One Aussie + One Boyfriend = Trouble

I broke the news to The Banker as gently as I knew how. Which translates to roughly: "Holy shit. Guess who's coming to our college for the semester." The Banker, in turn, was less than thrilled. He and I'd recently reunited after my semester abroad, worked some of the kinks out of our relationship that winter semester, and had spent a cozy summer in our college town. His apartment was doors from mine (he'd kindly found me housing while I was abroad, which conveniently put me two doors down), and that summer we became a family. Yep, nothing like pulling 3 a.m. mornings with a whining pup before dropping her off at daycare and racing off to work as a teacher's assistant in the university newsroom.

So after all this nesting, The Banker was rightly miffed. He smelled another male infringing upon his turf, and this male had the added danger of being exotic (see undie-melting accent for more). After telling The Banker he had nothing to fear, he resorted to puffing up his fur and sitting grunting in the corner giving everyone and anyone the stink eye.

When the Aussie arrived at the airport I was there to pick him up. I took him to my parents' home for the weekend before returning to school for the start of the semester. I got him settled in his dorm, showed him around the campus, took him to the mall, to the grocery store, and everything and anything that would make him feel welcome and comfortable. (Okay. Almost anything. Minds out of the gutter!)

But things were awkward. I was different. He was different. But he anxiously, painfully wanted things to be the same as they were when we shared an apartment, pulling late nights talking on his bed. And the Aussie didn't like The Banker. They would circle, sniff, grunt, and give each other the eye. My friends thought the Aussie a pouting, pompous ass. So I spent the better part of the first month feeling the tension mount and then trying to dissemble the explosive components.

And I tried to make everything totally natural. I took the boy to dinner, met him for lunches. And we even invited him on a camping trip, which proved disastrous. The Aussie refused to exit his tent in the evenings, claiming he had homework. And when we canoed together, he would spastically try to paddle away from the other campers in order to have me to himself.

It all came to a stomach-dropping head when I met the Aussie one day on campus. He broke down, saying, "I can't share you." There he was, heart on a platter, begging. He insinuated that he wanted me to choose---him or my friends, The Banker, my current life. He babbled on, and it was all too shamefully clear: The Aussie had come here for me. To win me.

And I wasn't a willing prize.

"You need to make the most of this experience," I explained. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see who you are and what you're made of. What we had was wonderful, but time has trudged on whether we like it or not. And any time you try to recreate the past, you end up disappointed. Nothing can compare. So it's up to you to make new experiences. It's your turn to be exotic and different. It's your turn to find out what life here can be like. And it's your turn to grow."

It was a icky initial parting, with the Aussie clearly disappointed that this trip hadn't been the hot-and-heavy reunion he'd anticipated. But he rallied and began to get involved with life on campus. He and I remained friends and got together every once in awhile, but I really pushed him to have his own adventure. (And he found one. He managed to bang one of the more deranged gals I've ever met. A born-again "Christian," she began to talk of marriage after they began their bizarre relationship. Thankfully, the semester ended before she got her wish.)

In the end, the Aussie thanked me for the encouragement, the help, and finally forcing him to enjoy his own adventure. And it was an odd mixture of sadness and relief that marked our farewell. I cared for him, but he'd been a bit of a punk ass. He was young and confused. But he was a person of action, and he'd kind of all done it for me, so I couldn't be too angry.

The Banker, however, is another story. To this day he still has nothing nice to say about the Aussie (though in his defense, our friends concur).

But the Aussie has done well for himself. He modeled a bit in Australia, traveled the world, and is now living in London with his Swedish girlfriend. Ironically, she was his former roommate.

But I figure I won a little something, too. Once kids have added wrinkles, grey hair, and some unwanted rolls, I can still claim that once upon a time, when your Mom could wear a mini skirt and black leather boots, a man traveled half way across the world to woo her. And no, it wasn't your Dad.