I pulled up to Jay’s Victorian-style apartment complex and saw his car in the parking lot. After giving myself a quick once-over in the dim light of the driver’s side sun visor, I walked up the two flights of stairs to door number 208 and knocked.
But it wasn’t Jay who answered. “Oh,” a tall, thin woman said. “You’re not the pizza guy.”
My surprise quickly turned to shock, which quickly turned to paralysis. All of my earlier thoughts about not retreating when things got tough evaporated into a puff of smoke. Another woman had just answered my boyfriend’s door and my every instinct was to turn and run away as fast as I could. But I felt like I was frozen in a block of ice. I think I managed to spit out the word, “No.”
The woman looked at me, the obvious question on her face: Who are you then? And I felt sure the same question was on my own face.
“Do you need some cash, Ginny?” I heard Jay’s voice call out from inside the apartment. It felt like an electric shock to my system. I think I winced.
“No, it’s not the pizza,” she called over her shoulder, and then turned her pretty face back to me. “Can I help you?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just shook my head no, as I took in the woman standing inside my boyfriend’s apartment. She wore an ivory silk blouse with black, cropped, wide-leg pants over slouchy leather boots that looked like they cost more than all my shoes put together. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but if I had to guess I’d ballpark her in her midthirties maybe. She gave off a chic, sophisticated vibe with her shiny black shoulder-length hair, big brown eyes, and the most perfect eyebrows I’d ever seen. Seriously, they were flawless. They had to have been filled in with something . . . what was it . . . gel, powder, pencil . . . no one could have eyebrows that were that naturally thick and impeccably arched.
I remained entranced by her mesmerizing brows until she wrinkled them. She looked confused now, and a little worried. The last thing I wanted her to do was to call Jay over here, so I forced myself to speak. “Wrong apartment. Sorry.” My voice came out cracked and thin.
Ginny smiled and it lit up her whole face. “No problem,” she said. “Have a good night.”
She closed the door and I immediately flattened myself against the wall, my breath ragged. What had I just walked in on? I raced down the stairs, my mind a jumbled mess as I struggled to take stock of the situation. Okay. So Jay has an attractive woman I’ve never seen before in his apartment and they are ordering a pizza. Okay. Don’t panic. What could be the possible explanations for that? 1. She could be his sister (nope, he’s an only child like me). 2. She could be his friend (he’s never mentioned a friend named Ginny before). 3. She could be his co-worker. 4. She could be his date.
Number 4 was the most painful option, but I felt like it was in many ways the one that made the most sense. We had been seeing each other for a couple of months and as I thought back, I guess we had never explicitly said that we weren’t going to see other people . . . I just assumed that since we had been spending so much time together, neither of us would want to see anyone else. But maybe it was just me who didn’t want to see anyone else.
My mind started spooling. Maybe he’d been seeing other people this whole time. We probably hung out three nights a week or so; maybe he had other dates on those other nights and just didn’t mention them. My neurosis spun downhill like a rolling stone. Maybe dating just one person at a time isn’t even how things work anymore. I had to face the fact that I didn’t really know a lot about modern dating. Ryan and I got together when we were teenagers, so technically, this was my first full-adult relationship. Maybe social norms had changed in the past seven years. Maybe I was old-fashioned to think that just because we were hanging out a few times a week, we were “exclusive.” I had so many questions. I needed answers. I know I probably should have just asked Jay, but I decided to hit up another source instead.
Hey Riley,
To answer ur question, the norm for Milllennial dating is ur either just hooking up or ur in a serious (exclusive) relationship. There’s not a lot of in between these days. And usually if it’s the latter, u have already talked about it. Why do u ask?
xx,
Jenna B.
Personal Success Concierge™
Bestmillenniallife.com
Dear Jenna,
If you don’t know why I’m asking, you might want to tune up that “overdeveloped sense of intuition” of yours.
All best,
Riley
Hey Riley,
I am intuiting from ur tone that this is about u and ur man. I’m so sorry.
PS: Let’s not turn on each other.
xx,
Jenna B.
Personal Success Concierge™
Bestmillenniallife.com
Dear Jenna,
I’m sorry I lashed out. I’m just really confused right now. I think my boyfriend is seeing someone and I don’t have anyone to blame but myself because I never even asked him if we were exclusive. I just assumed. What an idiot.
All best,
Riley
Hey Riley,
This totally reminds me of that time Kourtney caught Scott with that skank
