Riding on the 3-Way of Love

My last post was about that feeling you had, as a young person, about your first apartment… how awesome it was, no matter how shitty, just because it was yours.  I also talked a bit about my actual first apartment, which I shared with my girlfriend and a mutual female friend.

Then in a post on That’s Church, Ginny asked what things we’ve never had.  In my responding comment, after a couple innocuous items, I mentioned “a three-way” (just to be a wise-guy).  Then blog friend/real friend Cassie asked in a comment on my last post, why I hadn’t done so.  (As if it wasn’t hard enough finding one girl that wanted me, let alone two at the same time.)

As it just so happens, that ties into the story I wanted to tell tonight (plus in the next post).  The events surrounding that first apartment I had, off campus in Bowling Green, were event-filled and bizarre, to say the least.  To start, I have to talk about that particular girlfriend.

At the end of my junior year, during the intense year-end partying following final exams, I kind of paired up with a girl I worked with at the college radio station.  She was a sweet auburn-haired girl, whose home was about 2 hours away, outside of Cleveland.

All that summer, we wrote to each other, looking forward to when we could see each other again.  It didn’t really work out, though, despite my best intentions, because on the first day of my senior year, I found myself thunderstruck by someone new.

This girl came charging into our Commuter Center Community like Bette Midler on acid.  I wasn’t normally interested in freshmen, especially now as a senior, but this chick was a real piece of work.

To describe her, start with Kathy Griffin.  This girl wasn’t a redhead, she had longish blond curly hair.  She was shorter, but with a huge rack.  But the voice and attitude were all Kathy Griffin.  She was funny, lively, audacious, a real wild card.  I liked her immediately.  I’m always drawn to the flakes strong personalities.

We flirted throughout the first month or so… I had to convince her to finally dump her on-again/off-again dick of a boyfriend and throw in with me. 

We started dating, and were, on-again and off-again ourselves, before we finally became an official item.  Her family lived in Bowling Green, so she was a “townie,” unlike me, who drove in daily from 40 minutes away.

We dated through the end of the year until I graduated.  As it was becoming more and more troublesome to sneak into her family’s house after her Mom and Dad went to work, carve out time alone; we decided that maybe we should move in together.

To help smooth the way, I asked her to marry me and bought her a (tiny) diamond ring.  (I swear, the things guys will do for poon…)  Somehow, she got her parents to grudgingly go along with it, and as I said in my prior post, we moved into a converted garage/apartment about a mile from her family home.  Because she was still in school and I wasn’t making much at the record store, we asked a mutual female friend to move in with us and the three of us set up shop.

When I mentioned the 3-way at the top of this post, you’d think I’d have been talking about the Girlfriend, the Roommate and me.

Not even close.

I came home one night after work and the Girlfriend had one of her Theater friends over.  They were drinking some wine and shooting the breeze in the living room.  I’d never met her friend before… she was very cute.  So I poured myself a drink and joined in the conversation.

I remember at one point, I was sitting on the arm of our loveseat and the friend needed to pass by.  There was plenty of room in the pathway, but still, as she passed, she kind of rubbed her pubic bone against my leg as she brushed by.

I was like, “What’s this chick doing, marking territory?”  That couldn’t have been an accident.  (I asked the Roommate about this later, who confirmed, “We girls are very particular about where we rub our snatch.  That was no accident.”)

But the Girlfriend seemed not to notice.  In fact, we were all sitting together, very close, laughing and carrying on.  There was a lot of nudging and arm-stroking going on, and NOT by me.

Somehow, and after almost 30 years later the details escape me, we three ended up in our bedroom sitting on our bed.  Next thing I know, I have a different girl licking each ear.

I’m thinking, “Holy Shit!  They must have planned this whole thing out!  I’m about to get very, very lucky tonight!”

I took great care to make sure I did exactly the same things with each one.  If I kissed one, I then kissed the other.  If I rubbed on one arm, I rubbed on the other.  I did not want to risk upsetting anyone with the appearance of more attention.

Then, abruptly, the Girlfriend pulled back and said, “Why don’t you go down to the gas station (on our block) and get a bag of ice?”

I said, “OK, sure,” and hopped up (eventually) to go get ice.  Meanwhile, I was racking my brains trying to figure out why she wanted ice.  I made it down to the gas station and back in record time, all the while wondering what would be going on when I got back, and what they had in store for me.  Then here is what happened when I came in the door:

Nothing.

They were back in the living room, with an aura of “awkward” permeating the atmosphere.  The night petered out from there, much to my chagrin.

Later, I asked the Girlfriend what the fuck just happened in here?  Did they have some kind of plan worked out?

To my surprise, she said no, it just happened.  And as I suspected, once things started heating up, she had second thoughts and started getting jealous, so she pulled the plug.  It was probably the wine that made her do it in the first place.  Girlfriend was not much of a drinker.

Gah!  So close yet so far.

Anyway, our arrangement was doomed to failure right from the start.  Surprisingly enough, it had nothing to do with the roommate.  The Girlfriend and I were as different as night and day, and it started with our upbringings.

Her family was a complete matriarchy.  She and her Mom ran their house.  Her poor dad wasn’t much more than an afterthought in the scheme of things.  He tried to chip in on what was going on from time to time, but they pretty much ignored anything he had to say.

In my family, Dad made the rules.  Mom and Dad were usually united, when it came to us kids, but Dad was the Hammer.  When he spoke, we snapped to, lest we incur the wrath.  So in MY house, I was not content to let the women rule the roost.  I could accept being a 1/3 partner, but I’ll be damned if I was just going to roll over and do whatever the hens wanted to do.

There were other issues, of course.  I was into sports and loud rock & roll.  She didn’t care about much more than the Theater and show tunes.  I took her to see the Stray Cats play our school once, and she refused to even stand up (when everyone else on the floor was standing.)  She just sat there and waited for the show to be over.

Like I said, she didn’t drink much or party at all.  So at the first Barn Party I took her to, she spent the night sitting under our bar, reading a book.  It’s hard to have a good time yourself when your significant other refuses to even try, and goes out of her way to show everyone how much fun she’s not having.  So for most of the following parties, I stopped bringing her along.  I’d go back home for the party myself and spend the night in my old room.  Was much more peaceful that way.

She quarreled with my parents, she hated my friends… once the shine was off, we found that we were completely mismatched for each other.

So we had moved into that apartment in August of 1984, and by the beginning of the following June, we’d pretty much had it with each other.  One afternoon at a park, (I think it was at Moon Park outside Pittsburgh, at one of my family reunions) we had a long talk, sitting on a grassy hillside.  We very gracefully came to the mutual conclusion that moving forward and getting married would be a huge disaster, and maybe we should call it quits while we still liked each other.  It was the most graceful breakup ever and still the best one I ever had.

She said she’d move out immediately.  I told her not to… she was already paid up through August when the lease expired, so why not just stay until we all left?  Since we were on such good terms, why not just ride it out?

Boy, did I ever regret making THAT offer…

Next up: The Summer of Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow!