Friday, 27 November 2009

• Love makes you Blind? Try Stupid.

  
  

  I am an idiot. Let me explain by first giving you some history...

  I only ever had one boyfriend. I've dated around before, but no one met all of my specifications like this guy did. When we met, he was a virgin, and more importantly a Christian. He is smart and plays video games and has interesting hobbies like snowboarding and speaking fluent German. We saw eye to eye on almost everything, especially politics. I never actually wanted a serious boyfriend until him. And even when he asked me, I wasn't sure if I was ready for the challenge, but if there was anyone I wanted to try being serious with, it was him.

  As great as he sounds on paper, he wasn't nearly so great in practice. Again, I shall explain.
  

  I never had the opportunity to celebrate Valentine's Day with anyone, and I was really excited that this time I had a boyfriend who might celebrate it with me. We only started dating in January, so I wasn't so sure if it was too soon for holidays. Regardless, I bought him a card, wrote him a love note, and bought him a book. The reality was this: he took me to a burger joint; I paid for my own meal; he didn't even kiss me; and I felt like a fool for buying him anything so I kept the book for later and just gave him the card and the note. He explained to me that he doesn't celebrate Valentine's Day, but I knew that he celebrated it before with his ex that he loved for years.

  Our dates consisted of me going to his house and watching him play computer games and surf the web. Sometimes we would watch movies, but they were always what he wanted to watch- and nothing I was ever really all the interested in, like zombie movies and action war movies that got horrible ratings. When we would talk about going out to eat, he would ask me where I wanted to go. Every time I made a suggestion, he would turn it down. We would eventually end up wherever he felt like eating, even though I've tried many times asking him where he wanted to go, and he would always make me "choose."

  For our birthday, which is only a week apart so we celebrated them together, I bought him a PSU stuffed animal and a video game. I think I also gave him another card and another love letter. He gave me a router that he didn't even bother wrapping. Turns out, he didn't even buy the router himself, and he ended up having to give it back to his friend that bought it for him. So, you could say I never got a birthday gift.

  The first time he told me he loved me, he was drunk and he said it in German. He later told me it was a mistake and that he didn't mean it just yet. A couple weeks later, he sent it to me in a text message while he was laying right beside me. It felt just as insincere as the drunken German. It's funny that when I recalled this memory to him only a few short months ago, he remembered it quite differently. He is convinced he whispered it into my ear that day, but I saved that text message and wrote about it in my journal. But I digress, a couple weeks after that, he had already fallen out of love with me... and he blamed it on me.

  He always got irritated with my little quirks. He used to say things like "my friends think you think so highly of yourself for always quoting these random movies no one has ever heard of. no one likes that" or he would tell me that my singing in the car along with the radio was annoying, etc etc. So I stopped all of that, for him. But I never once pointed out his obnoxiously rude burping in public places, or picking his toenails constantly, or even spitting on my carpet for no apparent reason. I always just shrugged it off, even if these things did take me aback at first.

  When we were on a break... because he had fallen out of love with me so soon for my quirks, he had hung out with his ex alone to tell her that he didn't love me because I am too stupid. However, in high school, I had higher level classes than he did. The only reason we knew each other in the first place was because we shared an honors class together, the only one he had. ...And he failed out of engineering school in college. But again, I digress. This was also the ex he told he had sex with me for the first time when he was still in bed with me. I watched him text her, but I didn't think he could possibly be talking about having sex with his ex girlfriend. So much for having special, private, intimate moments... and hello to being just a notch on the bed post.

  I used to tell him I wanted to wait to have sex. When I said "wait," I meant until marriage, but I didn't want to scare him away. He interpreted as I wanted to wait because I didn't think we would last long in a relationship. He later went on to tell me that he couldn't fully invest himself in our relationship after I had told him I wanted to wait because of this interpretation of his. Why did he even bother having sex with me then anyway?

  He got really drunk one night and made out with a girl who had openly confessed to him that she had feelings for him. He cried afterward, and texted me that he really did love me. That's how I knew something was wrong. When I picked him up from the place where the crime had occurred, he couldn't even look at me, or talk to me, But I took him in my car and let him sleep at my place for the night. After he confessed about what had happened, he remained friends with the girl and continuously denied that she had feelings for him when she outright told him that she did. They would eventually date for a couple weeks, and in that short period of time they would have sex. But he always hated smokers, and that's what eventually led him to break up with her. Why date someone who you know smokes when you hate it and know you're just going to break up with them over it anyway?

  I used to tell him that I loved him every night before bed. I stopped doing that because he never responded. He later went on to tell me that was because it made him cry because he didn't feel the same way. I always waited around, hoping that he would love me back someday, but I realized he only ever said that he did when he wanted me to stick around after I was on the verge of leaving him.

  The ex he loved for years caused a slew of problems, too. Well, she didn't cause problems, but his actions towards her did. He would comment on how he liked her hair long and that she shouldn't cut it. When I went to visit him at college (which, by the way, he never visited me at mine. I always had to go see him), he ignored me to talk to her online. I just sat on his couch and watch it happen. When I figured out who he was ignoring me for, I cried in his bathroom and it wasn't until then that he noticed me. He lied to me about texting her. And most importantly, after I had stressed to him that I was concerned by how close he was getting to her when he had loved her and he wasn't there with me yet, after a year of dating (they only dated for 9 months), he ended up invited her and her friend over at his apartment. He didn't tell me this. And when he started making friends with all of her friends online, he lied to me about. Not only did he fail to mention that he met one of them, but even the ex had no idea why he was making friends with the rest of her friends. I still have yet to know the truth.

  I broke up with him after we had a conversation about my ovarian tumor. He was ignoring the issue for weeks, and had only had this comment to make at first- "at least you can have free unlimited sex." But when I finally got him to come right out and say what was on his mind, he said he couldn't see marrying anymore (yes, he actually talked to me about wanting to marry me someday) because he wanted to have kids.... but he could see being with me for a long time. That's when I had to say goodbye.

  He didn't seem to want me to go. Once, he showed up in a suit with roses and took me out to eat. He cried to me in the phone, and I told him what had to change. None of it did. But somehow, we were off and off from February to October, and during that time he was flirting around with the girl he cheated on me with and eventually dated her, like I had mentioned earlier. He neglected Valentine's Day again even though this time he knew how important it was to me, and it was during the time he still wanted to get back together. For my birthday, he purposefully ignored me because he knew it would piss me off. And after he dated this girl, he came right back to me. At first, I didn't buy into it, but a few weeks went by and we were friends again. And he promised he would make it up to me and be a better boyfriend to me. So I waited around for him to ask me out, but he said he wanted us to be better friends at first. I felt like he was using me for the all the kissing and touching. When we got in an argument during this time, he called me a bitch and a cocktease, yet he tells everyone he was perfectly nice to me on all accounts.

  And I know I had said we would start a clean slate, but it was the first time I heard about him hanging out with both of his ex girlfriends alone, once to tell the one he thought I was stupid, and the other one during a time when I had told him I didn't feel comfortable with their friendship and he clearly lied to me about the details. I was livid, but I promised him I only needed to be mad for a day or two and then things would be alright again. I would also like you to know that he swore up and down that he was still not attracted to or had feelings for the ex that he loved for years, even after their 9 month relationship. But because I got mad, he ended our charade, once and for all. He said he deserved better... he deserved someone who wouldn't get care about who he was a year ago. However, it was only a couple of months ago that he was screwing the girl he cheated on me with and smoking cigarettes so much so that he uncontrollably puked black tar in every room of our friend's house. He also said that he wanted me to be happy and that I couldn't be happy with him. If my happiness was so important and if really thought I should trust him completely, then he shouldn't have commented on his exes photos about how "fucking sexy" she is just a couple days later. We had a conversation about this, and he feels it is okay to think his ex is sexy and still hang out with her while he is in a relationship. I don't know about that one. You'll have to tell me.

  But what really makes me the idiot is that I still try to get him to talk to me. I text him one day a week usually, but he just ignores them. He has me blocked on everything. I cry over him way too much and I think about him every day. I'm not sure that I miss him, but I hate that someone who I once thought was so perfect for me could reject me so harshly and leave me completely stranded over his mistakes. I know he is not trustworthy. I know he has no integrity. I know a lot of his friends don't even really like him and call him a douche bag. I know I should've been treated a lot better. But I can't help my feelings. I feel like my depression is bottomless and that I am worthless.

  How do you bounce back from such a horrible, drawn out relationship? How do you ever convince yourself that dating is worth it again? How can you possibly believe in the One and in Love after you've been through nearly two years of mistreatment, disrespect and emotional unavailability?

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