I Love, Love

“In order to determine whether we can know anything with certainty, we first have to doubt everything we know.” — Descartes

I tell a lot of people about my dating life. I can get a group of strangers laughing in under 5 minutes if I open with the story of the guy who appeared with a brand new tattoo on each of our three dates. But while my Single Life Standup routine works on most people, deep down, I take things pretty seriously. And what makes matters worse: I believe in love. The truth is, I’m holding out for it.

It first started when I was 15 years old with Nick. He moved to the U.S. after spending his childhood in Belgium with his parents. I had taken French since the 3rd grade and Nick was fluent. What’s hotter than a 15 year old that used to go to the pub regularly and can speak French to you on demand? Nothing I tell you, nothing. We had our first kiss, and my first kiss ever at a high school dance, where my Aeropostale t-shirt read “Fast Girls Get There First.” Or in this case, last, because, in my mind 15 was embarrassingly old for your first kiss. I broke up with him half a dozen times for the following reasons; he was a little wild, he liked drinking, and my parents “strongly disliked” him. I often daydreamed about a future with him and never saw him as my person. So, senior year was a great excuse for a final break up.

After graduating high school, I went and worked at an Armenian camp for the summer and convinced myself that I absolutely had to marry someone within my culture. I also was not-so-secretly in love with the tall kid at camp. We called him Tree. It was totally unrequited, but the director of the camp was in on it and scheduled us on night watch and “late-late” night watch together. “Funny how we keep getting staffed together,” I’d laugh and casually flip my frizzy hair. I did everything in my power to garner his interest, but he may have never seen me due to my vertically challenged genetics. I promptly gave up when I went to college, as it was time to search for my Ivy League soulmate.

My first week in college was spent backpacking in the woods with two orientation leaders. I kept hearing statistics about how 60% of Dartmouth students met their significant others in college. So you could say I was keeping my eyes peeled. I went after my orientation leader, Peter, because I wanted the older and more experienced man. And, more importantly, he had a friend who was dating a girl, who was the teammate of my older cousin in college. If that’s not fate, I didn’t know what was. Our relationship involved sending each other puppy photos via email throughout our Biology and Neuroscience classes. Needless to say, he lost interest when he realized I wasn’t down to sleep over and really wanted a boyfriend. I promptly deleted my puppy folder on my computer. I didn’t even like dogs that much.

Sophomore summer I stayed on campus to work reunions. I was paired with a guy who my friends and I fondly referred to as the, “dark and brooding man” because he hung out alone at a popular coffee place. Sam and I worked the attendance booth for the Class of 1988. Pretty much everyone we checked in was married to a Dartmouth alum. “Hi, I’m Suzie from the class of ’88, and this is my husband Paulie from the class of ’86. He was in a fraternity and I was in a sorority. Now we’re married and have three children already in Mensa. This could be you one day!” God, we would’ve had an amazing story at our wedding. We started dating six months later and I was pretty determined to make the Dartmouth Matrimony Dream a reality. A year after we graduated and three and a half years after we met, I went to another Armenian function and my Marry Someone From my Culture fantasy regained strength.

I tried dating an Armenian after that because one finally looked at me and didn’t see the awkward girl who thought sports bras were real bras until the age of 22. George was super attentive. Mostly over text because making a phone call felt like commitment and we were in different cities. It felt more adult because he was a little older and because his friends drunkenly informed me that he had been, “so excited to see you.” I made the mistake of prematurely asking the ever obnoxious, “So where do you see this going?” Also known as, “Hey George, I haven’t been dating anyone else and I really don’t want to. Hey, it’s Anoush, still here!” “Obviously I like you,” he said, “I’m just not ready to commit to anything further than that. I’m super busy ya know? And you don’t even live here.” I breathed a sigh of relief, because yeah, I was busy too. When I moved back to Boston 6 months later, my interest had not faltered one bit. Until, one day, I packed up what was left of my self respect and moved on. It was a light suitcase.

I spent months after that almost desperately searching for a connection and not understanding why I had a hard time feeling any sort of emotional attachment to each guy I met. And with that, my dating life exploded. Or imploded, depending upon how you look at it. There was Brian, my marathon training partner. There was Andy, the nice guy I met at a wedding. There was Elliott, still in NYC. There was Ben, the 30 year old who wanted to be married and single at the same time. There was Ryan, the mutual friend who was crazy in a good way. There was the ever-lingering Mike who still likes to ask “what’s up” although he’s rarely received a response. It was overwhelming. What was most overwhelming about this was that I felt absolutely nothing. When Brian sent me a text from across the bar asking me to, “just be friends,” after a couple month fling, I gave myself permission to cry. I walked outside and felt the cool breeze on my face and said out-loud, “Feel something!” I started to laugh. I laughed because I had become so immune to the random dates who would, one day, just be names in my journal. And also because I thought I might have truly lost my mind by talking to myself in public. I was finally numb.

To paraphrase Descartes; in order to know anything certainly, we have to doubt everything we know. I mean, I had dated what felt like, half of the Northeast’s single-male population. I was highly doubting my dating abilities, but figured a special someone was close. That’s when my friend texted me saying, “What’re you doing in two weeks? My next door neighbor needs a date to the Marine Corps Ball.” After approximately 2 hours of debating, I booked my flight, while my coworkers cheered me on. That’s where I met my date, David. David was a kind hearted Marine who had graduated from college and moved to the thriving metropolis of Pensacola, Florida. We made a stunning couple. I called him my “boyfriend for the weekend” and let him hold my hand in public. He wrote me a love letter when I returned to Boston and asked to visit me to see where things went. I checked my phone for any potential suitors and confirmed there were indeed none. So I said, sure! He visited, I felt nothing, and I never really heard from him again.

I want to say that it all works out in the end. That when you stop looking, the right guy may just buy you your next $1 beer from Coogan’s or gaze lovingly at you as you scan your Ben & Jerry’s at Star Market. This hasn’t happened. Yet. I have fallen in, what appeared to be, love, a couple of times. I have also agreed to be someone’s girlfriend after two weeks of knowing them, dumped a guy on Valentine’s Day (twice), and pushed off a first date for a month because I was scared that it could be something real. And when I agreed to go on that date, it occurred to me, that even though I love, love, I am also terrified of it. Love means that I have to be naked in front of someone else in every sense of the word, while hoping with sick optimism that my flaws only make them love me more. I love, love because I know that I will have my own story one day, and it may not have to be turned into a stand up routine. That hopeful, late-blooming, 15 year old girl with the inappropriate graphic t’s still exists within me. And I know she would be giddy with joy to know that more boys than you can count on two hands have even looked her way. She would be even more excited to know that for each heartbreak, there has been countless goosebumps, butterflies, and breathless gazes. And to my now 25 year old self; it’s okay to be scared, but do not stop loving, love.