Little Story #17

I had a crush on a guy once.
Well. I had a crush on a guy about eighty gazillion times. But this one was a pretty big crush.
One day we were eating lunch together at the Diner. He said - so Tish, do you wanna go on a date?
Um. A Date?
Yeah. We could go to a movie.
Um. OK.
I went to visit a friend at her hair salon to ask what the heck I should wear. She fluffed me up a bit. I met him at the theater. He brought his brother.
Um.
We were seeing Ran by Kurosawa. I liked to sit in the front of the theater and be overwhelmed by the film. He had a vision problem that required him to sit toward the back. No problem. I'd sit in front and meet he and his brother after the film.
Tish. We're on a date. You have to sit beside me.
Um.
After the movie he said he and his brother were going to a pub to get a beer.
Um.
The next day we laughed and decided that dating was weird and we could just go to movies, or clubs together. That night we went to see Eraserhead. I guess I sat in the back. I don't remember but probably.
We had a sort of spastic relationship. I caught myself sitting by the phone one night (remember sitting by the phone?) and decided I could NOT do that. So I went to a hotel where I often hung out. There was a small bar off the lobby. I went there first. Another in the mezzanine. I stopped there to hear some music. A friend had a samosa shop off the mezzanine. I went into her kitchen to have a snack. Her phone rang. It was my crush. He wanted to hang out. He'd called the little bar, the mezzanine and now her kitchen trying to find me. He didn't want to stay in the mezz to hear the band. He wanted to talk.
As I'm writing this I am aware of how much I had to compromise for a little of his attention. Way too much. And the crush was becoming a deeper and deeper love. I had not believed he would love me and his pursuit of me (albeit weird and passive) was making me think something might happen. We talked about it a few times. He loved me very much but not "that way".
Creepiest thing to hear - ever.
So a few months of this went by. We spent a lot of time together. Drinking, smoking cigarettes, doing lines and talking, talking, talking.
Hard to say what exactly was the last straw for me. I asked him to leave my place one evening. He went to a club and met the woman he married. That was the last time I talked to him. I was shredded. For a long time.
Maybe the worst part was people saying I had to understand his feelings. I could have used a little more - he's an asshat.
What.
Ever.
A mutual friend of ours told me he told her that he didn't know I thought we were dating. I still get mad thinking about that. In fact I thought we were doing something much more real.
Asshat.