This time I am writing about Roma.
A man went to the Vietnam war and stopped off in the Phillippines. There he met a Filipino woman and married her, bringing her home to the United States. They had two children, Roma and Lynnette.
I first met Roma coming into the office of Erin’s startup one morning. There in one of the offices sat a brown-skinned, black-haired, almond-eyed girl with a big smile on her face. She introduced herself and I immediately recognized her as one of the friendliest people I had ever met. She didn’t look down on anyone – she talked with you openly regardless of what you looked like. I found this engaging and refreshing coming from an attractive woman, of course. And of course I was immediately intimidated by her.
But Roma was the type of person who would talk about anything to anyone. She talked a little too much. She told people about her sex life, her rivalries, her children’s health, her finances – any intimate personal matter that was on her mind. Naturally, when she started doing this with me it gave me the impression that she was letting me in on a private part of her life, and that somehow we were close friends – even though she wasn’t exclusive at all about who she told all this stuff to. She just wanted to get it off her chest.
She told me all sorts of compromising shit. Drugs she had done, her time as a stripper – all sorts of over-the-top shit. She had a lot of time to talk to me, too, because at the time all of the other employees were working outside of the office, and Erin rarely came in due to her lack of interest in day-to-day operations, so we were alone together a lot.
One of her most frequent topics was how badly her husband treated her. He would write bad checks with her checkbook and she would have to cover them. He would verbally abuse her and ignore her for long periods of time. It was as though she was desperate for some type of affectionate contact – and I was more than happy to fill the role. She eventually got to where she talked about me to others as well, and she used to recount how her husband had gotten angry at her because she was always mentioning “this guy caco at work.”
The tipping point, though, didn’t come until I had an argument with Darron about her. He maintained that she was a manipulative emotional leech who was out to get anything she could out of anybody, and I White-Knighted and defended her, describing the negative shit she had to go through on a daily basis and how she basically didn’t have anything good in her life. We parted ways, Darron holding onto his position and I retaining mine. However, when we talked again several weeks later, Darron admitted, “You know, caco, I think you’re right. Roma has been shat on her whole life, and the way she behaves is just a reaction to it.”
This sent me over the edge. I immediately fell in love with her. I spent several hours one night weeping about her situation and recording my feelings for her into one of those tiny dictation recorders. From that point on, I determined I would do whatever she wanted me to do to make her life better… and I would try to develop an emotional relationship with her as well.
It didn’t work. I think she was giving me obvious signals, we even held hands a couple of times and I kissed her once on the neck (which she seemed to appreciate). I was losing weight rapidly due to my recent prescription for Effexor, and her interest in me seemed to wax as I became more attractive. But something just never clicked. Maybe it wasn’t enough physical contact, like they say a man is supposed to initiate, maybe I just never made a direct play and asked her out. I never had the courage.
I remember one day, though, we were driving to a client’s site in Maysville to do some work. We were riding in her shitty little Jeep with the plastic windows. The sky was overcast, and on the way there, breaks started to appear in the clouds, sending radiant beams of light cascading down all around us like some overly dramatic movie scene. To this day it remains one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed. I almost thought it was a message from God. But it was bitter at the same time, because I couldn’t capitalize on the moment and tell her how I felt about her. Instead I got stoned and spent the trip in silence. Roma actually said, “caco, I don’t like you much when you’re high, man.”
I became obsessed and thought about her almost all the time. I talked about her constantly to all of my friends, who surely became tired of the subject. I encouraged her to leave her husband and find a man who was willing to support her – pathetic, passive-aggressive hinting, I know. This dragged on for months and months. I remember standing at a gas station with Darron one day, and he flatly told me: “caco, she’s never going to leave her husband. And your feelings aren’t going to be resolved. You’re in a bad situation.” Eventually she got back into drinking heavily, and started showing up late to work, and looking like hell when she did. I worried about her almost constantly.
Throughout our whole unrelationship though I had a nagging thought at the back of my mind – that maybe she was a user, like Darron had said. Manipulating peoples’ emotions just to get high off the sympathy. Lying about events to make herself look better and those around her look bad. She certainly took advantage of Erin – she rarely did any work at the office and always got in trouble and on the verge of being fired… whereupon I would intervene on her behalf and convince Erin to keep her around since her life would probably fall apart if her family wasn’t bringing in money. She had a child herself.
Eventually I gave up on her and resigned myself to an unrequited love. Erin’s company started growing, and with that growth came an influx of new men for her to show interest in. One of them was my Brother. I knew something was up when they started Photoshopping movie posters to put images of themselves in them. It was true, they had a thing for each other. I was doomed. Shortly after this, Roma filed for divorce from her husband and moved out, as though she were just waiting for a man she was compatible with.
My brother and Roma started going out. I didn’t resent him or really even feel that jealous – he was my Brother, for goodness’ sake – just extremely defeated and pathetic. To make myself feel better, I claimed to Roma that I had deliberately invited him to join the startup on the off chance that she would connect with him and get away from her husband. I don’t really know if that was in my mind at all – but it probably wasn’t. Through my brother, I questioned some of the intimacy she and I had and why it seemed like she was sending me signals. She claimed sending signals was never her intention, but I believe it was – she was fishing for somebody new, but couldn’t commit because she was never very attracted to me in the first place.
Eventually I found out, though him, that Roma was a lot to handle. Significant verbal, emotional and physical abuse. It’s actually quite possible that Roma never permitted our relationship to go any further because she realized that an emotionally fragile manchild like myself could never handle her explosive behavior.
My brother’s relationship grew significantly and they eventually started spending nights with each other. He probably came the closest to admitting to loving a woman than he ever had, at least to a third party like me. I was happy for them. It all went well until . . . [REDACTED]
My feelings about Roma now are mixed. She was both Sinner and Saint, as the Author once said. On the one hand she was very friendly and always had time to help somebody out – but on the other hand she was very manipulative. I guess Darron and I were both right. I have to say I mostly enjoyed the time spent with her, but I definitely didn’t enjoy the time spent obsessing about her. Nearly all of those of us who became her friend liked her. It would have been much better for me if I only viewed her as a Good Friend. She’s one of my Social Media Friends now, but I haven’t interacted with her at all for several years. I probably never will again.