My taste in girls and women was pretty simple as a teenager and even a young man. I liked blondes and I liked blondes who liked to have fun. By fun, I mean they liked to laugh, party, and into good music. I also preferred girls who enjoyed sex as much as me. I wasn't a sex addict or anything, instead, a red-blooded American boy with raging hormones. Looking back, I supposed I craved the euphoric sensation of being intensely loved. Looking back, I may have had some slight feelings of inadequacy which was totally silly. I wish I had the confidence then that I have now. I was nervous about asking a girl on a date because I didn't know if I could take the rejection. Luckily, I was in a band, so a lot of women came to me first.
I knew the girl sitting across the room in Mr Kovalick's class at Limestone High School was interested in me, so one day I got the courage to ask her...to ask me...if I'd like to go to the Vise Vesa Dance coming up next weekend. So we began an intense 3-and-a-half-year steady relationship. Tammy was my first love and my first of many youthful experiences. We grew up together. They say you never forget your first love and this is so very true. They also say you never know what true pain is until you've had your heart broken. That is also true.
After graduation, my girlfriend left the state and married a co-worker to basically get out of her dysfunctional household. It all happened so fast that I was angry at myself for being so stupid to let it happen right under my nose. I was devastated. My stomach ached and I cried for days. I didn't leave my ORANGE ROOM for weeks with my Mom becoming quite concerned. She told me if there was any way she could take the pain away, she would. It would be months before I dated again but over time, I began to realize that life goes on.
Over the next few years, I stayed single but enjoyed the company of several different women. Many were blondes, one was a redhead and yet another was the sister of a guitar student of mine. She was a couple of years younger than me but had a job downtown, drove a Camero, and best of all, was very attractive. Shelley became my next real girlfriend and we dated from late 79' up until I went away to ISU in the Fall of 82'. She was a lot of fun and I'm sure we were very much in love with each other. We did fight a lot but that was true of my high school relationship as well. I thought it just went with the territory.
Everything seemed normal with Shelley and me while I studied away at school, but I was lonely and missing her. After a few months, I began to notice a distance in her voice on our phone calls and it became apparent that she had moved on to another guy. Once again, I was devastated!!! Oh not again!!!! My confidence was crushed and I self-medicated often. I'm sure it was a contributing factor to my less-than-stellar grades. My hurt turned into anger and I basically stopped speaking to her for some time. I was NOT going to get burnt again. The second jilt never hurts as bad as the first one, but it still stings. Thus began my period of wearing armor around my heart, yet, it almost seemed that my arrogant behavior was actually attracting some women.... but I declined to ever get close.
Around the time I was finishing ISU, I met yet another blonde. She had been on the dance floor of a gig my band was playing and she appeared to be sucking her finger while looking at me! I give this advice for free now to all my younger friends, "Never marry a woman you meet sucking her finger on a dance floor", which is exactly what I did. We started out more like roommates since we began living in a basement house at a reasonable $100.00 per month which we split. She was nice-looking and loved to have fun just like me. In many ways, we were perfect together....as friends! We had some good years together but I was starting to look for more stable work, a career job, and I was beginning to grow as a person, she continued the same path we had been on. We grew apart and I think she resented me for it. I wasn't as fun as I had been. I was becoming a little more conservative and I could feel that she and I were not on the same path anymore. But, we stayed married. She could make me feel so insecure at times with her constant put-downs. I remember one afternoon we were at an outdoor event with many bikers in attendance. My wife stuck up a long conversation with one of the bikers and when I went looking for her, I found her next to him on his bike. I asked her what she was doing and she sarcastically introduced me to her "new friend" as her "old man" and then casually added that "I didn't like Bikers"!!!!
If looks could kill, I'd be dead now. We excused ourselves.
This type of behavior was happening more often. At a restaurant with another couple, she went on and on about how much she liked my friend's hair and how my hair was nothing compared to his!!! Embarrassing. Other times, she would yell across the room to a man saying, "What are you looking at?" "Put your eyes back in your head." Then she'd ask me what I was going to do about it? Just foolish drama. After several years of this, I found a marriage counselor and he confided to me after his interview with my wife that he's never met a spouse who disliked her husband more than her!!!! We continued as a couple and eventually had two children together before she asked me for a divorce in 1994. Just three days after my best friend had passed away. Now this time, I wasn't hurt as much as I was relieved.
However, she made custody of our two little children very complicated. In fact, she took them out of state to be with her new man and future husband. That was a pain that stayed with me for years. I missed out on a lot of time with my kids. I should have been completely finished with women by then, but I had recently met someone different.
Long gone were days of simple pleasures. Those days had been locked away inside THE ORANGE ROOM.
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