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The Stories...
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Love Stinks. Sometimes we get dumped.
: submit your own
Unbelievable: He Broke Up With Me!
by HowTheHellDidThisHappen?
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I finally registered for a dating site after set-up after set-up. It is unsettling to have to explain to friends and family that particular people, whom they seem to like very much, make me want to throw up. I'm 28 and my clock's been ticking since age 14. I'm one of those annoyingly sweet, kind, relatively successful people who is ready, for the most part, to settle down. I'm pretty, too, which doesn't seem to help me NOT meet lying, conniving jerks.
He was the first person to write me on the dating site and the only person with whom I went out. I didn't even particularly like the sound of him, but I ignored it because we did have some things in common. Mostly, I liked the fact that he was originally from New York.
We went out and he was nice - sort of strange-looking, but nice. I did get a vague feeling that he had some control issues - he was a little demanding - but, of course, I'm never one to judge, which may be part of my problem in the first place. We dated for about five months.
I'll say this about him. He is 34 and does not like to share. Getting him to tell me the most basic things about himself - torturous. There were HUGE gaps in his history. What did you do for 12 years after college? Nothing.
Have you had any serious relationships? Silence, maybe a grunt or two.
I would have thought he was married and had children back in D.C, where he supposedly used to live, but his outright lack of social skills and knowledge about women in general convinced me otherwise. Who knows?
He lived in a small apartment, the floor covered in mud and dead bugs and leaves. I said, "Why don't you just live in the park? It would really be the same thing." (I was a little mean sometimes, but I would get frustrated.) His bathroom smelled like roadkill, his counters hadn't been dusted in, what looked like, years. He had just a couch, a kitchen table, and a small table in his room, used as a nightstand. On this table, was a fire extinguisher ("In case there is a fire") and taped to his windows, were cut-apart moving boxes ("I need to have complete silence and darkness while I sleep").
Apparently when he got his current job as an assistant's assistant's assistant for a NBA team (Despite the fact that he is 5'10 and has no discernible talent in this area), he trashed all his furniture and drove straight from the D.C. area to Chicago to start anew. (The more I write, the more I see how, perhaps, I should have noticed some things were amiss.)
Unless he was the driver in a car, he would whine and complain of headaches. In his car, he had some sort of tool, available at all times, to bust out windows in accidents. He hated to be outside. He hated to take walks. He wore only t-shirts and sneakers, freebees from his job - he would give me these same "gifts" as tokens of his affection. He stopped every few minutes when we were anywhere to go to the bathroom. He made horrid gas and I would pretend not to notice. He accepted an invitation to attend a religious holiday at my aunt's house only to cancel the night before, with little explanation.
He called my parents by their first names and would freely help himself to the contents of their kitchen (He'd say: "Gary (my dad), would you like a banana?") I could not figure out his work history. His stories had a way of shifting subtlety - I could never figure out the truth.
He owned property in D.C. I found this out the last time we were together.
I am a middle school teacher and I am in graduate school. I coach a sports team and I participate in extracurriculars. I'm busy, to say the least. I was honest from day one. I said, "I'm looking for something real and wonderful with someone real and wonderful." I meant: I can't settle, I'm a good person, please don't waste my time.
Clearly, he was a loser and I was foolish not to notice. I thought all those things about him were not such big deals. I thought he hadn't met me yet. I thought that was what was depressing him. I'm absurdly told him I loved him a little. He said he associates love with marriage and that he does not love me a little, nor does he want to.
He broke up with me then and I cried. He looked pained and said he was kidding about breaking up with me, that I should go away as planned for the weekend with my friends. I went away and he called a few times. As it turns out, he was trying to officially break up with me on the phone, while I was away, so he would not have to see me cry. He broke up with me on the phone a few days later. He left some of my possessions in my mailbox, unable to face me like a man.
I feel better having written this. I know there were many things about him I simply ignored because I am a romantic and because I know I am sometimes mean and uncompromising, too. I just thought, for some reason, he was decent. I know that sounds crazy. I don't put up with abusiveness, so the fact that this was subtle, threw me. What gets me the most, though, is that he broke up with me. And he was so callous about it. Displayed absolutely no emotion. It was so painful to witness. Well, to hear over the phone.
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