Hey-o, peeps! Happy happy Tuesday! I'm coming to you live, from my couch, with more thoughts about when I was nuttzo--woo hoo! Don't worry, I'm getting to the end of this series, so pretty soon I'll just randomly ramble on the days when I don't have any pictures or stories--i.e. instead of telling you all about my ED history.
When I last left off I was describing how I found myself, at about the age of 25, on a "crap-path" that included lots of dieting combined with lots of binging and purging and absolutely no respite. It was around this time that I became involved with a guy whom I'd met while working as a server at a country club, and let's just say that I would've been better off had I never met him. For the sake of anonymity, let's call him A-hole.
A-hole, when I first met him, did not seem like the right guy for me. He was older than me, about thirty-one, and he was a bartender who seemed to have an angry streak. For example, he would literally yell and rant and sulk when he didn't get along with a particular server. So, from the outset, I wrote him off as not dating material. But then something happened. I'm not even sure what it was. I know that I wasn't just desperate, because I've always been more happy single than with the wrong person. (More happy, by the way, is not the same thing as actually happy.)
Anyway, he started to grow on me. We started talking more, and more, and then finally we started dating. By that time I guess I'd started ignoring all the subtle bad signs I was getting from him, especially the very obvious anger problem that he had. You see, A-hole had a tendency to get into fights. At one point during our relationship--when things had gotten fairly serious between us--I actually felt afraid for my own safety because A-hole wanted to fight some neighborhood guy in the middle of night, in the middle of Denver. (Not a smart plan, to say the least.)
In addition to this situation, and others like it, A-hole and I had begun to fight a lot. Most of the time I was just baffled and completely taken aback, since vociferous yelling and potent anger was not something I'd encountered before (mostly since all my previous boyfriends were pretty geeky). And, as if this wasn't enough, the final straw came one night when we had gone out to dinner. I was staying over at his place, but had a lot of grading to do, so after dinner I went back to his apartment and he went to watch the Rockies game at a bar. Uh, yah, big mistake. I eventually ended up falling asleep, only to wake up alone. He had never come home. And the reason he had never come home? He got into a fight at the bar, was arrested, and spent the night in prison. (Once he realized that I was going to end the relationship because of this, he then lied and made up another story about his whereabouts that evening--also not the smartest plan.)
My favorite part of the story is when I broke up with him right after this, and he said, "I really think you're going to regret this." Hah! Not so much, A-hole.
While this might seem like an unrelated tangent to my ED history, it's not. Because immediately after this relationship and breakup, I started punishing myself. I started running more. I started cycling more. And I started eating less.
I realize now that I was very, very, very angry. Angry that I thought I'd found someone who I could really be with. Angry that I had literally been "worked" by A-hole into thinking that he was someone who was good enough for me. Ashamed that I'd been so, so, so wrong. Ashamed that I hadn't trusted my initial gut instinct about A-hole.
I'll pick up next time discussing how seriously this affected my eating and exercising, but for now, have you had any experiences with romantic partners like this? Would you have overlooked this kind of behavior?
Oh man. I have a few good stories.
ReplyDelete1) Met a chef at a restaurant at my sister's bachelorette party (she is very conservative so don't get excited, the party was kinda tame). On our second date we went for a walk in the park and he bit me. On the ear. HARD. I immediately made up the worst story ever about having to do my grandmothers laundry and skiddadled right out of there. Pretty sure I narrowly avoided disaster.
2) Not quite so funny. I had dated a guy for awhile in high school and some in college. I don't know that I would say he had "anger issues" but I think he had an extra high frustration level (maybe due to his learning disability - he was dyslexic). The turning point was the night he got upset because I wouldn't take him through a drive through at 2:00 in the morning (I needed to get home to sleep since I was judging a scholarship competition at my college the next day) and he expressed his frustration by beating the glove box on my car. Looked like a road map when he was done. He saw nothing wrong in what he had done and did not pay for the car to be fixed. That was pretty much it for me.
I have to say that this stuff can't be overlooked and it's not healthy for anyone. My husband would NEVER do anything like that, ever, as well he shouldn't.
Good riddance to A-hole. Sucks it always takes forever to get rid of them though. Unless they bite you, then the red teeth mark is a pretty clear visual to guide you out and fast!
Not too shabby, Midwestern Bite. I thought I had the monopoly on "Stupid guys I used to date," including one guy who admitted to smoking pot _everyday_ and preferred to smell my hair rather than kiss me, and another who admitted to having been in jail recently and also told me that the police suck. Um, excuse me, but for people like me--geeky scared white women--the police are (mostly) awesome!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you narrowly avoided a lame future with that kooky dashboard abuser. He's lucky the airbag didn't pop and beat the shit out of him. Geez that would've been funny.
Old car, no passenger air bags. In fact, no air bags at all I think. That would have been hilarious! He totally would have set it off the way he was pounding on it.
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