Grain of Salt
You know the scene in The Breakfast Club where Allison talks about being a nymphomaniac, and everyone accuses Claire of being a tease? And then after that Allison reveals she made it up, that she’s a compulsive liar? Whenever I think of Allison I think of that scene, immediately followed by the thought, She is so my type. I hope the two thoughts are unrelated. I like to think my attraction is less about the compulsion and more about the over-use of eyeliner. Then again, I’m not sure if I saw this movie before or after my first breakup.
As a heartbroken teen I set up myself to be in a good position for people to tell me that my ex was an awful person all along. It’s shitty, but it’s par for the course when you have the self-esteem of a deflated pool tube. People should be telling me that I need to suck it up and that shit happens, but surprisingly a good number are doing the opposite. Her own friends are coming up to me to tell me she’s a compulsive liar. One girl — her supposed best friend — says she wouldn’t even be surprised if my ex lied about sleeping with her drummer friend. (When my ex confesses, years from now as we’re in her bed, that she did lie about that, I’ll tell her it’s fine either way.) By the end of the school year nearly everyone I know that I thought was closer to her has told me about how she lies habitually.
“I met her when we were kids,” her neighbour tells a friend of mine, “and she’s been lying ever since.”
Two years afterwards I’m back with my ex. She tells me a story about how, when she was a little girl, she thought she was Japanese. Maybe her childlike wonderment led to her romanticizing Japanese culture to the point of wanting to embody it; maybe she felt disconnected from her family as a kid and filled in the gaps creatively; or maybe she was just confused about the acronym for “Jewish-American Princess”. No matter the reason, she says she remembers being four years old and telling everyone she was really from Japan.
I laugh and hold her close because when I thought I hated her years ago I was lying to myself. She’s the very definition of my type, after all.
Although, I always thought my dream girl would wear a lot more eyeliner.
Way It Was is a writing project and ongoing attempt to work through a lot of relationship related shit. Find out more about it here.
