The time I had a Taylor Swift moment with a, “Love Fern”

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a sucker for romantic gestures.

When I was in University, I met Andrew. Andrew stood 6’3, with sandy brown hair, and a charming smile. His love of snowboarding, photography, and music was so intriguing. Not only that, Andrew was very intelligent. He was a successful entrepreneur, full of ideas and passion. He attended the University of Waterloo, the University down the road from mine.

The first time I met Andrew, he informed me that he was leaving for China for a month. Instead of asking for my phone number, he asked for my email address. My email address! Andrew emailed me every single day. I felt as though I was exploring the city with him. Every email was written with care, and had a photo he’d taken associated with it. A virtual postcard. I couldn’t help but think, what kind of guy emails a girl he met once, every single day.

Eventually, Andrew came back to Waterloo. He told me that he had a surprise for me. Somehow – don’t ask me the regulations on this because I honestly don’t know and I promise you my roommates were just as concerned as you are feeling while reading this – he smuggled me a plant from China.

The plant became a bit of a joke amongst my housemates. If you’ve ever watched How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, you’ve heard of the love fern. We aptly named Andrew’s strawberry plant my love fern. In the movie, Kate Hudson pretended that the plant represented her and Matthew McConaughey’s relationship. Matthew let the plant die. When Kate Hudson discovered that the love fern was no more, she unleashed her inner crazy.

One day, I asked Andrew if he wanted to hangout, and he unfortunately was too busy studying. I had a major crush on him, so naturally as I was Netflix and chilling by myself, I started browsing the photos on his Facebook page. Upon looking at his Facebook profile, I noticed that someone had tagged him in their status.

The status read, “When your amazing boyfriend comes all the way to Toronto to surprise you on a weeknight!”

What the hell? Right?! I know. I was there.

The lying sack of whatever was not studying math, he was studying the anatomy of his Toronto girlfriend.

I could not believe this. I’d been lied to, manipulated, and humiliated.

I smashed the hell out of the love fern. It felt incredible. The dirt scattered across the sidewalk.

Naturally, I ended things with Andrew.

When I walked to class the next day I couldn’t help but smile at the ruptured dirt and decapitated plant at my feet.

It’s been at least 4-6 years since the epic love fern incident. I’ve met many more Andrews. In this case, I use Andrew as a metaphor for a deceitful person, who pretends to be someone that they’re not. The Andrews have opened car doors, they’ve driven out of the way to rescue me from car accidents, they’ve come on to my friends. Sometimes, despite my gut feeling that I’ve met another Andrew, I let the romantic gestures take the driver’s seat, and lead me down the fucking grand canyon.

Sometimes your gut tells you that someone is the devil incarnate, yet you like to live in La La Land: Where they open car doors, they tell you that you look wonderful tonight, they ask you if you’re too cold, and they make you a grilled cheese at 2 am. The perfect grilled cheese can make you overlook the blatantly obvious code red comments about how sexy your friend is.