November 03, 2009, 04:00 PM ET

From a Student, Class of '99

All my friends are going to wonder what's wrong with me. I was supposed to be the smart kid and now I'm working as an adjunct and a freelancer and I'm not married and the part I really hate is that I'm not married and I wish it didn't bother me. I'm not sure why it bugs me as much as it does. Maybe because I thought the last guy was IT, you know? I thought we would get married. So when he said ‘I don't know whether we should renew the lease' I said ‘I know we've had a couple of rough patches recently, but I don't think that this means the whole thing is over, I just think that we need to work on stuff -- maybe even go to counseling.' But he said it just wasn't on his agenda.

So I left before he could leave. That was a joke, too, right? Because he drove me out. I mean, if a roach leaves your apartment after you fumigate, it doesn't mean the roach decided coincidentally it was the right time to leave. I left because basically he sprayed Raid all over our love.

Now that's a line for a country song, right? Maybe I missed my calling.

Why didn't I see it coming? I know what people are capable of in terms of self-deception (remember how I told you about my family? Well, hello Mom!) and it is horrifying to think that I'm capable of that myself. I mean, you live with somebody for more than two years, can't you trust him or her? Maybe everything I was just making some home movie in my head, but I thought of me and him growing old together, having kids together. And he would look into my eyes and tell me he saw our children there, that they would have dark hair like him, but green eyes like me. I mean, we made this whole composite idea of what life was going to be like.

I wasn't kidding around. I really thought it was a blueprint -- I didn't think it was some kind of fantasy for two. Before we moved in together, I actually counted how many hours it would be until the next weekend we saw each other. I mean, once it got to the point where I was going to start counting the minutes, but then I thought that was too crazy. I don't know how you even make, like, a distinction between just crazy and too crazy, but I already knew I had slipped.

What was it my mother said? "That man had very little interest in you really. I think you're just there until the next best thing comes along." That was bad and now it's worse because she was right.

Of course he didn't want to be with me. Look at me. I'm not exactly the life of the party even with my 3.8 GPA, not that anybody's ever asked me what my GPA was. That's another joke ... nobody's ever came up to me and asked if I was on the dean's list 10 years ago. College has a really short half-life despite my crazy ex-hippy mother's song and dance about how education saved her life, made her a new woman, once she was lost but now she is found, etc.

I'd rather be drop-dead gorgeous than smart, you know? And I hate that.

But it is true.

Not that anybody ever gave me the chance to choose.

Categories: Books, Books

Comments

1. 11147726 - November 04, 2009 at 08:57 am

There there, sweetie. It's okay. It'll be all right.
"The sun is gonna rise, tomorrow..."

2. intlprofs - November 04, 2009 at 09:21 am

This has the air and self-absorption of initial attempts at creative writing. Theatrical styling over substance drips from it.. and it rings very false in its enforced employment of drama queen "revelation."

3. 22020036 - November 04, 2009 at 09:26 am

Being drop-dead gorgeous would not have saved you from the situation that you were in. Being smart can save you from repeating the mistake.

4. 22263881 - November 04, 2009 at 09:42 am

Gee, are we back in the '50s again? "I'm nothin' without a man". Yikes!!

5. 22228715 - November 04, 2009 at 09:44 am

I suspect that the writer already knows this but is indulging in a bit of delicious self-pity (I suspect this because I do it myself)... but education is not about the GPA or the Dean's list. It's about learning who you are, and discovering what is important in life, and figuring out what your talents and passions are and how they can contribute to the world, and seeing that you are important but only a tiny part of the big picture, and understanding that through all of history we live our stories out with some control but mostly riding what comes. It's that sense of things that keeps the whims of ephemeral romance partners in perspective.

6. spc09lib - November 04, 2009 at 09:53 am

How did this whine add to our lives or even improves the author's?

7. saasaa - November 04, 2009 at 10:00 am

I speak from the class of 89 (MPA) program. I never wanted to get married - was not on my agenda. I was proud of me and my education and what I had accomplished for myself before anyone else could share my life. I think you have to get to that point before you are ready to be part of a domestic team. The other half of that domestic team reared up and slapped me in the face in 1994 - 15 years later we are still together, faults and all. It is not bliss but both of us are comfortable in our respective skins and comfortable with each other and more importantly share similar goals separately and together.

Quit whining, be yourself, for yourself and get on with your life. You might be surprised at how much good will happen.

8. 22108469 - November 04, 2009 at 12:12 pm

Oh. I thought this piece was a joke. Isn't it?? Please? If not, here's another message for those under forty: there is no fairy tale of happily ever after . . . if you're lucky, it's just happy until somebody gets sick and dies. (Cough, gasp, wheeze)

9. jesor - November 04, 2009 at 01:22 pm

My understanding of the point of this article is that being relatively young and single in academia is a tough existence. Colleges typically require many hours of personal time spent on advising students, working on research, etc. That demand takes away from the opportunity to socialize and find a mate. To make matters more difficult, often those who complete graduate school have already given up a large amount of the prime partner-finding period of their lives, and thus they are less likely to enter the professional world of academia with a mate already found. Given these circumstances, it's not uncommon for many young academics to have problems with their personal lives.
I do not mean to make it sound as if all young academics are romantically desperate, but there is a heavy psychological burden carried when the only other heartbeat in your apartment is that of a cat that barely recognizes you. Fortunately for me, I got lucky and found someone while in graduate school, but many of my colleagues are still single and starting to feel their biological clock ticking.

10. dank48 - November 04, 2009 at 04:25 pm

I hope some of the comments above didn't come from student advisors. I made the mistake of listening to my advisor once. Others may be similarly incautious.

11. livefreeordie2 - November 04, 2009 at 04:32 pm

If it's any consolation, most of us never see it coming. . . I suppose there are those who mate for life on the first try, and of course there are those who are always heading for the door (or spraying raid on love), but for the rest of us, even when we see it coming, we often don't see it coming.

And I don't want to sound like your mother, but it's invariably for the best, even though it hurts. . . even though it hurts a lot and keeps hurting. Because all of a sudden, you find the right one and you think back with more than a little curiosity at why you could have been sad over the stroke of luck that took the bum out of your life. And it's all for the best. . . even if years after the fact. . .when everything in your life is as perfect as you could hope it to be. . .even if then it occasionally it still hurts.

12. embeddedmba - November 04, 2009 at 05:54 pm

you are most certainly joking... yes?

13. bowe2699 - November 05, 2009 at 06:50 pm

scraping the bottom of the barrel aren't we...

14. katiebeautifulkatie - November 05, 2009 at 10:35 pm

This one was brutal and I hope you gpt permission from the student to use her words. I assume you did?