The Breaking Point: Telling Apple Guy

By March 2007, my entire life was weighing on me pretty heavily. I’d been student teaching, and it had been "interesting" to say the least. I was stressed and too often crabby. I was a mess inside and out.

I reached the breaking point at the conference we attended at the end of the month. That Friday, on the way to the cities, the others in the car had been talking about what they wanted in a boyfriend or girlfriend. This was nothing new, and when my turn came I passed as usual, and was teased about it as usual. One girl, the same one behind “The Joke” made some comments about whether or not I liked girls, and Apple Guy said he thought the reason I never answered those kinds of questions was that I wasn’t in touch with myself.

Saturday night, after a long day, I had a few drinks in one of the hotel rooms with a few people. When I decided I’d had enough and was ready to go back to my room, a few of them gave me grief about it. Again, nothing new, but with my emotions on hair-trigger from everything that was going on, it made me angry.

I was upset. I steamed for a few minutes, and then went and sat in the lobby for a while, where I had a tipsy conversation with one of our college deans who happened to be staying at the same hotel that weekend. Thankfully she didn’t seem to notice my being under the influence.

I called Apple Guy and told him we needed to talk when he returned to the hotel, as he’d left in the interim. He got back to our room and a conversation ensued that must have lasted two hours. I laid out everything that had been bothering me, and without planning to, explained why I had never answered the ideal girl question—because I was indeed trying to “ get in touch with myself and what I wanted—and maybe the ideal girl for me wasn’t a girl at all.

He was as supportive and kind at that moment as I think he could have been.

Many people who attended the conference that weekend from our delegation later asked me what we discussed. A few had listened to some of it through the door, and although they couldn’t make out many words they could tell it was serious. I simply explained that we’d talked about many things, and that a combination of factors had made me upset and Apple Guy had been a supportive listening ear. I didn’t explain further and largely was not pressured to do so.