Crushing

by Genevieve Novak

And she had the perfect life: an okay husband with all his hair,

Honestly, Eddie kind of sucks. We all think so.’ ‘Obviously Eddie sucks, Nicola,’ I cried. ‘He cuts his own hair. It’s his dream to live off-grid in a commune. He calls espressos “expressos”.’ ‘Then what’s all this fuss about?’ ‘Because I loved him anyway,’

Five failed long-term relationships in ten years was a pattern, and the only consistencies I could point to were: men myself. Obviously men were the problem, always, in every scenario, but I wasn’t blameless.

Was I going to take long baths in the dark, blasting Phoebe Bridgers and lamenting my wasted time because a man who felt confident that three minutes of kissing and thigh groping was adequate foreplay decided he could do better?

Getting over someone is not that difficult. All you have to do is focus on every negative thing about them for the rest of your life until you forget to stop actively hoping for their slow and painful death, then get a haircut.

Get fucked, Sam.’ ‘And good morning to you too, my future wife. You’re looking radiant.’ ‘You look like a cavoodle that’s got caught in the dryer.’ He remained unperturbed. ‘Our children will be beautiful.’

Her hedonistic twenties (and the first half of her thirties) had been a sparkly, boozy detour from her true goal. She had always wanted four kids, a Labrador, and a house near the beach. Well, she had a baby, a husband who acted like a baby, a feud with the neighbour’s cat, and a house on the very edge of town.

You and me, bunny,’ I whispered to Layla under the ricocheting argument of what constituted a short commute. ‘Swear we’ll never settle for less than the best.’ She hummed around a mouthful of mashed carrot: a clear promise.

I wondered how only children did it. Who held the strings of their safety net taut? Did they have no secret language with someone who had known them since before they’d mastered bladder control, share no knowing looks across the living room when their mum went on a tangent

Who could you be your truest, most switched-off self with if not a sibling? I didn’t even have to hide the fold of my double chin as I scrolled ever deeper in my blanket cocoon.

Here’s the unlikeable truth: I had loved being a girlfriend girl. Not in some regressive, stand-by-your-man way where I thought my place in life was as a supporting character in the hero’s journey. I just liked being someone’s someone.

Once upon a time, Sam would have made perfect sense as a rebound fling. He was cute. Inoffensive, like a teddy bear, with the kind of soft, open features that suggested he wasn’t capable of deviousness.

I could be an arty person with the right exposure. I had no talent to speak of, but I could learn to form an opinion.

Once they hit thirty, relationships last two dates or five years.’

The single most underrated quality in a person was silliness. Of all the traits one could possess — empathy, patience, unnaturally high alcohol tolerance — silliness reigned supreme.

Welcome Soul Spin! I’m Jen!’ boomed a headset-wearing Lululemon model. She had teeth that shone white under the blacklights. ‘Who’s ready to WORK?’ Everyone except me shouted back, ‘READY TO WORK, JEN!’ What kind of cult was this?

I don’t wish them ill or anything,’ I said. It was a lie. I had elaborate vengeance fantasies about them all, tailored to their exact idea of torture. I’d force Ian to spend three hours with a woman his own age. I’d make Martin read Clementine Ford’s books. ‘I just wish they’d all stop existing.’

You follow each other on social media? You went on one date.’ ‘We don’t follow each other. I just found his account.’ ‘Claud! Don’t be a psychopath!’ ‘His handle is just his first and last name; it’s not like he’s hiding it.’ ‘Why do you know his last name?’ ‘He told me about a website he just worked on, so I went on it, dug through the code, saw his agency’s name in the metadata and looked them up,’ she said, like this was normal. ‘Then I went on LinkedIn and searched through all the Jesses that work there to find his surname.’ ‘Claud.’ ‘I didn’t click on any profiles, I’m not stupid.’

Marnie Fowler (01:33): Hope you like the sound of depressed women complaining. Isaac Abrams (01:34): I like you, don’t I?

‘Okay, so I can remember, altogether . . .’ said Claud, reaching over to tap each of her cards in turn. ‘Love taken to the extreme. Communication issues and over-indulgence. Two halves of a whole, taking my life to the next level. Marriage and kids and the whole lot of it.’ ‘Well, it could mean —’ ‘I love this,’ she said, slapping her hands together. ‘You’re a genius. I’m going to fire my therapist and come here every month.’

‘I don’t think it really matters if it’s true or not,’ she said after a pause. ‘I think it just asks you to look at things through a different lens.’

Forget what I’d been saying all year; I wanted a man in the house. It was easy to make grand declarations of independence until you feared for your life.

‘Tell me something stupid,’ he said, leaning back into my pillows. I wanted to say, ‘This is suddenly the best night of my entire life.’ I wanted to say, ‘The number of times I have thought about this exact moment defies human comprehension.’ I wanted to say, ‘Every single thing you do makes me like you more.’ Instead, I said, ‘I don’t know if shih tzus have feelings.’

‘But boat drunk is top-tier.’ ‘No, pool drunk is top-tier,’ she argued, and let go of the oars. ‘Then boat drunk. Then land drunk.’ ‘Wait,’ I said, holding up a hand. ‘You’re forgetting about plane drunk.’ ‘Plane drunk! You’re so right. Should we go on a holiday?’

‘Why is yours a career and mine is a job?’ ‘Don’t read into that,’ she replied, exasperated. ‘Do you not buy coffee?’ I asked. ‘Is an almond croissant not the highlight of your weekend?’

‘My life might look trivial to you,’ I said, stern and resolved, ‘but everything about it is just as important as everything in yours.’

Marnie Fowler (00:50): You wouldn’t believe what else I’m good at Isaac Abrams (00:50): I can only imagine Marnie Fowler (00:50): I bet you do Isaac Abrams (00:50): Yeah. I do. Marnie Fowler (00:50): How often? Isaac Abrams (00:52): All the time.

Nothing prepared you for the distinct blandness of someone else’s boyfriend.

‘I have nephews,’ he said, smoothing out his brow. ‘They’ll pick up anything. We try not to swear.’ ‘Oh, I can’t wait to teach my niece to swear!’ I replied. ‘She’s only one and a bit, so her f’s aren’t great, but it’s my duty as her aunt to make sure she stands up and shouts “fuck!” at an important family function while it’s still cute.’

I wanted more for Claud. As with Nicola, her taste in men did not reflect how wonderful she was. It was crushing to watch my two favourite women, smart and funny and fantastic in every way, settle so far below their worth, and worse still, to hear them defend it.

Relationships never work! I shouted at myself, then turned to the side, cupped my hands around my mouth and whispered to no one, but this one would.

Partway through a surprisingly smooth rendition of the running man move, his mouth moved in the shape of something like, ‘COME ON!’ and I started to laugh in earnest. You couldn’t make fun of someone who was making fun of themselves. So when he mimed throwing a lasso through the air, I was helpless but to let myself get caught in it and spin — haphazardly — in tight circles as he pulled me in.

Why wasn’t it enough? Why had I never been good enough — for him, for Ian, for Guillaume, for Thomas, for Martin, for Eddie, for Claud? I’d tried. I’d held on. I’d twisted myself into the shape of all the things they liked, and it hadn’t mattered. It was the me part that drove them away.

The whole world was full of people trying to guess their partners’ passwords; people lying awake at night trying to rewrite their memories; people making excuses for their unbalanced marriages; people brokenhearted or cautiously optimistic; people who had made a mess and hadn’t a hope of cleaning it up. All of us just as clueless and clumsy as one another, hoping that our match was looking for us too; hoping that the people we met along the way would be gentle with us. So often they weren’t, though, and you couldn’t fathom their thoughtlessness until it was your turn.

It must have been delicious, I thought, to know someone was out there desperate for any word from you, to know how much the sound of your voice meant to them, and to not care. How natural it felt to inhale their adoration and exhale your indifference.

I don’t know how long we talked for, because the day blurred into sunsets and cocktails until I’d forgotten to be cold with him anymore, and we were laughing.

‘I love every bad thing about you,’ he said. ‘Everything you don’t. All your bruises.’ I wanted him to mean it. More than that, I wanted it to be true. There was nothing I could say that wasn’t terrifying, so I kissed him instead, and that was enough to hit reset and wipe the look off his face, and I was her again, and again, and again, and again, everything he wanted for as long as he wanted her.

No one deserved this, least of all a woman whose biggest flaw was that she loved someone who didn’t respect her.

Men — men like Mitch, men like Jesse — loathed an angry woman, so I got angry.

‘He threw his back out sneezing yesterday. Nothing’s worse than a bad back.’ I could think of a few things. Being used. Basing your value in your necessity. Balancing ever more precariously on the tightrope of wife and mother — which to whom? — your core spasming with effort.

‘These smart, fantastic, funny, driven, generous, interesting, incredible women who let these nothing men, these mediocre, angry, no-effort, no-payoff men treat them like a chore.

Everything just seemed like too much effort. Chasing the high of a dopamine hit my whole life, never satisfied by good wine or a $20 note found in my pocket, itching for the next good thing to come along and distract me from my own oppressive ennui.

Had she not needed to be hugged like she needed oxygen, I would have pulled her phone out of her bag, worked out his address, gone over, hammered on his door until his ugly weasel face appeared behind it, and headbutted him, knocking him to the ground and proceeding to unleash a fury on him so violent it would give Tarantino pause.

‘But what about what I want?’ she asked, crumbling through a fresh wave of tears. ‘I want more than enough. I want all of it, from everyone, all the time.’

‘I don’t want to be on my own because there’s no other option,’ she squeaked. ‘I don’t want to be my own fallback plan.’

‘You deserve everything you want,’ I told her. ‘Everything you want and more than you need.’

‘Never underestimate a man’s ability to make you feel guilty for his mistakes.’

you just pick something you don’t hate and do it until you don’t want to anymore. Life isn’t a storybook. There’s no arc. You just live and try to have a good time doing it.’

I had to know all of my options before making a choice, no matter its significance. I was paralysed by indecision, idling for years. I let myself be led by stronger personalities to absolve myself if — when — things went wrong.

‘I thought we were playing around all this time,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t know you meant it. I didn’t know you thought that way about me.’