Sunday night she texted me the verdict, “He doesn’t like me. I can tell.”
The short-lived crush was over, for one reason or another, but I’d have to wait until Thursday to hear the rest of her horror story.
Four days later, as I sat in my dentist/uncle’s waiting room an hour early and without a good book, I was saved from waiting room limbo by The Beautiful Woman.
The Beautiful Woman, decked out in a denim dress that made me wish we were still 9 years old and the same size, told me about her romantic crash and burn experience over coffee and waiting room magazines.
“Ok, so the first time we met we talked for hours, we had so much to say. This time it was all polite conversation. He was so not into me. Which is good, I suppose because I later found out that he hooked up with some other girl the night we met.” She said between sips.
“Ew,” I said.
“Yea, but it gets worse,” she said, “Not only did he hook up with some girl he just met, which makes him really gross, but he kept getting phone calls from his mom.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, “He has mommy issues?”
“Well, I knew he talked to his mom a lot, she called a few times the day I met him. But I didn’t think it was as bad as it is,” she said, pausing for emphasis. “While he was with that other girl, his phone was off. Now he wasn’t gone for days or anything, just a few hours. His mother tracked down the girl’s number from the service provider’s website, and CALLED HER PHONE. She called some strange girl’s phone in an attempt to talk to her 24 year old son.”
“Creepy!” I said
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m not touching that. I mean, I’m close to my parents, but that’s just ridiculous.”
As we continued to chit chat and laugh about her unfortunate dating disaster, I wondered about the all the so-not-a-good-idea guys we’ve narrowly avoided getting involved with.
In my romantic history there have been two that really stick out in my mind, and both occurred during the summer after I graduate high school. I was taking summer courses at the local community college, excited for the next chapter of my life to begin and nervous about a fall semester filled with freshman science weed-out courses. I decided to take a chemistry refresher course and soc 101. Even though I was shy and white as a ghost in the middle of July (this hasn’t changed. If you see an Irish(wo)man with a tan it’s rust), I had a member of the male gender interested in me in both classes.
The first man, we’ll call him Mickey, opened with the fact that he had a four year old daughter. He looked like Eminem and I think also mentioned a previous arrest during our brief conversation. He asked me to come with him to the party of a friend-of-a-friend. Thinking I’d probably end up raped, dead, or worse, I politely declined his invitation; but not after first unknowingly (and stupidly) giving him my phone number. He said he wanted it “in case he needed to get an assignment” and I was 18 and really, really, dumb.
He called me a few times after that, but soon realized I was never going anywhere in a car with him. At least not without a body guard and some sort of makeshift Vagina Dentata.
The next guy I actually allowed to take me out a few times. We’ll call him Bill. I met Bill in my chemistry class, and admired the fact that he seemed outgoing and smart. He was taking summer classes to get ahead a local private college where he was studying pre-med. He was suburban boy pretty, Abercrombie model-eque in his wardrobe, (unfortunately not in physique, but I didn’t mind*) He had a car, a job, a plan, and no previous criminal record or monthly child support payment. I hadn’t had a real date in two years. I thought this could work.
Then we went out with his friends.
His friends were great. I thought they were nice, they made me laugh, we did interesting things. They were smart and accepted me pretty quickly. I liked them.
What I didn’t like is how Bill acted around his friends.
Bill was the “I-like-to-pretend-to-be-gay-to-be-funny” guy. And after a few times observing him grabbing the asses of his male friends and hugging everyone entirely too much, I wondered if his falsetto was really just an act. He was loud and sometimes obnoxious, but he professed his undying love for me after only a few dates. I went along with it for about a month.
Then it all became too much to bear, I found myself not wanting to be seen in public with him. I had to end it. His light was on**, he was looking for a bride-to-be, and I could not imagine a life of childish antics…even if he was a doctor. Our breakup was pretty easy, no hard feelings. Or so I thought.
Then after I didn’t attend his birthday party (because that would be weird, right?) he sent me a nasty “real friends come to birthday parties” facebook message and I realized just the kind of crazy I narrowly avoided.
But you know, on the bright side, they gave me decent blog fodder.
What kind of relationship crazy have you narrowly avoided?
*Shaba is an equal opportunity dater.
** See SATC season three, episode 38-40ish. I’m only a super fan, not a supermega fan. Forgive me.
