  This came up at lunch the other day - associating past people dated with particular places. Before I get into this though - if you are looking to change wireless providers, or live in the stone age and don't have a cell phone - do not use urlLink AT&T . Since buying a new phone from them last November, I have had nothing but trouble up the wazoo. The latest problem: my phone decided to spontaneously stop working in the 2-mile radius of my apartment. Just like that. And there's nothing that can be done . This is rather painful for someone who is glued to her phone.
Anyhow. Back to the topic at hand. People and places. That is, the memories of a certain guy (in my case, at least) are forever indelibly intertwined with a certain location. it's what makes it so hard to return to a place after the relationship's over. There's no real rhyme nor reason to this - perhaps you first went there with a guy, perhaps it was your hangout. After all, crankypants have I have been all over New York together, but it's only parts of it I associate with him. Even though Nick visited me several times in LA, it's not him I recall when I think of that city. Just for some reason or another, your brain has equated location X with guy Y, and it's hard separating the two.
For instance, Los Angeles - the beaches, dining and shopping - are solely the realm of crankypants. We've explored the Westside thoroughly in the past two summers we've dated, and it's so sadly empty when I'm home and he's not there. Anytime I go to urlLink the beach with someone else, it's not just not quite the same. New York , luckily, has been divided into several sections. Aside from where we went for urlLink drinks and urlLink dinner on our first date, it's the Upper West Side that I associate with crankypants, as that's where he lived the summer we were there. Midtown West and the Lower East Side is Nick, and Little Italy, strangely enough, is shithead. (I say strange because when he visited me there, we only ate there once.
Yet when I think of that part of town, it's always him of whom I think. ) At least I have Union Square and Nolita that remain solely mine. New Haven is Tom, who was really cute and whose parents came up with the use of Botox in its current incarnation. But it's where I first met him, at a bar my friends were performing at (his younger brother was the drummer), and it's where he goes to grad school now.
It's not that I've ever visited him there - but every time I drive by on my way to/from New York, I always wonder how it would have been, if I had dated him instead of crankypants. I'd be promised a lack of wrinkles, at least. Cambridge - at least Harvard - is linked with Nick. Last night, I drove by the footbridge near Harvard on the Charles, and was immediately taken back in time to 5 years ago, when he took me there one night after urlLink ice cream . I also remember being uncomfortable, because I wasn't so interested in him physically anymore (although that didn't stop me from drunkenly hooking up with him all the way through college - drunkenly being the key word) and he was sadly trying to woo me. It was really pretty nonetheless. Charlottesville , of course, and DC are also linked to crankypants.
Hopefully I'll never have a reason to return to Cville after he graduates. As cute as the city is, there's just nothing to do there. Providence is a bit tricky, because I've been single more often than not living here. If I had to choose, it would either be shithead or maybe even Nick. It's a toss-up though. And Paris , for me, will forever be that city where my friends and I all were footloose and fancy-free. I've always been single whenever I've been to Paris, and guys never crossed our minds. We were far more interested in urlLink shopping , eating urlLink sorbet Berthillon and urlLink dancing and drinking until the sun came up - or the m&eacute;tro started operating again.
And it's for that reason, even though I love the city so, that I find myself loath to bring any guy there, to show him my Paris. Like a jealous lover, I want to keep that city all to myself, pure and clean of any masculine association. Perhaps I'm rather melodramatic, but shit, if crankypants and I break up - he's utterly associated with too many places here - I'll be on the next plane to Paris, to live out the rest of my days there. (Which doesn't sound too bad, actually. Living in Paris, that is.
) 
