Lolita

I am leaving for Michigan in three weeks, and after four years of living here, I still have no idea my purpose for being here.

There is a saying based on the Bible that everything is worked for the good of those who love God. In other words, we have to believe that even those things that are bad, tragic, or whatnot, the Lord uses for good. There is always a silver lining.

Yesterday, I woke up almost in tears because I had a vivid dream of talking to Alex over the phone. Really, I do miss him, and if I truly wanted to I could attempt to track him down in Kentucky. But I don't need to bring him back into my life. Having Alex out of my life permanently is what needed to happen for my own sanity and well-being. It doesn't feel good, though.

I already was having kind of a bad day because of that. I was about to make myself a balanced dinner, when I go into the kitchen and see Nikolai - with a date. He met an undergrad through a buddy of his, and they were having a little dinner date and then going to play tennis. It took me a while to realize that she was his date. The girl was polite and friendly. She was also 21, with an average body (maybe size 10-12), pimply face, bug eyes, and limp mousy blonde hair.

I first thought to myself "What does she have that I don't? I'm friendly too, and more educated, and a hell of a lot hotter than her. What makes her better than me?" Just being in the kitchen with those two was an uncomfortable feeling...she pretended not to know how to cut salad items, and she laughed at everything he said. I felt like I was in the middle of a "To Catch a Predator" sting operation. I was cooking chicken, and I attempted to speed through the process on the George Foreman grill...pressing down on the chicken, praying that it would hurry up and cook all the way through so I could be out of there. And then I took my chicken and the rest of my Mediterranean salad and went upstairs. I couldn't even eat. All I could do is cry, softly. The whole day had been a validation of how I felt about my life in Cincinnati, that it was hell and everything I touched, particularly when it came to dating, turned to crap.

I talked to Brooke and to my mother, and both pretty much said the same thing. The problem is not me, it is Nikolai. It's not that I'm not as good as this average 21-year-old undergrad. It is just that Nikolai is the kind of person who is not man enough to be with someone his equal, particularly if she is somewhat headstrong. He likes to be in the position of teacher-adviser-mentor, and not just in terms of work. He likes to play that role in his relationships, particularly with women, and he has a difficult time dealing with a woman who doesn't eat up everything he says as if they are pearls of wisdom from God himself. My mother added that he has nothing to offer me that would make him superior to me. I am not some young undergrad from a small hick town in Ohio, I'm in the same program he is in, for something a little different, and while I may not be as well-traveled as he is, I have a lot of life experience outside academia that he just doesn't have. We are different, yet equal. He doesn't want a give-and-take, he wants to be in a relationship that is primarily a one-way street. It's not going to happen with a late-20's black American colleague from Detroit. Maybe it will with a 21-year old white underling from a small hick town on the American countryside - as long as the novelty remains. I am just not the one.

Speaking of novelty...in talking to Brooke, I thought also of something else. It might even be that for the girl, she is looking for novelty, and of course with a 30-year-old PhD candidate in social sciences from an exotic country, it's the ultimate novelty for her. But I'm 26, and way past novelty. Sure, I thought it was neat getting to know someone from country I only knew previously for its soccer team and Russian-ish names. But I never felt that he was better than me, or that he didn't eat, drink, sleep, and use the bathroom just like everyone else. Besides, I grew up with foreigners, and I couldn't have cared less if he came from the moon. I did the novelty thing when I was 17. It wasn't a foreign thing, it was a "Westside Story" thing (wrong side of the tracks)...he was from a rich Grosse Pointe family and I was from a working-class family in the city of Detroit. It was neat at first, but quickly the novelty wore off and we had little in common. After you do it once, you recognize it for what it is, and you learn that novelty doesn't make a relationship.

Although Nikolai complains about people thinking he's the type who is out to screw his young students, apparently he wouldn't be above that. Bottom line is that as it is, basically Nikolai is playing the role of the exotic 30-year-old teacher who is giving an adult education to a 21-year-old innocent. He is too much of a boy and not enough of a man to deal with a woman who is at or near his stage in life. It goes to show that I am more quality than Nikolai could ever hope to have.