Jolene Really Did Take My Man
Here’s What I Learned
It all started as the summer of 2010 approached. I was about to graduate university and desperate to move on to bigger, better things.
University had been an amazing experience but I felt a strong compulsion to move on and start fresh. My relationship with my former best friend — who also happened to be my boss — had started to sour, and it was affecting both my social life and income.
While I’d had a good life in the small town where I attended University, school was ending and I couldn’t find a local job. Even if I wanted to stay, life was starting to change irrevocably. My awesome university friends were all moving on to bigger things, and the place was starting to look like a mere ghost of what it had been. It was too painful to stay.
Since I couldn’t find a job in town — the repercussions of the 2008 recession were still being felt, I settled for a job in a resort area waiting tables. Room and board would be provided. I saw it as an adventure.
When I arrived at my new job, reality hit hard. Our home was an isolated barn like structure in the middle of the forest. Work was a kilometer’s walk away. We shared the barn with various lawn maintenance equipment.
There was only one other woman boarding along with me, along with 10 men. She was a recent high school graduate, and she was much younger than me. Let’s call her Jolene. In the already sexist environment of the restaurant industry, the lack of women made it especially sexist.
After a few weeks of work, my fresh graduate idealism and hope were thoroughly crushed. Unlike my friends at University, no one here cared about all my dreams and ideas and vision for the future. The only thing to do, the only thing people seemed to care about — was partying. I was teased about jogging every day to keep fit. I obviously had very different values from everyone there. We were miles outside of town, and without a car, the loneliness very quickly became overwhelming.
Now, amongst all the people there, one man named Will (everyone called him “Wookie”) had started talking to me on the first day. He was younger than me by a couple years and had bright blue eyes and tanned skin, and worked in the landscaping department. He struck up a conversation with me, and I thought he might be a good friend.
Until Jolene entered the room.
Jolene literally looked like Dolly Parton’s description in “Jolene.” And I knew, like good old Dolly, there was no way I could compete with that. Nor did I have any desire to. So it was only a bit offensive that he left my side, mid conversation, to go talk to her. I chalked it up to learning the true measure of the man.
Wookie and Joelene were inseparable for those first couple weeks. Always sitting together and chatting. Good for them, I thought. There was no PDA or other indication they were together as a couple, but their constant proximity was evidence enough for me.
Things got worse for me, in the meantime. I seemed to be permanently relegated to the early morning shift. This was an exhausting experience, since our residence was not soundproofed at all, and those working the evening shift would often party until 3:00 am.
One day, defeated, I decided to join them partying in spite of my 5:00 am wake up time. When I slept through my alarm and arrived at work 90 minutes late, I was reviled and received a hand written note stapled to my door. The bartender had written it, saying I was a disgrace to the establishment. The tension and bullying got worse. I felt more and more alone, sleep deprived with no one to turn to.
Finally, the shifts changed. Jolene took my place working the early morning shifts, and I was able to stay up late without consequence. Tensions eased a bit. One evening after work, I was hanging out with Wookie and some of the others. As the night wore on, Wookie started hitting on me. He put his hands on my leg and made other overtures. We were both drunk. Frankly, any physical contact was welcome. I was so sad and alone. Finally, someone was paying attention to me.
But, there was the matter of Jolene. For one, I wasn’t willing to be the accomplice to cheating, and I also wasn’t anyone’s side piece. I was the main course goddamnit. I told Wookie so.
“Jolene’s just a friend.” he said. I still hesitated, commented on all the time he had spent with her. “She’s just a friend.” he insisted.
And so I slept with him. It was terrible, he snored, but he stayed and snuggled me all night. And I felt seen, finally. It was all worth it, to have someone care about me. Writing it now, the way I felt seems so horribly naive. But this thought was all I had. Work was gruelling, (Our boss was a chef Ramsey wannabe) and I was socially ostracized constantly by the people around me.
That little thought that Wookie had chosen me, chosen me over Jolene no less, gave me life. When he would drive by on the lawnmower, I thought, there goes my man. I looked forward to when we might be together again. Hopefully it would be better.
But life seemed to get in the way. I took a couple days off to see my parents, and the shifts changed again and I had to start getting up early again. In spite of my optimism (and what I see now is denial), I started to wonder.
Now, this came to a head on a day when a bunch of us had the day off. Jolene, Wookie, myself and our coworker Phillip. Time went by and there was no sign of either Wookie or Jolene. My heart started to sink more and more. With time, noises started to happen. Unmistakable noises, coming from Jolene’s room. Which happened to be right beside mine. It was literal torture, as the light started to dawn on me what was happening. I couldn’t even go anywhere to be far away from the sounds. It was just a matter of waiting.
Sure enough, after what seemed like an eternity, Wookie came out of her room. When he went outside for a smoke, I cornered him and confronted him for lying to me.
Nothing could fix the pain I felt in that moment. I was a side piece. I was second best. How could I have stupid enough to think I ever could have competed with Jolene?
My very last shred of hope and comfort was completely obliterated. I was completely alone. That person, that smart idealistic person that had just finished an amazing college experience, surrounded by awesome friends and respectful men, was dead.
It was horrible. I spent weeks with a pit in my stomach. I could not look either of them in the eye for ages.
But, at least in this case, time did heal that wound. Wookie eventually apologized, for real. And it was good. The three of us hung out occasionally over the rest of the summer. Jolene and I even came to a place where we could joke about the incident. Other crazy stuff continued to happen at that resort. I bore the weight of that trauma for a long time, but I’m glad to have learned about the nuances of partnership and sex in a way I hadn’t before.
