Erica's story, part 2

"I think I did say, okay, now we're agreeing we're just using each other. And we did talk about just agreeing on that. But then I would expect more. I would expect... something else."

"So it was hard for you to keep your expectations under control?"

"Yeah. That's always been my problem."

There's a striking symmetry between the tail end of Erica's relationships with Leonard and Jorge: both the guys went off to college in other parts of the state. The difference is that Leonard, bound for Orlando, left his romance in Fort Myers; Jorge, headed for West Palm Beach, took his relationship with him. Erica and Jorge did the long-distance thing for nearly two months, seeing each other every couple weekends. "And because he had no money it was me going over there and sometimes getting him, driving back here [to Fort Myers] for the weekend, and then driving him back. It was kind of dumb," Erica says. I observe that she must have liked him okay to go to all that trouble, and Erica cops to that, but adds, "Not enough, though."

After that acknowledgment one might think Erica would have been eager to break up with Jorge, but in fact it was Jorge who finally cut the thread. It's not working out, he said over the phone. "I said I agree," Erica recalls. "I said I agree that we should totally break up, and I continued to be hung up on that relationship for at least three months afterwards."

One of the challenges of doing an interview is that you never know what it's okay to assume. When Erica says she was hung up on Jorge, I assume she just means she was pining for him. It's not for several minutes that the conversation returns to Jorge and Erica says thoughtfully, "Two times after Jorge and I broke up, I begged for him to come back because I missed sex. Two times he drove over from West Palm Beach just for that." I'm taken by surprise and bust out with "Oh my gosh, really?" -- which if Erica had been a stranger might have been off-putting at just that moment. I wince listening to it on the tape. Fortunately, Erica takes it in stride and continues, saying that her encounters with Jorge "even more so made me hate him, because I would tell him, oh, I love you, blah blah blah, and he would stone-cold not say anything back. Like refuse to." Erica told herself he was just holding back, that really he still loved her, even though they'd already agreed they were only using each other. Sadly, if he did, he never gave any indication of it. This episode makes me feel a little better about my gaffe earlier. Erica and I are partners in being confused about what to expect.

As if on cue, Erica muses about a relevant conversation she had the other day with a girl she says she doesn't know that well -- "an amazing, amazing girl, she's a Christian and everything, she speaks in a country accent, and to me she's a perfect Christian, she should be a saint. . . . She was telling me that it's a really good idea to communicate expectations with whoever you're with. Like in the morning or at night before you start the next day, say 'What are your expectations for tomorrow?'" Erica's face lights up as she talks about this chat; she's hit on something important and she knows it. I observe that this only works if both people are honest about what they expect. Erica nods emphatically. "That was a major thing, too. I don't think Jorge was totally honest. And Leonard was."

But this epiphany about expectations would come later. When I ask Erica what lesson she learned from her time with Jorge, she gives two answers: "How [not] to treat people in a relationship, and that men are jerks."