DAY 10

This is going to be a long one, but it’s full of tea, so take a sip!

My friend C got a message yesterday from a guy I was seeing on and off from December 2017 to end of March 2018. Not a long time, but a long enough time to fuck me up. And even though his message to her had nothing to do with me, and super casual, and really, actually boring, according to her, I feel the hit of memories whooshing back and I’m like... Okay fuck, I guess I need to deal with these emotions right now. 

I can’t really stand to write this, because there’s this angry part of me that’s like “if he finds this, he’ll know how much he affected you and that’ll boost his stupid ego and that’s the last thing on the planet that guy needs.” I told him about my graphic novel idea about all my past dating failures, and he said “am I going to be in your novel?” With a smirk. And after the failure of this relationship that barely was, I just didn’t want him to get the satisfaction. I told C that, I wanted so strongly for J to be a blip, and nothing more, but she could tell, he was so much more than that, even if I wasn’t willing to admit it to myself yet, and maybe… just consider that he might have a small piece in it. I groaned. Fuck no. But it’s true. He was more than a notch in my bedpost, more than a line in a song… Sorry, couldn’t resist the FOB ref.

But I have decided that this year, when I’m ready, I’m gonna write him a message. I decided this BEFORE he messaged her, I had already decided this so this event was not triggered, but planned. I’m not even sure what it’s going to say yet. It might even just be a link to this blog. Ha. Hi.. If you’re reading this… Here is an honest account of my memory of our relationship, and how it fucked me up.

I feel like I was really vulnerable at that time of my life. I didn’t have a job, and was trying to freelance on the side, but I was finding it really difficult to stay motivated. I had just lost a job that had me running home crying everyday because no one would talk to me. I felt like a social pariah and the amount I had opened up had left me feeling embarrassed and awkward about myself. I wasn’t their type of person, even though up until that point, I thought I could get along with anyone. I thought I was in control of what people thought of me because I believed I was personable. I learned some hard lessons that not everyone is going to like me, but that doesn’t mean I’m unlikable.

So when I lost that job, I was both relieved and terrified. Relieved to not have to go to a work environment that made me feel horrible about myself, but terrified that maybe I wasn’t a good fit for the jobs I wanted. I was also in a long distance polyamorous relationship. My boyfriend was 2.5 hours away and I was going on dates with guys from Tinder and Bumble all the time. I think one week I went on 4 different dates. All of them knew I was poly from my profile bio, so they were going into it knowing what the deal was. One guy lasted 3 dates, but there was some weird guilt I felt about dating someone else while my boyfriend was dealing with his life troubles. I think I just wasn’t quite ready. But then I met one other guy, and it went really well for about 8 dates until my friends expressed they didn’t really like him, and his sexual appeal immediately plummeted. I also ended up hooking up with a guy from my past for the first time ever, and it was... Not good. I was ready to quit dating. Everyone was turning out to be a disappointment.

I loved going out with my girlfriends, and I knew I wanted to try M again after a couple of years of taking a break from it. I went to a live music show with a girlfriend, M, and she gave me the M. MMM! It was well worth it. I felt so incredible and I didn’t want the feeling to stop. For a few hours, nothing could hurt me. Nothing. I felt so free and so happy.

A week or so later, I went to my favourite venue with C for another live music show. Very early into the night, we met these two really cool people, J and E. J is the man this blog is about. J was cute, but to be honest, he didn’t overly impress me right away, and I kinda thought him and E were dating so I had walls up. But as we got to talking, I learned that E was just a friend, and that we were both poly and it instantly bonded us. We exchanged numbers, but I was keeping my expectations low. He was poly after all, and despite being poly myself, I am very skeptical of other poly people until I understand their relationship a little more.

We went on a few dates, but I felt like I wasn’t really mentally there with him. I was feeling heavy bouts of guilt about my boyfriend, and I really needed to deal with that first. My boyfriend came to visit for a weekend and while it was fun, the spark was gone. I was easily irritated and I was starting to envision our break up. Within a few short days of him going home, I ended it. Terribly. Drunk, at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday, in texts. I know, HARSH. I had cancelled our phone call so I could hang out with friends, and I resented him for being upset. I needed him to not care because I didn’t care. It was over. I needed it over.

A month goes by, and J and I hardly talk. I assumed he’d moved on, because I already had. But I find out he’s going to my favourite venue again one night. I bring my friend L along, and the two of us got plastered. I barely remember talking to J, but I do remember making out with the friend he brought. Right in front of him. To be honest, I didn’t really think he’d care, but it turns out he did. He would later tell me that it made him jealous, and he realized how much he liked me. I was floored. I knew kissing his friend wasn’t an ideal way for him to see me, but I wanted to fix it. I wanted to prove to him that he could trust me, because he COULD.

Within a few weeks, we started to get closer. He and his previous poly girlfriend had broken up as well. And he told me it made him realize he didn’t want to be poly anymore. He didn’t feel like it was for him and he wanted a commitment that felt secure. I wanted it too. I have never really been monogamous so I was ready to dive in, and he felt like the absolute perfect person for that. It all clicked for me, and I wanted him. I adored him.

What REALLY brought us together the most was M. After the night with my girlfriends, I knew I wanted more and he would provide. We went to my favourite venue, again and again. He’d bring out the M, and I was in heaven. He treated me like I was the only person in the room he could ever have eyes for and it felt like a fucking fairytale. He would wrap his arms around me all night and I felt so safe and wanted. I didn’t really understand what he saw in me, like some magic spell was cast on him not to see how shit I was, but he didn’t seem to see it. He said the most perfect things. Things like:

“Everything is so easy with you. I love that I can be myself around you.”

“You’re not like other girls. I’ve never met anyone like you. You're just so fun and you don't care what people think.” (NOT TRUE!) 

“Fuck it, let’s just fall in love.”

I just felt like either he swindled me like a fucking con-artist, or he had to have actually felt all of those things. It was so good to be seen the way I thought he saw me. I hadn’t felt that way in a long ass time.

But he did admit to me that he was seeing another girl, shortly after I kissed his friend. He was dating this girl who was madly in love with him, according to him. Buuut, he wasn't that into her. "She isn't you." He said. This made me feel uneasy because I wasn’t prepared to compete with anyone anymore. Not after all the conversations we had about quitting on poly. But he told me that night that he wanted it to be just us. I have never been so fucking thrilled. It's everything I've ever wanted. Something no one has ever given me... No joke.

I tried my hardest not to go crazy while I waited for him to end things with her. But days go by. Days and days. I ask him about it, politely, but he starts to get annoyed with me. He tells me that I am putting too much pressure on him and that it’s off-putting. I can’t believe I’ve been turned into this. I was POLY girl. I could handle anything. I could handle my ex-boyfriend’s extremely jealous wife, but right now, I couldn’t handle this guy who I was falling in love with to take a few days to tell some girl that it was over. But I couldn’t understand why it was taking a few days. If he wanted to do it, why was it so hard? Was having her adoration and affection just that good that he wanted to still hold onto it? Wasn’t my adoration and affection enough?

He does it though. It apparently goes over okay, even though she didn’t want to accept it. But I let it go. He said he did it, so I believe him. We have another couple of really great weeks and all the stress of the previous issue was gone.

Things feel really good with him again. We go on some incredible dates. We talk about going into business together. He wanted to offer me some design work for some of his freelancing. I was SO grateful. In a time where I just didn't really believe in myself, he believed in me. We joke about being a husband and wife team one day. I say that sounds like a bad idea in the making, but he tells me that's sort of his dream. I could envision how cute that would be.

Then he decides to throw a party. A St. Patty’s party. He has a lot of really beautiful female friends he tells me. Some of them really like him. He says he has a bit of a history with them, but I shouldn’t worry. And I don’t. I really don’t. Again, I’m poly girl. Like you can make me jealous but you can’t make me act out on my jealousy. I don’t do that. But I can tell he is trying to trigger me. He tells me about a very jealous ex-girlfriend of his. He LIKED how jealous she was. He tells me he put her in a psych ward after he cheated on her, but that she pushed him to cheat because she was always accusing him. I start to question this in my mind but because I’m already so in love with this guy, I ignore this insane red flag he is waving.

The party comes and I help him get ready. Things feel.. Weird. He is being quiet. He is very stressed out. He says something extremely cruel to me… He says: “What if you came into my bedroom and I was fucking another girl at my party? What would you do?”

I stare at him in awe. “I would leave.”

“Really?”

“I would go right home. You would never see me again.”

“Huh..”

“Why would you say something like that to me? That’s really hurtful.”

He goes silent. I don’t think anyone has ever asked him this before. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I would say that. I was just shit testing you, but I shouldn’t do that.” He comes over and gives me a hug. “I’m really sorry.” This wasn't the first time he said something like this to me. He joked about fucking other girls often. It was weird. I don't know what he wanted me to say. It was just mean. I made the mistake of telling him he was reminding me of my verbally abusive ex when he said stuff like that, which is an entirely other story for another blog post. I never should have compared him to my ex because he wasn't like him at all. But the weird mean things he would say were triggering. I think back on his extremely jealous, insecure ex. Did he say these sorts of things during their relationship? Or did this talk come about after they dated? Cause I could imagine all of this talk would make someone go crazy. He is planting the seed of doubt. The seed that makes you question whether he is trustworthy. Enough “I could fuck someone else if I wanted” jokes will make you think he might be fucking someone else.

I don’t want to do drugs at his party this time. I’m feeling a little weird by what he said. I decide that alcohol is all I want that night and that I’m going to keep a little bit of distance from him for the rest of the night too. But as I get more and more drunk, I forget more and more. I don’t remember doing this, but eventually, I do end up taking M from J. I end up kissing another girl at the party. J doesn’t seem to have a problem with this. I am enjoying and focussing on her and his other friends. I want J’s friends to like me. But there are parts of the night that do get weird. I get talked down to by some random girl. The memory is gone, but my friends tell me that she was giving me a lecture on how to live my life, and I should be ashamed of myself. Possibly because of all the making out I was doing with this girl. Either way, that ends, the M kicks in more and I am happy again. I pass out in J’s bed and wake up to.. No J. The morning comes and he is still partying downstairs. He has been doing drugs all night.

The party will not end. A few of J’s friends are loitering, drinking and trying to get more cocaine at 11 am. I end up helping J clean his entire house, without their help. I try to tell J to get them to go but he won’t do it. He is not assertive. He wants everyone to like him. I realize now that this is one of J’s major flaws. He wants to be universally liked, but that breeds a lot of bad company. I am done being nice, and start dropping hard hints that these people should probably just go find somewhere else to continue partying. Eventually, after 4 hours, they finally leave.

The house is completely finished being clean. He and I curl up into bed. Many conversations are had. He tells me he remembers trying to get me to do cocaine. He is mad at himself because he knows I don’t like it and didn’t want to try it, but I was too messed up to make a good decision. He says I didn’t end up doing it though, because I didn’t snort hard enough. I am shocked by this story. But the memory does come back and I remember trying to snort it. I am silently horrified with myself.

He is also speaking a lot of nonsense. He doesn’t make any sense. This is a common thing from him but I always found his nonsense talk very funny. But he doesn’t remember cleaning the house. He keeps telling me he is worried that his roommate will be pissed because the house is a giant mess. I reassure him, maybe 4-6 times that the entire house is clean, we cleaned it all, and his roommate won’t notice a thing. He doesn’t believe me.

More conversations happen, one that I will not bring up, but it was an alarming secret he should have told me long before that day. A secret that might have pissed off any normal person, but to tell me, an optimistic romantic, I immediately forgave him.

He also started to cry when he talked about a particular ex girlfriend. I felt so deeply for him in that moment because I could see how broken he was over her. She rejected his proposal to her. I can’t imagine how devastating that was for him. But for this reason, he wanted to wait to make us official. He wouldn’t say exactly why, but he just needed a little more time. He asked me to be patient with him, as he pulled me tighter. I would just melt into his arms and sigh. “Okay.”

I spend the night. The next morning, he gets a message from a girl at the party. A girl I met and really liked. She is upset about how things didn’t work out with him. He is mocking her to me. “She’s done this so many times. She can’t get over me.” I have noticed a pattern with J. Girls keep coming back to him. He doesn’t fully cut ties with any of them. I find this odd. He had even mentioned visiting and spending time with the ex who broke his heart back in another city. She wanted to fuck him, even though she has a new boyfriend. The insanity of all these strings this man isn’t cutting loose is starting to get to me. He keeps each one of them close enough to come back to in case he changes his mind, or if it doesn’t work out with a particular girl. Perhaps this is why he doesn’t want to abandon the girl who was so in love with him completely. Keep her on the back burner in case this slow burning dumpster fire he’s lighting starts to ignite...

It reminds me of a weird conversation we had about my ex-boyfriend. He asked me if I still loved him. I told him no. I went into detail about why for a few minutes. But he questioned me. He thought I gave too many details, and that maybe I was trying to hide something from him. I re-enforced the strong no. My break up with my ex happened because I wasn’t in love anymore. He asked if when I visited Lethbridge, did I see my ex. I told him no. He let the conversation go but this felt really off to me. Like he was expecting a different answer. One that would remind him of his own behaviour of not being able to let go of anyone.

The next day I come by with soup because he’s still very sick from his party. I take care of him, and start to feel really endeared to this version of him. I have never been a nurturing lover. EVER. I’ve always been the one my partner takes care of. This part of me that was coming out was brand new to me. I liked it. I could see a future with him. I felt that this weekend was just a weird bump and the weirdness was going to pass because no relationship is ever perfect. But I love him. He still doesn’t know this. But I think he can tell anyway.

I finally receive a job offer. Two in fact! It’s the best fucking news ever and I have the choice between two different jobs. I am elated. J seems happy for me. But this is where things start to change. He makes a rather unsettling joke about how I must have fucked the interviewer. I don’t laugh, but just gasp. I tell him I would never. I can’t believe he thought that would be a funny thing to say. It was so mean. Did he really not trust me? Was he trying to push me away?

He needs to go on a trip the following weekend. He needs someone to drive him to the airport and he asks me to. I of course say yes because he says the perfect thing. “The last face I want to see before I leave is yours.” He texted this to me at 1 am the night before...

Fuck, I am such a sucker. So I do it. I show up to his house 20 minutes before we need to leave. I call him. He’s still in bed. I’m confused. I get inside. He is very sick. He had partied hard the night before and was puking in the bathroom. He didn’t pack his bags, and we needed to leave ASAP. He is slowly, weakly grabbing things and I am internally freaking out. He can’t hear it, but I am fucking screaming. I don’t want him to miss his flight. I get him some water. I shove his shit into a suitcase. I am extremely unimpressed. He pukes some more while I wait at the foot of the front door, already had thrown his stuff into my backseat.

I drive him there while he curls up into my lap. I put on a song. “Mess is mine” by Vance Joy. He smiles and tells me it’s the perfect song. Writing this is making me cry right now, FUCK!

His weekend goes by. I don’t really text him a ton, just enough. I let him have fun. I ask him if he wants me to pick him up from his flight when he is back. He says yes, gratefully. I am so happy. I would do anything for him at this point.

I pick him up and it seemingly goes well. I come inside and we sleep together for the last time. I am so fucking happy you guys. I had bought us tickets to see Lights for the next night. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to share all of the best parts of my life with this guy. I adored him. I would have spent every day of my life from then on with him. I just couldn’t resist his stupid fucking face.

Lights comes. Right before the concert we sit down and have a few drinks at a bar. He has something to tell me. He fucked someone. On his trip. I stare. I’m pretty shocked. This is the guy who wanted monogamy. It was HIS idea. I knew we weren’t officially dating yet, but after all the things he told me, it seemed like we weren’t looking for anyone else’s attention anymore. He tells me that the only reason he did it was because he wanted to impress his guy friends who all thought he was so cool. He says he regrets it. He says he feels really bad. I tell him it’s okay, but I feel sick to my stomach. His reason for doing it seemed really pathetic to me. Like how low of a self-esteem do you have to have to think fucking a stranger makes you cool… Eyeroll.

But we enjoy the concert anyway. It’s amazing. I love Lights so much. I am letting loose and being my silly, happy, dancey self. I’m with this guy, even though he’s not perfect, and he is throwing red flags at me left and right, I am still fucking giddy and stupid for his smile, and the way he looks at me. I try to remember that night and wonder what I might have done to break it all. But there’s no way I could have broken it. I was so happy and carefree that night. Perhaps I wasn’t jealous enough...

Days go by. My best friend from out of town is coming to stay with me. But she is going to leave for April 1st. I ask J if he will be my April Fool. I ask him if he will go skating with me before the winter ends. He says yes. I can’t fucking wait.

As my friend stays with me, J is being distant and weird. He takes longer and longer to text back. He is being short with me. I am feeling ill now. I know something is wrong. I tell my visiting friend about what’s been going on, and how he fucked someone while he was on his trip. She couldn’t believe it. She was PISSED for me. I tell her that it was okay, we aren’t in a full on relationship yet. But she isn’t willing to let that slide. “He never should have let you pick him up and sleep with you after doing that. Are you fucking kidding me?!”

She is right. I was choosing to ignore another massive red flag because I was tripping so hard for him. I was letting go of some seriously important standards. I try to text him, because I’m feeling like we need to have a talk. I think it comes through in my text… He then says: “I’ve been on a drug bender all weekend. I’m sorry.” My stomach does flips. Is this really who he was? Was I dating a drug addict?

He also says “I didn’t fuck anyone else if that’s what you’re worried about.” I am fucking shook. I hadn’t even thought about it, but here he is, bringing it up. It was the worst thing he could say. I spend my weekend with my best friend in shambles. This guy was ruining everything. He was sabotaging what had started out as something I would take a fucking bullet for. And now I couldn’t believe I had let myself get this far with it all.

April 1st comes. I text. He doesn’t respond. My friend is afraid to leave me because she knows how much pain I’m going through. But she has to go, and I’m shaking. My voice is constantly cracking. I know what’s coming and nothing good can come from it. The afternoon turns into the evening and J has decided to completely blow off our date.

So I wrote him a book, basically. It took me hours to write. I told him what I really thought about all the drugs he was doing, the fact that he fucked someone else to impress his friends, and the weird mean things he would say to me. After my best friend went home, I laid in a chair in the pitch black, looking out my window and bawled for literally hours. Why would he do this? What did I do? Did something change? I couldn’t understand any of it. I was just heartbroken. I waited for him to respond for what felt like a full day. But it was late, 8pm.

“I just woke up. I slept all day. I appreciate that you took the time to write that to me. I’m really sorry.”

That was it.. That’s all he had to say to my book. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t even really breathe.

C came over. She let me cry on her. This was my April Fool’s day. I was the April Fool. She tells me to tell him not to text me for a few days, because I am starting my new job and I need to focus on that. I tell her I really wanted to go skating today, that that was what J and I were supposed to do. We grab skates and go. But the skating rink is closed for the season. Even still, I can’t believe I won the lottery with this best fucking friend, holy shit.

But as the week starts, I decide to Google about the secret he brought up to me that I will keep a secret here. I lose my shit. I text him. I am not very nice. He reassures me it's taken care of. I lighten up, but I am still so so angry. I can’t deal. I know I had told him not to text me for a few days, but I ruined it and texted him first. I decide to ignore his last message and move on with my life.

Weeks go by. Nothing from J. Except the likes. He likes everything on my fucking instagram. Every. Single. Fucking. Thing. He watches all my instagram stories. His stupid little face shows up, and I can see it. Haunting me. I hate it. I hate him. Is this what he does to other girls? Pops his little head in to say he’s still there? He still cares? If you change your mind, I still like your content, girl. Perhaps this is one of his little ways to making all the girls in his life question if they still have a shot with him. But I’m smarter than that this time. I want him to go away for good. So I block him. On all my social media. I go to every single one of my many instagrams and block his account. I need him out of my life. I am a deleter. I don’t chase people if they don’t chase me. I am somewhat cruel and cold when I need you to leave me be. Does he think I might come back? Like all the other girls? Let me delete that possibility.

But I don’t block his number. Because maybe, just maybe, he will have something better to say than “I’m sorry.” But nothing comes. 2 months goes by and I am at a wedding. My FIRST EVER WEDDING! Okay it’s not my first but it was the first reception I’d been to that I wasn’t 3 hours late for. I get fucking HAMMED. It’s a wedding so of course I am on a ranty rant about how much I hate dating and how terrible men in this city are. My friends are cackling. They adore this version of me because it’s very bitchy and very funny. Everyone decides to keep partying, but they drop me off at home because I am trashed.

I wake up the next morning, lay there, feeling like hell. I want to die. And then I get a text.

“Was that on purpose? Lol” From J.

Okay, so now I’m REALLY dead. I feel like hurling myself over the balcony. I check my phone. I called him, TWICE. Drunken me had apparently wanted to make things interesting. I don’t remember doing any of it, and have no idea if a conversation was had at all. Or worse. A voicemail. FUCK. All I know is, he knows I called him and that’s the saddest, most pathetic decision I could have ever made. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

I go to his contact number and block and delete him. I delete the text. And then I delete the calls.

I thought about undoing it but it was too late. I thought about writing him a long message about how embarrassed I was that I had called him and I wasn’t conscious when it happened. I just wanted to remove any chance of me being able to reach out to him again, because I apparently cannot be responsible with a cellphone while drunk at weddings.

So that was that. I forgot about it and moved on. Two more small things happened, before him talking to C and brought him to mind again. One was an instagram account I was following. They showed his picture. They had just hired him. I stare at the picture and glare. I had applied to that company too. Awkward…

And then, not too much long after that, I got a like on a picture from my instagram from another account of his. I had to double check. At the top of the account was his full name. UGH. He is still following me. Probably not too often, but enough to have liked a photo of mine months later, when you would think he would have unfollowed me too. I wonder if he did that on purpose because he wanted me to see, or if he did it by accident because he didn’t think I’d make the connection. I don’t know. I just haven’t had the gall to block that account yet. Because I feel like it’s the last piece that allows me to hold on to him, and perhaps, him to me.

So yeah... It sits in the back of my mind sometimes. I don’t want to date this man. I told him that in my book. That the person that was he was slowly showing me wasn’t dateable. He was a mess. And he knew that. I think that’s why we hadn’t made it official. He had a lot of work to do. And I did too. I still do. I just wanted so badly for us to work on our shit together. I really liked the good parts of him because he was so funny, and smart. Even my most judgey friends liked him at first. Most of all, I liked who I was when I was with him. At least when he wasn’t shit testing me. I liked taking care of him. I liked driving him to the airport and laying on the couch all day. But I can do that with someone who doesn’t need cocaine, and M, and weed to have a good time. We went to a movie together, and he admitted to me the day AFTER that he was extremely high during the entire thing. I didn’t even know. And it makes me wonder… Was it even him who told me all those wonderful, fanciful things I wanted to hear? Or was it the M? Or coke?

So yeah, J. You affected me. Congratulations. I hate it. You were good to me for a short time, and I hope that you have straightened yourself out. I hope that you never do what you did to me to anyone else. Promise them the world, and then sabotage the whole thing with shit testing, drugs, and keeping really important secrets secret. You know you can do better. Maybe you were just a fuckboy who was finally ready to un-fuck himself, but then you fucked it all up and decided to torch the whole thing. Torch it before I torched it. Maybe you just wanted to get to end before I did because you knew it was coming. Or maybe you just didn’t mean all the things you said. All I really want to know, if I can have ONE question answered is… Was any of it real?

I guess I’m just hoping that someday, someone will say all those things to me without drugs. And fucking mean it.

And C said he has a new girlfriend now. Good for him. I hope he doesn’t hurt her. I hope that she doesn’t hurt him either. I want him to be happy. And I don’t need him to ever talk to me again. Closure is overrated. I just wanted to say all this because it’s obvious my wounds aren’t completely healed over this. I mean… I cried a couple times already. Yikes. But believe me, I’m not crying over him. I’m crying for the happy me, whose heart had grown 3 sizes larger. I definitely deserve to be that happy again, and for better reasons than those.

I was extremely happy last night. I went with C to Rocky Horror Picture Show at this small local theatre. We didn’t come prepared at all, but everyone else did, and what was most fun was not knowing what to expect. I could not wipe the smile off my face.