Would I get married again?

The gap between theoretical feminism and lived experience.

The year was 2010, I had just begun to date my would-be ex-husband. It was spring in Indiana, and I was on the verge of graduating; in the final weeks of my college career, I had taken to studying in the library, between fitful writing sessions I'd pace outside the entrance and take his phone calls on my orange Blackberry. A reprieve to unlock my Adderall induced jaw clench, relax my shoulders, and flirt.  

He was unlike the starter boyfriend I had broken up with in the winter, who was kind, but jealous and he stood in direct opposition to my manager at Hollister who had a penchant for supplying alcohol to minors. My manager was a Catholic conservative whose politics made my eye twitch, and yet I was desperate to redirect his deviant attention away from my underage coworkers and onto me.

He did, however, grant me two of the most underwhelming sexual experiences of my life. Now, his Facebook page offers a quick supply of petty salve when I'm feeling bad, but the cruelty of time and a life spent in the same town where you grew up wasn't yet available for me to flip through and murmur, "Damn, he aged like milk."