Speaker 1: Khalila. Yeah, hi 's Jonathan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I called you.
Speaker 3: So you're hosting the show. Yeah, it's a personal story.
Speaker 2: Indeed. Yeah, it's kind of like an oral report that
Speaker 2: you're condescending.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's a report given by the mouth.
Speaker 2: I mean sure, by that metric, all your episodes are
Speaker 2: or all reports. So well, yeah, it doesn't feel so good,
Speaker 2: it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't.
Speaker 4: Here we go an oral.
Speaker 5: Report given by Khalila Holt.
Speaker 3: All right, put your name at the top of the
Speaker 3: oral report.
Speaker 2: How do you pay your name at the top of
Speaker 2: an oral report?
Speaker 5: You say it.
Speaker 2: I'm Khalila Holt and this is have You eight today's
Speaker 2: episode Lathe right after the break, I'm walking to work
Speaker 2: one morning when I spot Laife heading towards me. From
Speaker 2: the ages of twelve to fourteen, life was my crush,
Speaker 2: the object of my junior high obsession. I still google
Speaker 2: him occasionally, but he's completely absent from the internet. I
Speaker 2: have no idea what became of him. It's like he
Speaker 2: just disappeared. So when I see him on the street,
Speaker 2: I feel my heart speed up. I wonder if I
Speaker 2: should say hi. I wonder if I say hi in
Speaker 2: what tone I should go life, life, Oh Liafe. But
Speaker 2: then as I dropped closer, I realized that the man
Speaker 2: I thought was life is not life at all, and
Speaker 2: in fact, it is not even a man. He's a teenager.
Speaker 2: This makes sense give that I've not seen Laife since
Speaker 2: I was fourteen years old. Still having your heart speed
Speaker 2: up at the sight of a teenager is a sure
Speaker 2: way to feel like a creep. And just like that,
Speaker 2: to quote Carrie Bradshaw, Lefe is back on my mind
Speaker 2: all these years later, and I remember the exact type
Speaker 2: of pen laf Ro with. I remember his birthday. I
Speaker 2: remember how he kept his wallet on a long chain
Speaker 2: the first time I'd ever seen such a thing done,
Speaker 2: and wore a quicksilver sweatshirt with holes worn through the
Speaker 2: sleeves that he'd stick his thumbs through. He was pale,
Speaker 2: with blue eyes, short and slight.
Speaker 1: I remember him being kind of like wayfish, almost like
Speaker 1: kind of almost like a furial.
Speaker 2: Crushes do not exist in a vacuum. They require gleeful
Speaker 2: gossip with your friends. And so I call Echia, who's
Speaker 2: been my best friend since elementary school, to talk about
Speaker 2: our old classmate Laife.
Speaker 1: He had this like light blonde hair that he died
Speaker 1: and was a long like down to her, but hair
Speaker 1: long like like a bobbling but like shag.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, there go the men's bob. Once, while away
Speaker 2: on a school sponsored trip, we phoned Leife from our
Speaker 2: hotel room, me, Lucia, and our other friend, Emily. But
Speaker 2: three of us huddled together on the scratchy Marriotte comforter,
Speaker 2: stifling our giddiness as we dialed. My God, I don't
Speaker 2: remember if we actually talked to the thing I remember
Speaker 2: is that we called. We talked to his mom. Our
Speaker 2: friend Emily asked if she could speak with Laife. It's Emily,
Speaker 2: she said. Emily said, Leife's mom, go upstairs and talk
Speaker 2: to him. Then she hung up on us. Turned out
Speaker 2: he had a sister named Emily.
Speaker 1: So weird.
Speaker 2: Lucia's stepmom was a photographer, and she once mentioned that
Speaker 2: if Leife and I ever started dating, she wanted to
Speaker 2: take our portrait. I don't think she knew I had
Speaker 2: a crush on him. Laife was just so short and
Speaker 2: I was so tall that I think she found the
Speaker 2: idea of us as a couple funny. I was already
Speaker 2: six feet tall by the end of eighth grade. I
Speaker 2: got pressured into playing basketball, but I was so meek
Speaker 2: that I usually just stood there while some terrifying girl
Speaker 2: shoved by me with the ball. I don't like to
Speaker 2: look at pictures of myself from that time, standing next
Speaker 2: to other kids my age. I look like the teacher
Speaker 2: or like someone's off putting sister home from college. None
Speaker 2: of my pants fit correctly. My socks were always pulled
Speaker 2: up too high. I used to listen to the song
Speaker 2: eleanor Rigby and panic. In my interpretation, it was a
Speaker 2: song about how no one wanted to date poor old
Speaker 2: eleanor Rigby, just like no one wanted to date me.
Speaker 2: When I was thirteen. One day I was sitting by
Speaker 2: the gym after school with my friend Desiree, when she
Speaker 2: told me, I picture you getting a boyfriend in college.
Speaker 2: She laid out this whole hypothetical where me and my
Speaker 2: future boyfriend reached for the same book at the library.
Speaker 2: At the time. I was offended college. Other girls at
Speaker 2: my school, desire included, already had boyfriends the middle school
Speaker 2: version of a boyfriend where you were afraid to touch
Speaker 2: each other and broke up after a week. But still
Speaker 2: I had to wait till college. But as it turned
Speaker 2: out I did not get a boyfriend before college, nor
Speaker 2: in college, nor even for several years after college, and
Speaker 2: so I concluded the problem was not my circumstances. The
Speaker 2: problem was me. I was not datable. After meeting me
Speaker 2: for the first time, people might say, oh, she was funny,
Speaker 2: but they'd never say, is she single. I was simply
Speaker 2: not a person that anyone could think of romantically. At
Speaker 2: college parties, boys would grab my friends and start danced
Speaker 2: with them, and I would stay for a while, dancing
Speaker 2: alongside them like I was part of the good time.
Speaker 2: But eventually I'd walk away. It was weird for me
Speaker 2: to keep standing there smiling blankly at the wall while
Speaker 2: they were making out. By now, I'm in my thirties
Speaker 2: and I actually do have a boyfriend. Sam and I
Speaker 2: have been together for four years. We live together, We've
Speaker 2: taken trips, know each other's moms, list each other on
Speaker 2: emergency contact forms, and yet still I can't shake this
Speaker 2: feeling that I'm behind, that there's something wrong with me,
Speaker 2: that I started too late, and now I can never
Speaker 2: catch up. Sometimes Sam tells me stories about the girls
Speaker 2: he used to hook up with, or about his high
Speaker 2: school girlfriend, or the girlfriend he lived with before he
Speaker 2: lived with me. I know that he's not trying to
Speaker 2: get back together with any of these people. I know
Speaker 2: he has invested in our relationship as I am. Still,
Speaker 2: when he tells these stories, I feel so inadequate that
Speaker 2: I want to cry. A couple times I have cried,
Speaker 2: and he's been confused, and suddenly we're in an argument
Speaker 2: because I don't know how to explain why I'm crying.
Speaker 2: I want charming stories like that one of rhapsodizes about
Speaker 2: my past of young love and mutual discovery. Instead, my
Speaker 2: past is a wall I smiled at, and the only
Speaker 2: stories I have about people I've hooked up with are
Speaker 2: vaguely unsettling to repeat. I liked leife at a time
Speaker 2: before all that, back when it still felt like romance
Speaker 2: might happen for me, like any interaction could be the
Speaker 2: start of a love story for the ages. One time
Speaker 2: I brought Whole Food sushi for lunch and felt self
Speaker 2: conscious because I'd seen the Breakfast Club in which Molly
Speaker 2: Ringwald is mocked for bringing sushi for lunch. But Leif
Speaker 2: walked by my table and said, is that sushi? And
Speaker 2: I said yes, and he said, I love sushi, and
Speaker 2: I said, would you like a piece? He said really,
Speaker 2: and I said yes, And suddenly I was proud to
Speaker 2: have a lunch of whole food sushi. Laife talked constantly
Speaker 2: about a band called Billy Talent, a semi yelly alt
Speaker 2: rock group with lyrics about misery. I started listening to
Speaker 2: them because I knew Leafe liked them, and from there
Speaker 2: became an obsessive fan myself. Once I ran into Laife
Speaker 2: at a Billy Talent concert, I pretended not to see
Speaker 2: him because I didn't want him to think that I'd
Speaker 2: followed him there, But he came over and said hi
Speaker 2: to me. There were little moments where it almost seemed
Speaker 2: like he could be flirting with me. We followed each
Speaker 2: other on the blogging site zanga, and for a while
Speaker 2: there was some sort of glitch where Laife was unable
Speaker 2: to comment on my page. When the glitch was fixed,
Speaker 2: he was so excited that he left me one hundred
Speaker 2: comments in a row. Comment forty two said on the
Speaker 2: forty second day of Christmas, I gave to Kaylee one
Speaker 2: hundred comments, lots of typing and a pear tree. I
Speaker 2: still have a journal from that time. In it I'd
Speaker 2: write Laife all these vague letters. It is humiliating to
Speaker 2: read these letters now, to the point where I refuse
Speaker 2: to quote them here. Suffice it to say that I
Speaker 2: constantly referred to him as dearest. Surrounding the letters are
Speaker 2: my thoughts about myself, mostly how I wished I were
Speaker 2: a different person, entirely, someone charismatic and sought after. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I'd have this huge swell of self hatred that I
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do with. Once I tried to
Speaker 2: caught myself, but the kitchen knife I chose was not
Speaker 2: very sharp, and so it was harder than I thought
Speaker 2: it would be, and I gave up. When I find
Speaker 2: someone who wants to date me, I thought this feeling
Speaker 2: will go away. I hoped that Liafe might be that someone.
Speaker 2: I'd talked long fantasies about how we'd get together, And
Speaker 2: sometimes I'd realize what a good mood I was in,
Speaker 2: and then I'd realized the good mood was because of
Speaker 2: something I'd made up, something that hadn't really happened at all.
Speaker 2: In the winter of eighth grade, I finally decided enough
Speaker 2: with the secret pining. It was time to let Laife
Speaker 2: know how I felt. And so I took action, and
Speaker 2: by took action, I mean that I delegated action to
Speaker 2: other people. There was a stairway right next to our
Speaker 2: classroom that was just a single flight and closed by
Speaker 2: doors on each side. It was in this room of
Speaker 2: stairs that my friends Lucia and Emily cornered Leaf and
Speaker 2: told him that I liked him while I ran home
Speaker 2: and hid. Afterwards, I asked them what he said. They
Speaker 2: told me he said okay. That night, in a fit
Speaker 2: of panic and despair, I got online. I logged onto
Speaker 2: Zanga and I wrote a veiled, angsty post about what
Speaker 2: he huge mistake I'd made. Laife saw the post as
Speaker 2: I knew he would, and he I amed my friend
Speaker 2: Karina about it. And here is where something amazing happened,
Speaker 2: because in this conversation with Karina, Laife said he would
Speaker 2: date me. He said he thought I was cool. He
Speaker 2: was going to ask me out on Valentine's Day. Seeing
Speaker 2: couples perform how much they liked each other made me
Speaker 2: feel inferior. So I hated Valentine's Day with a showy passion.
Speaker 2: Each February fourteenth, I'd wear all black as a sign
Speaker 2: of protest. Laife's thought was that this romantic gesture might
Speaker 2: help me to reclaim the holiday. I know all this
Speaker 2: because at the time, Karina promptly copy and pasted the
Speaker 2: ims with Life into an email for me. I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe what I was reading. I was so happy. Finally,
Speaker 2: I thought, finally, the thing that only happens to other people,
Speaker 2: it's now happening to me. On Valentine's Day, I got
Speaker 2: up and my mom drove me to school. People were
Speaker 2: giving out candy and paper hearts. I tried to look nonchalant.
Speaker 2: I went to science class, I went to lunch, to recess,
Speaker 2: to math, to basketball, and then school was over and
Speaker 2: I went home. Laife did not say a single word
Speaker 2: to me all day. I have no idea what happened
Speaker 2: or why he changed his mind.
Speaker 1: Huh did you ever talk to him about it?
Speaker 2: I rehash all this on the phone with Lucia. Never
Speaker 2: did we speak directly about it, like we spoke through
Speaker 2: you and Emily, through Karina on IM and like through
Speaker 2: my veiled Zanga posts. Interesting and having been my best
Speaker 2: friend for all these years, Lucia into It's what I'm
Speaker 2: building up to.
Speaker 1: So you want to try to find him more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm afraid I tried a drafting a letter,
Speaker 2: and I was like, do I just sound into same anyway?
Speaker 2: So do you think this is completely insane to do?
Speaker 1: No? I mean, I'm sure you wrote.
Speaker 4: You're a very good writer and a thoughtful person, so
Speaker 4: I'm sure.
Speaker 1: The way you approached it was good.
Speaker 2: Since googling Life had always failed me, I turned to
Speaker 2: a public records database that I get through work. I
Speaker 2: was hoping to discover a possible mailing address for Life,
Speaker 2: and I did looks like maybe he lives in Arizona.
Speaker 2: And I saw he had like a from twenty twenty
Speaker 2: court thing from defacing a political sign.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess you don't know which direction.
Speaker 2: I know it's a good direction. I want to talk
Speaker 2: to Life directly, the way I never did back then.
Speaker 2: I want to know what he really thought of me,
Speaker 2: and why he never asked me out on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2: All these years, I've believed this story about how people
Speaker 2: don't see me romantically. But if I can change the
Speaker 2: beginning of that story, if I can see myself differently
Speaker 2: at thirteen, it could reframe everything that came after I
Speaker 2: name dropped you in the letter.
Speaker 1: Dropped me because I'm so well known.
Speaker 2: Well, I was like, we used to live together, but
Speaker 2: now we both live with our boyfriend, so that he
Speaker 2: wouldn't think I was like trying to date him now
Speaker 2: high life. I wrote in my letter, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you remember me, but we went to near North together.
Speaker 2: I had a huge crush on you, and I was
Speaker 2: hoping you'd be up to talk to me about what
Speaker 2: you remember from that time. I hang up the phone
Speaker 2: with Lucia and I walked to the mailbox. I send
Speaker 2: off my letter, but then several weeks to go by
Speaker 2: and nothing. Did Liife get the letter and decide to
Speaker 2: ignore me? Or do I just have the wrong address
Speaker 2: usually when reporting a story. I tried calling at this point,
Speaker 2: and I did find a phone number for Laife. However,
Speaker 2: the idea of dialing it makes me want to lie
Speaker 2: down in the middle of the street and simply pass away.
Speaker 2: And so, just like I did at thirteen, I recruit
Speaker 2: someone else as an envoy.
Speaker 3: And who is it? Someone else?
Speaker 6: You?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it's you.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I'm sort of like that whole quorum of
Speaker 5: girls all in one adult man.
Speaker 2: This is a regular host of this program, Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 2: I want him to call Laife on my behalf to
Speaker 2: see if Laife got the letter. I would be open
Speaker 2: to speaking with me. Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I don't think that'll be awkward at all. Let
Speaker 5: me get my pattern down here. Hi, there was this girl.
Speaker 5: Her name was Khaleila Hole.
Speaker 2: You should say Kaylee first. I think you would know
Speaker 2: me by Kaylee.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Kaylee Holt's boss.
Speaker 2: What do you say like that? It is really weird.
Speaker 3: That is weird.
Speaker 5: No, Hi, you don't know me, but I was enlisted
Speaker 5: by an old school chum of yours.
Speaker 2: Oh, don't say school.
Speaker 3: An old flame, a paramore.
Speaker 2: My confidence is decreasing with every passing second.
Speaker 5: I want embarrass you in front of your crush.
Speaker 2: Are you joking?
Speaker 3: Choking on this bon bon?
Speaker 2: As my boss asphyxiates on a piece of candy. I
Speaker 2: weigh the pros and cons of just making the call myself,
Speaker 2: But in the end I make the same choice I
Speaker 2: did back then, better to send an incompetent in my
Speaker 2: stead while I hide at home. I obsess all day Thursday.
Speaker 2: I obsessed all day Friday. Jonathan doesn't offer me a
Speaker 2: single update. I can't even tell if he's made the call.
Speaker 2: Yet then the weekend begins and I still have no
Speaker 2: idea what he's done. Okay, but whatever you did do
Speaker 2: it worked because Friday night checked my email and I
Speaker 2: had an email from Leife saying that he would talk
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, let me just say I am almost one
Speaker 5: hundred percent certain that I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: Well really, because it happened that day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is suggestive.
Speaker 2: Jonathan tells me that he had indeed tried calling Leafe's number.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's the call.
Speaker 2: You ready? Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, Hello, is Leaf there?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 3: Could I speak to him?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 5: This is her, This is Lafe. Yes, I just want
Speaker 5: to make sure I have the right person. What is
Speaker 5: your middle name?
Speaker 1: Doodles?
Speaker 3: No, No, that isn't. That isn't the life that I'm
Speaker 3: looking for.
Speaker 1: I'm on a toilet right though.
Speaker 3: Okay, is there anybody else in the house?
Speaker 2: In his email, Lafe proposed let me talk in nine days,
Speaker 2: which is kind of a weirdly long time. I can't
Speaker 2: help but worry that he'll bail last minute. But this
Speaker 2: will be just like Valentine's Day all over again. So
Speaker 2: in the meantime, hoping she might remember some clue about
Speaker 2: what happened. Back then, I text my old friend Karina,
Speaker 2: the one who broke her this whole Valentine's plan with
Speaker 2: life on I am when you texted me that it
Speaker 2: was you.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, like, did something.
Speaker 2: Happen she calling me to say that miss Bergen died,
Speaker 2: miss Bergen being our longtime principal, which.
Speaker 1: She did, by the way, he didn't I didn't hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, may she. I felt deranged, texting Karina that I
Speaker 2: wanted to speak with her about life a random kid
Speaker 2: from her eighth grade class. But Karina responded, I legitimately
Speaker 2: thought about you in life last week. So, just like
Speaker 2: we used to in junior high, the two of us
Speaker 2: chat on the phone about a boy and then he I,
Speaker 2: am you shut up?
Speaker 1: Did I send you the conversation?
Speaker 2: Yes? So then I and buried. In an old AOL account,
Speaker 2: I find that email from Karina with the whole conversation
Speaker 2: between her and Life laid out.
Speaker 1: I would like, absolutely love to see it.
Speaker 2: Let me send it to you. I will just life
Speaker 2: screen name was Chaotic Detortion, which I think is just
Speaker 2: chaotic distortion spelled wrong.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me read this okay at ten seventeen PM.
Speaker 2: Nice and as Karina reads, here for you, Dear listener
Speaker 2: is a dramatic recreation of that I Am exchange, with
Speaker 2: two young actors playing the roles of Karina and Life.
Speaker 7: Hey, Hey, Life, what's up? Kayley's talking about what I think?
Speaker 2: She is?
Speaker 7: Right on? Zanga, hold on? Let me see Kaylee likes me, right,
Speaker 7: Did Lucia and Emily tell you something? Yeah? After school
Speaker 7: the other day. Yeah, she does well. If she comes on,
Speaker 7: will you tell her something?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 7: If she comes on, tell her that I'll go out
Speaker 7: with her.
Speaker 8: But my health is always screwed with my life, so
Speaker 8: I'm probably not going to be able to be one
Speaker 8: hundred percent boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Material Laife had some sort of illness the whole time
Speaker 2: I knew him, but I never knew how sick he
Speaker 2: was or what he was even sick with. He sometimes
Speaker 2: had to leave school early, he was on crutches for
Speaker 2: a while, and there were days when he just looked frail.
Speaker 2: But at thirteen, we didn't think to ask any questions.
Speaker 2: Back then, Karina just thought it was sweet he was
Speaker 2: considering his health in his role as my future boyfriend.
Speaker 7: All but do you like her? This is kind of awkward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all these years later and that, yeah, I makes
Speaker 2: my heart start pounding. I was wrong, I think see
Speaker 2: I was wrong. He liked me, he said he liked me.
Speaker 2: But then it goes on.
Speaker 8: Ohmg, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her, but hey,
Speaker 8: she likes me. I don't hate her or anything. And kaylee'school,
Speaker 8: Yeah she is.
Speaker 7: So you want me to tell her that you'll go
Speaker 7: out with her?
Speaker 2: Why don't you just talk to her on Monday?
Speaker 7: Do you think I should?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Because I mean I don't think she would believe me,
Speaker 9: and it would be nicer if you told her.
Speaker 1: Are you getting her something on V Day?
Speaker 7: I guess when is Valentine's Day?
Speaker 4: Next?
Speaker 7: Next Tuesday?
Speaker 1: Ohmg, you should tell her on V Day because she
Speaker 1: hates V Day?
Speaker 7: WHOA, yeah, oh will.
Speaker 2: I always thought it was Lafe who came up with
Speaker 2: the Valentine's Day plan, but it was actually Karina. It
Speaker 2: wasn't a romantic gesture at all. It was the gesture
Speaker 2: of a thoughtful friend. But I don't remember anything after that.
Speaker 1: I didn't even remember that.
Speaker 9: He didn't end up saying anything, like he didn't end
Speaker 9: up saying anything to you.
Speaker 2: At all, No, we never talked about it.
Speaker 1: No, Kaylee, he did.
Speaker 9: I'm pretty sure he mentioned his health again.
Speaker 1: Maybe I like followed.
Speaker 9: Up and he was like, honestly, my health just like
Speaker 9: really isn't the best.
Speaker 2: So did life not ask me out simply because he
Speaker 2: was too ill? Was his not asking actually a romantic gesture,
Speaker 2: something worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, or did he just
Speaker 2: not like me? I'd asked slave to talk on zoom
Speaker 2: and I pray I won't break out or have a
Speaker 2: bad hair day, because you know, I want to look good.
Speaker 2: The morning of I put on an eyeshadow that someone
Speaker 2: once told me was flattering, and wear a T shirt
Speaker 2: for my favorite band because I figure it's cool to
Speaker 2: like music. Then I head to the studio and test
Speaker 2: the microphone. Hello hello, all right, that's working. I feel ill.
Speaker 2: I feel physically ill. Oh my god, Okay, I can
Speaker 2: do this. Here we go on the zoom camera. You
Speaker 2: can't even see my T shirt or flattering eyeshadow. So
Speaker 2: that was a lot of wasted effort. I see that
Speaker 2: Leife is in the waiting room. I press the admit
Speaker 2: button and he appears on screen.
Speaker 10: Hi.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 2: In spite of his deeper voice and tattoos. Life seems
Speaker 2: the same, like there's no discrepancy between the person I
Speaker 2: imagined all these years and the one I'm actually looking at.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 11: I'm great, I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm doing you know. Unfortunately, faced with the person I imagined
Speaker 2: all these years, I suddenly can't remember how to have
Speaker 2: a conversation. It's like I've lost twenty years of social skills.
Speaker 2: What what's your life?
Speaker 8: My life?
Speaker 11: Well, I yeah, I don't know. I just do uh
Speaker 11: life things. You know, eat food, go to the grocery store.
Speaker 11: I've got a dog. You know, what's your dog?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What's your dog's name? Ronan good. Given that I'm incapable
Speaker 2: of asking any question more specific than what is your life?
Speaker 2: Or who is your dog? Life takes the lead.
Speaker 11: They've been doing like a lot of activisty stuff in Tucson,
Speaker 11: and that consumes more of my time than I probably
Speaker 11: should let it.
Speaker 2: In fact, the nine day delay Laye asked for was
Speaker 2: because of his activism. A few weeks earlier, he was
Speaker 2: at a protest with the Stop Coop City movement when
Speaker 2: he was tased and slammed against the ground by a
Speaker 2: police officer, he's been recovering from a concussion. At this point,
Speaker 2: we're forty minutes into the conversation, and I've somehow managed
Speaker 2: to avoid asking Laife any questions about eighth grade at all,
Speaker 2: even though he knows we're here to talk about how
Speaker 2: much I liked him. Bringing up that time still makes
Speaker 2: me nervous. What what do you remember about me?
Speaker 11: Yeah? I uh, I remember you being very tall and
Speaker 11: maybe a little awkward, but maybe it's because of the
Speaker 11: crush or whatever.
Speaker 2: No, I was awkward.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, Like I know that you told me at
Speaker 11: some point that you had a crush on me. I
Speaker 11: have like a vague memory of like there's like that
Speaker 11: stairwell Lucia telling me or something like that, like in
Speaker 11: the stairwell.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I ramble through my memories of what happened after
Speaker 2: that stairwell moment, and finally up to the question that
Speaker 2: I really came here to ask you were going to
Speaker 2: ask me out on Valentine's Day, but then that never
Speaker 2: happened and I don't know why.
Speaker 11: Oof, I'm sorry, Yeah, I don't remember. Like the Zanga
Speaker 11: post sounds vaguely familiar.
Speaker 2: Can I send you because I, in fact have these
Speaker 2: ims between you and Karina? No way can I email
Speaker 2: them to you? Yeah?
Speaker 11: See what cringeyesque things I have to say?
Speaker 2: Leife mostly read through the ims and silence, but at
Speaker 2: one point he makes a face and again goes when
Speaker 2: he's done, he laughed self consciously.
Speaker 11: All right, Well that was that was That was fun?
Speaker 2: Do you you have no memory of this?
Speaker 11: I don't know. Vaguely. I guess like it's obviously obviously
Speaker 11: it happened.
Speaker 2: I mean, you would be weird if I typed all this, supen.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, it'd be pretty weird.
Speaker 2: What part were you oofing?
Speaker 1: And?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 11: Just I mean, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her,
Speaker 11: but hey, she likes it was just like that.
Speaker 9: Yikes.
Speaker 11: I don't really know what happened. Obviously we didn't date.
Speaker 11: I don't I don't think totally forgotten.
Speaker 2: I mean that would kind of be worse if we did.
Speaker 2: Dan was gone from your memory.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that'd be real shitty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like seems like you did not like me.
Speaker 11: I do remember you being like very funny, but uh yeah,
Speaker 11: I do agree, though I think I like wasn't like
Speaker 11: into you into.
Speaker 2: You to use the eighth grade parlance, but then Lafe
Speaker 2: phrase is a key thing I've been wondering about the
Speaker 2: explanation that he gave to Karina At the time his
Speaker 2: mysterious health issues.
Speaker 11: I was like, very, very, very sick. I was like
Speaker 11: in the process essentially of getting diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
Speaker 2: Crones is an autoimmune disease. Life's intestine was attacking itself,
Speaker 2: making it hard for him to do basic things like
Speaker 2: walk or eat. In the years I knew him, though
Speaker 2: Laife didn't know he had CRONES. He didn't know what
Speaker 2: was wrong with him. He was just getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2: It took over two years of waiting rooms and misdiagnoses
Speaker 2: before he finally got to a doctor who helped him.
Speaker 2: At that point, he was so sick that the doctor
Speaker 2: pulled his mom aside to say that she thought Laife
Speaker 2: might die. They immediately admitted him to the hospital, where
Speaker 2: he stayed for three months. I'm not a monster, so
Speaker 2: of course I'd never say that I'm happy someone was
Speaker 2: so ill they almost died. But hearing all this, I
Speaker 2: can't help but feel kind of relieved, because if Life
Speaker 2: was that sick the whole time I knew him, then
Speaker 2: it wasn't about me not being good enough. There probably
Speaker 2: just wasn't any space in his brain for dating and
Speaker 2: crushes at all. So I put this to Liife.
Speaker 11: I for sure had crushes.
Speaker 2: Well, there goes that theory. Can I ask you how
Speaker 2: to crush on?
Speaker 11: Yeah? Yeah, I know I had a crush on, So
Speaker 11: I was gonna.
Speaker 2: Ask you that. Actually, that's what I always suspected.
Speaker 11: You got me figured out.
Speaker 2: Circa had shown up at our school one year from Ireland,
Speaker 2: and all the guys instantly loved her. Somehow, in that
Speaker 2: one year she dated three or four people. I, as
Speaker 2: someone who'd never dated anyone, found this profoundly unfair, Like
Speaker 2: what about the rest of us? In my moments of insecurity,
Speaker 2: I always used to think, there's no way Life likes me,
Speaker 2: because I'm pretty sure he likes Circa. So while on
Speaker 2: the one hand, it's validating to hear that my read
Speaker 2: was right, on the other hand, it's devastating to hear
Speaker 2: that my read was right. I move on to my
Speaker 2: next theory. Do you think that any of it was
Speaker 2: height related?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 11: I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So what was my problem? I ask Laife? If I
Speaker 2: had some defect that prevented him from seeing me romantically,
Speaker 2: and although he really thinks about it, he can't come
Speaker 2: up with an answer.
Speaker 11: I'm just trying to think if like, there has ever
Speaker 11: been anyone where I like, I'd love to date this person,
Speaker 11: but they've got this defect, you know.
Speaker 2: Who he falls for. Life says has always felt beyond words,
Speaker 2: especially in the eighth grade. Well, how do you feel
Speaker 2: about talking? Am I freaking you out? No?
Speaker 11: Not at all. Okay, it's fun to catch up and like,
Speaker 11: hear what you remember? It's really nice to talk to Yeah,
Speaker 11: you too, killy, and talk to you soon, all right,
Speaker 11: talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: I'd felt good while I was talking to Life. He
Speaker 2: was cool and nice as he'd always been, And yet
Speaker 2: as soon as we hang up, I suddenly feel really sad.
Speaker 2: I sit there for a while alone in the studio,
Speaker 2: and then, as I always have in times of stress, Hello, honey,
Speaker 2: I call my mom. I filler in on the conversation
Speaker 2: and how the only logical conclusion seems to be that yes,
Speaker 2: I was right, I am, in fact undateable.
Speaker 4: Who wouldn't want to date you? You're awesome?
Speaker 2: Thanks, and I mean I know I'm your mother. But
Speaker 2: that is also true. I feel like that's true in
Speaker 2: terms of like people wanting to like be my friend,
Speaker 2: but I don't feel like that's true for like dating.
Speaker 7: You feel it not just from when you were younger, but.
Speaker 2: You feel it even now. Yeah, that makes me feel.
Speaker 4: Kind of sad.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, don't be sorry.
Speaker 7: It makes me feel kind of sad, and it makes
Speaker 7: me feel.
Speaker 4: Mad at people that don't see you.
Speaker 2: I don't. Yeah, I think I'm having a hard time
Speaker 2: characterizing it because I do feel like weirdly emotional, but
Speaker 2: also like he was nice and the conversation was good,
Speaker 2: you know, So I don't want it to seem like
Speaker 2: I thought he was like being an asshole or anything
Speaker 2: like he wasn't. I don't hear that from you at all.
Speaker 2: I don't care anything about any judgment about him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You trying to piece it together for you? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: give yourself a little space. I give myself several weeks
Speaker 2: of space. And then as I keep trying to piece
Speaker 2: it together, I decide there's one more person I want
Speaker 2: to speak with. Very excited to talk to you. So
Speaker 2: thanks for being up to do this weird thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it is weird, and I definitely feel weird
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 2: This is Circa, the Irish girl that Lafe and the
Speaker 2: rest of the entire fucking class was into. Because in
Speaker 2: case it's not weird enough to reach out to my
Speaker 2: crush after nearly twenty years, why not also reach out
Speaker 2: to my crushes crush. I always suspected he had a
Speaker 2: crush on you, and he said, yes, did you know.
Speaker 4: That M like Jesus, Like he would like he would
Speaker 4: like burn CDs for me and stuff.
Speaker 1: She knows I feel like.
Speaker 4: He also gave me a sticker that said George W.
Speaker 4: Bush is a punk ass chump, So.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I had an awareness.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to Circa because I think of
Speaker 2: her as the anti me. Like, here's how Circa's Valentine's
Speaker 2: Day went in junior high. She walked up to her
Speaker 2: boyfriend at the time holding a Hershy's kiss and said,
Speaker 2: do you want this or do you want a real one?
Speaker 2: I wanted to tell me how she achieved such romantic success,
Speaker 2: what she had that I didn't have. I had laid
Speaker 2: all this out and my initial message to her.
Speaker 4: So I said this to my husband and he was
Speaker 4: kind of like, well, it's obvious isn't it like you
Speaker 4: were just new and different? And I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 4: Like you guys had all been together from the age
Speaker 4: of two. Do you know, so I literally was just
Speaker 4: new and different. I honestly think it was that simple.
Speaker 2: I think that's part of it. But I feel like
Speaker 2: there was something about your personality too, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like there was some like charisma or like confidence or
Speaker 2: I don't know, I feel like I think.
Speaker 4: That that has got to be fakeatily make it though,
Speaker 4: doesn't it Because looking back and looking at the challenge
Speaker 4: that was laid at my doorstep, I probably just leant
Speaker 4: into some kind of confident persona.
Speaker 2: Sarah only attended Near North for a single year, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't an easy transition because of her mom's job.
Speaker 2: She was upbraided at twelve years old and plopped down
Speaker 2: in a foreign country. Her dad all her old friends
Speaker 2: stayed back in Ireland. She remembers the day she came
Speaker 2: to visit our school for the first time.
Speaker 4: And I remember crying and I remember saying I don't
Speaker 4: want to go there. My memory isn't a feeling invincible
Speaker 4: or anything like quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: Like like.
Speaker 2: Overwhelmed and shut down, you know. It's that sense of panic,
Speaker 2: Sirka thinks that made her act so confident when she
Speaker 2: started school with us. It was her way of managing Still,
Speaker 2: in the year I knew her, she often felt insecure,
Speaker 2: and dating didn't make that feeling go away anyway you
Speaker 2: cut it. Boyfriend, No boyfriend? Junior high is hard, Sarka
Speaker 2: tells me she's been married for about a year and
Speaker 2: a half. Now, how did you guys meet? We went
Speaker 2: on tyin day. I'd ask s Life the same question
Speaker 2: about how he met his.
Speaker 11: Partner, Actually through Tinder. We are a tender success story.
Speaker 2: I met my boyfriend through Tender too nice. Serka Life
Speaker 2: me even though I always felt like they had some
Speaker 2: power I lacked. Almost two decades later, we all ended
Speaker 2: up in the same place, living with people we met
Speaker 2: on Tinder. Back when I talked with my friend Karina,
Speaker 2: I'd asked her what her impression had been to me
Speaker 2: when we knew each other in junior high.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Kayleie, I adored you.
Speaker 9: I remember you being very intelligent, you were very funny.
Speaker 9: I know you like you were you were tall, just
Speaker 9: you know at that age, I feel like you always
Speaker 9: look at everyone else and like, don't form your confidence
Speaker 9: or like embrace every bit of yourself until later in life,
Speaker 9: and I remember being like, she has so many things
Speaker 9: going for her, like I.
Speaker 1: Hope that she.
Speaker 2: Becomes more confident. My past self was tall and awkward,
Speaker 2: and the boy I liked didn't like me. And all
Speaker 2: these years later, I'm still tall and still awkward, and
Speaker 2: I still often feel left behind by romance. But then again,
Speaker 2: the junior high me would never have had the courage
Speaker 2: to have these conversations at all. So maybe I did
Speaker 2: become more confident, and some people do want to date me.
Speaker 2: I'd want to date me. These days, I don't think
Speaker 2: too much about Valentine's Day. It turns out that I
Speaker 2: don't like being one of those performative couples anymore than
Speaker 2: I liked watching those performative couples. This year, on February fourteenth,
Speaker 2: my boyfriend made dinner. I did the dishes. Happy to Tuesday,
Speaker 2: he said, Happy Tuesday, I said. Then we watched TV.
Speaker 2: It was nice.
Speaker 10: Now that the fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now
Speaker 10: that the last.
Speaker 6: Month's rent is skiming with the damage to pot take
Speaker 6: this moment to deserve if We met Lee Too, Thanks
Speaker 6: Edacidan Lee.
Speaker 2: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me Khalila Holt
Speaker 2: along with Jonathan Goldstein and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer
Speaker 2: is Stevie Lane. Production assistants from Mohiney mcgauker. Special thanks
Speaker 2: to Max Green, Flora Lichtman, and Connor Sampson. Editorial guidance
Speaker 2: from Emily Condon. In the im recreation, Karina was played
Speaker 2: by Reagan Dedeer and Laife was played by John Clawson.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Greg Holt and Tony John for making that possible.
Speaker 2: Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
Speaker 2: John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Additional
Speaker 2: music credits can be found on our website gilimedia dot
Speaker 2: com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker
Speaker 2: Dance courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast,
Speaker 2: or email us at Heavyweight At gimlimedia dot com. You
Speaker 2: can follow our show on Spotify and tap the belt
Speaker 2: to receive notifications when new episodes drop. We'll be back
Speaker 2: next week with a new episode