aaybbtuon!!

[Chart]

Shows O's amorous interactions since 1993.

1993        1994        1995        1996        1997        1998        
|           |           |           |  	       	|           |	        
jfmamjjasondjfmamjjasondjfmamjjasondjfmamjjasondjfmamjjasondjfmamjjasond
|           |           |           |           |           |           
---------kkkkkkkkkkkkkk-----------mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-----[J][m][c]---[s]
|      	    |         &&|           |        &  &&&&&       |           
-----------------------j---------------------K--eeeeeeeeeee-------------
|      	    |  	       	|      	    |           |      	    |  	       	
{notes}{0}        {00}{1} {1.1}             {2}{3}        {4}{5}{5a}  {6}

1999        2000        2001        2002
|           |           |           | 
jfmamjjasondjfmamjjasondjfmamjjasondjfmamjjasond
|           |           |           |
aaaaaaaaaaaa---aaaaaaaaa----aaaaa-------
|           |           |           |
----------------------------------------
|           |           |           |
                            {7} {8} 

Legend:
-------
2001    <-- year
|
jfmam   <-- month
|
nnn     <-- initial of "primary" amorous interaction (a.i.)
|
NNN     <-- initial of "secondary" a.i. (If two a.i. share first initials,
|              a.i. who comes second chronologically is majuscule)
{9}     <-- reference to a footnote, below

[x] a "hook up" with x
 &  simultaneous a.i. with initials on primary and secondary lines
Notes: 
------
 
0: The first person I kissed, around 1984, was named [j], and if I
ever publicise a timeline from my first kiss, I would have to include
[j] in 1984.  This would complicate my simple binary
minuscule/majuscule scheme, since I would have three J's.

In the same vein, there should be a different [m] -- perhaps [m'] --
in about 1987.  But that's really getting picky.

October 1989, if shown, would have a minuscule "L". It has been
omitted for reasons of space.  This was fifth grade.  We broke up the
day before halloween, when I acknowledged publicly that minuscule-L
was a "bitch".  I did not see this acknowledgment as an impedance to
our continued involvement, but minuscule-L did.  We went
trick-or-treating together anyway.  Some things I remember about L:
Some playground game (presumably Truth-Or-Dare) led me to kiss L on
the cheek, whereupon I received a mouthful of makeup, an experience I
found singularly unpleasant, though in a giddy way, of course.  A
couple of years later, L had an a.i. who gave L a perfume-sampler vial
filled with the a.i.'s own blood; it caused a minor scandal at school,
(a teacher said it was dangerous to play with others' bodily fluids)
which I thought was ridiculous (presumably they played with plenty of
other, non-vial-contained bodily fluids on a regular basis).

00: To clarify readers' logistical questions: every time I was with
two people during the same period they were in different locations,
hundreds of miles apart: I was at boarding school from September 1993
to may 1997, then in college.

1: I was inexperienced in breaking up with people, and thought it
would be easier for k if I did not tell k there was someone else. I
was wrong, of course.  It's funny the things one remembers and the way
one justifies one's actions: I long credited Kevin Smith's "Clerks"
with giving me the motivation to break up with k.  The more I think
about it, the dumber that seems.  But I haven't seen the movie since
then.

1.1: Two [b] should appear somewhere between the last k and the first
m, but I'm really not sure where to put them.  It's weird that I can
so accurately place everyone but [b].  Maybe I should ask [b].

2: m and K knew about eachother; I thought this made my practice less
problematic.  m didn't mind, but K did; K quickly lost patience with
the arrangement.  K and I talked on a fairly regular basis until we
went to college; one day I got an email from K saying K was in my
college town (K had a friend at a neighboring college) and that we
should hang out.  I don't remember whether I responded to the email,
but I remember that K also left me a voicemail message while in town,
and I definitely did not respond to it, because I am chickenshit.
I've been thinking about emailing K.  K: if you read this: email me.
Just to say hello.  And as step 9 of my Amorous Inconsiderates
Anonymous recovery: Make direct amends to persons I have harmed,
except when to do so would injure them or others.  There was a neat
thing in Jane magazine the other year, presumably a yearlong feature
on the twelve steps of getting over a relationship.  The only one I
saw was step nine, making amends: Make amends to all the friends you
ditched to be with the ex-a.i.

3: m and e knew about eachother and again m didn't really mind, but e
did.  I broke up with m to be with e within a couple of weeks of
graduating from high school.  I obviously couldn't pretend that there
wasn't someone else, but as I recall I downplayed the importance of e
to the breakup, quite inaccurately.  Is the reader surprised to hear
that of the two, the one with whom I remain in much closer contact is
m?  The e breakup was hard, and made things weird between us.  The m
breakup was hard, but did not make things weird between us.  Maybe
because e was the first person to break up with me, rather than
vice-versa.  But maybe for other reasons, like that I was such a
weirdo in the e relationship, and made things unnecessarily hard
and weird.

4: e and J causally unrelated, except that the J hookup was pretty
much under the influence of the e breakup and so not very nice to J.
The J hookup was my worst-handled a.i. ever: J had been planning on
leaving the college, and we hooked up a day or two before that, and
then I didn't see or speak to J again, except once when J came back to
the college for a day or so.

5: This is the same m (i.e. the same as the nineteen consecutive ms in
1995-1997.  The J and m hookups taught me that I can't handle hooking
up with people.  I really don't know how to do it, but I don't
particularly want to know how.  It's not a skill I value.  I mean,
clearly "hooking up" with someone you'd gone out with for nineteen
months is different from "hooking up" with someone who lived across
the hall from you for a semester, but in the end they both made me
feel sad, lonely and inconsiderate in different ways.

5a.  I hooked up with [c] sometime after [m] and before June of 1998.
I can't remember exactly what month, and I can't fit it on the chart.
We also almost hooked up in November of 1999, but didn't.

6: It occurs to me that I kind of hooked up with [s] in December 1998,
but the level of contact was significantly less than that in the other
two listed, so it has been omitted.  Perhaps I should add another line
to the chart, for these minor, low-contact hookups.  That is,
everything currently on the chart is either a single episode of high
contact, or of longish duration, with a level of contact that is also,
presumably, high.  This third line would be reserved for low-contact,
short-duration a.i.  Let me know what you think, imaginary
interlocutor.  Hey, wait a minute: there are maybe two such instances.
That's not worth a whole line.  That's what these notes are for.

7: These things happen.

8: As do these.


If the timeline just a big unreadable jumble, your have your browser set to use a non-monospaced font for material that should be monospaced. This is dumb, and will make many things look crappy. Go to "Preferences" or "Properties" or whatever, and pick a font that is monospaced, like Courier or Monaco. It's really important. It's not like I'm asking you to download a new browser or something.


obmontoy@midway.uchicago.edu

Last modified: Thu Feb 21 10:17:28 CST 2002