Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Part 6) "My Best 'Just Friend'"

Although the details are all fuzzed up in my memory, probably warped by all the tears, I'll never forget the feeling of the day Doug broke my heart. One ordinary day, I joined him at a table in the student union and, with no warning at all, he proceeded to tell me everything that was wrong with me--in one sitting. I can't remember all of the specifics, but I do remember that he didn't want to spend time with me any more.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, a semester earlier, he had talked me into transferring colleges half way across the country. I had done it to be with him. He and I had eaten every meal together since I had arrived at this school where I knew nobody but him. We had spent the majority of every weekend together, and carpooled home together over holidays. Not only was he my best friend, having spent almost all of my time with him, he was basically my only close friend. All of a sudden, in a matter of a few minutes that seemed like a prolonged tortuous eternity, I was all alone, miles from home, and I had lost the love of my life. I still had two more years at that school, and enough of that time was spent in a heart-broken stupor that I didn't make very many friends there.

There were a few guys who asked me out after I stopped hanging around with Doug, they would say things like, "Now that you're not dating Doug anymore..." To which I'd say we never were dating. Nobody believed me. Unfortunately, I did. Looking back it is so sad to me that I may have been "dating" the most wonderful young man ever and I didn't even realize it--didn't realize that we were dating, that is... I knew he was wonderful. Even with the occasional date, there was no one after that, no one who had that staying power in my heart. I often complained that I never got asked out, but looking back I realize that was partially because I didn't have room in my heart for anyone else.

Eventually, loneliness took over. I was trained as an actress, and I learned how to bring that skill to play in my everyday life. At a college theatre festival, I was "discovered" by a Hollywood agent. It was so cool, because my style was different, more subtle than some of the stage prima-donas from my college theatre department. So, these girls who always beat me out for roles on stage didn't even get a second look and I was the only one from my school who got a call back. I remember one of them saying, "Something must be wrong!" hehe

Anyway, in one of the acting sessions led by this agent, I met a super-gorgeous guy who looked like a young Christopher Reeves. My agent thought I looked a lot like another celebrity and so he called us by our look-alike's names. As we were directed in a steamy soap opera scene, I felt sexy for the first time. There was almost enough physical chemistry to get me a PhD! I recognized the power of acting. Even though I didn't know this guy well enough to love him, I realized that I could make him want me, which was quite the adrenaline rush after being "un-wanted" by the one I wanted.

From then on I practiced my acting in everyday life. I learned to pretend that I liked things I couldn't care less about. I mentally put costumes on the guys around me too, imagining them to be what I wanted them to be. At a College Theatre Festival Afterglow party, "Christopher" and I were (as I was later told by my husband who first saw me there) "all over each other." We made out on the dance floor, making no effort to conceal how into each other we were. It was 100% physical, and it was a show, too. I was entering my if I can't get the guys I like, I'd better learn to like the guys I can get phase, and I knew I needed practice "getting" so I became less discriminant about who I flirted with... after all, it was just practice.

It was during this time that I met Todd. He says it was love at first sight for him. I was cast in my first paying acting job at a theatre over 30 miles away from where I was going to college. Being a poor college student, I readily jumped at the invitation to carpool to rehearsals. A classmate of mine who had also been cast in the play said he thought the guy he was carpooling with wouldn't mind if I joined them. That guy was Todd. He said the minute he saw me walking down the hall with my classmate to meet him, he thought, I'm going to marry her.

In other words, he liked what he saw, vaguely remembered watching me make out with another guy on the dance floor, and wanted some himself. Um, in my opinion that's not love, it's another four letter word beginning with "L," surrounding "us" and ending up all mes"T" up. But, it was another opportunity to practice. I knew this guy was so far away from my type that I'd never marry him, but he could serve as a rehearsal partner. The problem is, when you get into acting in life, playing a role 'round the clock, you can start believing the things you are saying. In no time, Todd had managed to un-invite my classmate from our carpool so he could be alone with me. It felt so good to be wanted, and I knew that there was no hope to ever have the one I wanted, so I settled and two months after we met, Todd and I were engaged.

Our engagement was not an easy time. We were forcing something that probably never should have been, and trying to play the roles of two compatible persons. We couldn't agree on religion. He was in some freaky old Catholic cult that believed they were the only chosen ones. They did their services in Latin, the women wore head-coverings, and the priest told him that unless I converted from my pagan protestant past, renouncing everything I had ever believed as heresy, we would not be able to be fully blessed by the church... and him marrying in my church was an out-of-the-question abomination! The priest even said that my mother's long-sleeved 1950's wedding gown was too risque for their level of holiness, because the sleeves were lace and the skin on my arms might show through.

The hypocrisy of Todd's living in sin with me and then marching off to this judgmental, hyper-legalistic sect for confession just to climb back in bed with me was too much--especially given the fact that the church refused to marry us unless I also committed the sin of lying. It seemed we were going nowhere, so I ran away.

One of my best friends worked for her dad's company several states away. She said she thought I needed to get away from Todd and offered me a place to stay with her and a job working for her father. I was going to give the engagement ring back to Todd, but he insisted that I keep it, saying he wasn't giving up on us yet. So I packed all my belongings in a single footlocker and left on a jet plane with no intention of ever going back again. I wore the ring, still playing a role... engaged, but disengaged.

Funny how the other "lunatic" stories I told yesterday fit into this one. Over Christmas, the phone sex just wasn't cutting it, and I knew I had to find a way back to my fiancee. That's when I hitched a ride with the total stranger, who could so easily have made a move on me while we were traveling an empty, snowy freeway in the middle of nowhere. He took me safely to Todd, and I spent that Christmas wallowing in mistletoe and holiday sin. That was enough to hook Todd. I had practiced well. A couple frustrating months later, Todd came after me, compromised his religion, and we started planning the wedding. It was during those tumultuous, but insistent, months that we encountered Ms. "Have you ever been in love?" and ample other warning signs, all which we ignored in the mad rush to beat the triteness of a June wedding by marrying in May.

One day, after I had been married for at least five or six years and had a couple kids, my parents called me and said, "Hey, guess where we were yesterday?"

"Um, I don't know... Where?"

Their answer blew me away. "We were just passing through Doug's home town and recognized that house where we used to pick you up when you'd carpool home from college."

Oh no, I thought.

"Well, we decided to stop by and see if anybody was home... and GUESS WHAT?"

Oh dear, I thought. "What?"

"Doug was home visiting his folks."

It was surreal.

"I had some of our pictures from your wedding and of the kids in a little brag book in my purse..."

NO!

"... it was so nice to have had them handy like that."

Sigh. Contact had been made. He knew where I was and had seen into the life I didn't want him to know I had. In the back of my mind, I wanted him to be left wondering... Is Bridgett still single? What if I hadn't said those cruel things, and instead told her that I was in love with her? I wanted him to pine -- to remain single and miserable in a false hope, just as I was married and miserable with no hope.

I had a sweatshirt that Doug had once joked about stealing from me. I couldn't wear it without thinking of him and it was painful to think of him. Yet I continued to wear it occasionally because it was better to have the pain and feel that there was still some thread of his existence left in my world. Suddenly I felt the need to be rid of it. I could have donated it to Goodwill or thrown it out, but somehow I wanted to make a statement along with purging myself of the pain. Packaging the sweatshirt, along with a pair of earrings Doug hadn't bought for me, but had helped me pick out, I mailed them to him care of his parents house, promising myself that I would never contact him again.

As the years wore on in a marriage that was far from happy, I would think of Doug, and I feel a bit ashamed to say that I didn't wish him happiness. I tried to push him out of my mind, but he would always come back. Hurt and even anger were the primary feelings I would have when he came to mind during that time, but one day I had a spiritual turning point... I was convicted in my heart that the anger was sin. I asked for help forgiving him, and my heart broke all over again, but this time in a positive way. It had been hardened, not letting anything in or out, but when it broke this time, what poured out was forgiveness and something else... I was compelled to pray for Doug. Day-after-day, I would be reminded to pray for him.

Several years later, I learned there was a reason for those prayers. Doug had suffered a couple of tragedies back-to-back. He had eloped and married a young woman whom he thought he knew, only to have her serve him an annulment a few days later and attempt to turn all of their mutual friends against him. Then he battled cancer--at the same time I had no contact with him to know about the cancer, but was compelled to pray for him constantly. I found out about the cancer when I finally broke down and wrote him a letter in which I told him that he had hurt me deeply, that I didn't fully understand what had happened between us, but that I forgave him and hoped he could also forgive me for any hurt I may have caused him, and I told him that I had been feeling led to pray for him a lot and hoped he was okay.

What followed has been a gradual restoration of our friendship. Being married, I work hard to keep it platonic (which we've had plenty of practice at since we were never physically involved.) After years and years, I'd say Doug is still my best 'just friend.' I still love him and sometimes ache, knowing that because of my impatience and inability to communicate truthfully, something deeper that might have been will never be.

Doug broke my heart twice. The first time it was by his rejection and I hardened my heart as a result. The second time was when he let me know that he still cared. That "break" has become more of a melting. And even though I can't express it as deeply as I'd like, and must hide under pseudonyms to say it... "I love you, Doug. I know I always will."

Don't Go Breakin' My Heart (part 1)

Waaaa!!! There now, I feel better.

This is one of my favorite childhood pictures. It comforts me in it's function as an excellent example of the continuity of life. In a world of unpredictability, there are somethings that don't change--like the way the men in my life ultimately make me feel. The flow of emotion from that precious little face of mine was so honest, uncensored, pure. I didn't feel the need to pretend to be happy just because mom wanted a nice picture. I was free-- free to JUST BE. Oh the lessons I could learn from that little girl!

Since I'm not really Bridget, and thusly (I should try to use that pretentious ditty in each blog) ...thusly you won't be able to track down Bridget's lovers in the real world, I'm thinking I can be honest.

Where to start?

The beginning would be too trite, so let's start a few weeks before my wedding.

I had been out of town on a business trip and I stopped by to spend some time with the man I was about to marry. Let's call him Todd. The door to Todd's apartment was wide open and music spilled out into the hallway. I let myself in, looked around for him, and finally found him painting in the stairwell leading up to the next level of the building he was managing in exchange for free rent in a total dive. "I'll be right down. Let yourself in," he said. I don't think it took more than a few minutes for us to land in bed.

Before we were done, there was a pounding on the apartment door. My betrothed ignored it and went on with the business of our reunion. The pounding and the ignoring continued until at last, the door flung open. It was the owner of the building, there to see what was so important that had caused his employee to waste his money by leaving paint in open buckets, drying in the hall. Todd was angry, and proceeded to carry on an argument with his landlord/boss, just outside the bedroom door. I sat wrapped in a sheet, waiting to retrieve my clothes from the kitchen, and imagining the cross-dressing landlord fingering my unmentionables.

That happening, by itself, should have been a "what was I thinking?" moment. (1) As an ambitious college graduate, what was I doing with a dropout in a filthy old apartment building in a scary neighborhood? (2) Knowing the value of respect for property and honorable work ethics, why was I participating with Todd in the sabotage of his position in management? (3) Why was I about to marry one man when I'd never gotten over another, simply because I was already tied to him by a sexual addiction or misconception that marriage would somehow atone for the sins I had stumbled into?

That should have been enough, but it wasn't. After the landlord had left with the threat that he would charge Todd for any more paint he had to buy to complete the job, because it was his fault if it dried out, I had to work hard to encourage Todd not to do anything he would regret in his anger. He vowed to mess the whole place up, but I reminded him that the landlord would probably sue him. Finally, he went to pack up the paint and supplies, leaving the job half done.

While he was up in the stairwell and I was in the kitchen fixing lunch, a woman just walked right in the front door without knocking. When she saw me standing in the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks, her face turning white. "Who are you?" she asked. Ouch. Denial is a deep river, but try as I might to pretend the tone of her voice wasn't saying what I thought it was saying, I knew.

Todd walked in. Awkward. "This is Bridget, my friend." My face must have said, "what?" because he continued, "...my fiance."

Cloe or Madge or Bambie or whatever her name was made some quick excuse, "I was just passing by to say 'hi' but I've got to run." And before I could blink she was gone.

He didn't know anyone but me in this town. He had just moved there, following me because he wanted to marry me (after I had run away, across two state lines--but that's another story.) I had only been out of town for a few days, and here was someone who seemed to be someone to him. He told me he had gone out to get a bite... I think it was happy hour at a bar or something like that. And she had started a conversation with him. He could have left it at that. I didn't ask any more. But he went on to say, "She asked me if I'd ever been in love."

Okay. She wasn't very attractive and seemed a bit awkward, so I could believe she might start out with a line like that. He could have left it at that. I didn't even think to ask him his answer... I mean, of course he had been in love... he was engaged! He could have left it like that, but he went on to say, "I told her 'no'--I don't know why I said that--wasn't thinking, I guess."

I don't really remember the rest of the conversation, if there was any more to it. I think he eventually told me that he now realized that he may have given her the wrong impression. You think, Todd? In retrospect, I think he was giving me a way out. If I had any self-respect, I would have taken it.

What was my thought process that kept me from walking out that door and never turning back? Good question. I'll try to get to that in the next installment.