Welcome to Interviews With My Ex-Girlfriend, in which Autostraddle writers get back in touch with their ex-girlfriends to ask them Five Simple Questions:

1. How long did we date?
2. Why did we break up?
3. What did you learn from our relationship?
4. What do you miss most about me?
5. Would you invite me to your wedding (why/why not)?

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I fell so hard for my first girlfriend. Like wait by my window, watch her as she walked to class, and wish I had the courage to talk to her kind of hard. It was 2000, and we were freshmen at Goucher College in Baltimore. Pretty much babies, little awkward babies. I pursued a friendship with her that involved poetry slams, arguments about the Yankees, and a lot of nervous phone calls that led me to hanging up when she called. This was not the way to start love. She started the love. She called out my giant crush and dared me to kiss her. So I did and then we dated for almost two years.

 

Two years of good love, of huge fights, and deep real conversations about ourselves. I learned so much about how to love my body from her. And then well, you know, we broke up. It happens. But we remained friends, she’s my sister now. I will always know this woman and I will always love her. The way you love someone who’s known you when you still had your little kid face, the way you love someone when they were your first love, the way you love someone who knows your momma. We always reach out to each other during the shit times and the glorious times.

So when she was headed back to New York, I knew we’d spend some time together. More than a decade has passed since we were fiery, goofy lovebirds, so I was excited to interview her for this series. I wanted to know how she felt about us now and then. We went to City Limits Diner to catch up and then hit up my spot in the Bronx for the official interview.

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Gabby:  So, you are my ex-girlfriend, correct?

Laura: I — well that’s not really a nice way of saying it.

Laura: I’m like… your friend.

Gabby: Okay.

Laura: And we used to be together.

Gabby: Yes. When we were babies.

Laura: When we were babies!

Gabby: Ok. So how long were we together and when?

Laura: I think we were together two years. Is that right? In the first two years of college.

Gabby: Yeah. That’s it?

Laura: I mean, I don’t know when the starting point would be because I thought I was straight for part of it!

Gabby: Part of our relationship?

Laura: Well I don’t know, do you remember in the beginning where we were like, fooling around, and I was like “oh, I’m just straight and this is what I do,” and you got pissed off.

Gabby: And I left! Yeah!

Laura: So I don’t know if you count that period of time.

Gabby: Well I don’t know, ’cause I was hooking up with boys too. Remember, I went home, hooked up with boys…

Laura: Yeah, yeah. Right, right! So I was like “Oh, we’re just friends who do this sometimes.”

Gabby: So then we’d say it started second semester, freshmen year. Until?

Laura: I guess the summer after sophomore year. Right? So that was like, more than two years.

Gabby: So, why did we break up to the best of your recollection?

Laura: It was time.

(Much laughter ensues.)

Gabby: Why was it time?

Laura: I don’t know. You were doing your thing on the west coast, and I was in the theater program. All I remember is that I was on the phone with you, you were supposed to go to the dentist, and I was like, “you need to go to the dentist!” and you didn’t want to go. I’m sure you had some infection. We were fighting on the phone across the country about going to the dentist and I guess we’d just reached the end. I don’t think at that time in our relationship I really knew what was going on or why.

Gabby: I remember that! I remember this fight! It was funny ’cause the dental assistant was so hot. I saw her a bunch of times, nothing ever happened but she was really hot. It’s funny that you say that though ’cause I remember it that the one thing in the conversation that triggered break-up talk is when you got really quiet and were like, “I don’t even know myself. What am I supposed to do in this relationship?”

Laura: Wow.

(Gabby laughs)

Laura: I guess I knew something.

Gabby: And I was you know, super melodramatic! I was like, “If you don’t know yourself, then I don’t think we can be together.”

Laura: That’s wise, also. We were so wise in our ignorance.

Gabby: Yeah!

Laura: I don’t remember any of that! But that sounds wise.

Gabby: Three: what do you miss the most about me?

Laura: I miss that you have known me through so many stages of my life.

Gabby: Hmmm

Laura: So I miss that you know a lot of deep wounded parts of me and you loved me anyway. Oh, and also I miss that we’re able to connect around art and social issues and how they’re related. That’s really important to me. I forget that part of myself a lot but I get to remember it when we connect again.

Gabby: Word. I feel funny interviewing you, I feel like it should be a mutual interview!

Laura: I’ll ask you the same things.

Gabby: Okay! Um, what about our relationship has impacted your later relationships?

Laura: Well, I just said this to you, but I didn’t say it on tape, but I think that learning about race and having that conversation, was a big thing when I’m looking back at myself and where I was in my life. And like, learning how to be with other people’s pain? And to honor them where they are. I don’t think that makes any sense! What were we talking about before —

Gabby: You said I used to get angry.

Laura: You were the only Puerto Rican at Goucher, this all-white school, and, you know, you had some anger! Now I feel it was totally justifiable and understandable but at the time I didn’t know how to be around anger like that. I learned about how to love with you. I was learning about love and how to love people, and I knew that I believed in love, and that love was the ultimate answer, but I didn’t know how the anger could be a part of that. And I think that I couldn’t do it then. I couldn’t love your anger. But I think that’s the point, really. I don’t think I could’ve been in another relationship after that if I hadn’t had that experience with you and loved you. ‘Cause I loved you anyway. I just didn’t know that I didn’t have the tools for that. I grew up in Westchester, it’s one of the richest counties in the country. I’d say it’s the whitest, but now that I’ve been in the Midwest I realize it was more racially diverse compared to a lot of other places like it.

Gabby: That’s funny ’cause I feel like at the time, I knew why I was angry, but I didn’t really know the full layers of it. I didn’t think I knew why I was angry beyond being the only one here. You know what I mean? I didn’t know the institutional part or the history of it. You know what I mean? So, I don’t know if even I had the tools to help either one of us navigate it.

Laura: I don’t think either one of us did.

Gabby: We had no tools! We were lesbians without tools!

Laura: Yeah, man, we were just… I don’t know.

Gabby: Baby dykes.

Laura: Yeah!

Gabby: The last question: would you, at this juncture, invite me to your wedding? Why or why not?

Laura: Absolutely I would. You’re my prior beloved! You’re the only former beloved I am talking to right now.

Gabby: Yeah, you too, actually. High five for not being, like, fucked up people.

Laura: Yeah! I definitely would. Because, again, you’re like my sister now…

Gabby: Yeah. Right? How did we do that?

Laura: I think it took a lot of time. Like there was a long time we weren’t. We keep coming back, and then we get pissed at each other for whatever reason and then…

Gabby: Right.

Laura: Then we always come back. Like family. You know what I mean? Family is such a pain in the ass, but they’re always around!

Gabby: I just can’t get you outta my life! Nah, I’m just kidding. I think that concludes our interview — oh, wait, it says based on your answers to the questions, I might have other tangents I’d like to embark on. Okay, so then let me ask you a question: what was difficult about being in a relationship with me?

Laura: We were too fiery together, both of us. I think. I mean, we fought a lot! Again — we didn’t have tools, so neither of us knew what the fuck was going on. But I also think both of our families kind of communicate in that way? So we were just like, well, we’ll just yell at each other! I mean, that’s what you do!

Gabby: Right, the Italian Catholic and Puerto Rican Pentecostal …

Laura: Yeah, we just yelled at each other. And then it was like…

Gabby: Now we should have sex!

Laura: Kaitlyn, Matt and Megan always knew when something was up because it was always like ’cause it was always like [mimics fighting noises] “I’m not talking to her!” Then someone’s crying. They’re like, “Oh, Jesus Christ!” I know, I get it, I’m white, but in that whole school, the two of us screaming together at each other? I think that was just exhausting. That’s probably why we broke up.

Gabby: And let the record show, you have never dated a Puerto Rican since!

Laura: I have not. I dated a Mayflower white person.

Gabby: “I dated a Pilgrim after you.”

Laura: That was really awkward. It was really awkward. Like, it didn’t work at all, I couldn’t identify.

Gabby: It’s two sides of the same coin. Different sides.

Laura: What do you mean?

Gabby: Two types of white, right?

Laura: I mean, culturally. Like, culturally I’m much more comfortable with you. All my other partners have been black. Culturally that just feels more comfortable.

Gabby: Do you have, like, a favorite moment of us being together?

Laura: I mean, I think the beginning is always the best.

Gabby: As opposed to the break-up part?

Laura: Yes. I wanna get better at the break-up part, ’cause I think it’d just make life a lot easier. I’ve had that happen in multiple relationships. It would be great to have the breaking up part be just as fun and smooth as the beginning part.

Gabby: “You done? Yeah I’m done too! Woo!”

Laura: “I think you’re beautiful with someone else.” Anyhow, I think the beginning was so fun, ’cause, like, you were telling me that you could see my aura! You were telling me how beautiful I was, and writing poems about me, and you were doing all these poetry slams and you were like “my girl is so hot,” and I was like “aww.” That was fun!

Gabby: I think they should turn this into a podcast.

Laura: I think so too. Maybe we could have a radio show.

Gabby: What should it be called? Sister Exes?

Laura: You know, like XM radio or something.

Gabby: I gotchu.

Laura: Like a gender and sexuality themed, sexual identity themed…

Gabby: I think we should just talk about other people’s love problems, so it would be like “Sister Exes on Love” and people could write to us. Because, like, we have vastly different…

Laura: Opinions!

Gabby: Opinions, but also relationship experiences, sexual experiences.

Laura: Yeah, sure!

Gabby: So I think it would be fun.

Laura: I think that would be fun. Pitch it!

Gabby: Ok. I think we’re good on this interview, right?

Laura: Me too. But I want to ask you the same questions!

Gabby: Ok, but let me turn this off and make sure we got it all. ‘Cause I’ll be pissed.

Laura: Well we went over a lot of this stuff already, but how long were we together and when?

Gabby: We were together for two years, from the time that I was 18 to right before I turned 20. And you were my first girlfriend. My first official girlfriend.

Laura: What does official mean?

Gabby: Well, like that we claimed each other in that way. As girlfriends. So it wasn’t some secret or something weird. It wasn’t something unnamed, it was an official thing.

Laura: Also, we didn’t say this in the interview we did with me, but we both came out while we were together to our families.

Gabby: Oh yeah.

Laura: That’s kind of a huge deal.

Gabby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. That was really fucking hard.

Laura: Yeah.

Gabby: I don’t know if we really even processed those things with each other. I don’t think we — I think we did, but I don’t think we did…I feel like I don’t remember processing that with you. That I came out and it was so hard.

Laura: Really?

Gabby: I don’t know, do you remember?

Laura: I mean I remember being there for it and through it…

Gabby: Okay.

Laura: I don’t think that I knew how to process things in the way that I do now.

Gabby: Me neither!

Laura: You know what I mean?

Gabby: Yeah!

Laura: I think we were both just going through it together…

Gabby: Yeah, like “Welp, I just came out! And everything sucks! I don’t know how I’m feeling! Let’s have a fight and have sex.”

Laura:  Yeah, that’s how we processed it.

Gabby: Yeah, no, you’re right. You’re really right. I feel like I’m a way better communicator now. And a way better girlfriend than I’ve ever been in my whole life. Because we have created the skills and developed the skills back then. I don’t think we had those skills. We tried.

Laura: And why did we break up then?

Gabby: [laughs] We broke up because it was time! We broke up because we were very young, and we were arguing with each other like we had been married. For forty years.

Laura: Yeah.

Gabby: I was still living way more recklessly in certain degrees than you were. From what I can remember, the way you yelled at me felt like you were a mom trying to tell me what to do, and I was like, “I can’t handle that.” But I was acting recklessly, emotionally. I think I was acting like the kid. I was a kid.

Laura: What do you mean recklessly?

Gabby: I was really so young so I didn’t understand how to even be fully functioning or how to be accountable for my actions in a relationship. So I was just kinda doing what I wanted to do, even if it wasn’t hurtful to you. I didn’t understand that you were talking to me out of concern. You know what I mean? And I didn’t know how to hold myself accountable. I felt like I didn’t have to.

Laura: Well, and you didn’t. Really. I think we were both probably being in relationships the way we watched our parents be in relationships. I mean, that’s what you do if you don’t know how to be yourself in a relationship and use some communicating tools.

Gabby: Right, right. And you hear people talking all the time, but nobody teaches you how to communicate. And my parents didn’t really have the best method of communicating with each other. I don’t think they do even now!

Laura: So being each other’s parent is the natural reaction, I think. But I’m sorry if I was your mother.

Gabby: You were just wise!

Laura: No. Um, so what do you miss the most about me?

Gabby: I really loved, like loved, loved that you were an actress. And that you were an actress in a way where it wasn’t about being famous, it was about the craft of acting. In the moments where you would talk to me about acting and your connection to it was when you were lifted from whatever was going in our day-to-day situation and propelled into this state of existing in something beautiful. And I was always so proud and so impressed and so in awe of your ability and talent on stage and behind the scenes and during your rehearsals. I really genuinely loved that about you, and was caught up in all those moments and that magic. So I miss that. I don’t think I’ve dated anyone else in the arts since you, so that.

Laura: I would guess that you have moments where you are aware of moments of your current partner now creating magic, right? Like having transcendent moments or inspiring, or gaining inspiration from your partner.

Gabby: Yes, but it’s really very different. I do feel like I’m still getting to know her in that way? But when it’s connected to the arts it’s a different magic and a different beauty than when it’s connected to someone who sees themselves as a craftsperson. The connection and what I’m learning from her is that to create this thing that can be utilized or loved. Like she made me that Mary!

Laura:  Wow, that’s beautiful.

Gabby: It’s amazing right? She crafted it herself, it’s layers of paper on top of itself and she carved it with an x-acto knife.

Laura: That’s beautiful.

Gabby: Right. It’s gorgeous! To me, her vision as an artist isn’t to be someone who paints pictures of Mary, or sculpts pictures of Mary. I think she connects to it as a craftsperson. Like “I love this person, so I’m going to take my skills that I have and make this thing.” Whereas with you it was more like, “I’m gonna transcend and throw myself into this work, so I can beam out of this.” So it’s similar because when I talk to her and when we talk to her and when we talk about the future or when I see her love for me and things like that, I feel like I’m in a different place. But it’s different than being in a relationship with someone who is in love with the arts.

Laura: I guess the reason I ask that is cause I’m thinking about my own experience and wondering. about how to bridge the gap between the everyday and the mundane, and loving somebody and the really transcendent experience of that person. You know what mean?

Gabby: Yeah. Like you don’t get to see it, you feel it that often in the middle of all that everyday stuff?

Laura: Well, or how to navigate all the everyday stuff and still stay connected to what is transcendent about them. You know what I mean?

Gabby: Well, I mean also we were babies. So it was like you’re bursting with all of this feeling ’cause you haven’t been grounded by life yet. If you’re lucky, of course, if you’re privileged enough to have grown up with steadiness and love, to be able to go to a college that fosters your creativity, if you have all that — then of course you’re like, “God, I am singing! I am soaring!” You know? You don’t have to work. You know what I mean?

Laura: Right:

Gabby: So that’s also a huge part of it. I think what… My person now, I think what she gives to her craftsmanship is that she knows that when things are feeling out of whack, it’s time to invest some focused energy into a project, into something else — something that’s not me and that’s not her day-to-day thing. I think that helps her find her beauty and her transcendence. When people have something else to give themselves to, and knowing what that is as a partner.

Laura: What about our relationship impacted your later relationships?

Gabby: That’s a hard one. I think I have a positive and a not-so positive response. I think one thing that impacted me was that because you were literally my first love ever and because we fought a lot, I think that reinstated itself as ‘that’s how you do a relationship.’ You argue a lot and passionately, and that middle ground is almost non-existent or it’s like a magical place. You know? One positive that I see in my relationship now, and I’ve thought about before, is the importance of that connection to something else. Like somebody has to have something else going on too. I was with somebody before my present person who didn’t, and that was really toxic. I need to be with somebody who is connected to something outside of me and outside of a substance and outside of superficiality.

Laura: What do you mean outside of superficiality?

Gabby: Someone that’s not gonna bombard me with World Star Hip-Hop videos and someone that’s not gonna bombard me with wanting to keep up with the Kardashians. You know what I mean? Like, yes there is a time and a place for those things and they can be fun and they can be funny. Like, I fucking love Beyonce, I don’t even know her. If she had a show I would watch it every single day, but that wouldn’t be my only outlet.

Laura:  Yeah.

Gabby: You know? So, I think that I definitely learned that from you. Or with you.

Laura:  That’s awesome.

Gabby: Yeah.

Laura: Would you at this juncture invite me to your wedding?

Gabby: Hell yeah!

Laura: And why or why not?

Gabby: One, because I joke and I say you were my first Laura now. But also, I mean like you said in your interview, you’re one of my oldest friends and you feel like family, and you know me in a way that most people don’t know me. And we have maintained a relationship with each other despite all the reasons that we shouldn’t, or we could have just let it go. Also, there are parts of me that other people will never know. Like you knew Christina, you know what I mean? No one I ever date ever again, or make friends with, will ever know that, will ever no her. You know what I mean? And that is a huge part of my life and a huge part of different aspects of grief that I’ve experienced, you know? Also I want you to be at all the important stuff. You know? I hope if I’m ever able to have a baby that you’d come to my fucking shitty baby shower and you’d pretend to have a good time.

Laura: I don’t want to watch you open all the presents though!

Gabby: Come on! What if my chair is decorated like a huge vulva?

Laura:  Only if the presents are really funny and good presents! I don’t want to watch you open onesies.

Gabby: Aw! You have to!

Laura: Okay, fine!

Gabby: Okay. But you have to get me onesies that are funny.

Laura: Okay.

Gabby: Is there anything else?

Laura: I don’t think I have any other questions.

Gabby: Oh! I forgot! I forgot you were also the first person who taught me to be patient with sex, and you’re the reason that I go down on girls!

Laura: I’m so, so glad about that. I’m so glad to hear that. I’m not going down if you’re not going down.

Gabby: That’s what you told me! It’s the “both ways or no ways” club. That’s what you told me.

Laura: I still… I don’t know where the hell I came up with that.

Gabby: I didn’t go down on you for the longest time. And then one sunny afternoon, you came into my room and you did the deed and it was amazing and you crawled on top of me and you poked me in the chest and you were like, “If you ever want that to happen again, you better getting over this ‘I don’t go down on women’ shit. It’s the both ways or no ways club.”

Laura: You know what? There was something about external identity and then whatever your core being is because I don’t know where the fuck that came from. You know what I mean? Like, I didn’t have confidence or sexual prowess. I didn’t have sex with people, but there was something that I knew about how this was gonna go on.

Gabby: You were a feminist!

Laura: I guess so.

Gabby: I think that had something to do with it. You were claiming your woman identity and you wanted sex! And I was with you and I was like (makes noises) “I’m not gonna do that, I don’t eat none of that,” and you were like, “Oh yeah?”

Laura: Well, how could you be a lesbian and not go down?

Gabby: I mean, I just thought I’d get by on my charm and my wit.

(much laughter)

Gabby: That got me really far. That got me one sunny afternoon.