I Dated Four Girls at Once

In honor of Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I thought I would share with my dear readers a delightful tale of me at my stupidest.  In some ways I can blame sitcoms for making me think that this would be a good idea, but actually, if sitcoms have taught me anything, it is that your ridiculous antics will eventually get you caught and everyone will be mad at you.  Of course in sitcom land, everyone is happy with you again by the next episode, so perhaps this is why I decided to date four girls at once.  And why I decided to bring two different dates to a party without telling any of them about the others.

I didn’t mean to, really.  I was confused!  I was 18!  I thought I was all smooth!  No I didn’t.  I was terrified.  When I found out that two of the four of the girls I was somewhat involved with would be at the same party, I was horrified.  And thrilled, in a sick sort of way.

One of the four was my ex-girlfriend, who almost doesn’t count because we were broken up, but she had made some advances that I hadn’t flat-out refused, and there was some ambiguity.  I hate upsetting people, so it was hard for me to keep saying no over and over again, especially with all those teenage hormones involved.  So maybe she thought we were maybe going to get back together, or maybe she didn’t.  Either way, it was a time of weirdness.  But it was okay for the moment, because she wasn’t going to the party.

Then there was the girl I had liked for a while.  She had flat out refused me repeatedly, so I had almost given up.  But then, out of nowhere, a glimmer of hope!  Should I follow that path?  It was certainly what I had been wanting for months!  I guess I could start down the path a little…  And she was definitely going to be at the party.

But to complicate matters, there was a new girl that had been sparking my interest lately, and we had started a heavy flirtation that I was definitely interested in pursuing.  The last thing I wanted was for her to see me putting the moves on (or not resisting the moves of) someone else!  Everyone was getting together at her house, but luckily she was away at camp that week, so there was no chance that she would see my antics and then later refuse to marry me and have two children with me.  Phew!

And then there was my biggest mistake: my best friend’s ex-girlfriend.  Having been sent by my friend to try and reconcile the two of them after she broke up with him, I was totally unprepared for her climbing on top of me and kissing me furiously.  I was so surprised, and, you know, despite my one week of romantic glory that I am describing to you now, this didn’t really happen to me all that much.  So I went with it.  Huge mistake.  Ranks up there in my top mistakes of all time.  But away I went.  We started meeting in secret to be together, knowing that all of our friends would kill us if any of them ever found out.  It was super exciting and dangerous!  Funny story though.  They found out.  And tried to kill us.  Mostly me.  But I’ll tell you about that another time.  The important thing is that she was going to the party.

So I am at the house of my hopefully future girlfriend, surrounded by her family who can see everything I am doing, and trying to navigate between floors.  Running to the basement to hold hands with one girl, excusing myself repeatedly to go upstairs to sit next to another girl.  Back and forth, excuse after excuse, all night long.  It was exhilarating.  It was insane.  I got cocky.  I somehow got the idea that I could pull this off, and that it was not wrong.  And then it all came crashing down.

The party went off without a hitch.  That wasn’t the problem.  No, the problem was that I had not been able to keep all of this bottled up.  I had to have someone to talk to about my escapades and my increasing emotional confusion.  So I picked someone super-involved in their relationship too, and we would stay up nights talking on the phone about our love lives, and what we were going to do about them.  I certainly had no idea what I was doing.  I hope that much is clear by now.  But it was a good outlet for me to process what I was dealing with, and what sort of end game might be approaching.  And then she broke up with her boyfriend and, having nothing else to do I guess, told the girls what I had been doing.

That was not a fun night, let me tell you.  It involved a lot of crying, screaming, shouting, and the loss of more than one friendship, and I learned to never tell anybody anything, ever again.  Just kidding.  I learned most of what I know about relationships, people, and how my actions affect them on that night.  I learned that you can’t make everybody happy all of the time, and that choices are important.  And sometimes I still mess up and try to be too much of a people-pleaser.  And sometimes I still mess up and do things that I know will hurt other people.  And sometimes I still mess up and watch too many sitcoms.  But for one shining week of my life, unmatched by any other, I was a complete ass.