Single on Central

by Maggie Ybarra

Daily Lobo

I'm in love with an Irishman. But since that Irishman exists in some parallel universe along with fluffy sheep, the Bushmills factory and naturally occurring grass, my relationship status here in Albuquerque still qualifies as single. And being single on Central isn't the most ideal situation. Take for instance the last guy to hit on me. He was an English major who had been financially apt enough in his youth to afford a house in the University area. Between semesters, he said he performed hard labor for his father's construction company, which was blatantly obvious with or without his shirt on. At first glance, he seemed to be intelligent, hardworking and attractive. I was impressed and flattered by his interest, until we began to discuss the topic of travel.

He went off on an insanely patriotic

speech about how he never wanted to travel outside of the United States because America was God's land. "God blessed this land," he said. "God gave it to us. That's why people envy us. That's why people are sneaking into the country. This is God's land and I would never want to leave it or go any place different. "I took a moment after his spontaneous speech to inspect myself thoroughly. And yep, just as I suspected, I was still a mix of American-Indian and Mexican heritage. So where exactly did he think he was going to get by reciting me his version of the manifest destiny credo?I did my best to finish up the conversation and keep the full weight of my thoughts to myself, but I eventually responded to his perspective by deleting his number from my cell phone. "How do they find me?" I asked myself. And the answer came easy. I live on Central, which gives the population of Crazy access to me. Even when a guy appears to be of sound mind, there's always some sort of hidden imbalance see-sawing away inside of him. My last boyfriend was a musician working on his master's degree. He was a considerate person with brilliant green eyes and a shy smile who would often surprise me at work with chocolate croissants. But in order to conserve money, he would steal economy-size toilet paper rolls from University bathrooms

and use them as substitute napkins. He also maintained a steady diet of canned sardines, because he said they were filling and cheap - which meant his kitchen smelled fishy. The day he graduated and left Albuquerque, he gave me some sardines canned in olive oil as a parting gift, all in the hope I would eventually learn to like them as he did. They're still sitting in my pantry. The boyfriend before that was a music theory major who built his own studio inside his apartment. He was ambitious and talented, winning awards left and right with little to no competition to contend with. But he lived amongst a collection of trash that even a Garbage

Pail Kid would have been offended

by. And he had some weird relationship

with his cat, Chompers, who scuttled around the squalor, squawking like a toad. According to the ex, Chompers was a creature that needed to be respected and referred to formally. If I referred to Chompers as "it," I would get lectured

and sometimes yelled at. The icing on the cake came when I accidentally walked into the bathroom and found him sitting on the toilet (he didn't like to pee standing up) with his pants around his feet and Chompers perched comfortably on his bare lap. He would go on to explain the situation away by saying I was judgmental and had jealousy issues with his cat. This is why being single on Central can be so tricky. Every time some random guy hits on me, I worry about what reciprocating his attention

will bring. So far, the safest route seems to be planning out a return trip to Ireland, land of fluffy sheep, where I can chug my Guinness in relative peace and sleep next to someone who doesn't expect me to wrap my sandwich up in toilet paper and doesn't need to sit down to pee.