Preamble
This chapter is a little late to say the least, so I guess I should start by saying sorry that this is the case. In my defence, however, the next 2 parts of this story cover a period of 3 years (April 2010 - April 2013) and, given the fact that I can scarcely recall what happened 10 months ago — let alone 10 years — I felt the need to refresh my memory before putting pen to paper.
Thanks to the wonder of modern technology, I was able to swipe all the way to the top of my FB messenger conversation with SG¹ and then scroll aaaaall the way back down; combing carefully through each message to ensure I got an accurate picture of what happened during those hazy few years.
Due the volume and length of the messages, this task took much longer than expected but it did successfully help me recall several key events, thoughts, feelings and intentions in sufficient detail to effectively piece together the past and construct the very prose you’re about to read.
Since they were written through the lens of my current, retrospective, almost third-person interpretation of things that occurred many years ago as described in a primary source, I think the next chapters could be even more veracious and revealing the first few; which were drawn directly from my very vivid yet ultimately fallible memory. So that’s a plus.¹ª
Having said that, I still encourage you to take everything I say in the following paragraphs with grain of salt because, as honest as I endeavour to be, I am also attempting to entertain and there are always two sides of a story.
With all those caveats out of the way, let’s pick back up where we left off.
All OK
Part 1
So there I was: eyes resembling waterfalls, dark room, feeling as though my life as I knew it was over. I had met, chased and caught the girl of my dreams, spent enough time with her to establish an incredible 2-way connection that went way beyond the harmless summer fling it should have been, only to have her fly home to where she lived on the other side of the world; possibly forever. Sick.
To add insult to injury, Sidebar Girl (SG) didn’t go straight home. Oh no, far from it. First, she flew from Sydney to Fiji where she spent a week sipping cocktails, sun baking and playing pool with the locals. As much as I wish she could have stayed, or at least that I could have hid in her suitcase, our first week apart wasn’t so bad. Any doubts I had about us going the distance were cast aside by the regular volley of lengthy messages, the recency of us physically being together and a lovely little postcard she sent from her south Pacific sanctuary. "If this was a sign of things to come”, I thought, “the long distance thing was gonna be smooooooth sailing."² Famous last words.
After her time in a tropical paradise, SG flew back to the UK which was great because she’d arrive home to her boring old life with shitty weather, we could commiserate together, she’d remember how awesome it was when she was with me, realise that a better future awaited her in Australia, then pack up her life, hop on a plane and return down under to live happily ever after with me. Except, that’s not what happened at all.
SG flew from Fiji to LA to meet her BFF³ for a boozy 5 week road trip down the west coast of the USA. I had no reason to think she would be unfaithful, we’d just spent the past month forging a connection that felt more real than anything I’d ever experienced before, but she’d told me stories of how “liberal” her bestie was when it came to men, and just a bit of a wild child in general. So understanding that “things happen” when people are travelling, especially when in the presence of bad influences, I was a little on edge.
As we’d basically been in constant contact since SG left, sending long play-by-play emails with lovey-dovey sign-offs back and forth every other day, I just assumed this would continue throughout the American leg of her trip. But it didn’t. Apart from two relatively brief messages right at the start — which mainly described how she was more or less constantly being hit on in clubs and that her drink had been spiked on their first night out — I heard nothing from SG for weeks.
In hindsight, which has never been more 20/20 than it is in 2020, the best thing to do would have been to just back off, chill out, give her some space, let her have a good time and genuinely want her to do so. But possessing neither the experience nor maturity to do any of those things at that tender age, I did the exact opposite. Misconstruing the fact that SG was just a little busy making the most a once-in-a-lifetime adventure with her best friend who she hadn’t seen in months, I am ashamed to admit that I started to descend into the territory of clingy ex-girlfriend⁴. I stalked her on Facebook; trying to track where she was, what she was doing and who she was doing it with. I examined the photos she posted again and again like some sort of detective; and if there was ever a guy in it my mind would race off into all sorts of destructive thought loops. She could message me in Fiji, why not in the States? Had she found someone else? Was it over? Was I wrong about us the whole time? The onslaught of questions, doubts and fears spat me into a downward spiral; a frantic free fall from heaven to hell with no parachute.
I knew I had to back off, but I was so scared of losing her, terrified of being forgotten and replaced that I just couldn’t help myself. Violating the universally understood wait-for-a-reply rule, I wrote this message barely a week into SG’s road trip: "so, 4th message in a row, lol, starting to think i am a little too keen…” ⁵ and clearly, I was. But not any more keen than I had been the whole time. And, until that point, I was given green lights to keep going. But as message after message went unanswered, I began to wonder whether she wanted me at all.⁶⁽ʸᵒᵘ ˢʰᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵖʳᵒᵇᵃᵇˡʸ ʳᵉᵃᵈ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵒⁿᵉ⁾ A few days later I fired off one last ultimately unsuccessful attempt to make contact with SG then sat on my hands and waited for a whole 2 weeks until I knew she was finally back in the UK: "So your hoooooome! how does it feel? now you've got time I wanna hear all about the states. if you wanna tell.... miss you xx”. Again, nothing. Not having heard from SG for a month despite several attempts, and after ruminating over the endless worst case scenarios that could explain her silence, it all became too much and I sent possibly the most cringe-worthy collection of words I’ve ever strung together. Brace yourself. "hey (SG), how is it to be back? i know you must have been busy settling in at home again and job hunting and everything else, just haven't heard from you in a while. like, i hope i am heaps off the mark, i hope i am imagining it coz i really like you (SG), but if you wanna call it quits i'll try and deal with it. i mean, i dont wanna sound emo or like a freak or a plonker, but i just wanna know what the story is coz i dont really know what's goin on. xx”⁷
Think and say what you will about my approach (it couldn’t possibly be worse than my own reflections) but my persistence clearly paid off because that message FINALLY provoked a very prompt and somewhat scathing reply which put me right back in my place. In a few fiery paragraphs SG made very clear what I had known all along: if I continued to behave like I’d done while she was in the States — clingy AAF — I would indeed push her away for good. Wishing not to realise my deepest fear I swiftly replied with an apology, an acknowledgement of my neediness and a pledge to “just chill out” from that point onward, before moving right along to to say this “...oh, and i wrote another song about you, really happy with it again. when things calm down in you world sign up to skype and i'll play it for you, if you want…”⁸
The structure and style of my response marked a significant policy shift in CJ-SG relations away from one of Pestering and towards one of Appeasement⁹, Persistence, Optimism, Audacity and Nostalgia Stoking (APOANS). Here was the grand strategy: be chill. Remind her that we were on the same page by saying and doing nothing that could lead to conflict or disagreement. Conversely, I’d always agree with her and always take her side; no matter what I truly thought. If she expressed disapproval with or even a slightly alternative view to something I said or did, I’d back flip like a spineless “Yes Man". With this pandering hopefully causing SG to think favourably of me (and us) I would then persistently sprinkle not-so-subtle references to the memories we shared from her time in Australia. I would remain upbeat in the tone of my messages; seeking never to be a drag, or burden or anything like that. And the content would be so detailed and entertaining that she’d want to read and reply rather than feel obliged to do so. I’d be fun, cheeky, audacious in my suggestions to reunite and ultimately optimistic about our situation in the face of the astronomically unlikely odds that things would actually work out. As seemed only natural to do, I would tie this all together by continuing to write songs to and about her, which would help me communicate everything I couldn’t write point-blank in a message and, surely, seal the deal. I thought if I could just keep this up, keep her remembering and believing in us until we could figure out when and how to get together again, everything would be fine.
That was the plan anyway, and for a while it seemed to be working. With the lines of communication now reopened, the 2-way flow of messages resumed and their tone returned to their lighthearted baseline. She told me all about her road trip¹⁰, caught me up to speed on the happenings of her life upon arriving home and gave me a hard time for being a stress head. Fair call. I responded playfully and she fired back with a barrage of banter. As we kept writing to and fro every day or so in this manner, I got the sense that things were close enough to normal that it might be safe to revive a conversation that would underpin this phase of the saga. Namely, plans to reunite… which you can read all about in part 2 (i.e. where the wheels start to fall off)
Which started in March 2010 while she was travelling up the east coast of Australia / 1a. With so much time and emotional distance between me and that conversation, when I was reading back through over the past couple of weeks it almost felt as if I was a journalist who’d been leaked the private correspondence two complete strangers rather than SG and myself. It was simultaneously so foreign and so familiar. Very strange.
As I wrote in the last chapter, SG & I had mutually agreed to “see how things go” / “give long distances a go” before she left
To whom SG no longer speaks - THAT’S a whole other story.
Or boyfriend! Or boyfriend. No gender biased here.
A funny side note - the rest of that message was "...had my first day of prac (hospital placement for physio degree) today, it was interesting to say th least, had one patient say to me "I dont want to go for a walk, i want to die!” LOL! what a zinger! I bet they meant it too. If my 6.5 years experience since then has taught me anything it’s that old people really do have a unique ability to drop truth bombs when you least expect it!
You know how I got a small yet significant detail of the story wrong in a previous chapter and had to make a written correction? Yeah, well, I’m embarrassed to say that I have to make another one; and it will make SG very happy indeed. You see, in chapter 2 of this tale I explain that my 2nd song 'Do You Want Me' was written about / inspired by the period in time where SG and I had had that first amazing week together, but then she continued travelling up the east coast of Australia and basically ignored me completely; leaving me to question whether what we had was as special as I thought it was and whether she still wanted me. And I swear to God that this is how I remember it. But when reading back through our digital conversation — which starts when she was still in Australia between the 2 times she was in Sydney with me — in preparation for writing this chapter, the volume and nature of the messages (along with the texts and phone calls which are referenced in them) made it apparent that my memory had once again failed me. SG DID ignore me, and I DID write Do You Want Me during/about the descent into madness that her radio silence provoked, but it was during her 5-week USA road trip — not Australia — that this occurred. So if you’ve been bothered to read this footnote, you now have the REAL story and the knowledge that the DYWM should probably come after AHSM in the order of songs. But it would be too hard to go back and change the whole thing now. Besides, I think the mixtape flows better the way it currently is: happy songs > sad and intimate songs > happy / upbeat songs again. So Imma leave it the way it is. But yeah, there’s the inside scoop on what really went down. Now, let’s get back to me being ignored by the love of my life.
I read this back now and it’s almost like I didn’t write it. It’s like it’s the deepest, most private and raw thoughts of an entirely different person. On one hand, I feel sorry for the guy. He thinks his heart is breaking and he can’t make sense of it. But on the other, I’m just like “DUDE, chill the fuck out. Give the girl some space. If you squeeze too tight now you could lose her forever. But if you let go a little, and it’s meant to be she’ll come back. Listen to Samuel: "be chill" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv3AY1zTzaE
And the rest of that message was truly foreshadowing “...actually, that being the third song for/about you, i'll probs have to call my first album “L" or something crazy like that. 😜” and here we are...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement - not the best analogy, really, because that would make me Neville Chamberlain and SG Hitler. To be clear, SG was not and is not in anyway comparable to Hitler, but in terms of making concessions to avoid conflict - that was my MO
Which, to my relief, had no mention of any other romances. Whether or not they actually occurred is another matter