A Hippie Enigma

He was the first time I ever walked in somewhere and felt the hate from all the other girls in the room. I was that bitch that was with him. The gorgeous hippie.

He was anti-hippie and hippie in ever sense of the word. Looking at him it would be hard to peg him for anything but a surfer. Beach bum.

Beach bum he was. But it was hippie pulsing through his veins, not salt water.

Wavy blonde hair reaching just beyond his chin. Sometimes accompanied by chin hair, dark in contrast to his main. A svelte body that back that I thought might even make the gods envious. Tanned to perfection, with his pants always slung low, just at the point of that elusive v that every girl drools over.

Even the hemp necklace was of the surfer stereotype. Little did the girls know it was worn more for the hemp then the surfer mandate.

He was all about peace and love. And the drug that went along with it all.

Not that the drugs ever bothered me. Quite the contrary, it was a part of him. But it never changed him. Maybe that's why I didn't mind back then.

He was the newest in my long line of anti-relationships. We'd date for months, and then eventually stop calling or devolve into friendships. Except he was way more up-front about it than the rest. I knew within two weeks of meeting him exactly what it was. And I was ok with it.

It was the perfect friends with benefits. Minus a few hiccups.

Lazy summer days lying in bed watching movies. Perfect summer nights on the beach with good friends, guitar, and good times.

Yet everywhere we went, I could feel the hatred pulsing in my direction. Maybe it was more jealousy than anything else, but it sure felt like hate. It was a strange feeling. I had never felt that before, and that surprised me.

It's not like I never dated a gorgeous guy before. That I never walked into a room with his arm draped around my waist and saw all the eyes on me. But with him I felt it.

I could never explain that knot that formed in my stomach because of that. Mainly because it was fleeting. A minute later he'd be chasing me around the room, or giving me a kiss, or sliding his hand in my back pocket as he guided me towards the door. It was easy to dismiss it with him around.

He returned, fleetingly, with a short on-line conversation. Our tryst long over. No longer friends or benefits, having not been either for over two years. His heart was breaking from his latest love. Even at years younger, not even legal in the voting sense, she had his heart on a string and was seemingly pulling it up for one last heart-stopping show.

When he signed off, and I was drifting off to bed, it hit me.

I felt the hate because he was never even slightly mine. With other guys I at least had the pretense. The knowledge that just maybe they wanted me for more than just today.

Him, I had the distinct knowledge that he could just walk out that room with another girl. We were just friends.

It's not that I was in love with him. Farthest from it.

It was, that as a friend, I would have hated to not be chosen over a girl that could offer what I never could.

It's always been my fear. Still is.