The Story Of Corey Pt. 1

Sorry to boldly interrupt my little Meme Marathon as if anyone really care. I wanted to take this time to answer a question posed a few post back by the great EJ: “What was the best relationship you ever had? The worst?”

I hit him up right away and asked “Does it matter if they’re one and the same?” Essentially I needed to explain my response. In all honesty, I’ve been thinking about him lately and I don’t know why. I can only guess that in the time, the growth and mature I’ve obtain since the time we were together has shown me that I wrong him and now I’m feeling guilty.

His name was Corey, and I remember the first time I saw his picture on Blackplanet. I remember the ear-to-ear grin I had when I saw him at the school library in the middle of a ‘Intro to College’ class walk through. I was only 20 years old and it was the Summer of 2001, I was fucking niggas on the regular, I thought I was smooth. So playing cool, I dropped him a note on BP, saying I saw him on campus and wanted to hang out sometime. That was the beginning to my longest relationship to date.

Corey was 24, a G.I. native but recently relocated from Memphis. Raised to have strong convictions, he was extremely passionate and believed in standing by his man. Being 20, I really didn’t have a firm understanding of those kind of qualities. At the time I was still thinking with my dick, to me a relationship was just something that was albeit more deep than a friendship, but essentially a friendship in which there was sex. Remind you I was 20.

I remember our first date, it was a quiet week night spent talking over ice cream at the local Baskin Robbins. I can quite charming when I want to be, I get it from my father. We talk and talk, which led to long walks together to and from school (At the time I was in between cars). We would chill out at my place, until it was time for him to catch the last bus to Gary. It must have been a month before we actually had sex. I remember my surprise to find out that grown men still wore ‘tighty-whities’. From then we were inseparable, and thats when the first problem occurred. Shortly before I met Corey, I met my best friend, Ken. Now in the several years that I’ve know Ken, we have never done anything sexual, but Corey didn’t see it that way. To him ‘haven’t done anything’ simple meant ‘haven’t done anything YET’. Corey was possessive. I couldn’t hang out with friends without him, I really couldn’t hang out with friend when I was with him all because he didn’t want to ‘share’ me. I gave in, I socialized less with friends, stayed in the house and when I went out, I was with Corey.

But it wasn’t a bad relationship, well not yet. Corey was always there for me. When I had issues with my mom – Corey was there. When I couldn’t make my car note one month – Corey was there. Corey was the type that would break it down in the bedroom, walk out the room and come back five minutes later shower fresh, with a sandwich, a drink and the TV remote for me. Plus he could cook his ass off. Giving up casual associates didn’t seem so difficult since I was gaining a man who could cook, made sure his man was alright and could ride dick like a champion. All things that mattered to a 20 year old, but I digress.

December came and things started to unravel for me both in my personal, and professional life. I was losing hours and money at work, my mom was making me pay bills I couldn’t afford to stay in her house. I was stressing out all the time and on top of all that, I tried to pledge Phi Beta Sigma. It was a bad scenario, I wake up every night around 3am with ulcer pains. I looked raggedy, I grew apathetic, I had two nervous breakdowns. This was the point where me and Corey starting arguing. The fights would range from me going out with the Frat and not him to not have sex as frequent. He knew I was stressing, and all I could ask was for him to be patient.