About a year ago, I decided to give online dating a shot. One of my girlfriends has been utilizing it, and though not all of her dates were winners, she seemed to be having fun. I thought, “What the hell?” I didn’t put much effort into my profile because, really, I wasn’t expecting much.
The first guy I chatted with seemed perfect right from the beginning. He was handsome, extremely intelligent, and made me laugh. The only problem was he lived three hours away. I knew getting to know him was a bad idea because I have a hard enough time with commitment when the guy lives in the same town as me. Three hours might as well be the moon.
I’m never one to make the right decision from the get-go, so I decided to try and make this work. We chatted, emailed, and texted for a few weeks prior to him deciding we needed to meet and we needed to meet soon.
We met over coffee a few days later when he came to Albuquerque. That went so well he took me to the zoo the next day. We started meeting halfway between our cities of residence a few times a week for dinner and, um, dessert. I realized a long distance relationship really wasn’t that bad. I didn’t have to see him more than a few times a week, which worked well with my busy schedule and my need for freedom. However, there was the problem of the constant texting.
It was bad. Like, 1,200 texts a day bad. He wanted to know everything I was doing. If I was silent for even fifteen minutes, my phone would be buzzing with texts saying he missed me. Okay, I thought, I’ll just chalk this up to the infatuation that occurs when you first start dating someone.
But something wasn’t right. I didn’t miss him. I didn’t wonder what he was up to or how his day was going. I couldn’t bring myself to care that he ate pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Maybe we weren’t the perfect match I thought we could be when we first started chatting?
He began to irritate me. Everything he said grated on my nerves. All he did was whine about unimportant shit. And when we were together, he would not touch me or act like he even liked me unless we were having sex. I am definitely not one of those girls who likes having her boyfriend constantly touch her or anything, but I know it’s not going to kill anyone to hold my hand in public. Or pretend to enjoy being around me.
The breaking point came one night when I was out drinking with my friend. I was discussing my mom’s terminal cancer and because I had five beers in my system, I was crying big, fat, drunk crocodile tears. My boyfriend texted me, asking what I was up to (OF COURSE). I answered honestly and said I was having a rough night.
“Why?” he asked.
I replied, “Sometimes life is just shitty.”
He asked me to remind him how long it had been since my mom had been diagnosed. After I replied “5 months,” he promptly texted back, “Well, my life has been shitty for two years.”
Like it was a fucking competition.
You guys. His life was not even close to being shitty. His parents are loaded and paid for everything even though he is a grown ass man. He spent his days applying for med school, lamenting the fact it was too hot to hike, and tinkering around with computers. Explain to me how that is shitty. Boring, yes. Shitty, no.
I was already feeling pretty apathetic towards him and our relationship, so this was as good a time as any to get out. I ended things. And made myself very clear that it was over.
He continued to text me like nothing had happened. I ignored him. He tried guilt-tripping me by telling me it was like I had forgotten he existed. Yes, that is what I was trying to do if only he would let me.
Eventually, his texts slowed to a trickle. I ignored every single one, praying he would get the hint to leave me alone. The only time I responded was when he texted me letting me know he had some vitamin-B deficiency and did I have any idea on how he should start adding meat back into his diet?
“Google it, you dumb fuck,” was my reply. Not my proudest moment, but Jesus! It’s not like he didn’t own seventy computers he’d spent all his time rebuilding. His reply? Nothing. Finally, it seemed like he had given up.
I received one more text from him a few weeks later, letting me know the place where we used to meet was really pretty during the day. I rolled my eyes and didn’t respond.
I didn’t hear a single peep out of him for eight glorious months. I ended up forgetting the Ex-Boyfriend Who Would Not Let Our Relationship Die even existed until a text with his area code popped up on my BlackBerry last week.
“Hey, stranger.”
No. Not this. I ignored him, deleted the text, and promptly forgot about him. Again.
Tonight, as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed I had two Facebook notifications. A friend request and a message…Both from him. “That’s weird,” I thought. “Didn’t I block him when we broke up? Hmm, better do it now.” Click.
Immediately, I received three emails in a row from him. The first email let me know he noticed I had blocked him on Facebook and just so I know, he can take a hint and wouldn’t be contacting me again. Okay, I thought. Perfect.
The second email begged me to tell him what he did wrong so he could make sure he never did it again. Um, we already had that discussion when we broke up, bozo.
Finally, the third email let me know he is going to be in town tomorrow evening…And would I like to meet him for dinner?
Guess that hint is still there, waiting to be taken.
