Love, Theoretically

by Ali Hazelwood

WAVES AND PARTICLES

Pissing me off already

henley

Goddamn henley!!!

The research groups at Northeastern started giving me covetous glances and stopped asking me to make coffee—only fair, since I don’t even drink it.

“I kind of liked it. In fact, I think I had an orgasm when it happened.”

Terrible. Awkward. Weird.

“Can I take you out?” The words don’t immediately compute. For several seconds they float in my brain like driftwood, aimless, unparsable, and then their meaning dawns on me. “You mean you want to . . . murder me.”

while I’m—” “A theorist.” She nods. “Like his mom, then.” I look up and blink at her. “His mom?”

EW

“Like Pauli’s exclusion principle.” We exchange a smile next to the passenger seat of the car.

They would just say pauli's but whatever

henley,

Honestly, no clue. I don’t have much experience. Not because I ever bought into the idea that sex is something precious, but because it felt like a means to an end, a way to ensure that the person I was with was pleased with me. Sex never happened because of any attraction I experienced, but that’s okay: maybe I never craved it, but I also never minded it. Because it wasn’t for me.

“You have a pattern of doing things you don’t enjoy for the sake of others, and I need to be sure the two of us don’t fall into it. I need to know that you’re not initiating anything with me because it’s something you think I expect. And I need to be certain that you don’t feel like you have to be some . . . fantasy lay whose only focus is my pleasure. That you’re in a place where you’re able to acknowledge and articulate your needs.”