Guy’s three sisters were what put the most pressure on our relationship and I believe was what fuelled most of our arguments. I loved Guy very much, but God did I hate those three girls. I honestly tried so very hard to like them, even to tolerate them, but now I can see it was no use. We were such different people, with nothing in common at all.
However, it took me a long time to realise it was never going to work. I spent many years trying stupidly to change the person I was to gain their approval, but as experience has taught me, this quick fix approach would never ever work. Plus, it didn’t help that they absolutely despised me. How can you get along with someone when you know they hate you? Looking back, I guess if you put any girl into a situation with three other girls it will never end well, but at the time I, of course, thought it was something I was doing wrong.
At times, I felt like I was back in school, being bullied and picked on in the playground. Before I met them, I had obviously heard so much about them—all good things, of course, about how lovely they were and how beautiful and fun they were. I, of course, had such high hopes that we would all be friends and go shopping, go to yoga and do girly stuff together. I was excited to have some readymade girlfriends in a city where I knew very few people.
The first time I met them, however, I was definitely brought back down to reality with a very hard bump. They were three plain girls who all looked very normal. That was, until they started talking. To be completely honest, they reminded me of the ugly sisters from Cinderella—not in the way they looked, but the way they acted. They were nasty, spoilt, bitter and slightly twisted. Of course, just like in Cinderella, they thought they were all amazing, and beautiful and perfect, and I always did find it very amusing when they pranced around the room in a little world of their own, completely self-obsessed. There were entire days I would spend with them when they didn’t talk about anything but themselves—and to make it worse, it was always moaning pity stories, such as, ‘Oh, poor me. They didn’t have the dress in my size and so it was just the worst day of my life,’ and ‘OMG, I am having the worst life ever; everyone is so jealous of how pretty I am.’ As an insecure, relatively well-mannered British girl, that didn’t really sit well with me. The funny thing was, in the five years that I knew them, I was introduced to very few friends of theirs and not one boyfriend between the three of them. Again looking back, I can see why they had very few friends, but yet again at the time I made excuses in my head and assumed it had something to do with me. Now, believe me, I know I sound like a bitch, but if you met these three girls, you would understand. They made it very clear they didn’t like me from the very beginning, and they were absolutely vile to me at times.
One of them, Katlyn, particularly didn’t like me. I remember the only time she said anything nice to me in the five years I knew her was by mistake. I really don’t think she meant to say it, and if she could have taken it back, she most probably would have. We were having lunch with Guy’s whole family, after we had spent three weeks in the UK visiting my family. That was one of the rare occasions Guy had actually accompanied me to see my family (even though I was forced to hang out with his family all the time). I was telling the story about how I had brought enough chocolate on the trip to fill a whole suitcase. The chocolate was my favourite and was only available in the UK, so I would always stock up on every trip. As we landed in Sydney airport, I spotted my luggage on the carousel. As I sent Guy over to retrieve it, one of those sniffer dogs that you get at the airport jumped on it and went absolutely crazy.
My heart sank as I remembered the bag was my party-loving older brother’s bag, which he had lent me and he had just come back from a trip to South America. As I walked over to join Guy, the security guard asked him if the bag was his. He responded so quickly with the words, ‘No, it’s hers,’ and pointed at me that I nearly fell over with shock. Thanks a lot my loving, caring, protective boyfriend of five years, I thought to myself.
The security guard asked me, ‘What’s in the bag?’ and I answered honestly with ‘chocolate.’ He added, ‘What else?’ but it really was a suitcase full of chocolate and nothing else, so I told him the truth. He eyed me very suspiciously and asked me to follow him. After all, how could a full size suitcase be full of just chocolate? Everyone in the airport was staring by that point, and to my absolute astonishment, Guy didn’t follow the security guard and me. Instead, he grabbed his own suitcase from the carousel and without saying a word walked away in the opposite direction. I didn’t really know what to do, but I knew I’d be in trouble if I didn’t follow the security guard, so I reluctantly watched Guy walk away while I very slowly followed the security guard, obviously a tiny bit heartbroken that I had for all intents and purposes been abandoned.
The security guard, sensing my hesitancy, stopped, and eying Guy suspiciously walking off in the opposite direction, asked me if I was travelling with him. Now I could have lied, of course, but I knew the security guard wasn’t stupid, and it would have taken him only a few minutes to check whether we were travelling together, so I opted with the honest answer of yes. I will never forget the change in the security guard’s face when he heard my answer, and all of a sudden he seemed to soften, not because he liked me but because he felt sorry for me. At that moment in time, I think I even felt a little sorry for me too. Like most people that have travelled abroad I knew Guy wouldn’t be allowed to just walk off, so I watched as the security guard hurried over to retrieve him. I only caught the end of the conversation as they walked back over to where I was stood, but I did hear Guy apologising as he thought he was ‘good to head home mate.’ Of course, that part I omitted from my story to Guy’s family.
At the counter, and now even more suspicious of my bag after Guy had basically tried to abscond from the airport, the security guard asked me to empty the suitcase. I did, and to his complete surprise, it really was just full of chocolate. At that point, Guy’s sister Katlyn jumped into the story by saying, ‘He was probably so surprised because he was expecting a fat, greasy haired girl and you are so slim and pretty.’ The whole table went silent, and it was so awkward because as soon as she said it, everyone knew she regretted it. I had always thought his whole family thought I was fat, ugly and just not good enough, but for that one split second I saw a glimpse of something else. Something that she seemed jealous of somehow and I began to think Guy was right. Even though I knew his whole family were being swayed to hate me by those girls, I went home smiling to myself, thinking, God, maybe they do think I’m slim and pretty.
‘Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.’ — Unknown.