Writing Diaries 15: The Pain of Young Love

What follows is a series of diary entries from my early twenties—years shaped by my Italian parents’ expectations, Quebec’s cultural upheaval, and my own struggle to claim a self.

This “almost” relationship, the failure of hoped for young love with a fellow student seems trivial on the surface, but at the time the pain of rejection cracked something open in me: the realization that my disappointment with men was tangled up with deeper questions about belonging, trust, and how much of myself I was willing .

A pair of university kids chat each other up to risk.

The year in the diary entries below is 1970. I was twenty‑one and about to graduate from university.

That year I met a guy in a couple of English lit courses and developed a desperate crush on him. Thinking back, the intensity of my feelings had less to do with how attractive he was to me than with my loneliness during an especially low period in my life.

We talked at school, went out for coffee a few times, and spent an entire afternoon together walking through Montreal’s Chinatown. Other than that, he didn’t ask me out. I took the initiative once and invited him to a small dinner party I was planning, but he worked weekends and couldn’t make it.

He wrote a poem about me, which I still have. In it, he describes me as having “mad, angry passion, reclining to possible indifference.” Yes, that was true then.

The school year ended and he graduated. (I didn’t. I had cut so many classes and failed to turn in so many assignments, I had to make up two full courses the next school year.)

We were supposed to get together in the summer, but he called to say he was off to Europe for the next few months. And I didn’t hear from him again.

I didn’t forget him, though. I clung to the idea of him. I wanted to see him, and for once I did something about it. Diary entries from the time tell the story of what happened.

October 9, 1972

I have just mailed C. a letter. (I didn’t have his address, so I sent it to his parents’ address, which I found in the phone book.) I didn’t say all that much: a “voice from the past,” and wondering about the reason why “people come into and out of our lives,” etc. I don’t expect him to answer, but I’d like it if he did.

I wrote the letter because I saw someone who looked like him at George’s Disco last night.

I stayed over at Daniele’s afterward. I said to her, “I wish I could write to C.”

“Why not?” she replied. Daniele isn’t afraid of taking risks.

Awaiting results.

October 12, 1972

C. has been on my mind since I resurrected him with that letter. Never mind, I’m just using him as another diversion to keep my mind off myself and why I feel so miserable all the time.

I tried.

As I read somewhere, the costliest act is the one that moves us to act. Yes, it make myself write that letter.

October 13, 1972

Guess what? C. showed up at our house today. I hadn’t included my phone number in the letter because I didn’t want him to think I was chasing him. I hadn’t expected he’d go to the trouble of coming to find me from the return address on the envelope.

I was at work, but he gave my mother his number and asked that I call him.

We talked and agreed to meet for lunch “sometime” next week. Weird. Couldn’t he have set a time and place? Maybe he’s playing the same cat‑and‑mouse game he did when I couldn’t make out what signals he was sending me at school.

October 19, 1972

C. waited a whole week to call. And wouldn’t you know it? When he got in touch at the office on a Friday, afternoon I was out. When I reached him, he was really nice and very apologetic.

He said he was really rushed and could he call next week to set it up? How stupid am I that I still long to see him?

October 26, 1972

It’s Thursday. This is the week C. was supposed to get in touch. I guess he won’t now. But if he does, I won’t see him – as if he gives a shit.

I hear people say they’re so busy. What do they do that I don’t? What’s wrong with me?

Had a ghastly evening yesterday with one of those terrible attacks. I don’t understand that grip of fear that overcomes me. My mind feels disconnected from my body, floating away. I’m afraid to move, afraid that if I do, something fragile will break. It feels like I’m dying.

When the attack finally passed, I was so scared I had to sleep next to my sister.

October 27, 1972

I’m so tired. There’s a lump in my throat and I’m on the verge of tears. I shouldn’t feel this disappointed about C. I hardly knew him.

Once and for all, I have to accept without reservation that people can’t be counted on. Nobody truly cares about others. The sooner I learn to live with this fact, the better off I’ll be.

January 3, 1975

C. never did get back to me. That’s life.