Years ago, I was lucky enough to learn a lesson that takes most people an entire lifetime to discover: the most significant factor contributing to our happiness are the people we choose to surround ourselves with.
The years since coming to this conclusion have been magical. While some of us collect coins or bottle caps, I have spent my college years collecting people. It has not been a passive effort but instead a massive undertaking, in which I have meticulously tracked down and nurtured friendships with the most intelligent, compassionate people I have ever been lucky enough to encounter. These are friendships not of proximity nor convenience but ones in which we intentionally amplify and nurture one another’s souls and hearts.
My identity soon became intrinsically tied to this project of tracking down and befriending incredible humans. It gave me uncontested faith in my intuition about other people’s character and foolishly made me believe that my discernment was almost infallible. Even when my forays into romance or friendship ended in farewell, I always walked away with grace and well wishes, still confident that I had chosen well and all the people I’d invited into my life were fundamentally good-hearted and kind. So when my first love told me in a heartbroken whisper, “I can’t give you what you need,” I simply nodded, said, “That’s okay,” and walked away. Hurt, but whole. Bruised, but all the better for it. By wishing one another well, letting go was simple.
Perhaps inevitably, this pattern would not withstand the test of time. The two anecdotes I am about to share represent the most emotionally honest, raw stories I have ever published.
They are the only times in my adult life when I walked away from someone not only hurt but also no longer quite whole. I will tell these stories the way they appear in my mind: intertwined with one another because while they happened at different times with different people, they share, quite sadly, the same heartbreak.
As part one, this article reflects only the first half of heartbreak, encompassing all the soul, warmth, and connection that blossoms before the eventual break. The first story begins in Pennsylvania with Paul, the second in Prague with Barry. I’ve changed the names and details of these two people, for my intention is solely to impart the wisdom and personal growth that I gleaned from both experiences.
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I spent my freshman year at Penn State, full of wide-eyed wonder and big ideas. So it should come as no surprise that my friendship with Paul began with his emailing me that he wanted us to form a tennis team that would go down in the history books. He’d discovered we had a like-minded goal: to revamp parts of Penn State’s tennis program. In an excited rush, I told him I’d set up a meeting with Penn State’s athletic director the following week and that he should join in.
So off we went to this meeting where Paul strode right in, stuck out his hand, and confidently declared, “It’s awesome to meet you, Mr. Peabody! You’re the athletic director, right?”
“No … I’m just the assistant coordinator of athletics,” came Mr. Peabody’s annoyed and lackluster reply.
Immediately, I burst out laughing at the comical difference in their dispositions.
Then, throughout the meeting, Paul proceeded to continuously badger Mr. Peabody, asking for one of the dozens of cookies sitting invitingly on Mr. Peabody’s desk. Each time, Mr. Peabody flat-out said no, and Paul’s persistence became increasingly more absurd and hilarious. After that, we’d always debate whether it was more embarrassing that I accidentally thought the assistant coordinator was the director or that Paul kept pestering him for a cookie (for sure, it’s the cookie thing!).
When the tennis team failed, our friendship only grew. We laughed so much, the muscles in my face often ached, the same way they do after my Dad makes my family take 80 pictures for our Christmas card. Paul was incredibly intelligent, and his mind worked in wondrous ways that led us to have the most cataclysmically mind-bending conversations possible. I told him as much, and I remember him asking how I could be so sure that he was such a good person, or that we’d remain friends through anything.
So I told him about my intuition for people, and how that was all it took for me—just the smallest sense of a person’s spark, and I’d immediately open up and be all in. Besides, to top it all off, my twin brother had met him and loved him, which immediately cemented our friendship because, to me, my brother’s opinion is worth its weight in gold.
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Now allow me to transport you one year later to the summer after my freshman year, where I found myself in the picturesque city of Prague, embarking on a marketing internship. Barry and I met at one of Prague’s many music festivals in Old Town Square.
It was one of those highly spirited conversations that felt pure and goofy and chock-full of random twists and turns. Like a game of Whac-A-Mole, you never knew what was coming next. With gusto, Barry declared he’d never get a phone case because he likes living on the edge, and I told him I’ll never pluck my eyebrows because shaving them is so much quicker and a lot less painful. We passed the time people-watching and laughing at the realization that all these tourists were pulling out their best possible outfits for this festival, and yet so many of them were still horrendously dressed, sporting sagging trousers and oversized sunglasses.
Then, whether by fate or happenstance, Barry and I were delighted to learn that we were interning at the exact same marketing company. Since he’d worked there for a year longer, he’d become the assistant director of his team of interns within the company. We were on different teams, yet were virtually the exact same age. He was just a few months older than me and was also an American college student.
I quickly learned he played club soccer, so I told him I’d love to see a game sometime. Suddenly shy, he said that’d be great, but maybe I should hold off because he gets passionate on the field, and he wanted to wait a little longer before I saw that side of him.
It was the first indication that our meeting might have romantic undertones, so I immediately thought, well, if we’re going to do this, I may as well take it from 0 to 100 immediately. So I told him it was perfectly alright if he didn’t want me to attend his soccer games right away, but I had something really cool to show him that I’d discovered in Prague just a few days prior.
Laughingly, he agreed, and we parted ways, planning to meet up that Thursday. I walked away smiling, feeling lighter than air. For me, it was the laughter that did it. I don’t think there’s a quicker way to my heart.
Always an adept schemer at heart, I managed to oh-so-casually give him a call a few days later on the way home from work, under the guise of needing to settle a debate with my friends over the best type of pasta. True to form, he emphatically declared it to be chicken alfredo and, always one to commit to the bit, started describing in depth his “death row meal,” which would be sushi.
The moment he said that, I skipped with excitement down the cobblestoned street. The plan was underway! You see, what perfectly innocent Barry didn’t realize is that I was 10 steps ahead, already planning a first date to end all first dates.
Fast forward to Thursday night, and my house was filled with the smell of cooking chicken alfredo and the sound of my roommates’ laughter as they watched me frantically fill a bag with sushi, Oreos, fruit, and lemonade. It was 6:40 p.m., and we were due to meet at 7 .
The taxi arrived, my roommate helped me carry the vat of pasta to the car, and wished me luck. And there I sat, with a boiling hot pot damn near charring my thighs since I wasn’t strong enough to hold the pot up for the entire car ride. Eventually noticing my predicament, the driver offered me her shawl to cover my legs and prevent the worst of the burning.
We arrived soon after, and I took in the scene: Charles Bridge with its high, sweeping stone archways, the most beautiful moonlit river in the whole city, and the perfect place to prepare a picnic under the stars. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Well, that’s only because you weren’t there.
Sweaty, panic-stricken, unable to carry both the bag and the pot, with a wild glint in my eyes, I rushed to and fro trying to set everything up. And as the icing on the cake, it was at that moment that I realized I needed to scale a fence to get to the place I was going. Have you ever scaled a fence with a boiling pot of pasta? A simple word of warning—don’t.
Luckily, an innocent passerby took pity on me and offered to pass the pasta over the fence after I climbed it. We pulled it off without a hitch, and after texting Barry a flurry of apologies for the delay, I went to meet him at a nearby library.
From his perspective, we were just going on a nice, casual stroll along the Vltava River, so when I got to the fence and suggested we jump it, he thought it’d simply be a quick deviation from our walk … until we approached the gazebo under which I’d set up the picnic. Suddenly, he turned to me and said, “Emmbrooke, we have to leave! I think there’s a shrine here for a dead kid or something!”
… Well this was an unexpected reaction. I couldn’t blame him, though. Instead, I walked over and shone a flashlight on the picnic and said, “Hmmm are you sure about that?”
Walking over, his jaw dropped, “Is that … chicken alfredo?”
“Mayyybe.”
“Is that—sushi?!”
“… Mayyyyybe.”
And from those fateful words, the fireworks of my time with Barry began. Blazing bright and hot, then burning out like a meteor strike, it was a beautiful experience I wouldn’t trade for anything, not even all the events that would soon follow.
