Laura – Girlfriend wannabe or user? … Moocher if you ask me.
(S1:E1) At the point we were introduced to Laura, (a political science teacher from Lansing) we had no idea Elaine even existed. In fact, in the short time we all got to know Jerry, we had no real knowledge of any love interests. After all, we just met the guy. The first girl we had ever seen interacting with Jerry as a potential love interest was Laura. Sure, there was Claire the waitress and it was apparent that she had a minor social relationship with George and Jerry but no sparks there, just maybe light banter, or perhaps the perils of determining which pot had decaf.
How many times did you have that same conversation with one of your friends, as Jerry had with George at Pete’s Luncheonette that day. The round and round you go discussing the possibilities of hitting it off with someone but not really knowing the real feelings or intension of the person you are interested in. Do they like me? How much do they like me? Do they like me the way I like them; I could go on. You go over it in your head for hours, days or even months and get nowhere because only the person you are stressing over knows the truth. You never say anything, then it’s too late. Like the girl who sat directly in front of me during my Italian class and turned around one day and out of the blue wrote her name on my marble notebook using hearts instead of dots over her letter “i”s. I was puzzled and thrilled at the same time. What does this mean? Why am I sweating now? Do I ever throw out this notebook? I need to tell my friends. But I digress, back to Jerry and Laura. The real issue here is that Jerry and George are having this conversation in their 30’s and the rest of us most likely talked about things like this in middle school during gym class, at lunchtime or on the bus ride home. In Jerry and George’s case it was the coffee shop and laundromat 20 years after being tweeners. You get the idea.
I don’t really consider Laura a girlfriend, but we are all pulled along with Jerry and George, thinking that she could possibly be girlfriend material. Think about it, if you were Jerry’s neighbor, you might have seen him and a women with a suitcase entering the elevator late one evening. Would you have known about Elaine, and if so, are they still together? Was this mystery girl a relative visiting from out of Town? An old high school sweetheart trying to rekindle what once was? Maybe she sold encyclopedias. These are the questions a nosey neighbor would have. I am sure a lot of you have this internal conversation with yourselves every day. Observe a random person for 5 minutes. I guarantee you can come up with questions or scenarios about what you see just in that short amount of time (I do that constantly when it comes to crappy drivers). Let me know your thoughts and opinions about this. Comment below.
Enough about us though, back to this Laura thing.
At this point, only knowing Jerry for about 15 minutes, I still felt kind of bad that it went South so quickly with Laura. The rollercoaster of emotions that happened in only a few minutes were relatable. But let’s be honest, Laura was using Jerry. Originally if a person came to your house, took off their shoes, wanted the lights dimmed and asked for wine, what would you think? I’d say slam dunk if you ask me. If I were Jerry at this point, I’d be psyched too. You can see it in his eyes. I bet he couldn’t wait to tell George. Of course, her asking to stay an extra day was yet another positive tick upward; icing on the cake. Sure, what’s a 5-hour boat trip around Manhattan; you got yourself a girlfriend! All these positives only to have it all crash down when Laura’s boyfriend calls Jerry’s apartment and after the call she exclaims, “never get engaged.” OOOH, crash and burn. What gets me is what if her fiancé never called? When would she have told Jerry; two and a half hours into the boat ride? Better yet, why not tell him back at the club in Lansing, at the airport; or even the 40-minute ride back from JFK? Yeah, the more I keep writing, the less I want to place Laura on the girlfriend list. User or moocher list maybe, but not girlfriend material. That is why I retitled this blog category, “Jerry’s Girls”. Now I can include women like Laura and the dozens of other odd female relationships that haunted Jerry for 9 Years.
Comment if you had a similar personal experience like the one Jerry had with Laura. Including the lead up to the actual date (if there was one), the confrontation, and inevitable plot twist or downward spiral (that may or may not involve shrinkage). Maybe you were the person in Laura’s shoes? I want to hear all sides and maybe I’ll share some of them here. In the meantime, hope your marriage is going well, Laura.
