How to Poison a Boy in Four Days

I’m no Andie Anderson, but I can give you a how-to on how to poison your boyfriend four days into a relationship. I must plead ignorance; my poisoning was meant as an act of gratitude.  

In the first week of dating my boyfriend, we had lunch at a local noodle place in our hometown. I ordered the pesto pasta with no mushrooms, my usual. We talked non-stop, and I gazed in adoration at his dark ringlets and sparkling green eyes. I would have been content without food if it meant I could continue looking into his eyes. This was true until our food arrived, and I dove into my bowtie noodles covered in thick green pesto sauce, savoring every bite. I reached for a bite of his Alfredo, and he yelped, holding his hands out like a protective shield over his plate.  

“What?? You don’t like to share?” I pulled my fork back, laughing.  

“No, no it isn’t that. I have celiac.” Seeing my look of confusion, he explained. “I have an allergy to gluten; I was diagnosed when I was a baby. I can’t have flour.”  

The wheels began turning in my head; my laughter turned to confusion, alarm, then guilt. I had unknowingly poisoned my boyfriend the week prior. 

As a college freshman, I had a tough time putting myself out there. I was far from family, without my anxiety medication, and in a vicious cycle of comparison. While my high school friends were posting photos with a new boy every week at parties, I was watching Friends in my tiny dorm room or headed home on weekends. I used all my social battery to get out of bed and attend class.  

Occasionally, I would spend time with my suitemates and their friends. The boys: Danny, Robert, and a couple of others had gone to high school with my suitemates and lived in a dorm across the street from ours. I enjoyed being with the guys, and soon, I was eating dinner with them a couple of times a week. 

When the boys were focused on girl drama and finding places that would sell to minors, my suitemates were concerned with my life: who I was seeing, what I was doing, and comparing my life to their own. The boys were easier to spend time with because the conversation stayed on a surface level. We checked out thrift stores in the area, ate meals together, and watched football games on a small television in their dorm room. Early in the year, our university’s football program made a comeback with a brand-new stadium, and we planned to go.  

The first game in the new stadium was on a cool evening in early October. I was anxious about making small talk, but my worries eased as my suitemates and I chattered all the way to the bus stop. When we met the guys to catch a ride to the game, I noticed a cute boy walk up and begin talking with my friends. Who IS this guy? I wondered as butterflies appeared in my stomach. I felt a chill go down my arms. I wondered if the goosebumps were from the air or the guy.  

My friends continued to talk around me, but I was lost in thought. My concentration was soon broken by a girl I had gone to middle and high school with as she went to stand next to the handsome stranger. She was pretty; her blonde hair fell down her back with face-framing layers in front, and she wore a tie-dye tee with our school colors on it. She was nice, if a little shy, and we hadn’t spoken much since our middle school days. It was apparent they had come together, and she and I began chatting politely as the boy walked over to the guys to talk. A pit settled into my stomach. No harm, no foul. Of course, he isn’t single, look at that smile. 

The school year drug along and I continued to be immersed in anxiety, uninterested in anything new at school; the only social contact I had outside of classes remained my small friend group. Over meals and group events, I would see that boy from the football game sometimes. Always too self-conscious to single him out, I observed him with our friends and strangers. I learned that his name was Matt, he was from my hometown, and had played baseball with my cousins in high school. His alma mater alone was a red flag, as many students from his school tended to run in different crowds than I. Even worse, he was a baseball player, and they had a reputation for being disrespectful. Despite my initial reservations, he unknowingly broke down my guard. He was kind to servers and the girls in our group that he did not know well. He displayed great taste in music when he played “She’s a Rainbow” in the car. It didn’t hurt that he was cute, with tan skin, green eyes, and dark ringlets.  

One grey day in December, I was walking back to my dorm and calling my mom. It was dreary and looked like it could sleet at any moment, and she was worried that I wouldn’t have anything to eat if the weather got rough. My mother and I speak every day about anything and everything, from religion and politics to sharing dark humor jokes.  

“So, honey, what are your big plans for the day?” She was always concerned about what I was doing, encouraging me to get out of my room.  

“I think I am going to go get wings with Danny, one of the guys in our friend group.” My phone buzzed and I unlocked it, expecting a disappointing text from Danny, canceling our trip.  

“Oh....Mom, Danny says his ‘sexy friend is tagging along.’ I hope it isn’t a girl and that I have to third-wheel them, that will just be awkward. I gotta go, I think I am supposed to be meeting him now.”  

“Huh, what an interesting thing to call his friend. I’m sure it’ll be fun,” my mom said excitedly. “Maybe you’ll make a new friend. Love you!”  

I walked up to the front of the dorm building lugging my backpack in tow just as Danny walked out with a friend. As they got closer, I realized that it was Matt, and my stomach jumped. I pushed it off, decidedly putting on a look of confidence while my innards screamed. I didn’t have time to be anxious or fuss in the mirror, and I cursed myself for having chosen to wear class casual that morning.  

The boys and I talked about my brother’s stinky cleats in the backseat while I drove the three of us to get wings at a local dive. I willed myself to be cool, focusing on topics I could talk about- my brother’s soccer season and Matt and I’s high school rivalry. I was determined to get to know the guy. It doesn’t always have to be a crush, you can just enjoy a guy’s company, right? I pushed down whatever I was feeling and plowed ahead. 

A few months passed of more of the same – occasionally having dinner and small conversation. Each time I wished for more connection with him, more dialogue, but a desire to “be cool” won out every time. In the past with other guys, I had been forward, been too eager, and it had only led to dead ends. This time with Matt, I would play it hot and unbothered – I listened and observed rather than seeking him out, I offered invitations in groups rather than one-on-one. I was in a new era; determined to focus on my happiness and well-being, no boys allowed.  

One day in late March, I sat in front of my laptop at my small dorm desk, mindlessly scrolling on a dating app rather than writing another paper for a political theory class. Matt’s profile appeared on my dating app, and I swiped through it anxiously. How many girls had seen this profile and swiped right on him? Was he in a relationship with anyone?  

I texted Danny a screenshot of Matt’s profile, who encouraged me to swipe right and start a conversation. Danny had interpreted many a boy problem for me, from an over-friendly “friend” to a guy that came out of his room down the hall every time I did that I dubbed “stalker.” My texting him Matt’s profile was no different: Danny felt no more threatened or uncomfortable than a girlfriend would have been.  

I firmly denied Danny’s encouragement to select Matt’s profile, to his disdain. My refusal only egged him on. “You missed your chance,” he said, “You’re fake and make no moves.” I waved him off, stared at the profile a little longer, and swiped left, onto the next. It would be too weird to swipe right on a guy I know in person, wouldn’t it? Is that what people do? I wasn’t fluent in dating app etiquette just yet.  

A couple of days later, Danny invited me to go get dinner at the wings shop. Matt and I dominated the conversation; we discussed our brothers, high school sports, and a friend of mine from high school who had seen him on a dating app.  

“Do you know her?” I asked him excitedly. “She goes to Auburn, but I think you guys would be a cute couple. Give me your username, and I’ll set it up.” 

“Uh...no, I don’t know her. Here’s my username, though,” he held out his phone to me, and if there was a sense of dejection, I didn’t catch on. I excitedly began texting my friend to sell her on Matt.  

I found myself getting angry as my friend shared her conversations with Matt. The conversation was basic: he was calling her cute and asking about her life, but I slowly began to realize that my anger was a thin veil of jealousy. It was mid-April, and I had two weeks to set the foundation before we both moved home for the next few months. I was afraid that when we moved home, even to the same town, I would not have the group setting as an excuse to see him, and therefore would not see him at all.  

The conversation between my friend from high school and Matt broke off as it became clear that Matt and I were more interested in each other than anyone else. Apparently, I remained the only person that had not received the memo that I was the one who liked Matt.  

“So, what are you doing this summer?” I asked Matt one day over a video message. We had begun sending them back and forth over Snapchat every day. I waited impatiently for that little purple box to pop up on my phone, signaling a new video from him.  

“I am moving home to live with my parents and working for the minor league baseball team, what about you?” he replied.  

I typed and retyped versions of the same message, “We should hang out sometime then!” Was this too forward? Did he even want to spend time with me, or was he just responding to me to be polite? Maybe I was misreading him, it wouldn’t be the first time I had misread a guy and been led on.  

I decided there was nothing left to lose. “I will be working in Huntsville this summer, too,” I wrote. “We should definitely hang out some!”  

A response: “Sure, that sounds good.”  

In late April, finals week and move-out were upon us, and I was nothing short of ecstatic. In March, I had decided to transfer to a different university, so I was making my rounds, saying goodbye to friends I wouldn’t see again. On the eve of my move-out, I began to take things to my car after having dinner with Matt and Robert, Danny’s roommate. Upon my return to my room to continue packing, I looked around my shoebox of a bedroom, taking stock of what needed to be done. Piles of clothes lay strewn across my bed, papers and clutter lay on the desk. A black mini fridge stared back at me, one that I’d found in the garage at home and lugged down to college. I could have moved it down to my car alone, but what would be the fun in that?  

I crossed my room to my phone on the bathroom counter. I found Matt’s number from a previous group chat we’d been in with Robert and Danny and began crafting the perfect message. 

“Are you around the rest of the night?” I asked him. Cool, casual, not too assuming but maybe I’d be able to gauge his willingness to see me.  

“Yeah, other than Top Golf. What’s up?” Matt replied. 

“Would you help me move a mini fridge into my car? Or tomorrow morning?” I threw my phone onto the bed face-down, pacing back and forth. Had I been too bold? I should have just moved this myself; I definitely could have. What happened to my independence era? This was all stupid.  

My phone buzzed again, and I picked it up cautiously, afraid of what I would find.  

“Sure, just let me know when and I can help.” 

I squealed quietly, feeling the butterflies in my stomach that I had when we’d first met back in October. I reminded myself that nothing was certain, he was just doing me a favor. I texted him back with plans to meet in the lobby in fifteen minutes.  

As the fifteen minutes inched by, my anxiety grew. What was I going to talk about with him, and did he have any sort of expectations of me to entertain or hang out after the fridge was moved? 

Matt and I met in the lobby of my floor, lit up by harsh fluorescent lights and covered in green and gold, our school colors. He wore a blue sweatshirt with his high school logo emblazoned on it, his hair short on the sides but enough to show those beautiful dark curls. We made nervous small talk as I led him down the narrow hallway to the bedroom I shared with my roommate, who blessedly had gone out of town earlier in the day. Suddenly realizing that I had a boy coming to my room, I had made the necessary changes in my packing process to keep the state of our relationship intact, pushing off any additional chance of awkwardness. A lady never shows her folded underwear and clothes strewn all over the floor on the first hangout.  

We chatted about our summer jobs, the unfortunate necessity of living with our parents for the next few months, and what it was like living in a dorm room. I watched as he moved the fridge to the dolly that we had picked up in the lobby, and we walked it downstairs, through the lobby with tall ceilings and green furniture, out the glass doors and onto the sidewalk. He waited there with the fridge while I ran to get my car out of the parking deck across the street, a little beige Honda CR-V. Still full of nerves, I practiced breathing. This is going well so far. Do I invite him back to my room when we finish moving? Does he expect something from this? He’s a nice guy, so maybe he doesn’t have any alternative motives...but what will I do if he does? 

I pulled the car around to where Matt was standing and jumped out, suddenly conscious of my outfit. I wore a simple grey sweatshirt with a Nike logo on the breast that I stole from my dad’s closet on one of my visits back home. I looked nothing like the other girls on the sidewalk walking past us wearing cute outfits. I thanked him profusely while he lifted the fridge into the trunk of my car, me standing behind him with arms reached out as if to catch it should it fall. I knew full well that I would not be any help if this should occur but felt that at least acting helpful was the polite thing to do. 

We loaded the fridge into my trunk, I thanked Matt, and returned my car to the parking deck. While walking back to the dorm, I thought about how sweet he had been to help me, and racked my brain for something I could offer him in return. I rounded the corner of the deck out onto the street and saw Matt standing where I had left him outside the dorm. He looked up from his phone and smiled, and I waved and smiled back. Shit, shit, shit. He is waiting for me to come back. That was so sweet, he waited to make sure I got back safe. Mom is gonna love this. Wait, does he think I am going to invite him upstairs? Is he expecting something? What is he expecting? Is he waiting to walk me back up to my dorm for safety? He’s a guy, but to what degree? My stream of consciousness had an expiration date, thank God, and I walked across the street to Matt wearily. Play it cool, play it cool.  

“I’m sorry that took so long. I got held up on the deck and couldn’t find a good spot. Thanks for waiting,” I managed to get it out and walked straight to the front door of the dorm.  

“No problem, you didn’t take long at all,” Matt followed me inside with the dolly. After dropping it off at the front desk, we walked together to the elevator. 

“I just went to Insomnia tonight and got some cookies. Thank you so much for moving the fridge, can I offer you one? They’re in my room,” I asked him nervously, totally unsure what would come next.  

“Yeah, sure, that sounds good. Thanks,” Matt smiled, and we went back to my room. Once inside, I handed him a cookie, and we talked about his first semester of college, back when he had been a nursing student. He told me about the cadaver lab and how the formaldehyde smelled like chemical fumes, and I listened intently, thankful once again that I was in the social sciences. We talked for about ten minutes, he ate the cookie, and left, thanking me on the way out. 

Four days later, we had both moved back to our parents’ houses in Huntsville for the summer and were getting ready for our first time hanging out alone. There is an annual festival held downtown, and we went under the guise of getting content for my social media internship. Matt picked me up in the Target parking lot, equidistant between our houses and downtown. Unsure if it was a date, but hoping it would turn out to be, I dressed in a popcorn cardigan, black top, and denim shorts, aiming for cute casual. He wore an orange Auburn polo and khaki shorts.  

The night ended abruptly with a rained-out festival only an hour after we’d arrived. Matt drove us back to Target, and there we sat, talking. An hour turned into two, three, and ultimately five. We talked about our parents, our siblings, the loss of my grandmother the previous summer, past relationships, and fears. We listened to fantastic music, and I perused through his playlists, which was all I needed to know to determine if we had a future.  

He’s a guy, but to what degree? I wondered as we sat and talked. Matt seems harmless, genuine. What guy would tell me about his mom getting sick on the first date if he didn’t trust me, if he wasn’t good? What if he tries something gross? Matt never once pulled anything disrespectful. He did kiss me, and I kissed him back with all the anxiety and excitement of a girl’s first kiss, not to mention the shame of such a monumental moment taking place in a Target parking lot.  

“I really have to go,” I said at eleven-thirty, and midnight, and two a.m. “It’s late, nobody’s even out. We should both be in bed.” 

“I agree, we should both go home and go to sleep. Maybe after one more song, did I show you this playlist?” Repeatedly, Matt got me to stay with “just one more song,” and I started falling in love as we explored his music taste, and I explored his green eyes.  

I eventually got home at 2:30 a.m., after we decided to see each other again the next day. An hour after we each got home, we were still up texting, too excited to go to bed.  

“ok so question,” I asked, staring giddily at my phone.  

“hit me,” he replied.  

“what do you wanna be now,” I lifted my comforter and squealed. Despite us spending the last seven hours talking, this still felt risky.  

“whatever you want to be, dating sounds nice to me because i do in fact really like you. but it’s up to you,”  

“yes duh. dating it is” 

And just like that, I had my first real boyfriend.  

Now, almost two years have passed, and I find that this me is unrecognizable, and in a good way. When the outside world fell and it was just Matt and I, that is where my confidence began to grow. Without the outside noise of our friends, suitemates, and my expectations of what a guy wants from a girl, I was able to ease into our relationship. Between him and I, I could focus on what I wanted rather than what I thought I should be doing to please or impress him. I became less concerned about what I wore in front of him; I went from trying to dress well to dressing comfortably without a second thought. My perception of myself changed, as well as my perception of what guys want.  

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Four days after that date that ended in the Target parking lot, Matt and I walked into a local noodle shop. I ordered the basil pesto pasta and gazed into his sparkling green eyes.  

After he told me that he had celiac, the wheels started turning. The cookie I had offered him from Insomnia couldn't have been gluten-free. Didn’t he eat the entirety? What the heck? 

“But you ate that cookie last week. Didn’t that have flour?” I asked him.  

“I did, and it wasn’t great after the fact. I don’t know why I did it, looking back, it was silly. I guess I just wanted to spend more time with you, and the way to do that was to come into your room that night. If I had to eat a cookie to hang out with you, I was willing to do it.” 

I smiled. I was touched, but this kid had to be crazy. Who did he think I was that he wanted to see me so bad that he would poison himself? 

Our first date.

If I could tell that girl in her first semester of college, lonely and afraid to step out of her comfort zone one thing, it would be that she’s worth eating gluten for.  

Written for EN 305: Creative Nonfiction Writing at The University of Alabama, Spring 2024.