind I hadn’t felt from a girl since my middle school crushes. She paused for a long time and said she needed to think about it. Of course I wanted an emphatic yes, but it was understandable.

Now what was unique, was framing the choice like LeBron’s “The Decision.” She told me she will reveal the answer the following week on Friday, at school, after first period. And I mean reveal because all her friends already knew and chisme-giggled every time I passed them. I tried to get inside intel from Horatio, who always had the sources, but he wouldn’t say. Billie was also well aware of the deadline and was there to assist in the investigation and provide moral support.

I made sure to make my case that week with extra Sugar Daddies, which were her favorite candy at the time. But there was also some bad press. Earlier that same week at the school cafeteria, a stoner kid—probably from Westchester—overheard my interest in her and interjected.

“Brooo she’s too tall for youuu,” said the 6 foot tall 15 year old, weighing as much as my short ass.

“I don’t care” I defiantly said.

She was taller than me, yes. Wasn’t even by much—maybe 2 or 3 inches. Which in hetero-gender norms is like 8 yards. But it didn’t bother me at all.

Exhibit A: Prince taught me.

Exhibit B: Why on earth would I have a problem looking up to a beautiful woman.

Exhibit C: More Leg.

The day arrives. First period was World Civ. Carolina, who was known to cut classes, hadn’t shown. I thought maybe there would be no “decision.” My seat was in the back, eyes intent on the door every time it opened. My heart was racing. Then, with basically 15 min of class left, she showed up and sat near the front.

This was it. I caught up with her in between classes. She sat right outside Baskerville hall, where we had Digital Electronics. She sat on the low concrete wall right by the entrance, and I sat next to her. I tried not to be obvious, but we only had a few minutes until the class started.

“So, do you know?” I asked.

“Ask me again,” Carolina said.

I had actually wanted to ask her in Spanish, but I didn’t want to sound like a gringo and fuck up during the mf playoffs of romantic moments in my existence thus far.

“Do you wanna go out with me?”

“No” she said shaking her head.

My stomach immediately sank. I have a direct LAN connection between romance and gut.

After a brief pause she said:

“I wanna be your girlfriend.”

I smiled and immediately wasn’t sure if I should kiss her in public, with the bochinche squad mad loud nearby, although I wanted to. I settled for a kiss on the cheek, and we held hands walking to class, officially as a couple for the first time.

We went to DE, and obviously I couldn’t pay much attention to motherboards and conduits. She sat behind me and played with my hair the whole class. I turned around at one point and she already had her flip phone ready, trying to take a candid pic, which I still have. I’ve been a sentimental mf ever since I can remember.

After school we went to her friend Marta’s crib in the projects right by the Dyckman 1 train stop. She sat on a flower pot right outside the entrance. I stood in front of her looking down and holding her hand. And with ‘Noche de Sexo’ blasting from a car in the background (corny, but yes this happened, although sex did not) we had our first kiss, and I had mine. A few days later, she gave me a necklace of the Dominican flag as a token of her love. It was plastic, but it might as well have been 21k gold to me.

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What followed would be weeks of volatility. Late phone calls with love turning into anger and back to love, sometimes within the same phone call. It was always a refrain of: you’re too nice; you need to be more aggressive.

Once she told me: “you’re like a cupcake. Just too sweet. Everyone likes one for dessert, nobody wants one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

I agree with her re: cupcakes. I disagreed that ya boy was one.

Even back then, still an onion. Many layers, just needed to find someone who valued ‘em. But I certainly was very kind and complimentary to her—accommodating to a fault. I certainly did need to work on asserting myself. Unfairly, the term ‘pussy whipped’ was frequently thrown around, more by her friends than mine. Billie mostly just said I should ‘watch it’ or she’ll take advantage of me—that he’s seen it happen to homies before, but her friends would make a whip gesture and sound every time I would look after her bag or hold something for her.

It all came to a head when one day during lunch, Carolina asked for a Pepsi. I got up and went to the vending machine with my allowance funds. When I got back to the table she was no longer there.

Horatio told me she got up and left in frustration.

“What did I do?”

“You got her the Pepsi”

“She asked for it!”

“I know.”

Horatio was friends with Carolina’s friends, but we had a connection going back to middle school. In this case even he was surprised by the gender role 4D chess.

I thought factoring nomials n shit was mind bending - now it was replaced by understanding what my girlfriend ‘really’ wants.

So, less than two weeks later, Carolina and I, Horatio, Marta, and Angelica went to Marta’s mom’s place for what turned into an impromptu couples therapy.

Carolina and I sat on the couch where suddenly ‘We Belong Together’ by Mariah Carey started playing in the other room; where her friends giggling. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I leaned over to give her a kiss, but she moved away. She was still pissed, and I still didn’t get any of this shit. The Pepsi, cupcakes, being aggressive, the height difference. Tf did this have to do with love, chemistry, connection, treating each other well.

She would at one point volunteer that she never dated anyone shorter than her and turned down other men for me—as if she was doing me a favor. And she clearly was aware of the frequent comments and stares from others.

To this subject I would offer: BUT KEN-Y IS MAD SHORT (a singer she liked)

To which she would respond: BUT THAT’S JUST IN THE ‘DOWN’ VIDEO HE SEXY

Great. Now I was going to have to be a reggaetonero to justify my height in addition to getting off academic probation to survive this year and be attractive to women.

Silly as it sounds, it’s not far off from how I felt. I was gonna do anything to keep my first girlfriend. I didn’t get that there were clearly fundamental issues with this relationship being healthy, even at its baseline.

Her friends all laughed in the other room until the song was over. Soon after that, Marta’s mom came home. Although I had been to Marta’s house before, her mom did not know me well. She asked what was going on, and Marta told her we might break up.

What happened next I can only describe as a mix between some fucked up group therapy court and Festivus.

Marta, Angelica, and Carolina in unison aired out all grievances as I sat on the couch:

“Too nice! Too short! Too pussy whipped! Not aggressive enough! No experience!”

Then, as if the mom said, ‘I’ve heard enough,’ the barrage dissipated.

She walked close to me on the couch and leaned in, as if she was about to say something kind.

“The woman does not need to have experience.”

“The man should.”

I’m 15.

I’m in algebra.

When should I have started?

Also, someone’s daughter does seem to need experience if I am to have experience by this point. Seems to be a symbiotic equation here. Somethin don’t add up.

These words came from someone older, a woman, and someone’s mom. Generally, this combo means I’m supposed to listen. This means I’m supposed to believe they had wisdom. I knew something was off. But it did unsettle me, and make me have some animosity that this whole day was made possible by Women.

What I didn’t understand then was that this was an example of women perpetuating patriarchy. Women as a gender were not to blame, as if they got together and created this shit. A distinction that continues to confuse many grown men.

The next day, after school on the main CCNY entrance hill, Carolina met with her council (Marta and Angelica)—with Horatio circling general vicinity. I couldn’t overhear much, but there was a lot of yelling and clear frustration. I kept making eye contact with Horatio. He came back to me, and I asked him for intel. He said it was all in Spanish (Horatio was Puerto Rican—but Carolina’s Dominican Spanish proved a challenge even for Billie), but he said “I did keep hearing: ‘it’s not changing; he’s not changing.’”

We all went to the train station. The rest of the group left. She sat me down and said:

‘We should break up.’

The 10 days which felt like a long term relationship to me was coming to an end.

We sat on the subway bench for a little while, just talking about the issues. She once again got up frustrated; upset I still didn’t get it—and I still didn’t; in my mind we were in love. She had her own ringtone.

I still had so much to say. As she got up to leave, I grabbed her arm. She looked back at me and stopped.

She took my hand and walked me to the platform where we sat, continuing to hold hands as trains went by. “I’ll sit with you for a while,” she said.

Carolina really was an enigma. She did like me and care about me —in some way —exhibited real moments of compassion and empathy beyond her years— followed by malintent, verbal lashings, and immature, but unfortunately common, ideas on what men needed to be in order to be ‘real men.’

I completely neglected the second part because the first part meant so much to me. She already had set multiple dating records in my life with # of hours on the phone, hours spent together, kisses occurring, etc.

We sat there for what felt like hours; then she said: “I should go” and left.

Apparently Carolina also left a note on the train bench seat, which I never got. So likely there’s a rando in 2006 who has a note addressed to me from my then gf about my indiscretions.

The next day, I stayed home from school, laid in bed, listened to music and watched: Chappelle’s ‘For What It’s Worth’ on my iPod. My mom begrudgingly approved; she had to run to work, and didn’t have time in the morning.

Carolina called me later and we argued again—I was so frustrated with this constant subject of contention. How is being kind to my girlfriend a problem? It wasn’t registering. Then she said in anger: “when you grabbed my arm yesterday, it was the best thing you ever did.” I brushed this off as just more ‘what in the flying fuck is she talking about.’ But in retrospect between Marta’s mom saying I shoulda been had a body count by 15, and Carolina saying me grabbing her arm in intensity outweighed like weeks of a HS boy attempting decency and emotionally availability for a girl he liked, that shit coulda really fucked me up.

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When the final report was in, back from my bedridden hiatus, Billie patted me on the shoulder on the walk home from school. “She’ll look back on this and say: ‘that’s the mf I shoulda got my shit together for. That’s the one I missed out on.’” He said.

“One day you’ll find the right one.”

“Un día.”

“Un día.” I repeated softly back to myself.

Later that year, one night we were on the way home from Garden State Mall in the back of his mom’s minivan. With La Mega circulating the car’s speakers, we took turns DJing on my iPod to create our own soundtrack. At one point when it was my turn he said: “I know which one.” In my head I thought: if Billie plays ‘Shimmer’ by Fuel, a song ingrained in my damn brain and soul in wake of my breakup with Carolina, he’s definitely one of my best friends.

“Too far away for me to hold” being the lyric that never left.

‘Shimmer’ started playing.

I knew then that I still loved Carolina, and that I loved Billie. That’s my mf boy.

To Be Continued in Pt. 2.2