NYC

After most of my friends moved away from Boulder and Matt and I broke up, I decided to go to law school. It was something I had dreamt about since I was a teenager. I had visions of being the next Atticus Finch or, if I’m being honest, Ally McBeal. I attended my first year of law school in Kansas and then transferred to Brooklyn Law School. It was my dream to live in NYC, the bright lights, the big city. I had lived close enough to Chicago during college to get a taste of big city life and I wanted more.

So, in one of the few gutsy, and very naïve, decisions of my life, I exchanged a full-ride scholarship to my old law school in Topeka, Kansas for tens of thousands of dollars in school loans and the opportunity to compete for jobs with the top-tier law school graduates of Columbia, NYU, and Fordham.

Brilliant choice if you ask me. 

I knew exactly three people who lived in the city, old friends from high school. I foolishly thought: I’m good, no problem, three friends are enough. It’s half the cast of Friends. I’m good, right? That’s enough. Wrong. Phoebe and Rachel and Monica lived together in the same apartment in the same building. I was unprepared for just how isolated and alone I would feel. I am not good at making friends generally, but by the second year of law school, everyone had already formed their study groups and created their social circles.

I was a transferee from Kansas of all places. I wasn’t coastal, I wasn’t liberal, and I wasn’t agnostic. I did not fit in. 

Fortunately, that first year I lived in Brooklyn I occasionally saw my three friends. One of them happened to be Samuel, my old high school boyfriend, who lived and worked in Manhattan. My other two friends were a married couple who lived in Brooklyn. We hung out together once or twice a month, usually in Manhattan. Just enough to keep me from becoming a total recluse.  

Samuel introduced me to his friend, Ryan. Ryan was an arbitrage trader (no idea what this means) and he embodied New York City to me — Ivy League graduate, finance guy, sophisticated and worldly. He was also a Christian. Samuel, his girlfriend, Ryan and I went to church together. And after hanging out for a bit, we began dating. It lasted a nanosecond. Like with all guys, I was hot and cold toward him.  

But things on a physical level progressed rapidly. He was much more vocal about what he wanted than other guys I had dated. I enjoyed being close with him in this way, especially after I had been drinking. I still could not pull the trigger and “go all the way.” It had been easier with Matt. We grew up in similar church environments and held the same values. But dating men, Christian men included, post-Matt was definitely more complicated. Sex was an issue almost from the very first date. Ryan made it clear that he wanted all the sex, but I continued to hold my boundary, sex but not sex sex. I still had the mantra in my head. Wait until marriage. Wait until marriage. 

Matt came into town on a work trip. And I blew off going to Ryan’s birthday party so I could see him (Matt and I kept in touch over the years and saw one another from time to time). Ryan, of course, was angry and it blew up into a whole big thing. He didn’t trust me after I ditched his party and things deteriorated between us. End of story there.  

I continued to date men but nothing ever fired on all cylinders with any of them. I experienced varying degrees of interest.

But I did not feel a connection with any of them. That X factor. That “It.” Something was missing with all of them.

It felt unnatural. Even forced at times. There was never anything that came close to the connection I felt with Kelly. 

After my first year in Brooklyn, my three friends, well, they ALL moved away. Like out of the state away. What small social circle I had dwindled to nothing. I had made a few law school acquaintances but I had no study group, let alone anyone I felt comfortable calling up and asking to hang out, go to dinner or a movie. I was lonely.

I turned to Kelly.