Hey, you guys.Lord. That's about right.
The first boyfriend I ever had was when I was 18. It was fairly serious, and though I insisted on not being ready for sex, he always tried and tried to pressure me into it. Do it. No. If you love me, you'll do it. If you love ME, you'll stop asking. Do it. I said no. Thank God I never did. It was an abusive relationship, emotionally, and he pretty much made me feel worthless all the time. Eventually I grew a backbone, stood up to him, and dumped him. It took a lot, and one of the last things he said to me was "You're never going to find another guy who'll treat you half as good as I did."
I didn't think that was possible, of course. I mean, with the way he treated me on an everyday basis, I was damn sure that I would find a guy who would at least treat me marginally better in six months or so.
I was single for three years. Those years grew very long, all things considered. I went through the healing process, I got over my ex completely, and I tried to put myself out there and meet people.
The next guy I fell for was a difficult situation. It involved a jealous on-again, off-again ex who wanted to keep the fellow's man-parts in a vice-trap. God help me, every single time he'd try to spend time with her to work things out between them, and she'd ditch him, I'd be there, whether it was to talk, or to play Magic, or to just sit on the couch and watch Venture Brothers or Metalocalypse. I remember waking up to answer my phone at 4 AM once because I wanted to make sure he was doing alright. I bent over backwards more than most girlfriends would do. And I wasn't even dating him. He wouldn't give me the time of day, because he wanted to try and work things out with his lying, cheating ex.
I was a silver medal. A backup plan.
That realization hurt a lot. It was then that I began to wonder what about me wasn't good enough. I gave and gave and gave emotionally until I didn't have anything left to give. I never asked for anything in return but a chance, and I couldn't even get that. I told him I couldn't carry on like that anymore. He didn't even seem to understand why I was upset. When I tried to explain myself, he got defensive and angry with me. He couldn't or wouldn't understand why I was so hurt by all of it.
I remember, one of the last times I actually talked to him seriously was an evening when I'd gone over to his house to play Magic with him. We sat in his tiny little kitchen until around 5 AM, and then we started talking. I asked him how things were going. We talked more. And it was then, sitting there in that little kitchen filled with houseplants, looking at his vaguely-yellow linoleum floor, that I realized something.
I was never going to be good enough for him. Ever. There was literally nothing more that I as a human being could do to win him over. He had to make that decision himself. And he already had made his decision. I told him that, with an amused smirk. I also told him that he was stupid. I'd realized, in that startling moment of clarity, that even I deserved better than that-- and my self esteem is just terrible.
I told him he was stupid and that I wasn't going to wait around for him to take his man-parts out of the vice.
We haven't actually talked seriously since then. I told myself I was over him and everything was dandy. I even went on a couple of dates. Nothing was really serious and nothing went anywhere, but I tried. I felt like I was doing great.
Then, tonight, another one of those moments of clarity hit me. But not good clarity. Bad, bad clarity I could have done without. I miss him. I still want him to want me. What's wrong with me? Do I just enjoy abuse? Am I a sucker for punishment? Do I desperately want to believe that even though someone treats a person like crap, they can still love them?
Dear Blog...
I'm a damned idiot!
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