Everyone has heard about meeting the right person at the wrong time, but that’s not the way this story goes. I met the wrong person in every possible way at the exact right time in my life and this has changed how I see relationships. I had just gotten to college and I was thirsty for exploration and alcohol. I was in a relationship with my long-time best friend and didn’t know how to untangle myself from him despite 80 miles of distance. To top it all off, I had always said when I got to college I would finally accept the fact I am only attracted to women. I wanted to become a Casanova, wooing all the women I could find. Then I met her at the exact time that I wanted to meet someone. I met her and I jumped in without any consideration to my choices. We had a great one night stand and after, I played “Just What I Needed” by the Cars in my underwear. I thought that was where she and I would end. We didn’t end. She became the one night stand that lasted three months, and then turned into a relationship that lasted for over another year.

There were moments early on where I thought about the trivial things that made her all wrong for me. The fact that she hated Boston and I loved it was a common argument between us. Every time she bragged about stealing things my jaw clenched. Every time I chose to do my homework or even considered hanging out with a friend, she whined at me until I gave in just to shut her up. Needless to say, we weren’t always the most compatible people.

I think one of the worst, and stupidest, arguments we got into was over Ruby Rose’s ninja turtle tattoo. We screamed as she continued to point out how stupid it was, in her humble opinion, to get a tattoo of a ninja turtle. After I went through my spiel about how tattoos are freedom of expression and maybe Ruby Rose felt about ninja turtles the way she felt about “The Lion King,” I realized I wasn’t impassioned by a cartoon tattoo. I was sick of her seeing things as inferior to her just because she wanted to turn her nose up at them. So I stopped fighting and we ended the conversation. I remembered why I had jumped into this with her. Even though all I had done since we met was protest that I didn’t need anyone, when she walked into my life I needed someone and there she was, at the exact right moment.

She was the wrong person for me in every regard. She needed me too much, taking more than I could give, and I didn’t need her enough for her liking. From the first time she slung her leather jacket over my shoulders in the cold, I knew she was trying to fill the role of the protective, care-taking lover. I don’t think she ever caught on that I wanted a partner in crime, someone to do things I loved with, not someone to hold me every night and put silly photos of us on social media. Eventually, she learned what buttons to push and proceeded to push them. She needed someone soft yet there was a reason she nicknamed me “ice queen” and it had nothing to do with my love for Idina Menzel. As our year and three months went on I realized more and more that she was wrong for me in every way but I couldn’t disentangle myself from her and I couldn’t let the good moments go. Sitting at the end of our relationship, trying to vanish all the traces of you from my room, I realized she walked into my life when I needed a distraction. I needed someone to get me out of the relationship I had been in and more than that, I needed someone else to take care of because I wasn’t ready to take care of myself. She walked into my life at the exact time I needed her, and I’m grateful for that.

I needed to learn how to feel safe with someone’s arms around me, or so I thought, and she fit perfectly into my desires. I hold myself when I cry now. I needed someone to go on adventures with. I explore the city myself now. I always enjoyed my own company and I see now that no matter the timing, sometimes the wrong person really is the wrong person despite how much it seems like one needs them at the time. Sometimes, the total disaster relationship is everything someone needed without them knowing it while they were in the disaster. Even though things clearly did not go so well, I would go back to that moment I met her in a heartbeat and do it all again for the experience and the chance to love her again before we got in our own ways. Sometimes what one needs is the wrong person, the right timing, and the chance to learn more about themselves than they could ever see coming.