Page 1 of Basil

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THE WRONG FIT

SUMMER

“Is that outfit supposed to be boho chic?” Karen whispered.

No,really, her name was Karen, and shewasa Karen. She was also one of my boyfriend Basil’s polished, overachieving friends.

“Notchicin any way,” Drew, Basil’s best friend from college and now colleague, tittered.

They made a half-hearted attempt to keep their voices down, maybe to spare my delicate ears from hearing them bitch about me—but they weren’t trying very hard. So, of course, I heard every word.

Basil’s friend group was from his college years. They all studied engineering, and now lived and worked in Seattle. They were adept at making moneyandmaking anyone who wasn’t an executive at a tech company or from their rarefied circle feel excluded.

As Basil’s girlfriend, one would think I would’ve been accepted, but I wasn’t. I didn’t work in tech,andI wore boho not-chic dresses. I owned a holistic wellness store in Fremont and worked as a yoga instructor at my friend Meadow’s studio next door. We both lived in apartments above our stores and had been friends for four years, since we started our small businesses.

Fremont was packed with quirky boutiques and shops. It had a strong artsy hippie vibe, and we were a close-knit community. My friends were not like Basil’s. They liked him, made him feel included—and he had fun spending time with them. I, on the other hand, spent most of my time at these gatherings thinking, ‘I should’ve stayed home.’

When I first met Basil at a bar in South Lake Union, I thought we were from very different worlds, but I liked him, so when he asked me out, I said yes. As I got to know him, I saw who hereallywas—he wasn’t just the CEO of a successful tech startup—he was a nice guy who grew up in Magnolia. His father passed before I met Basil, but I adored his mother, Ellen, who had the biggest heart.

Basil met his current group of friends at the University of Washington. They were an ambitious lot, very status-driven, and the antithesis of who I was.

“All good, Sunshine?” Basil slid his arm around me and kissed my temple.

We were at his place in Insignia Towers on Bell Street where all thefancypeople lived. It was a great condo with floor-to-ceiling windows and a rooftop lounge—which was where he had thrown this shindig.

We’d now been together for two years and once the first blush of lust and attraction faded into love, I started to worry because there was a good chance I’d get hurt. His friends talked about stock options and IPOs like they were discussing the weather, my friends talked about charity fundraisers and community projects with the same casual enthusiasm. Neither was better or worse—just different. But sometimes, in the spaces between those conversations, I felt like an outsider inhisworld.

“Yes,” I lied.

I had spent the last hour smiling through thinly veiled insults, nodding politely as Basil’s friends joked about mylittle shopand how lucky I was to be with someone like him.

"It must be so nice not to have to stress about real work."

"I’d kill for a schedule like yours—just light a few candles and call it a day, right?"

“Yoga instructor? No wonder Basil is with you—you must beveryflexible.”

Then there were the remarks to Basil, which he seemed to laugh at, which I found insulting.

"Basil, you must love coming home to a woman who doesn’t know code from a crystal grid."

"Yeah, man, need a break from all the stressful business stuff sometimes.”

Translation:My girlfriend, Summer, is all fluff, with not a serious bone in her flexible body.

I used to laugh it off, swallowing my irritation with every sip of overpriced wine because I loved Basil and knew that, to be part of his life, I had to put up with this. But lately, I’ve started to wonder if it was worth it because sometimes, as the songs went, love was just not enough.

And, really, was asking his friends to treat me with respect reallythatdifficult for him? When I asked Basil why they said such things to and about me, he’d just brushed it off. “They’re all business nerds! They don’t get what you do, and who cares?”

I doubted that Basil got what I did. I had a feeling he agreed with them that I had this loosey-goosey job, which was not the case. I had a successful small business that paid my bills. I was twenty-five years old, and I’d started my shop right after I got my associate’s degree in business and my yoga instructor’s license. Sure, my shop Sage & Sunflower didn’t make as much money as Stratos Technologies, Basil’s company, but Ipaidmy bills,always.

Growing up in the foster care system, I’d never thought I’d have this kind of success—and, yes, I was proud of my achievements. I had a business. I taught yoga atThe Breathing Room,and all of it made me happy. I had friends who were like family. And, yet, every time I spent time with Basil’s friends they made me feel like a failure with their big jobs and titles, which I didn’t give two fucks about.

Basil left me to check on the caterers in his apartment, while I stood alone, ruminating over mysituation-shipbecause that’s what our relationship had become. I’d already started to think that we’d have to end soon. I couldn’t go on like this. It wasn’t healthy. I was stressed whenever I had to be with his friends to the point that my I’d feel anxiety in the pit of my stomach a day before I’d see them.

Ihadtried to talk to Basil about it to no avail.

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