A few housekeeping items about this post:
1. His name is not Jonathan Miller. I’m not that brazen.
2. I started this post a VERY long time ago and finished it while Josh and I were having problems. Take that as you may.
3. He’s happily dating someone now and I am super happy for him.
He started working as a maintenance guy at the Wilkinson student center where I was a building coordinator. We shared an office along with the other BC's and maintenance people. I automatically assume anyone I meet has higher self-esteem than I do. My assumption of Jonathan was no different. Jonathan appeared confident, but he wasn't obnoxious. He was friendly. I was shy and cautious. Weeks went by, maybe months, I'm not sure. The only thing I remember about the interim is he wore a black short sleeve button up with very large white polka dots and I thought it didn't match his height. It was the sort of shirt you would see a hipster wearing, but Jonathan didn’t look like a hipster. He looked like a puppy/rugby player. Large and very muscly, but not necessarily athletic. After a while, I noticed Jonathan would make excuses to talk to me. He would bring me into the conversation a lot or roll his chair over to my desk to ask me a question. It wasn’t ever a work question. He usually asked what I thought about some current event or pop culture thing. I started to smell the sickly sweet wafts of a crush coming from him, but I tried to ignore it hoping it would go away. Not because Jonathan wasn't a nice guy, but because we worked in an office with lots of other people around and I despise feeling conspicuous.
At a work party, I started talking about Hamilton with a few coworkers. Jonathan joined in on the conversation. Eventually, it was just Jonathan and me talking. I enjoyed our conversation quite a bit. I started to think, “Maybe if he likes Hamilton, I should give him a shot” (wink, wink). At this point, I knew Jonathan liked me. I also had a feeling he was too nervous to ask me out. I hadn't exactly been giving him positive feedback over the past weeks.
While helping my friend one evening in her elementary school classroom, I decided to message him and see if he wanted to mini-golf with me. He was taking a golf class that semester. It felt like he took a long time to respond because I was VERY nervous for the rest of the evening. I had a vulnerability hangover. He did eventually message back that he would like to go. He gave me his phone number. Pretty soon after, we started dating.
One evening while we were driving he asked me why I was dating him. I think he wanted some assurance. I could only answer with honesty that I wasn’t sure. My friend later told me she thought that was a rude answer, but I had no other answer to give at that time. Now with the benefit of hindsight and introspection, I think I was dating him because he liked me so much. It’s hard to resist a genuinely good person who thinks you are awesome. I enjoyed my time with him very much for the most part. Sometimes my social anxiety would flare up while in public with him, which is maybe why I was cautious about dating. He did a few things that felt like a social faux pas to me. In any event, he didn’t seem offended by my honest answer and we moved on to other things.
He would allude to wanting to marry me, but always in a joking way. I never took it too seriously, because why would someone want to marry me? Also, we had only been going on dates for like two weeks. He did things like take a picture of a jewelry shop and text, "need anything while I'm out?" He always wanted to go to Panda Express or take me out to eat. That must have been his way of showing care. I didn't want him to take me out to eat because I felt guilty having him pay if I wasn't very sure of how I felt. We'd take walks around Provo in the evenings to look at houses. He didn't understand why I liked walking so much, but he went with me. We had comfortable car conversations in his grandma's Buick. He was a good driver and being in the car felt calm.
My young cousins thought he was so cute. Especially the 9-year-old. He played Mario Cart with them and genuinely enjoyed it. He had a childlike playfulness they loved and I found endearing. The 9-year-old was so mad when I broke up with him. The five-year-old wasn’t mad, but she did ask me why I did it.
I loved his extended family. His grandparents and a ton of their kids and grandkids lived in the area. They were talkative and welcoming and inclusive. It was the type of environment where I didn't have to talk much to feel included. They liked me too. He had a brother in law named Jody that had a lot of confidence for a man with hair like Dagwood and a woman's name. I was slightly intimidated by his confidence, but he made me laugh. His aunt loved that I was a speech therapist grad student because her son has autism. His cousins played card games with us. His grandparents had a house that looked like an apartment building from the '60s. It was a split level house on steroids. I liked that about it.
We started dating around September which is when the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival happens. Jonathan's family has a tradition of going to this thing like millennials go to Coachella. It's a three-day event and his family attends in droves. Adults, kids, everybody. They wear fancy plastic wristbands and get excited about storytellers with names like Donald, Dovie, and Sheila. It's a whole thing. I love storytelling. When you grow up with a Cajun dad, storytelling is part of your DNA. So when Jonathan asked if I would like to go with his family, I was quite excited. It was one of the most magical weekends I've experienced.
We had to park in a church parking lot and then get shuttled up the canyon to the outdoor park where the white storytelling tents were set up. That was when reality started to become suspended for me in a good way. Jonathan gave me my pink little wristband and we went to find his family. Jonathan didn't seem nervous about whether or not I would think the festival was cool. I appreciated that. I'm not a touchy-feely person, but seeing him in that environment made me want to be close to him. I relaxed around him while we listened in the warmth of early fall weather. I felt peaceful and whole. We were getting to know each other without asking the clunky questions that accompany early dating. It was a shared experience that didn't need words.
The last event on the last day of the festival happened in the evening. The outdoor amphitheater sat at the bottom of a grassy hill. His family and I lined up outside the gate so we could get a good spot. When the gate opened, they had five giant quilts down before I even got over to the spot. We listened to a live swing band and all talked while the light slowly started to become more golden. His little cousin Emmett liked me and kept sidling up next to me. I thought he was adorable and liked that it made Jonathan jealous for my attention. Jonathan finally told him to leave me alone and scoot back to his mom. Emmett got mad and cried for a little while. At some point, before the storytelling began, he came back and asked if I was going to marry Jonathan. I gave some answer like, "it's possible," which was honest, but I probably should have been vaguer. I like taking children seriously, but I did not know how to answer that question. I never found out how Jonathan felt about my answer.
When the sky became dark, the storytelling began. We heard from a Welsh man, a grandmother, his family's favorite performer Donald Davis, and others. Then for the finale Bil Lepp: a West Virginian who told the most perfectly clever and hilarious story that totally enraptured me. I felt so proud and connected; it was the perfect end to the weekend.
I went home feeling really good about life and my relationship with Jonathan. We kept spending time together watching movies (at his apartment, my apartment, and his grandma's house), biking, and grocery shopping. There were a few times I think he wanted me to be more affectionate with him, but I was still partially guarded. We had not been dating long.
We were set to go to my extended family's Sunday dinner up Hobble Creek Canyon one weekend. He'd already met my extended family in Utah and my friend who was going with us. My grandparents were in town from California, but I wasn't nervous about them meeting him. He was a Georgia boy with good manners. I woke up that Sunday to see Jonathan had put on Facebook that we were in a relationship. I thought I needed to give consent for that to appear publicly so I was confused and flooded with messages from people. I was overwhelmed and I felt exposed without any forewarning. We went to dinner up the canyon still, but I didn't really talk much to Jonathan. He tried putting his hand on my back during the car ride, but I felt uncomfortable. He could tell I felt off so I let him know his announcement of our relationship had made me feel very vulnerable. He tried to explain he did it because "a lot of people were on his back about being in a relationship." I retorted, "You getting people off your back has put a lot of people on mine." And that was pretty much it. We didn't spend time together at dinner and my ability to feel open and comfortable in our relationship was gone. Over a few days, we talked about it; we tried to see how I could feel open again. I never really felt like those talks got us anywhere. I went on a run and accepted fully that I didn't want to be dating anymore. I texted him and asked if I could come over to talk to him. He said, "uh oh, that doesn't sound good..." I can't remember if or what I texted back. I jogged to his apartment and told him I didn't want to date anymore. He reacted very calmly. I think I said something stupid about genuinely wanting to still be friends. I meant it, but that's never a good thing to say when you're breaking up with someone. As I jogged away after he went inside, I felt a sense of relief, but also a sense that I maybe had made a mistake. The air was warm and the light was purple. I remember that. It was getting dark and I wanted to get home. I was sad when I thought about not spending time around his family anymore. I had really enjoyed their company and I think they enjoyed mine. I also knew that wasn't a reason to get back with Jonathan. I don't remember much about my thoughts after that.
I've had about four years since then to think about why I reacted strongly to such a minor thing: a Facebook post. I perceived his post was more about his own self-esteem than it was about feelings he had for me. I felt used and I got scared of what that might mean. I did my best to talk about my fear-based reaction with him. I did my best in general. I don’t regret what happened.
Sometimes I think about alternative realities. Mostly, I'm grateful for those happy times we had when I felt genuinely seen and loved. I'm grateful I tried even when I wasn't sure.
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