Transcript for #53 Leif

Yeah.

Hi. It's Jonathan. Yeah. I called you.

It's a personal story.

It's a real kind of sending.

I mean, sure, by that metric, all your episodes are all reports. So well, yeah, it doesn't feel so.

How do you plan your name at the top of an oral report?

I'm Khalilaholt, and this is Happyweight. Today's episode, Blath. right after the break. I'm walking to work one morning when I spot late heading towards me. From the ages of 12 to 14, late was my crush. The object of my junior high obsession. I still Google him occasionally, but he's completely absent from the internet. I have no idea what became of him. It's like he just disappeared. So when I see them on the street, I feel my heart speed up. I wonder if I should say hi. I wonder if I say hi. In what tone I should go. Life. Life. Oh, life. But then, as I draw closer, I realized that the man I thought was safe is not safe at all, and in fact, is not even a man. He's a teenager. This makes sense, given that I've not seen life since I was 14 years old. So, having your heart speed up at the sight of a teenager is a sure way to feel like a creep. and just like that, to quote Carrie Bradshaw. Lay, fist's back on my mind. All these years later, and I remember the exact type of pen lay for a with. I remember his birthday. I remember how he kept his wallet on a long train. The first time I'd ever seen such a thing done, and wore a quick silver sweatshirt with holes worn through the sleeves that he'd stick his thumbs through. He was pale with blue eyes, short and slight.

Crushes do not exist in a vacuum. They require gleeful gossip with your friends. And so, I call it Chia, who's been my best friend since elementary school, to talk about our old classmate, life.

Like, shaggy man. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. A man's Bob. Once, while away on a school sponsored trip, we phone's leaf from our hotel room. Me, Lucia, and our other friend, Emily. But three of us huddled together on the scratchy Mary at Comforter, stifling our giddyness as we dialed. I don't remember if we actually talked to the thing I remember is that we called you as parents. We talked to his mom. Our friend Emily asked if she could speak with life. It's Emily, she said. Emily said, life's mom. Go upstairs and talk to him. Then she hung up on us. I turned out he had a sister named Emily. Lucia's step mom was a photographer and she once mentioned that if Lief and I ever started dating, she wanted to take our portrait. I don't think she knew I had a crush on him. Lief was just so short and I was so tall that I think she found the idea of us as a couple, funny. I was already six feet tall by the end of eighth grade. I got pressured in the playing basketball, but I was so weak that I usually just stood there while some terrifying girl shoved by me with the ball. I don't like to look at pictures of myself from that time. Standing next to other kids my age. I look like the teacher, or like someone's off putting sister home from college. None of my pants fit correctly. My socks were always pulled up too high. I used to listen to the song, Eleanor Rigby and Panic. In my interpretation, it was a song about how no one wanted to date, poor old Eleanor Rigby. Just like no one wanted to date me. When I was 13, one day I was sitting by the gym after school with my friend Desiree, when she told me, I picture you getting a boyfriend in college. She laid out this whole hypothetical where me and my future boyfriend reached for the same book at the library. At the time, I was offended. College. Other girls at my school, Desiree included, already had boyfriend's. The middle school version of a boyfriend, where you were afraid to touch each other and broke up after a week. But still, I had to wait till college. But as it turned out, I did not get a boyfriend before college, nor in college, nor even for several years after college. And so I concluded, the problem was not my circumstances. The problem was me. I was not dateable. After meeting me for the first time, people might say, oh, she was funny, but they never say, is she single? I was simply not a person that anyone could think of romantically. A college parties, boys would grab my friends and start dancing with them. And I would stay for a while, dancing alongside them, like I was part of the good time, but eventually I'd walk away. It was weird for me to keep standing there, smiling blankly at the wall while they were making out. By now, I'm in my 30s, and I actually do have a boyfriend. Sam and I have been together for four years. We live together. We've taken trips, know each other's moms, list each other on emergency contact forms. And yet still, I can't shake this feeling that I'm behind, that there's something wrong with me, that I started too late, and now I can never catch up. Sometimes Sam tells me story is about the girl she used to hook up with, or about his high school girlfriend, or the girlfriend he lived with before he lived with me. I know that he's not trying to get back together with any of these people. I know he's as invested in our relationship as I am. Still, when he tells these stories, I feel so inadequate that I want to cry. A couple times I have cried, and he's been confused, and suddenly we're in an argument, because I don't know how to explain why I'm crying. I want charming stories like that. When I raped today, it's about my past of young love and mutual discovery. Instead, my past is a wall I smiled at, and the only stories I have about people I've hooked up with are vaguely unsettling to repeat. I like to lay a fed a time before all that. Back when it still felt like romance might happen for me, like any interaction could be the start of a love story for the ages. One time, I brought Whole Foods sushi for lunch and felt self-conscious because I'd seen the breakfast club in which Molly Ringwald is mocked for bringing sushi for lunch. But Leif walked by my table and said, is that sushi? And I said, yes. And he said, I love sushi. And I said, would you like a piece? And he said, really? And I said, yes. And suddenly, I was proud to have a lunch or poll food sushi. Leif talked constantly about a band called Billy Talent, a semi-Elealt rock group with lyrics about misery. I started listening to them because I knew Leif liked them. And from there, became an obsessive fan myself. Once I ran into a fed ability talent concert, I pretended not to see him because I didn't want him to think that I'd followed him there. But he came over and said hi to me. There were little moments where it almost seemed like he could be flirting with me. We followed each other on the blogging site, Zanga. And for a while, there was some sort of glitch where life was unable to comment on my page. When the glitch was fixed, he was so excited that he left me 100 comments in a row. Comment 42 said, on the 42nd day of Christmas, I gave to Kaylee, 100 comments, lots of typing and a pear tree. I still have a journal from that time. In it, I'd rightly fall these vague letters. It is humiliating to read these letters now, to the point where I refuse to quote them here. Suffice it to say that I constantly referred to him as dearest. Surrounding the letters are my thoughts about myself. Mostly, how I wished I were a different person entirely, someone charismatic and sought after. Sometimes I'd have this huge swell of self-hatred that I didn't know what to do with. Once I tried to cut myself, but the kitchen knife I chose was not very sharp, and so it was harder than I thought it would be, and I gave up. When I find someone who wants to date me, I thought, this feeling will go away. I hope that life might be that someone. I've concoct long fantasies about how we'd get together, and sometimes I'd realize what a good mood I was in, and then I'd realize the good mood was because of something I'd made up. Something that hadn't really happened at all. In the winter of eighth grade, I finally decided enough with the secret planning. It was time to let life know how I felt. And so I took action. And by took action, I mean that I delegated action to other people. There was a stairway right next to our classroom that was just a single flight, enclosed by doors on each side. It was in this room of stairs that my friends, Luchia and Emily, cornered life, and told him that I liked him, while I ran home and hid. Afterwards, I asked them what he said. They told me he said, OK. That night, in a fit of panic and despair, I got online. I logged on to Zanga and I wrote a veiled angsty post about what a huge mistake I'd made. Life saw the post as I knew he would, and he I amed my friend Karina about it. And here is where something amazing happened. Because in this conversation with Karina, life said he would date me. He said he thought I was cool. He was going to ask me out on Valentine's Day. Seeing couples perform how much they like each other, made me feel inferior, so I hated Valentine's Day with a showy passion. Each February 14th, I'd wear all black as a sign of protest. Laef's thought was that this romantic gesture might help me to reclaim the holiday. I know all this because, at the time, Karina promptly copied and pasted the items with Laef into an email for me. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I was so happy. Finally, I thought. Finally, the thing that only happens to other people, it's now happening to me. On Valentine's Day, I got up and my mom drove me to school. People were giving out candy in paper hearts. I tried to look nonchalant. I went to science class. I went to lunch. To recess. To math. To basketball. And then, school was over. And I went home. Life did not say a single word to me all day. I have no idea what happened or why he changed his mind.

I rehash all this on the phone with Lucia. Never did we speak directly about it. Like we spoke through you and Emily through Karina and I am and like through my veiled Zango posts. Interesting. And having been my best friend for all these years. Lucia and to it's what I'm building up to. So you you want to try to find him or yeah, but I'm afraid I tried a drafting a letter and I was like, do I just haven't did this? Anyway, so do you think this is completely insane to do?

Since Googling life had always failed me, I'd turned to a public records database that I get through work. I was hoping to discover a possible mailing address for life. And I did. Looks like maybe he lives in Arizona. And I saw he had like a from 2020 court thing from defacing a political sign.

I know.

I want to talk life directly, the way I never did back then. I want to know what he really thought of me, and why he never asked me out on Valentine's Day. All these years, I've believed the story about how people don't see me romantically, but if I can change the beginning of that story, if I can see myself differently at 13, it could reframe everything that came after. I named dropped you in the letters. I named dropped you because I'm so well-known. Well, I was like, we used to live together, but now we both live with our boyfriend so that he wouldn't think I was like trying to date him now. Hi, life. I wrote in my letter. I don't know if you remember me, but we went to near North together. I had a huge crush on you, and I was hoping you'd be up to talk to me about what you remember from that time. I hang up the phone with Luchia, and I walk to the mailbox.

I send off my letter, but then it's over weeks ago by, and nothing. Should they get the letter and decide to ignore me? Or do I just have the wrong address? Usually when reporting a story, I try calling at this point, and I did find a phone number for life. However, the idea of dialing it makes me want to lie down in the middle of the street, and simply pass away. And so, just like I did at 13, I recruit someone else as a non-boy. And who is that someone else?

This is regular host of this program, Jonathan Goldstein. I want him to call Leif on my behalf to see if Leif got the letter. I would be open to speaking with me. Yeah, no.

You should say Kaylee first. I think he would know me by Kaylee.

What do you say like that in this really weird?

No, don't say school.

My confidence is decreasing with every passing second.

Are you joking?

As my boss is fixiates on a piece of candy, I weigh the pros and cons of just making the call myself. But in the end, I make the same choice I did back then. Better to send an incompetent in my stead. Well, I hide at home. I obsess all day Thursday. I obsess all day Friday. Jonathan doesn't offer me a single update. I can't even tell if he's made the call yet. Then the weekend begins. And I still have no idea what he's done.

But whatever you did do, it worked because Friday night checked my email and I had an email from life saying that he would talk to me.

Well, really because it happened that day.

Jonathan tells me that he had indeed tried calling life's number.

In a Z-mail, lay for posts that we talk in nine days, which is kind of a weirdly long time. I can't help but worry that he'll bail last minute, but this will be just like Valentine's Day all over again. So in the meantime, hoping she might remember some clue about what happened back then. I text my old friend, Karina. The one who broke her this whole Valentine's plan with late, fun I am.

Ms. Bergen being our longtime principal.

I'd felt deranged, sex and carina, that I wanted to speak with her about life, a random kid from her eighth grade class. But carina responded, I legitimately thought about you in life last week. So just like we used to in junior high, the two of us chat on the phone about a boy. And then he, I am, do you?

and buried in an old AOL account. I find that email from Karina with the whole conversation between her and life laid out. I would like, I absolutely love to see it. Let me send it to you. Life screen name was chaotic distortion, which I think is just chaotic distortion spelled wrong.

And as Karina reads, here for you, dear listener, is a dramatic recreation of that I am exchange, with two young actors playing the roles of Karina and life.

Life had some sort of illness the whole time I knew him, but I never knew how sick he was, or what he was even sick with. He sometimes had to leave school early. He was on crutches for a while, and there were days when he just looked frail. But at 13, we didn't think to ask any questions. Back then, Karina just thought it was sweet to was considering herself, in his role as my future boyfriend.

All these years later, and that, yeah, makes my heart start pounding. I was wrong, I think. See, I was wrong. He liked me. He said he liked me, but then it goes on. Oh, I'm G.

Yeah, I will. I always thought it was late who came up with the Valentine's Day plan, but it was actually Karina. It wasn't a romantic gesture at all. It was the gesture of a thoughtful friend.

No, we never talked about it.

So did Leif not ask me out simply because he was too ill? Was this not asking actually a romantic gesture? Something worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy? Or did he just not like me? I'd ask Leif to talk on Zoom. And I pray I won't break out or have a bad hair day because, you know, I want to look good. The morning of, I put on an eye shadow that someone once told me was flattering. And wear a t-shirt for my favorite band because I figure it's cool to like music. Then I head to the studio and test the microphone. Hello, hello. All right, that's working. I feel, I feel physically ill. Oh my god. Okay, I can do this, here we go. On the Zoom camera, you can't even see my T-shirt or flattering eyeshadow, so that was a lot of wasted effort. I see that lay-if is in the waiting room. I press the admit button, and he appears on screen. Hi! Hey! In spite of his deeper voice and tattoos, life seems the same. Like, there's no discrepancy between the person I imagined all these years, and the one I'm actually looking at. Um, how are you?

I'm doing, you know. Unfortunately, faced with the person I imagine all these years, I suddenly can't remember how to have a conversation. It's like I've lost 20 years of social skills. What, what, what, zero life?

Given that I'm incapable of asking any question more specific, then what is your life or who is your dog?

In fact, the nine-day delay lay lay fast for was because of his activism. A few weeks earlier, he was at a protest with the stop-cop city movement when he was tazed and slammed against the ground by a police officer. He's been recovering from a concussion. At this point, we're 40 minutes into the conversation, and I've somehow managed to avoid asking life any questions about eighth grade at all. Even though he knows we're here to talk about how much I like them, bringing up that time still makes me nervous. What do you remember about me?

I ramble through my memories of what happened after that stairwell moment. And finally, up to the question that I really came here to ask. You were going to ask me out on Valentine's Day, but then that never happened. And I don't know why.

Can I send you, because I, in fact, have these items between you and Karina?

Can I email them to you?

Life mostly reads through the items and silence. But at one point, he makes a face and again goes, when he's done, he laughs off consciously.

Do you have no memory of this?

I mean, yeah, it'd be weird if I typed all the stuff.

What part were you ufing at?

I mean, that would kind of be worse if we did. Yeah, I just was to go on from your memory.

I mean, like, seemed like you did not like me.

But then, late phrase is a key thing I've been wondering about. The explanation that he gave to Karina at the time, his mysterious health issues,

Crohn's is an autoimmune disease. Life's in tests and was attacking itself, making it hard for him to do basic things, like walk or eat. In the years I knew him though, life didn't know he had Crohn's. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He was just getting worse and worse. It took over two years of waiting rooms and misdiagnoses before he finally got to a doctor who helped him. At that point, he was so sick that the doctor pulled his mom aside to say that she thought life might die. They immediately admitted him to the hospital, where he stayed for three months. I'm not a monster, so of course I'd never say that I'm happy someone was so ill they almost died. But hearing all this, I can't help but feel kind of relieved. Because if life was that sick the whole time I knew him, then it wasn't about me not being good enough. There probably just wasn't any space in his brain for dating and crushes at all. So I put this to life.

Well, there goes that theory. Can I ask you how to crush?

Sarca had shown up at her school one year from Ireland, and all the guys instantly loved her. Somehow in that one year, she dated three or four people. I, as someone who'd never dated anyone, found this profoundly unfair. Like, what about the rest of us? In my moments of insecurity, I always used to think, there's no way they flagged me, because I'm pretty sure he likes Sarca. So while on the one hand, it's validating to hear that my read was right. On the other hand, it's devastating to hear that my read was right. I move on to my next theory. Do you think that any of it was height-related?

So what was my problem? I asked Leif if I had some defect that prevented him from seeing me romantically. And although he really thinks about it, he can't come up with an answer.

Who he falls for a life says has always felt beyond words, especially in the eighth grade. Well, how do you feel about talking am I freaking you out?

It's really nice to talk to you.

All right, talk to you soon. I'd felt good while I was talking to life. He was cool and nice, as he'd always been. And yet, as soon as we hang up, I suddenly feel really sad. I sit there for a while, alone in the studio. And then, as I always have in times of stress, I call my mom. I fill her in on the conversation, and how the only logical conclusion seems to be that, yes, I was right. I am, in fact, undatable.

Thanks. I mean, I know I'm your mother, but that is also true. I feel like that's true in terms of people wanting to be my friend, but I don't feel like that's true for dating. You feel it not just from when you were younger, but you feel it even now. Yeah. Let me see if you'll kind of sad. I'm sorry.

It makes me feel kind of sad. It makes me feel mad at people that don't see you. I don't know, yeah. I think I'm having a hard time characterizing it because I do feel like weirdly emotional, but also like he was nice in the conversation was good. You know, so I don't want it to seem like I thought he was like being an asshole or anything. Like he was it. I don't hear that from you at all. I don't hear anything about any judgment about him.

Yeah, give yourself a little space. I give myself several weeks of space. And then, as I keep trying to piece it together, I decide there's one more person I want to speak with. Very excited to talk to you. So thanks for meeting up to do this a weird thing.

This is Sarah, the Irish girl that left and the rest of the entire fucking class was into. Because in case it's not weird enough to reach out to my crush after nearly 20 years, why not also reach out to my crush's crush? I always suspected he had a crush on you and he said, yes, did you know that?

I want to talk to Sarka because I think of her as the anti me. Like here's how Sarka's Valentine's Day went to junior high. She walked up to her boyfriend at the time, holding a Hershey's kiss and said, do you want this or do you want a real one? I wanted to tell me how she achieved such romantic success, what she had that I didn't have. I'd laid all this out in my initial message, sir.

I think that's part of it. But I feel like there was something about your personality too. Like, I feel like there was some like charisma or like confidence or I don't know.

Circa only attended near North for a single year, and it wasn't an easy transition. Because of her mom's job, she was uprooted at 12 years old and plopped down in a foreign country. Her dad, all-her-old friends, stayed back in Ireland. She remembers the day she came to visit our school for the first time.

It's that sense of panic, Circa thinks. That made her act so confident when she started school with us. It was her way of managing. Still, in the year I knew her, she often felt insecure, and dating didn't make that feeling go away. Anyway, you cut it. Boyfriend, no boyfriend. Junior high is hard. Circa tells me she's been married for about a year and a half now. How did you guys meet? We went on Tinder. I'd ask Lave the same question about how he met his partner.

I met my boyfriend through Tinder too. Nice. Sarah, Lave me. Even though I always felt like they had some power I lacked. Almost two decades later, we all ended up in the same place. Living with people, we met on Tinder. Back when I talked with my friend Karina, I'd asked her what her impression had been to me when we knew each other in junior high.

My past self was tall and awkward, and the boy I liked didn't like me. And all these years later, I'm still tall and still awkward, and I still often feel left behind by romance. But then again, the junior high me would never have had the courage to have these conversations at all. So maybe I did become more confident. And some people do want to date me. I'd want to date me. These say, I don't think too much about Valentine's Day. It turns out that I don't like being one of those performative couples, any more than I liked watching those performative couples. This year, on February 14th, my boyfriend made dinner. I did the dishes. Happy Tuesday, he said. Happy Tuesday, I said. Then we watched TV. It was nice.

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me, Colliola Holt, along with Jonathan Goldstein and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane, production assistants from Mohini Midgauker, special thanks to Max Green, Floor, Lickton, and Connor Samson. Memorial Guidance from Emily Condon. In the IAM Recreation, Carina was played by Regan De Deer, and Leif was played by John Cawson. Thanks to Greg Holt and Tony John for making that possible. Bobby Lard mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lard. Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com, Flash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the weaker dance courtesy of Epitap Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast to follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcasts or email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia.com. You can follow our show on Spotify and tap the bell to receive notifications when new episodes drop. We'll be back next week with a new episode.