The Book - E Lockhart

A cute guy who liked me and I liked him and maybe we could have had a thing together.

And I had ruined it.

I got off the phone as quickly as I could.

Why You Want the Guy You Can’t Have: Inadequate Analysis of a Disturbing Psychological Trend

Fact: I like Angelo more now that I can’t have him. 1

How could I have been so stupid, not to call? I am full of regret.

Angelo, being a mentally stable type of person, stopped liking me once he figured I was unavailable. But me, no. My brain and heart do the opposite of what would be in their best interests.

Why do we want what we can’t have? Are we conditioned to feel that way by toxic advertising images, social pressures and bad stuff that happens to us? And is there anything we can do to change the situation?

Because I know that, neurotic as I am, I am not alone. Cricket crushed on Billy Alexander all last year, and it started the same week he began seeing Molly. 2 And Ariel started liking Shiv when he went out with that freshman.

A guy becomes instantly more desirable when he is with someone else. And that is bad. Because you can’t have him. And also because it’s stupid and kind of sick.

On one hand, it makes sense: if everyone says the new peanut butter ice cream is excellent, you’d probably want to try it, even if peanut butter isn’t usually your thing, right? You might not like it once you’d tried it, but you would want to see what the hype was all about. And you certainly wouldn’t have gotten interested in it if someone else hadn’t pointed out how good it was.

On the other hand, it’s like we’re three years old. You don’t want that scruffy old teddy bear until your friend takes it and starts having a good time with it. Then suddenly it’s the cutest bear you’ve ever seen, and you want to get it away from her.

Ag.

Shouldn’t we be past that by now, and all be falling in love or making out with people who are actually available?

Why are we like this? A few possible theories:

1. Our dads were always going off to work or reading the newspaper when we were little, so now our vision of the ideal man is one who isn’t interested in us. (Very Freudian.)

2. Our dads were in love with our moms, so everyone from infancy (except maybe people raised by single parents or two moms) has this thing where the man they love the best is in love with someone else. (Even more Freudian. Ag. We can stop going there now.)

3. The point of a lot of advertising, as Mr. Wallace explained to us last year in American History & Politics, is to spark desire by creating a sense of inadequacy. Like, we look at some fashion model in a magazine and think, Whoa, I’m ugly and oddly plump next to her. I suck. She’s great. What can I buy to make myself suck less? Oh, that eye shadow she’s modeling. So the magazine photo makes us feel like crap and then we want something. And we’re used to that, because ads are such a huge part of our society. So then when a guy makes us feel bad (by going out with someone else or rejecting us), we respond by wanting something (him).

4. We’re slaves to whatever’s popular. And if a guy has a girlfriend, he’s more popular (pretty much) than any guy who’s free.

5. We are actually scared to have real live boyfriends that we’d have to be all intimate with, so it’s safer to like someone we can’t have.

6. Then again, maybe it’s just true that the cute guys are always taken and I should stop analyzing so much.

Whatever the reason, liking a guy who’s already taken is a recipe for horror. But how to stop liking a person you like? Even if you know your psychotic, messed-up heart is only playing tricks on you?

Practically impossible.

—from The Boy Book, written by me, Ruby Oliver. Approximate date: late October, junior year.

when I showed the entry to Meghan at the B&O a couple of days later, she reached into her book bag and pulled out a pen. “Is it okay if I add something?”

“Sure,” I said, though it had never occurred to me she’d want to. Partly because, well, she wasn’t Cricket or Nora or Kim. And partly because she’s not the analytical type. But she wrote for a long time, then handed it back to me. I read:

Another thing that’s toxic in this whole trend of people wanting what they can’t have is that it leads to evil, manipulative games. Like girls who try to make their boyfriends jealous because then the boys will like the girls even more when they think said girls want somebody else. Or girls who lie to guys, saying they have a boyfriend when they don’t. Or guys who ignore their girlfriends in public, because they think that seeming uninterested will make the girl actually more devoted.

All of which sometimes works.

But then, everyone is fake, and half of them have had their feelings hurt.

Maybe the thing to do is to refuse to play those games, even if you are tempted. Part of me wants to find someone to have a fling with in order to make Bick start paying attention. Because now he hardly seems to know I exist—and I think about him all the time.

Which is awful.

But if he thought I wasn’t thinking about him, and I was thinking of someone else instead, I bet he’d think of me.

But I shouldn’t go having flings I don’t want to have in order to make my boyfriend notice me. And I shouldn’t pretend that I don’t like him so he’ll come crawling back. Because it’s creepy and stupid.

It would be better to stop liking him for real. Then I’d be a lot happier.

—written by Meghan. Approximate date: late October, junior year.

“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know you were still that shattered about this whole thing.”

Meghan nodded.

“Are you gonna break up with him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It was only when I wrote that just now that I even thought I’d be happier if I didn’t love Bick.”

“Oh.”

“But the problem is, I do. I can’t break up with someone I want to be with.”

“You can’t?”

“How can I walk away from him when I want him so much? Doesn’t that seem like giving up on love?”

I felt like telling her she should dump him. He made her feel like crap and she’d be better off without him. But I knew I’d never have walked away from Jackson if he hadn’t broken up with me. Things had already been weird between us for months before the debacle. Little events (or nonevents) shattered me, like when I baked him black-bottom cupcakes and he barely even noticed. Or when he didn’t buy me a Christmas present. Or didn’t ask me to the Spring Fling until really late. Or the whole Valentine’s Day flower horror.

For pretty long, before we broke up, being with Jackson had made me feel more bad than good.

But I never would have left.

“I know what you mean,” I told Meghan.

“I’d be happier if I didn’t like him,” she said again, like she was trying out the sound of it.

I dialed Angelo’s cell twice one day, having this idea that if I told him I was thinking about him all the time,

and reminded him what it was like that night in the Honda,