rough patch: “Ferris just doesn’t look at me the way he used to, guys.” “No, Kristin, he does! He’s over the moon! Everything’s great!”
It was fun, and, in my party of five, with the two married couples and an empty spot next to me in bed where Ben was supposed to be, it legitimately cheered me up. The myth of “Kristin’s Boyfriend, Ferris” took up so much conversational and mental space, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I was there with
my boyfriend, Ferris.
Which, of course, sounds insane.
But spending that much mental time with someone, whether they are there or not, apparently tells your brain something:
you love them.
I experienced the same weird phenomenon one time when I was trying to work up the courage to ask a platonic work friend to write a movie with me. He was very talented, and I was nervous he would say no because he didn’t like the idea, or didn’t think I was good enough to partner up with. So I spent the week kind of pining over him as a writing partner, and rehearsing how I would ask him to write with me. I would practice in my head, then chicken out, then mentally practice some more. Much like if you wanted to
ask someone on a date.
And that’s when this weird thing happened: my practice conversations in my head started turning sexy. I would be imagining us writing, late at night, leaning over the same keyboard, faces close, when he would reach around me to type and …
Basically, the simple act of obsessing got the juicesflowing, and I created a temporary crush on my married colleague. And once I stopped obsessing about him as a writing partner, the crush disappeared, too.
Point being, apparently the brain can be tricked into love. So, even though I went home from the ski trip with my friends, and got back together with Ben a week later, a thought was stuck in my admittedly cuckoo head:
Are you sure you should get back together with Ben? Or should you give things a try with Ferris?
Which is when the interventions from Sasha and Hope started. “Ferris doesn’t know you.” “You don’t know him.” “This isn’t real.” “It’s not Ferris versus Ben, because Ferris is imaginary.” Nonsense like that.
Now, I’m not completely off my rocker, so I managed to put the whole business far enough back in my brain to get back together with Ben. And, a few months later, to finally say “I love you,” and mean it. Of course that, too, was a bit of an ordeal. Because I had already broken up with him once, I made a list of rules I had to follow to make
sure
I meant it before I said the L word for the first time:
1. I couldn’t say it while under the influence of alcohol.
2. I couldn’t say it in any sort of hyperromantic situation, like on vacation or at a wedding.
3. I couldn’t say it during sex.
The problem was, I only ever felt like saying it during one of the above scenarios. Watching Ben play the guitar in a condo on the lake in Tahoe after a joint and sex on aspeedboat?! Signed, sealed, delivered! Sober, on a Tuesday at Baja Fresh? Not so sure. Which made me wonder if I meant it or not.
My friends also tried to intervene on these rules—when did I think most people felt like saying it for the first time? In line at the DMV? People generally say it drunk, having sex, in romantic locations. Which ultimately turned out to be true—the Three Big Words popped out of me one night when we went to a party thrown by a billionaire, got drunk, and snuck off to do it in the billionaire’s child’s tree house that was nicer than my actual house. I managed to break all three of my rules at once.
And the next day, I still loved him. But then we’d go to Baja Fresh the day after, and I’d wonder:
Did I?
And that’s when I took all of that “love” and started making pro/con lists, which are both the death of love, and a good 10 percent of my journals. And, deep down, I kept wondering about Ferris.
Because every time I turned around, literally every month or
It was fun, and, in my party of five, with the two married couples and an empty spot next to me in bed where Ben was supposed to be, it legitimately cheered me up. The myth of “Kristin’s Boyfriend, Ferris” took up so much conversational and mental space, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I was there with
my boyfriend, Ferris.
Which, of course, sounds insane.
But spending that much mental time with someone, whether they are there or not, apparently tells your brain something:
you love them.
I experienced the same weird phenomenon one time when I was trying to work up the courage to ask a platonic work friend to write a movie with me. He was very talented, and I was nervous he would say no because he didn’t like the idea, or didn’t think I was good enough to partner up with. So I spent the week kind of pining over him as a writing partner, and rehearsing how I would ask him to write with me. I would practice in my head, then chicken out, then mentally practice some more. Much like if you wanted to
ask someone on a date.
And that’s when this weird thing happened: my practice conversations in my head started turning sexy. I would be imagining us writing, late at night, leaning over the same keyboard, faces close, when he would reach around me to type and …
Basically, the simple act of obsessing got the juicesflowing, and I created a temporary crush on my married colleague. And once I stopped obsessing about him as a writing partner, the crush disappeared, too.
Point being, apparently the brain can be tricked into love. So, even though I went home from the ski trip with my friends, and got back together with Ben a week later, a thought was stuck in my admittedly cuckoo head:
Are you sure you should get back together with Ben? Or should you give things a try with Ferris?
Which is when the interventions from Sasha and Hope started. “Ferris doesn’t know you.” “You don’t know him.” “This isn’t real.” “It’s not Ferris versus Ben, because Ferris is imaginary.” Nonsense like that.
Now, I’m not completely off my rocker, so I managed to put the whole business far enough back in my brain to get back together with Ben. And, a few months later, to finally say “I love you,” and mean it. Of course that, too, was a bit of an ordeal. Because I had already broken up with him once, I made a list of rules I had to follow to make
sure
I meant it before I said the L word for the first time:
1. I couldn’t say it while under the influence of alcohol.
2. I couldn’t say it in any sort of hyperromantic situation, like on vacation or at a wedding.
3. I couldn’t say it during sex.
The problem was, I only ever felt like saying it during one of the above scenarios. Watching Ben play the guitar in a condo on the lake in Tahoe after a joint and sex on aspeedboat?! Signed, sealed, delivered! Sober, on a Tuesday at Baja Fresh? Not so sure. Which made me wonder if I meant it or not.
My friends also tried to intervene on these rules—when did I think most people felt like saying it for the first time? In line at the DMV? People generally say it drunk, having sex, in romantic locations. Which ultimately turned out to be true—the Three Big Words popped out of me one night when we went to a party thrown by a billionaire, got drunk, and snuck off to do it in the billionaire’s child’s tree house that was nicer than my actual house. I managed to break all three of my rules at once.
And the next day, I still loved him. But then we’d go to Baja Fresh the day after, and I’d wonder:
Did I?
And that’s when I took all of that “love” and started making pro/con lists, which are both the death of love, and a good 10 percent of my journals. And, deep down, I kept wondering about Ferris.
Because every time I turned around, literally every month or
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