Dandy, Dandy

This is the story of Andy.

I met Andy in Wisconsin. While mopping the floor and singing in Italian. Of all things.

It's a very long story, but the gist of it is that I was thirteen (fourteen in one week), working in the kitchen of my camp in Wisconsin (if you serve half the meals and wash dishes afterwards you don't pay as much for the camp) and having a very bad time because for the first time in my life none of my friends had come at the same time as me. I was working non-stop about seven hours a day in a vain effort to disprove all the New Yorker stereotypes I'd encountered, and was not taking it at all well. It was the shittiest day I'd had in a long time, and I was mopping the floor of Western Lodge, the enourmous hall where we ate, and feeling sorry for myself. In effort to cheer myself up, I started to sing an Italian song that invokes the sun. (I know, I know; how very metaphorical.) I had slept only three hours the night before because my friend had woken me up four times to take her to the nurse for her migraines and lost them before we got there.

Just when I thought I would pass out, I heard a voice say "Are you mopping the whole hall by yourself?"

It was Kieran Culkin, straight from Igby Goes Down and Dangerous Lives of the Altar Boys and complete with sexily long, slightly dissheveled reddish hair. So it seemed, at least. How could I not be stricken with romantic notions?

It didn't help that he insisted on finishing the mopping while I sorted silverware, a job that at least allowed me to sit, and got into an easy, relaxed conversation with me in which he proved that he was indeed as chivalrous, funny, loveable and attractive as I'd hoped he'd be. We did dishes together that night. (I succeeded in soaking him from head to toe with the sink-hose). We hung out every day in the kitchen when his work schedule was changed. He made it very clear from the first that he was very attracted to me. I, on the other hand, was shy, hesitant to make first steps, nervous whenever I talked to him.

How can I describe Andy? He's a little on the preppy side, granted, but still sincere and kind. He's the kind of guy that not one person can bear to dislike, the kind of guy that gives the kind of hugs that make your day and never thinks about himself. He always works hard and, after working seven hours straight when the dishwasher breaks, will still insist on working your shift so you can get some rest. An all-American cross-wearing nature-loving theater-obsessed good guy with the world's biggest heart.

So it really wasn't so strange that I fell painfully in love.

And it really wasn't so strange that when I told him I lived in New York, he jumped up and down, unknowingly spraying the windows with dishwashing soap, and told me that he was coming to New York in three weeks.

And it made sense that I ate dinner with his family one night, got invited to a party at his relatives' rather large house in New Jersey (which my mom wouldn't let me go to because she hadn't met him) and spent an entire day showing him the Empire State building, Greenwich Village and Times Square.

And it was only logical that we called each other a few times a week just to talk, and that I saw him when I came over Winter Break.

Eventually, however, the calls slowed down, and although he was still charming, sweet and decidedly interested whenever I talked to him online (which was only about once a month), everything faded away after about four months. I suppose I preferred to think of myself as a victem of circumstances, seperated by states only from what would have been a very happy relationship for both of us. And after all, no matter how passionate it seemed at the time, all it ever was was a childish romance in the midst of the final pained and emotional stages of puberty.

What could I do? I was no longer sure if he had any interest in me, and the silence was painful. I forced myself to forget him. When I met Bogo-San a few short months after that decision, the first person I'd had so much real interest in in quite a while, I determined to pursue my end and not let my own shyness kill the relationship again. I was fed up with hiding my feelings, fed up with pain. I still couldn't bring myself to be completely frank, and God knows I was insecure, but I'm glad I did what I did, no more and no less.

That summer proved odd. Staff Training Week at Anokijig (the camp) found me amongst mostly seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds who had been my counselors in the past, without most of my friends of previous years, and missing Bogo-San terribly. I mumbled a word or two to Andy about "let's just be friends" and somehow neglected to tell him that I'd been dating a guy in New York for almost two months.

Everything worked out well, for the most part; I avoided him when I was alone, skipped the weekly dance three nights in a row to run the movie projector for the younger kids, and through him made several new friends that I wouldn't have missed out on for anything. He was, as always, bright and brilliant, taking everything in stride but still managing to seem interested in me, which made me afraid somehow. I had no desire to return to my former painful state; having seen a glimpse of the other side, of what a relationship can be, I know now that choosing happiness is far more rewarding.

So when I talked to him online last night, I figured it would be no big deal if I casually mentioned that I'd been dating H. for the last eight or nine months.

"Do you still go to fencing?" he asked fondly;
me: "Not really... this guy who used to stalk me is always there, and it makes me nervous."
Andy: "Wow, that sucks. Yuck."
me: "Yeah... he pretty much ignores me now, though, because my boyfriend told him to leave me alone."
Andy: "How long have you had a boyfriend?"
me: "A while now, almost nine months."
Andy: "Wow! I'm happy for you."
me: "Yeah, it's really great. I mean it's really wonderful."
silence for a bit.
me: "thank you."
more silence.
me: "Hey, i have to go..."
I get an "Auto response": "Nobody's talkin, so just give me a call. 217-0110. -Andy."
me: "Alright, well, I'm going. I love you."

...and now I'll probably never IM him again.
Here's to awkward summers.