October 12, 2023 • 42 mins
On Valentine’s Day in junior high, Leif was supposed to ask Kalila out. But he never did. Seventeen years later, Kalila wants to know why.
Credits
This episode was hosted and produced by senior producer Kalila Holt, along with Jonathan Goldstein and Phoebe Flanigan. The supervising producer is Stevie Lane.
Production assistance from Mohini Madgavkar. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon.
Special thanks to Max Green, Flora Lichtman, and Connor Sampson.
In the IM recreation, Karina was played by Reagan Didier, and Leif was played by John Claassen—thanks to Greg Holt and Tony John for making that possible.
The show was mixed by Bobby Lord.
Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Blue Dot Sessions, Katie Mullins, Florian Le Prisé, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Khalila. Yeah, hi 's Jonathan.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, I called you.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
So you're hosting the show. Yeah, it's a personal story.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Indeed. Yeah, it's kind of like an oral report that
you're condescending.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Well, I mean it's a report given by the mouth.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I mean sure, by that metric, all your episodes are
or all reports. So well, yeah, it doesn't feel so good,
it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It doesn't.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Here we go an oral.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Report given by Khalila Holt.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
All right, put your name at the top of the
oral report.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
How do you pay your name at the top of
an oral report?
Speaker 5 (00:42):
You say it.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm Khalila Holt and this is have You eight today's
episode Lathe right after the break, I'm walking to work
(01:12):
one morning when I spot Laife heading towards me. From
the ages of twelve to fourteen, life 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 him on the street,
(01:34):
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 Liafe. But
then as I dropped closer, I realized that the man
I thought was life is not life at all, and
in fact, it is not even a man. He's a teenager.
(01:58):
This makes sense give that I've not seen Laife since
I was fourteen years old. Still 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, Lefe is back on my mind
(02:22):
all these years later, and I remember the exact type
of pen laf Ro with. I remember his birthday. I
remember how he kept his wallet on a long chain
the first time I'd ever seen such a thing done,
and wore a quicksilver sweatshirt with holes worn through the
sleeves that he'd stick his thumbs through. He was pale,
with blue eyes, short and slight.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I remember him being kind of like wayfish, almost like
kind of almost like a furial.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Crushes do not exist in a vacuum. They require gleeful
gossip with your friends. And so I call Echia, who's
been my best friend since elementary school, to talk about
our old classmate Laife.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
He had this like light blonde hair that he died
and was a long like down to her, but hair
long like like a bobbling but like shag.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Then yeah, there go the men's bob. Once, while away
on a school sponsored trip, we phoned Leife from our
hotel room, me, Lucia, and our other friend, Emily. But
three of us huddled together on the scratchy Marriotte comforter,
stifling our giddiness as we dialed. My God, I don't
(03:30):
remember if we actually talked to the thing I remember
is that we called. We talked to his mom. Our
friend Emily asked if she could speak with Laife. It's Emily,
she said. Emily said, Leife's mom, go upstairs and talk
to him. Then she hung up on us. Turned out
he had a sister named Emily.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So weird.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Lucia's stepmom was a photographer, and she once mentioned that
if Leife and I ever started dating, she wanted to
take our portrait. I don't think she knew I had
a crush on him. Laife 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
(04:12):
got pressured into playing basketball, but I was so meek
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
(04:34):
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 thirteen. One day I was sitting by
(04:56):
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, desire included, already had boyfriends the middle school
(05:19):
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
(05:40):
problem was me. I was not datable. After meeting me
for the first time, people might say, oh, she was funny,
but they'd never say, is she single. I was simply
not a person that anyone could think of romantically. At
college parties, boys would grab my friends and start danced
(06:00):
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 thirties
and I actually do have a boyfriend. Sam and I
have been together for four years. We live together, We've
(06:23):
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 stories about the girls
he used to hook up with, or about his high
(06:44):
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 has 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
(07:07):
because I don't know how to explain why I'm crying.
I want charming stories like that one of rhapsodizes 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 liked leife at a time
(07:34):
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 Food 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
(07:56):
I said yes, and he said, I love sushi, and
I said, would you like a piece? He said really,
and I said yes, And suddenly I was proud to
have a lunch of whole food sushi. Laife talked constantly
about a band called Billy Talent, a semi yelly alt
rock group with lyrics about misery. I started listening to
them because I knew Leafe liked them, and from there
(08:17):
became an obsessive fan myself. Once I ran into Laife
at a Billy 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
(08:38):
there was some sort of glitch where Laife was unable
to comment on my page. When the glitch was fixed,
he was so excited that he left me one hundred
comments in a row. Comment forty two said on the
forty second day of Christmas, I gave to Kaylee one
hundred comments, lots of typing and a pear tree. I
(09:04):
still have a journal from that time. In it I'd
write Laife all 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
(09:25):
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
caught 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
(09:48):
will go away. I hoped that Liafe might be that someone.
I'd talked long fantasies about how we'd get together, And
sometimes I'd realize what a good mood I was in,
and then I'd realized the good mood was because of
something I'd made up, something that hadn't really happened at all.
(10:12):
In the winter of eighth grade, I finally decided enough
with the secret pining. It was time to let Laife
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 and closed by
(10:33):
doors on each side. It was in this room of
stairs that my friends Lucia and Emily cornered Leaf 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 okay. That night, in a fit
of panic and despair, I got online. I logged onto
(10:56):
Zanga and I wrote a veiled, angsty post about what
he huge mistake I'd made. Laife 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, Laife said he would
date me. He said he thought I was cool. He
(11:18):
was going to ask me out on Valentine's Day. Seeing
couples perform how much they liked each other made me
feel inferior. So I hated Valentine's Day with a showy passion.
Each February fourteenth, I'd wear all black as a sign
of protest. Laife's thought was that this romantic gesture might
(11:38):
help me to reclaim the holiday. I know all this
because at the time, Karina promptly copy and pasted the
ims with Life 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
(12:06):
up and my mom drove me to school. People were
giving out candy and 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. Laife did not say a single word
(12:27):
to me all day. I have no idea what happened
or why he changed his mind.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Huh did you ever talk to him about it?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
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 on IM and like through
my veiled Zanga posts. Interesting and having been my best
friend for all these years, Lucia into It's what I'm
(12:59):
building up to.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So you want to try to find him more.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, but I'm afraid I tried a drafting a letter,
and I was like, do I just sound into same anyway?
So do you think this is completely insane to do?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
No? I mean, I'm sure you wrote.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
You're a very good writer and a thoughtful person, so
I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The way you approached it was good.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Since googling Life had always failed me, I 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 twenty twenty
court thing from defacing a political sign.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Well, I guess you don't know which direction.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I know it's a good direction. I want to talk
to 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 this story about how people
don't see me romantically. But if I can change the
(14:12):
beginning of that story, if I can see myself differently
at thirteen, it could reframe everything that came after I
name dropped you in the letter.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Dropped me because I'm so well known.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
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
high 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
(14:47):
with Lucia and I walked to the mailbox. I send
off my letter, but then several weeks to go by
(15:08):
and nothing. Did Liife get the letter and decide to
ignore me? Or do I just have the wrong address
usually when reporting a story. I tried calling at this point,
and I did find a phone number for Laife. However,
the idea of dialing it makes me want to lie
down in the middle of the street and simply pass away.
(15:31):
And so, just like I did at thirteen, I recruit
someone else as an envoy.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
And who is it? Someone else?
Speaker 6 (15:38):
You?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh, yeah, it's you.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Okay, So I'm sort of like that whole quorum of
girls all in one adult man.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
This is a regular host of this program, Jonathan Goldstein.
I want him to call Laife on my behalf to
see if Laife got the letter. I would be open
to speaking with me. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
No, I don't think that'll be awkward at all. Let
me get my pattern down here. Hi, there was this girl.
Her name was Khaleila Hole.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
You should say Kaylee first. I think you would know
me by Kaylee.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Hi, I'm Kaylee Holt's boss.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
What do you say like that? It is really weird.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
That is weird.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
No, Hi, you don't know me, but I was enlisted
by an old school chum of yours.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Oh, don't say school.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
An old flame, a paramore.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
My confidence is decreasing with every passing second.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
I want embarrass you in front of your crush.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Are you joking?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Choking on this bon bon?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
As my boss asphyxiates 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 while I hide at home. I obsess all day Thursday.
(17:00):
I obsessed 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. Okay, but whatever you did do
it worked because Friday night checked my email and I
had an email from Leife saying that he would talk
(17:22):
to me.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Okay, well, let me just say I am almost one
hundred percent certain that I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well really, because it happened that day.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, it is suggestive.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Jonathan tells me that he had indeed tried calling Leafe's number.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Okay, here's the call.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
You ready? Okay?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, okay, Hello, is Leaf there?
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Could I speak to him?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (18:01):
This is her, This is Lafe. Yes, I just want
to make sure I have the right person. What is
your middle name?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Doodles?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
No, No, that isn't. That isn't the life that I'm
looking for.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I'm on a toilet right though.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Okay, is there anybody else in the house?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
In his email, Lafe proposed let me 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,
(19:02):
the one who broke her this whole Valentine's plan with
life on I am when you texted me that it
was you.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I was like, oh my gosh, like, did something.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Happen she calling me to say that miss Bergen died,
miss Bergen being our longtime principal, which.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
She did, by the way, he didn't I didn't hear that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, may she. I felt deranged, texting Karina that I
wanted to speak with her about life a random kid
from her eighth grade class. But Karina responded, I legitimately
thought about you in life last week. So, just like
we used to in junior high, the two of us
(19:45):
chat on the phone about a boy and then he I,
am you shut up?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Did I send you the conversation?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yes? So then I and buried. In an old AOL account,
I find that email from Karina with the whole conversation
between her and Life laid out.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I would like, absolutely love to see it.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Let me send it to you. I will just life
screen name was Chaotic Detortion, which I think is just
chaotic distortion spelled wrong.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, let me read this okay at ten seventeen PM.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Nice 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.
Speaker 7 (20:35):
Hey, Hey, Life, what's up? Kayley's talking about what I think?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
She is?
Speaker 7 (20:40):
Right on? Zanga, hold on? Let me see Kaylee likes me, right,
Did Lucia and Emily tell you something? Yeah? After school
the other day. Yeah, she does well. If she comes on,
will you tell her something?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (21:00):
If she comes on, tell her that I'll go out
with her.
Speaker 8 (21:03):
But my health is always screwed with my life, so
I'm probably not going to be able to be one
hundred percent boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Material Laife 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 thirteen, we didn't think to ask any questions.
(21:31):
Back then, Karina just thought it was sweet he was
considering his health in his role as my future boyfriend.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
All but do you like her? This is kind of awkward.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, all these years later and that, yeah, I 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.
Speaker 8 (22:05):
Ohmg, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her, but hey,
she likes me. I don't hate her or anything. And kaylee'school,
Yeah she is.
Speaker 7 (22:21):
So you want me to tell her that you'll go
out with her?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Why don't you just talk to her on Monday?
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Do you think I should?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (22:27):
Because I mean I don't think she would believe me,
and it would be nicer if you told her.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Are you getting her something on V Day?
Speaker 7 (22:34):
I guess when is Valentine's Day?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Next?
Speaker 7 (22:38):
Next Tuesday?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Ohmg, you should tell her on V Day because she
hates V Day?
Speaker 7 (22:44):
WHOA, yeah, oh will.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I always thought it was Lafe 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. But I don't remember anything after that.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I didn't even remember that.
Speaker 9 (23:04):
He didn't end up saying anything, like he didn't end
up saying anything to you.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
At all, No, we never talked about it.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
No, Kaylee, he did.
Speaker 9 (23:16):
I'm pretty sure he mentioned his health again.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Maybe I like followed.
Speaker 9 (23:24):
Up and he was like, honestly, my health just like
really isn't the best.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So did life not ask me out simply because he
was too ill? Was his not asking actually a romantic gesture,
something worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, or did he just
not like me? I'd asked slave to talk on zoom
(23:49):
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 eyeshadow 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 ill.
(24:17):
I feel physically ill. Oh my god, Okay, I can
do this. Here we go on the zoom camera. You
(24:41):
can't even see my T shirt or flattering eyeshadow. So
that was a lot of wasted effort. I see that
Leife is in the waiting room. I press the admit
button and he appears on screen.
Speaker 10 (24:53):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
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.
How are you.
Speaker 11 (25:11):
I'm great, I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I'm doing you know. Unfortunately, faced with the person I imagined
all these years, I suddenly can't remember how to have
a conversation. It's like I've lost twenty years of social skills.
What what's your life?
Speaker 8 (25:35):
My life?
Speaker 11 (25:35):
Well, I yeah, I don't know. I just do uh
life things. You know, eat food, go to the grocery store.
I've got a dog. You know, what's your dog?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Like?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
What's your dog's name? Ronan good. Given that I'm incapable
of asking any question more specific than what is your life?
Or who is your dog? Life takes the lead.
Speaker 11 (26:04):
They've been doing like a lot of activisty stuff in Tucson,
and that consumes more of my time than I probably
should let it.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
In fact, the nine day delay Laye asked for was
because of his activism. A few weeks earlier, he was
at a protest with the Stop Coop City movement when
he was tased and slammed against the ground by a
police officer, he's been recovering from a concussion. At this point,
we're forty minutes into the conversation, and I've somehow managed
(26:36):
to avoid asking Laife any questions about eighth grade at all,
even though he knows we're here to talk about how
much I liked him. Bringing up that time still makes
me nervous. What what do you remember about me?
Speaker 11 (26:52):
Yeah? I uh, I remember you being very tall and
maybe a little awkward, but maybe it's because of the
crush or whatever.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
No, I was awkward.
Speaker 11 (27:02):
Yeah, yeah, Like I know that you told me at
some point that you had a crush on me. I
have like a vague memory of like there's like that
stairwell Lucia telling me or something like that, like in
the stairwell.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah. 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.
Speaker 11 (27:35):
Oof, I'm sorry, Yeah, I don't remember. Like the Zanga
post sounds vaguely familiar.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Can I send you because I, in fact have these
ims between you and Karina? No way can I email
them to you? Yeah?
Speaker 11 (27:54):
See what cringeyesque things I have to say?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Leife mostly read through the ims and silence, but at
one point he makes a face and again goes when
he's done, he laughed self consciously.
Speaker 11 (28:11):
All right, Well that was that was That was fun?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Do you you have no memory of this?
Speaker 11 (28:18):
I don't know. Vaguely. I guess like it's obviously obviously
it happened.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I mean, you would be weird if I typed all this, supen.
Speaker 11 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, it'd be pretty weird.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
What part were you oofing?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And?
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Oh?
Speaker 11 (28:33):
Just I mean, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her,
but hey, she likes it was just like that.
Speaker 9 (28:40):
Yikes.
Speaker 11 (28:46):
I don't really know what happened. Obviously we didn't date.
I don't I don't think totally forgotten.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I mean that would kind of be worse if we did.
Dan was gone from your memory.
Speaker 11 (28:58):
Yeah, that'd be real shitty.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, I mean like seems like you did not like me.
Speaker 11 (29:04):
I do remember you being like very funny, but uh yeah,
I do agree, though I think I like wasn't like
into you into.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You to use the eighth grade parlance, but then Lafe
phrase is a key thing I've been wondering about the
explanation that he gave to Karina At the time his
mysterious health issues.
Speaker 11 (29:32):
I was like, very, very, very sick. I was like
in the process essentially of getting diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Crones is an autoimmune disease. Life's intestine was attacking itself,
making it hard for him to do basic things like
walk or eat. In the years I knew him, though
Laife didn't know he had CRONES. 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
(30:03):
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 Laife
might die. They immediately admitted him to the hospital, where
he stayed for three months. I'm not a monster, so
(30:25):
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 Liife.
Speaker 11 (30:48):
I for sure had crushes.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Well, there goes that theory. Can I ask you how
to crush on?
Speaker 11 (30:56):
Yeah? Yeah, I know I had a crush on, So
I was gonna.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Ask you that. Actually, that's what I always suspected.
Speaker 11 (31:05):
You got me figured out.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Circa had shown up at our 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 Life likes me,
(31:30):
because I'm pretty sure he likes Circa. 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?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Uh?
Speaker 11 (31:51):
I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So what was my problem? I ask Laife? 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.
Speaker 11 (32:10):
I'm just trying to think if like, there has ever
been anyone where I like, I'd love to date this person,
but they've got this defect, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Who he falls for. Life says has always felt beyond words,
especially in the eighth grade. Well, how do you feel
about talking? Am I freaking you out? No?
Speaker 11 (32:34):
Not at all. Okay, it's fun to catch up and like,
hear what you remember? It's really nice to talk to Yeah,
you too, killy, and talk to you soon, all right,
talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
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, Hello, honey,
I call my mom. I filler in on the conversation
(33:14):
and how the only logical conclusion seems to be that yes,
I was right, I am, in fact undateable.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Who wouldn't want to date you? You're awesome?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Thanks, and I mean I know I'm your mother. But
that is also true. I feel like that's true in
terms of like people wanting to like be my friend,
but I don't feel like that's true for like dating.
Speaker 7 (33:39):
You feel it not just from when you were younger, but.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You feel it even now. Yeah, that makes me feel.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
I'm sorry, don't be sorry.
Speaker 7 (33:55):
It makes me feel kind of sad, and it makes
me feel.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Mad at people that don't see you.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I don't. Yeah, I think I'm having a hard time
characterizing it because I do feel like weirdly emotional, but
also like he was nice and 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 wasn't. I don't hear that from you at all.
I don't care anything about any judgment about him. Yeah.
You trying to piece it together for you? Yeah, yeah,
(34:32):
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 being up to do this weird thing.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Yeah, no, it is weird, and I definitely feel weird
about it.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
This is Circa, the Irish girl that Lafe 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 twenty years, why not also reach out
to my crushes crush. I always suspected he had a
crush on you, and he said, yes, did you know.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
That M like Jesus, Like he would like he would
like burn CDs for me and stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
She knows I feel like.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
He also gave me a sticker that said George W.
Bush is a punk ass chump, So.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Like, yeah, I had an awareness.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I want to talk to Circa because I think of
her as the anti me. Like, here's how Circa's Valentine's
Day went in junior high. She walked up to her
boyfriend at the time holding a Hershy'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 had laid
(36:00):
all this out and my initial message to her.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
So I said this to my husband and he was
kind of like, well, it's obvious isn't it like you
were just new and different? And I think that's exactly it.
Like you guys had all been together from the age
of two. Do you know, so I literally was just
new and different. I honestly think it was that simple.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
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, I feel like I think.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
That that has got to be fakeatily make it though,
doesn't it Because looking back and looking at the challenge
that was laid at my doorstep, I probably just leant
into some kind of confident persona.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Sarah only attended Near North for a single year, and
it wasn't an easy transition because of her mom's job.
She was upbraided at twelve 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.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
And I remember crying and I remember saying I don't
want to go there. My memory isn't a feeling invincible
or anything like quite the opposite.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Like like.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Overwhelmed and shut down, you know. It's that sense of panic,
Sirka 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, Sarka
(37:53):
tells me she's been married for about a year and
a half. Now, how did you guys meet? We went
on tyin day. I'd ask s Life the same question
about how he met his.
Speaker 11 (38:03):
Partner, Actually through Tinder. We are a tender success story.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I met my boyfriend through Tender too nice. Serka Life
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,
(38:32):
I'd asked her what her impression had been to me
when we knew each other in junior high.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Oh my gosh, Kayleie, I adored you.
Speaker 9 (38:40):
I remember you being very intelligent, you were very funny.
I know you like you were you were tall, just
you know at that age, I feel like you always
look at everyone else and like, don't form your confidence
or like embrace every bit of yourself until later in life,
and I remember being like, she has so many things
(39:03):
going for her, like I.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Hope that she.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Becomes more confident. 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
(39:29):
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 days, I don't think
too much about Valentine's Day. It turns out that I
don't like being one of those performative couples anymore than
(39:50):
I liked watching those performative couples. This year, on February fourteenth,
my boyfriend made dinner. I did the dishes. Happy to Tuesday,
he said, Happy Tuesday, I said. Then we watched TV.
It was nice.
Speaker 10 (40:39):
Now that the fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now
that the last.
Speaker 6 (40:49):
Month's rent is skiming with the damage to pot take
this moment to deserve if We met Lee Too, Thanks
Edacidan Lee.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me Khalila Holt
along with Jonathan Goldstein and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer
is Stevie Lane. Production assistants from Mohiney mcgauker. Special thanks
to Max Green, Flora Lichtman, and Connor Sampson. Editorial guidance
from Emily Condon. In the im recreation, Karina was played
by Reagan Dedeer and Laife was played by John Clawson.
(41:37):
Thanks to Greg Holt and Tony John for making that possible.
Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Additional
music credits can be found on our website gilimedia dot
com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker
Dance courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.
Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast,
(42:01):
or email us at Heavyweight At gimlimedia dot com. You
can follow our show on Spotify and tap the belt
to receive notifications when new episodes drop. We'll be back
next week with a new episode
Khalila. Yeah, hi 's Jonathan.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, I called you.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
So you're hosting the show. Yeah, it's a personal story.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Indeed. Yeah, it's kind of like an oral report that
you're condescending.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Well, I mean it's a report given by the mouth.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I mean sure, by that metric, all your episodes are
or all reports. So well, yeah, it doesn't feel so good,
it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It doesn't.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Here we go an oral.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Report given by Khalila Holt.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
All right, put your name at the top of the
oral report.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
How do you pay your name at the top of
an oral report?
Speaker 5 (00:42):
You say it.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm Khalila Holt and this is have You eight today's
episode Lathe right after the break, I'm walking to work
(01:12):
one morning when I spot Laife heading towards me. From
the ages of twelve to fourteen, life 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 him on the street,
(01:34):
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 Liafe. But
then as I dropped closer, I realized that the man
I thought was life is not life at all, and
in fact, it is not even a man. He's a teenager.
(01:58):
This makes sense give that I've not seen Laife since
I was fourteen years old. Still 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, Lefe is back on my mind
(02:22):
all these years later, and I remember the exact type
of pen laf Ro with. I remember his birthday. I
remember how he kept his wallet on a long chain
the first time I'd ever seen such a thing done,
and wore a quicksilver sweatshirt with holes worn through the
sleeves that he'd stick his thumbs through. He was pale,
with blue eyes, short and slight.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I remember him being kind of like wayfish, almost like
kind of almost like a furial.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Crushes do not exist in a vacuum. They require gleeful
gossip with your friends. And so I call Echia, who's
been my best friend since elementary school, to talk about
our old classmate Laife.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
He had this like light blonde hair that he died
and was a long like down to her, but hair
long like like a bobbling but like shag.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Then yeah, there go the men's bob. Once, while away
on a school sponsored trip, we phoned Leife from our
hotel room, me, Lucia, and our other friend, Emily. But
three of us huddled together on the scratchy Marriotte comforter,
stifling our giddiness as we dialed. My God, I don't
(03:30):
remember if we actually talked to the thing I remember
is that we called. We talked to his mom. Our
friend Emily asked if she could speak with Laife. It's Emily,
she said. Emily said, Leife's mom, go upstairs and talk
to him. Then she hung up on us. Turned out
he had a sister named Emily.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So weird.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Lucia's stepmom was a photographer, and she once mentioned that
if Leife and I ever started dating, she wanted to
take our portrait. I don't think she knew I had
a crush on him. Laife 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
(04:12):
got pressured into playing basketball, but I was so meek
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
(04:34):
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 thirteen. One day I was sitting by
(04:56):
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, desire included, already had boyfriends the middle school
(05:19):
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
(05:40):
problem was me. I was not datable. After meeting me
for the first time, people might say, oh, she was funny,
but they'd never say, is she single. I was simply
not a person that anyone could think of romantically. At
college parties, boys would grab my friends and start danced
(06:00):
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 thirties
and I actually do have a boyfriend. Sam and I
have been together for four years. We live together, We've
(06:23):
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 stories about the girls
he used to hook up with, or about his high
(06:44):
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 has 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
(07:07):
because I don't know how to explain why I'm crying.
I want charming stories like that one of rhapsodizes 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 liked leife at a time
(07:34):
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 Food 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
(07:56):
I said yes, and he said, I love sushi, and
I said, would you like a piece? He said really,
and I said yes, And suddenly I was proud to
have a lunch of whole food sushi. Laife talked constantly
about a band called Billy Talent, a semi yelly alt
rock group with lyrics about misery. I started listening to
them because I knew Leafe liked them, and from there
(08:17):
became an obsessive fan myself. Once I ran into Laife
at a Billy 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
(08:38):
there was some sort of glitch where Laife was unable
to comment on my page. When the glitch was fixed,
he was so excited that he left me one hundred
comments in a row. Comment forty two said on the
forty second day of Christmas, I gave to Kaylee one
hundred comments, lots of typing and a pear tree. I
(09:04):
still have a journal from that time. In it I'd
write Laife all 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
(09:25):
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
caught 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
(09:48):
will go away. I hoped that Liafe might be that someone.
I'd talked long fantasies about how we'd get together, And
sometimes I'd realize what a good mood I was in,
and then I'd realized the good mood was because of
something I'd made up, something that hadn't really happened at all.
(10:12):
In the winter of eighth grade, I finally decided enough
with the secret pining. It was time to let Laife
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 and closed by
(10:33):
doors on each side. It was in this room of
stairs that my friends Lucia and Emily cornered Leaf 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 okay. That night, in a fit
of panic and despair, I got online. I logged onto
(10:56):
Zanga and I wrote a veiled, angsty post about what
he huge mistake I'd made. Laife 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, Laife said he would
date me. He said he thought I was cool. He
(11:18):
was going to ask me out on Valentine's Day. Seeing
couples perform how much they liked each other made me
feel inferior. So I hated Valentine's Day with a showy passion.
Each February fourteenth, I'd wear all black as a sign
of protest. Laife's thought was that this romantic gesture might
(11:38):
help me to reclaim the holiday. I know all this
because at the time, Karina promptly copy and pasted the
ims with Life 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
(12:06):
up and my mom drove me to school. People were
giving out candy and 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. Laife did not say a single word
(12:27):
to me all day. I have no idea what happened
or why he changed his mind.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Huh did you ever talk to him about it?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
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 on IM and like through
my veiled Zanga posts. Interesting and having been my best
friend for all these years, Lucia into It's what I'm
(12:59):
building up to.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So you want to try to find him more.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, but I'm afraid I tried a drafting a letter,
and I was like, do I just sound into same anyway?
So do you think this is completely insane to do?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
No? I mean, I'm sure you wrote.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
You're a very good writer and a thoughtful person, so
I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The way you approached it was good.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Since googling Life had always failed me, I 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 twenty twenty
court thing from defacing a political sign.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Well, I guess you don't know which direction.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I know it's a good direction. I want to talk
to 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 this story about how people
don't see me romantically. But if I can change the
(14:12):
beginning of that story, if I can see myself differently
at thirteen, it could reframe everything that came after I
name dropped you in the letter.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Dropped me because I'm so well known.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
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
high 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
(14:47):
with Lucia and I walked to the mailbox. I send
off my letter, but then several weeks to go by
(15:08):
and nothing. Did Liife get the letter and decide to
ignore me? Or do I just have the wrong address
usually when reporting a story. I tried calling at this point,
and I did find a phone number for Laife. However,
the idea of dialing it makes me want to lie
down in the middle of the street and simply pass away.
(15:31):
And so, just like I did at thirteen, I recruit
someone else as an envoy.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
And who is it? Someone else?
Speaker 6 (15:38):
You?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh, yeah, it's you.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Okay, So I'm sort of like that whole quorum of
girls all in one adult man.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
This is a regular host of this program, Jonathan Goldstein.
I want him to call Laife on my behalf to
see if Laife got the letter. I would be open
to speaking with me. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
No, I don't think that'll be awkward at all. Let
me get my pattern down here. Hi, there was this girl.
Her name was Khaleila Hole.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
You should say Kaylee first. I think you would know
me by Kaylee.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Hi, I'm Kaylee Holt's boss.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
What do you say like that? It is really weird.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
That is weird.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
No, Hi, you don't know me, but I was enlisted
by an old school chum of yours.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Oh, don't say school.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
An old flame, a paramore.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
My confidence is decreasing with every passing second.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
I want embarrass you in front of your crush.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Are you joking?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Choking on this bon bon?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
As my boss asphyxiates 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 while I hide at home. I obsess all day Thursday.
(17:00):
I obsessed 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. Okay, but whatever you did do
it worked because Friday night checked my email and I
had an email from Leife saying that he would talk
(17:22):
to me.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Okay, well, let me just say I am almost one
hundred percent certain that I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well really, because it happened that day.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, it is suggestive.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Jonathan tells me that he had indeed tried calling Leafe's number.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Okay, here's the call.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
You ready? Okay?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, okay, Hello, is Leaf there?
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Could I speak to him?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (18:01):
This is her, This is Lafe. Yes, I just want
to make sure I have the right person. What is
your middle name?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Doodles?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
No, No, that isn't. That isn't the life that I'm
looking for.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I'm on a toilet right though.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Okay, is there anybody else in the house?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
In his email, Lafe proposed let me 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,
(19:02):
the one who broke her this whole Valentine's plan with
life on I am when you texted me that it
was you.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I was like, oh my gosh, like, did something.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Happen she calling me to say that miss Bergen died,
miss Bergen being our longtime principal, which.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
She did, by the way, he didn't I didn't hear that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, may she. I felt deranged, texting Karina that I
wanted to speak with her about life a random kid
from her eighth grade class. But Karina responded, I legitimately
thought about you in life last week. So, just like
we used to in junior high, the two of us
(19:45):
chat on the phone about a boy and then he I,
am you shut up?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Did I send you the conversation?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yes? So then I and buried. In an old AOL account,
I find that email from Karina with the whole conversation
between her and Life laid out.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I would like, absolutely love to see it.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Let me send it to you. I will just life
screen name was Chaotic Detortion, which I think is just
chaotic distortion spelled wrong.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, let me read this okay at ten seventeen PM.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Nice 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.
Speaker 7 (20:35):
Hey, Hey, Life, what's up? Kayley's talking about what I think?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
She is?
Speaker 7 (20:40):
Right on? Zanga, hold on? Let me see Kaylee likes me, right,
Did Lucia and Emily tell you something? Yeah? After school
the other day. Yeah, she does well. If she comes on,
will you tell her something?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (21:00):
If she comes on, tell her that I'll go out
with her.
Speaker 8 (21:03):
But my health is always screwed with my life, so
I'm probably not going to be able to be one
hundred percent boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Material Laife 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 thirteen, we didn't think to ask any questions.
(21:31):
Back then, Karina just thought it was sweet he was
considering his health in his role as my future boyfriend.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
All but do you like her? This is kind of awkward.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, all these years later and that, yeah, I 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.
Speaker 8 (22:05):
Ohmg, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her, but hey,
she likes me. I don't hate her or anything. And kaylee'school,
Yeah she is.
Speaker 7 (22:21):
So you want me to tell her that you'll go
out with her?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Why don't you just talk to her on Monday?
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Do you think I should?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (22:27):
Because I mean I don't think she would believe me,
and it would be nicer if you told her.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Are you getting her something on V Day?
Speaker 7 (22:34):
I guess when is Valentine's Day?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Next?
Speaker 7 (22:38):
Next Tuesday?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Ohmg, you should tell her on V Day because she
hates V Day?
Speaker 7 (22:44):
WHOA, yeah, oh will.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I always thought it was Lafe 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. But I don't remember anything after that.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I didn't even remember that.
Speaker 9 (23:04):
He didn't end up saying anything, like he didn't end
up saying anything to you.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
At all, No, we never talked about it.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
No, Kaylee, he did.
Speaker 9 (23:16):
I'm pretty sure he mentioned his health again.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Maybe I like followed.
Speaker 9 (23:24):
Up and he was like, honestly, my health just like
really isn't the best.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So did life not ask me out simply because he
was too ill? Was his not asking actually a romantic gesture,
something worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, or did he just
not like me? I'd asked slave to talk on zoom
(23:49):
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 eyeshadow 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 ill.
(24:17):
I feel physically ill. Oh my god, Okay, I can
do this. Here we go on the zoom camera. You
(24:41):
can't even see my T shirt or flattering eyeshadow. So
that was a lot of wasted effort. I see that
Leife is in the waiting room. I press the admit
button and he appears on screen.
Speaker 10 (24:53):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
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.
How are you.
Speaker 11 (25:11):
I'm great, I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I'm doing you know. Unfortunately, faced with the person I imagined
all these years, I suddenly can't remember how to have
a conversation. It's like I've lost twenty years of social skills.
What what's your life?
Speaker 8 (25:35):
My life?
Speaker 11 (25:35):
Well, I yeah, I don't know. I just do uh
life things. You know, eat food, go to the grocery store.
I've got a dog. You know, what's your dog?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Like?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
What's your dog's name? Ronan good. Given that I'm incapable
of asking any question more specific than what is your life?
Or who is your dog? Life takes the lead.
Speaker 11 (26:04):
They've been doing like a lot of activisty stuff in Tucson,
and that consumes more of my time than I probably
should let it.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
In fact, the nine day delay Laye asked for was
because of his activism. A few weeks earlier, he was
at a protest with the Stop Coop City movement when
he was tased and slammed against the ground by a
police officer, he's been recovering from a concussion. At this point,
we're forty minutes into the conversation, and I've somehow managed
(26:36):
to avoid asking Laife any questions about eighth grade at all,
even though he knows we're here to talk about how
much I liked him. Bringing up that time still makes
me nervous. What what do you remember about me?
Speaker 11 (26:52):
Yeah? I uh, I remember you being very tall and
maybe a little awkward, but maybe it's because of the
crush or whatever.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
No, I was awkward.
Speaker 11 (27:02):
Yeah, yeah, Like I know that you told me at
some point that you had a crush on me. I
have like a vague memory of like there's like that
stairwell Lucia telling me or something like that, like in
the stairwell.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah. 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.
Speaker 11 (27:35):
Oof, I'm sorry, Yeah, I don't remember. Like the Zanga
post sounds vaguely familiar.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Can I send you because I, in fact have these
ims between you and Karina? No way can I email
them to you? Yeah?
Speaker 11 (27:54):
See what cringeyesque things I have to say?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Leife mostly read through the ims and silence, but at
one point he makes a face and again goes when
he's done, he laughed self consciously.
Speaker 11 (28:11):
All right, Well that was that was That was fun?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Do you you have no memory of this?
Speaker 11 (28:18):
I don't know. Vaguely. I guess like it's obviously obviously
it happened.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I mean, you would be weird if I typed all this, supen.
Speaker 11 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, it'd be pretty weird.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
What part were you oofing?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And?
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Oh?
Speaker 11 (28:33):
Just I mean, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her,
but hey, she likes it was just like that.
Speaker 9 (28:40):
Yikes.
Speaker 11 (28:46):
I don't really know what happened. Obviously we didn't date.
I don't I don't think totally forgotten.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I mean that would kind of be worse if we did.
Dan was gone from your memory.
Speaker 11 (28:58):
Yeah, that'd be real shitty.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, I mean like seems like you did not like me.
Speaker 11 (29:04):
I do remember you being like very funny, but uh yeah,
I do agree, though I think I like wasn't like
into you into.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You to use the eighth grade parlance, but then Lafe
phrase is a key thing I've been wondering about the
explanation that he gave to Karina At the time his
mysterious health issues.
Speaker 11 (29:32):
I was like, very, very, very sick. I was like
in the process essentially of getting diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Crones is an autoimmune disease. Life's intestine was attacking itself,
making it hard for him to do basic things like
walk or eat. In the years I knew him, though
Laife didn't know he had CRONES. 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
(30:03):
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 Laife
might die. They immediately admitted him to the hospital, where
he stayed for three months. I'm not a monster, so
(30:25):
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 Liife.
Speaker 11 (30:48):
I for sure had crushes.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Well, there goes that theory. Can I ask you how
to crush on?
Speaker 11 (30:56):
Yeah? Yeah, I know I had a crush on, So
I was gonna.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Ask you that. Actually, that's what I always suspected.
Speaker 11 (31:05):
You got me figured out.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Circa had shown up at our 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 Life likes me,
(31:30):
because I'm pretty sure he likes Circa. 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?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Uh?
Speaker 11 (31:51):
I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So what was my problem? I ask Laife? 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.
Speaker 11 (32:10):
I'm just trying to think if like, there has ever
been anyone where I like, I'd love to date this person,
but they've got this defect, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Who he falls for. Life says has always felt beyond words,
especially in the eighth grade. Well, how do you feel
about talking? Am I freaking you out? No?
Speaker 11 (32:34):
Not at all. Okay, it's fun to catch up and like,
hear what you remember? It's really nice to talk to Yeah,
you too, killy, and talk to you soon, all right,
talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
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, Hello, honey,
I call my mom. I filler in on the conversation
(33:14):
and how the only logical conclusion seems to be that yes,
I was right, I am, in fact undateable.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Who wouldn't want to date you? You're awesome?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Thanks, and I mean I know I'm your mother. But
that is also true. I feel like that's true in
terms of like people wanting to like be my friend,
but I don't feel like that's true for like dating.
Speaker 7 (33:39):
You feel it not just from when you were younger, but.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You feel it even now. Yeah, that makes me feel.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
I'm sorry, don't be sorry.
Speaker 7 (33:55):
It makes me feel kind of sad, and it makes
me feel.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Mad at people that don't see you.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I don't. Yeah, I think I'm having a hard time
characterizing it because I do feel like weirdly emotional, but
also like he was nice and 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 wasn't. I don't hear that from you at all.
I don't care anything about any judgment about him. Yeah.
You trying to piece it together for you? Yeah, yeah,
(34:32):
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 being up to do this weird thing.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Yeah, no, it is weird, and I definitely feel weird
about it.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
This is Circa, the Irish girl that Lafe 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 twenty years, why not also reach out
to my crushes crush. I always suspected he had a
crush on you, and he said, yes, did you know.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
That M like Jesus, Like he would like he would
like burn CDs for me and stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
She knows I feel like.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
He also gave me a sticker that said George W.
Bush is a punk ass chump, So.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Like, yeah, I had an awareness.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I want to talk to Circa because I think of
her as the anti me. Like, here's how Circa's Valentine's
Day went in junior high. She walked up to her
boyfriend at the time holding a Hershy'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 had laid
(36:00):
all this out and my initial message to her.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
So I said this to my husband and he was
kind of like, well, it's obvious isn't it like you
were just new and different? And I think that's exactly it.
Like you guys had all been together from the age
of two. Do you know, so I literally was just
new and different. I honestly think it was that simple.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
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, I feel like I think.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
That that has got to be fakeatily make it though,
doesn't it Because looking back and looking at the challenge
that was laid at my doorstep, I probably just leant
into some kind of confident persona.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Sarah only attended Near North for a single year, and
it wasn't an easy transition because of her mom's job.
She was upbraided at twelve 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.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
And I remember crying and I remember saying I don't
want to go there. My memory isn't a feeling invincible
or anything like quite the opposite.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Like like.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Overwhelmed and shut down, you know. It's that sense of panic,
Sirka 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, Sarka
(37:53):
tells me she's been married for about a year and
a half. Now, how did you guys meet? We went
on tyin day. I'd ask s Life the same question
about how he met his.
Speaker 11 (38:03):
Partner, Actually through Tinder. We are a tender success story.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I met my boyfriend through Tender too nice. Serka Life
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,
(38:32):
I'd asked her what her impression had been to me
when we knew each other in junior high.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Oh my gosh, Kayleie, I adored you.
Speaker 9 (38:40):
I remember you being very intelligent, you were very funny.
I know you like you were you were tall, just
you know at that age, I feel like you always
look at everyone else and like, don't form your confidence
or like embrace every bit of yourself until later in life,
and I remember being like, she has so many things
(39:03):
going for her, like I.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Hope that she.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Becomes more confident. 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
(39:29):
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 days, I don't think
too much about Valentine's Day. It turns out that I
don't like being one of those performative couples anymore than
(39:50):
I liked watching those performative couples. This year, on February fourteenth,
my boyfriend made dinner. I did the dishes. Happy to Tuesday,
he said, Happy Tuesday, I said. Then we watched TV.
It was nice.
Speaker 10 (40:39):
Now that the fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now
that the last.
Speaker 6 (40:49):
Month's rent is skiming with the damage to pot take
this moment to deserve if We met Lee Too, Thanks
Edacidan Lee.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me Khalila Holt
along with Jonathan Goldstein and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer
is Stevie Lane. Production assistants from Mohiney mcgauker. Special thanks
to Max Green, Flora Lichtman, and Connor Sampson. Editorial guidance
from Emily Condon. In the im recreation, Karina was played
by Reagan Dedeer and Laife was played by John Clawson.
(41:37):
Thanks to Greg Holt and Tony John for making that possible.
Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Additional
music credits can be found on our website gilimedia dot
com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker
Dance courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.
Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast,
(42:01):
or email us at Heavyweight At gimlimedia dot com. You
can follow our show on Spotify and tap the belt
to receive notifications when new episodes drop. We'll be back
next week with a new episode
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