[Serious] Relationships: Finding your perfect match and then losing them.

[Rev. Rye]

A couple years ago, during my days at Columbia, just as I started to go to therapy and develop some confidence, I found a new girl. A bit tomboyish, short hair, and she refused to wear shoes. If you don't know, I have an autism spectrum disorder, a past that doesn't help make me more personable, and a foot fetish. And I'm sure you know the sort of gut reaction a lot of people have about foot fetishes. And then, one week, I worked up the courage to actually talk with her. I opened with "Nice shoes. An all-natural pair.'



And yes, she actually allowed me to take that picture. We seemed to hit it off. And at the time, it felt like I'd gone through the real-life equivalent of this scene from Ed Wood. (And I chose this scene partly because I rewatched it a few days ago and partly because in my experience, people still aren't much more tolerant of foot fetishism than they would have been of transvestism in the 1950s.)





And for a few weeks, I was convinced I finally had a girlfriend. We only met for a few minutes a week, and I can remember one incident where we were at a short story reading, and I saw her resting her dusty bare feet on the back of some other girl, and when she noticed I was there, she looked back and smiled. Once the event was over, the other girl tried to dust off the part of her shirt her feet were on. And then, one week, I finally worked up the courage to exchange email addresses. Somehow, it was this that scared her (although it could have been that I mentioned that I liked her.) She wrote her email address and handed it to me like she was giving up her money to a mugger. I emailed her, hoping to ease her into it. Her response: "I'm gay." The next week I saw her, the first words out of my mouth are "I'm so sorry." The conversation went well, though we eventually fell out of touch.

I haven't really bothered with getting another girlfriend. I'm still not much more confident in assuming that women have finally figured out that foot fetishism (especially the kind I have, which is mostly centered around barefoot girls, which, unlike a lot of fashion trends, doesn't put toxic expectations on their body image and reinforces a behaviour I strongly expect most women would do if left to their own devices anyway) is mostly harmless, especially when the second-most-viewed video about it on Youtube is about an alleged sexual predator at Nickelodeon, and even the most popular foot fetish site on the web recently ran this (SFW as long as you stay on that one page) poll and it turns out that it's still stigmatised enough that a majority DON'T EVEN TELL THEIR OWN SIGNIFICANT OTHERS ABOUT IT. I still didn't have much hope that most other girls who aren't barefooters will react well, and the only other girl I've ever met in person who was a comparable barefooter was an older woman who worked at Door County Stargazers that I met last summer, and the closest I ever got with her was when she asked if I found everything I wanted, I said "for the most part."
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And, honestly, my issues with people haven't gotten much better, and I still work 20 hours a week at a candy shop designed to help autistic people. Frankly, as someone whose mother had several Cluster B personality disorders, in addition to all this, I don't expect that it won't be like this a lot of the time:




So, I've chosen to compensate with a body pillow customised with images of Alison Lohman. I recognise that this situation won't be for everyone. So, if you think you can find The One, keep trying!