A Bond of Love, Born From Hate.

There are very few chances in life for me to speak from romantic experience and be able to teach a valuable lesson. I've made a lot of romantic blunders, especially for a man that has only had 2 girlfriends so far.

Near the top of the list of my romantic mistakes, is Catherine, and I think my experiences with her may be the only source of romantic wisdom I possess. Some of my readers may recognize that name, others may not. Catherine was my second girlfriend. Like the first, she was not somebody I'd had any intention of dating, it was just something that happened. We were "together" for a fairly long time actually, around a year, though we didn't always see each other very often during that time. In the end, I broke up with her.

I hadn't actually ever intended to tell this story, but I came across an e-mail she sent me shortly after our breakup, and it's making me feel reminiscent. I will not discuss why we broke up, but I think I'll tell you a bit about how we ended up together.

In high school I was a relatively innocuous individual in most respects. There were people that liked me, and people that didn't care, but not really anyone who disliked me. This is not to say I didn't have my bad points, I had quite a few. My bad points just tended to be rather internalized, meaning that they didn't really effect anyone who wasn't close to me. So with nobody knowing my more irritating personal quirks, nobody ever hated me. I got beaten up a lot, but that was not because the bullies disliked me, it was because they knew I wouldn't "rat them out", and they liked having somebody to push around. Catherine was different.

The first day I met Catherine, she hated me. I had no idea why, she never gave a reason, but she absolutely loathed me. She got along pretty well with my friend Rob though, and she spent a lot of time working in the computer lab, so we spent a great deal of time around each other. I can't say that I liked being hated, especially without knowing why, so I decided to do something about it. Truth be told I'm still not certain what my intention was, certainly not what happened.

Have you ever had to deal with somebody that hated you? It's liberating. There's no fear that you can do anything wrong, no fear that maybe if you say something wrong this person will dislike you. They already do. Fear, like gravity, pulls you down when you try to fly. Imagine how high you could soar without gravity. Without that fear, what can a shy/innocuous person do?

Perhaps it would be more accurate to ask what that individual couldn't do. Believing that Catherine hated me, I was able to behave towards her in ways that I couldn't with anyone else. I was always a flirt at heart, even while my personal fears prevented me from acting the part around people I didn't know very well. Her hatred set me free from that constraint, and I took advantage of it happily.

I won't go into detail about the ways and means, but I hit on her pretty much constantly when we were around each other. It felt wonderful, to let myself free in her presence. It was so much different than dealing with my other classmates, friends, or Shandra (the big crush at the time). In a fairly short period of time, everything changed. While I was busy exalting in my freedom from self-conscious restraint, Catherine was seeing the real me. Beneath my surface I was not quite the same person most people see, I wasn't the innocuous James Boyce that nobody could hate, silent and practically invisible to the world.

I think she felt a measure of the same freedom I did, because she certainly never tried to avoid me. She was every bit as reserved as I was publicly, but she didn't care about my opinion any more than I cared about hers, so she jumped right out of the dark corners she hid in to beat me over the head with textbooks when she was in the mood.

No matter how much somebody dislikes you, if you like yourself when you are around the person, then you can't really dislike them. Catherine hated me, but I absolutely loved the freedom I felt around her, I loved the confident fearless person I was in her company. So I spent more time around her than I did before, and gradually things changed.

I can't be sure who changed their attitude first, but it wasn't long before we were friends. At that time we were probably closer to each other than we were to anyone else, the hatred was gone, but it was too late to reintroduce ourselves as Mr. and Ms. Innocuous-Nobody. I wouldn't have believed it from her any more than she would have from me. As "enemies" we'd come to know and understand each other better than any of our friends did at the time. So nothing really changed between us, or maybe everything did, it's a matter of perspective. The casual familiarity was as strong as ever, hiding myself from her as I did from everyone else was all but impossible, and I didn't really want to anyway.

Everyone at school thought we were dating, except our closest friends. We'd walk the halls of the school hand-in-hand, if you ever caught us sitting together then chances are she was perched on my lap at the time. We were not dating though, it was just that we were as comfortable together physically as we were mentally and emotionally. Friends only, but so connected that we might as well have been one person.

Time passed, as time always does, but that stage lasted for at least a year. Finally though, our relationship did change. We did begin dating, and once again that familiarity and deep understanding carried us through a lot. I will not discuss why things ended, it was purely my fault, and remains one of the greatest regrets of my life.

What needs to be said is this: Catherine couldn't have fallen in love with me if she had only been exposed to the personality I showed everyone else. Even had she liked him rather than hated him, they could never have shared the connection that we did. It's been about 4 years since Catherine and I said goodbye, but I still remember that feeling, and it still brings a smile to my face. There is only one thing more liberating than having somebody that hates you. Having somebody that has seen every side of your personality, and loves you unconditionally.