Opening The Vault: Part Four

During my junior year abroad in London, the first of several romantic distractions was my floor mate, Germany-born hunk Fabian. Fabian was not without his peccadilloes -- namely the fact that he had a girlfriend and a knack for pushing my buttons. Particularly when we had plans one night and he opted instead to go solo to a movie.

I was still smarting from this slight when he knocked on my door the next day. I now open the vault and take you back to November 1993...

Monday, November 1, 1993
Commonwealth Hall, London

Dear Diary,

Less than five minutes after Fabian had stopped by my room while I was with a girlfriend, I knocked on his door, closed it behind me and admitted that I didn’t appreciate being ditched for a B-rated horror film.

He said that I should have told him that I was upset when he asked me the night before. I maintained that I shouldn’t have to spell it out for him, adding that if he didn’t want to spend the evening with me, he could’ve just said so.

I chose not to tell him why I was afraid he was blowing me off -- my fear that he had had enough of being unfaithful to his girlfriend. Mercifully, she never came up as Fabian and I argued, and I wanted to keep it that way. When you’re the ‘other woman,’ you get possessive about the most trivial things, perhaps because you know what you want most is not yours for the taking.

Fabian said he prefers to be flexible with plans, that he likes to have his own way. The latter didn’t surprise me, and it dawned on me that most of the friction between us may be because we’re so similar rather than so different. Despite our little tiff, we managed to part on an amicable note.

“I apologize,” he said, giving me a hug.

“How civilized,” I responded condescendingly. I couldn’t make it easy for him, could I?

I admitted to Fabian that I don’t like letting tension between us go unresolved. What I didn’t say was that I would not have sought him out if he hadn’t come to see me first. After all, only then could the cat and mouse game between us continue.

* * *

My fling with Fabian continued for a couple of months more, with an unexpected and intoxicating reprise at the conclusion of my time in London.

In the interim, my love life took a few other unexpected turns -- including an encounter with an Oscar-nominated California native who became my first big love, one that ended up defying all odds to stretch across time zones and years.