Circling the Drain

Let's not get off on the wrong foot on the first impression, I'm going to break the forth wall here once in awhile.  It's the only way I think that I can get to the point of things in this situation.  I've been in a relationship with this girl for what seems like forever.  We're committed.  We're engaged.  We're soon to be married.  I'm going to do my best to keep this as "Alcoholic's Anonymous" as possible.  Being something of an intellectual I'm going to refer to the other people by variables.  My fiance (from here on) is going to be X and I'll assign the others as they become necessary.  Me, on the other hand, I'm going to reveal myself periodically.

For starters, I'm twenty-three and apparently the world believes that is way too young to settle-down in life.  I was never really a lucky person growing up and I never found luck to be a friend.  Luck was that girl in grade school that would occasionally bat her eyelashes in my direction when no one else was looking, but the second that a set of eyes joined in, the cold shoulder was all I was able to see.  Harsh reality, but when that's all you ever get, that's what you get used to.

I met X at a college mixer.  Free beer and shots paired well with loose company, not the music.  I was drug across the great room by a friend from class her name is...um... T.  She introduced me to X.  X was beautiful, not by today's standards mind you, but in that classic Victorian era mixed with turn-of-the-century Hollywood starlets kind of way.  She was about half a case deep in intoxication and was making all the moves for me.

We left the party together and negligently drove across town to the after party.  A few naked laps in the pool later, we were announcing our uninhibited love for each other.  We sobered up and I ended up at her place.  She had a less-than functional efficiency that was furnished with a mattress on the floor that was made with high quality linens that cost more than the bed. We passed out in the daylight of youthful vitality only to wake up two years later in midlife relationship purgatory.