Photo courtesy of Emily Lodish

Any scenario that ends with me hugging someone who isn’t hugging me back hasn’t exactly gone as planned.

I went for drinks with one of my first real boyfriends from when I was a teenager. Let’s call him Oliver. He called a few days prior to a holiday weekend to see if I was going to be in town, and if so could we make time to get a drink. I said sure, knowing he probably had something to say. Not that it was out of the ordinary for Oliver and me to meet up. We had, truth be told, done more than just meet up on some occasions since our relationship ended—but it was the way he put the word “should” into the phrase, “We should really catch up.” I figured he had something to say, like he was getting married, or he was still in love with me, or, ya know, he was dying.

Married, turns out. I’m happy for him, and I tell him so. He says he’s happy and that she’s tremendously supportive of him. I say great. Then he says it’s strange because he and I have always been close. I didn’t know what to say to that. It was true, but here he was telling me that he was marrying someone else. This is when we start relating to each other differently, I thought. You don’t say things like that to me anymore. And if you do, I don’t engage with them. We’re friends now, which isn’t something we have ever actually been before.

Oliver and I hadn’t dated in a long time. We hadn’t actually communicated in several months. But since we were pretty young we had a history of seeking one another out as a touchstone of intimacy. It was something, maybe an illusion, that I think we both kept tucked away, even if one of us had, at any given time, moved on. It was a romantic sort of love that was never quite lost.

So, there we were. He’s telling me about the apartment they just bought and I’m ordering another beer. He’s having a church wedding, can I believe it? It happens. Will I come to the wedding? Oh man, OK. Actually, it’s really important to him that I meet her. That’s sweet, kind of. And then, I really didn’t see this one coming: She’ll be joining us this evening for a drink. Jesus. Had I known, I would have worn a, um, different shirt. I couldn’t imagine any version of the evening to come that was going to be what one would call relaxed. But I also didn’t really see an alternative. So, bring it on.

Now, let me start by saying that Oliver’s fiancée is cute as a button. That was literally my first thought. My next thought was that her face is more symmetrical than mine. Also, I’d like to say that she definitely tried to be nice. She just didn’t want to be there, and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t really want to be there, either. Vanessa was reserved. And I, in classic form, turned into some kind of aggressively friendly monster person. “How many siblings do you have? Oh my GOD. That’s AWESOME!” Not the best tactic, I realized halfway into my impression of Bill Hader’s Hu Jintao from Saturday Night Live. “I like to be kissed before someone is DOING SEX TO ME.” Ah, the irony.

We’re out on the sidewalk, thank God. I congratulate Vanessa again on her upcoming nuptials and say how nice it was to finally meet her. I turn to Oliver, who extends his arms to give me a bear hug. As I hug him, it occurs to me that I should hug Vanessa, too. What would she think? So, I turn around and kind of grab her, arms and all. And there I am, standing on the sidewalk outside a bar, clutching a woman who is about to marry the guy I had thought at one time I might end up with. Definitely time to go home.

It wasn’t until I got in bed that night—a bed I remember watching Oliver sleep in, watching his heart beat through a vein in his neck—that I began to feel sad. I wasn’t sad because I wanted to marry Oliver. If anything, that night I had been reminded of how much we have each changed since we knew one another best. I was sad because the whole evening, as bizarre as it had been, had felt like a farewell. I was saying goodbye to the first person who had basically taught me what it feels like to love. In a way, I was saying goodbye to a whole past life. Oliver could no longer be my touchstone. And I knew I wouldn’t see much of him anymore.

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