This time of year is tricky for plenty of people, and I’m no exception. Today I have the most recent ex on the brain, of all people. He and I split up almost two years ago in February 2007, ending on a nasty note. Yeah, I’ve written about him on the blog before, but today I feel like rehashing it. The memories flooded back today during a conversation with a galpal and then again during lunch with a guyfriend, so I might as well deal with it on here.
Back in the day I referred to him as “Mr. Responsible” on a blog, though that’s proven completely inaccurate after seeing his true colors. His chosen online handles all pertained to golf, the only thing he’s ever genuinely appeared to give a damn about. Outside of football, I should say. He was an egoist, a game-player, who turned out to be a cold-hearted, narcissistic son of a bitch before it was all over. What do you nickname a man like that? Let’s call him “Boer” and leave it at that.
For a number of reasons, I should never have dated him. The main ones being that he was a former client and married. But we got along great, for what little we turned out to know about one another, and he had a paternal way about him. When he decided to leave his wife, the pieces just seemed to fall into place. I moved to the area for escorting work after he had already separated and moved out into his own apartment. He was newly single, I was now within reaching range, and we had incredible crushes after more than 3 years of seeing one another in an escort setting. We used to laugh and drink and carry on when out together, so it’s tough to give myself a hard time now for falling for him.
Was it love? No. I thought maybe it was until I got to know him. Then it became a big, fat question mark in my mind. Oh, he was charismatic and charming, tall and fairly attractive, blond hair and blue eyes. Very much the stereotypical middle-class, middle-aged, Midwestern white man. Part German, even. He had a great smile and a gleam in his eye that plenty of gals fell for. So when he took a special liking to me, even back as his “provider” (a.k.a – adult service provider or ASP), it was very flattering and exhilarating. I really liked that guy. Until we tried dating and accidentally learned who the other really was and became turned off completely. Oh, I still wanted him for whatever reason near the end, but the truth of who he turned out to be disappointed me so deeply to where I wasn’t at all certain the relationship had a chance of working.
We lasted 6 months dating. That’s it. After 4 years, we had nothing left to say and haven’t spoken a word to one another in 1.5 years. Still living in the same town and I’m still wishing a reality check to head his way, if it hasn’t already. What a prick! For someone who initially seemed so sweet and genuine it was unbelievable how much of a fraud he really was. A fraud in his own mind, even. And he knew it. He knew he was a bullshitter and an expert liar and a cheater. He took pride in these traits! It’s still weird looking back and remembering just how honest and forthright he appeared to be earlier on, barring the obvious deception with his wife.
He was boring too. Not terribly so but enough to where it bugged me. Though we did go out plenty and he generally treated me well.
“21 and gorgeous…” That’s the line that still gets to me. His answer to my question of what he wanted from a partner after we had been dating for a few months. “21 and gorgeous, who cooks, cleans and can carry on an intellectual conversation.” That’s exactly what he said to me. I had to check with him again in the 3 days, thinking it must be a joke, to find out if he really meant that. He said he did. What balls! At the time, I was 25, attractive enough that he had chosen to pay to see me for over 3 years and was now dating me, learning to cook, doing a pretty decent job keeping my apartment clean, and I CAN carry on an intellectual conversation. WTF??? He was 42, reasonably attractive if you can get past the huge amounts of sagging skin around his butt and midsection after having lost 150 lbs., just divorced after a 15-year marriage where he cheated on his wife the ENTIRE fucking time with MANY women, who referred to himself as a “hobby god” in our industry because of the number of years he’s been seeing women. This guy was telling me I wasn’t young or gorgeous enough for him! I wasn’t good enough. Saying this at a bar across town, out of the blue, just being a prick.
Then he broke up with me on Valentine’s Day, AFTER we had sex, naturally. That’s two months after his divorce went through, mind you. He decided not only did he not need his wife any longer, he no longer needed me and was on the prowl for younger, more attractive women. Nice. That’s the kind of guy he turned out to be all the way around. All about himself and satisfying his dick.
One night while we were dating I asked him to make love to me. The request wasn’t that he love me deeply but that he be gentle in bed this night, something he’d never even tried with me. His reaction was to roll over on his back and grow cold, distant and silent. I began to cry and he rolled away, so I drove home that night. This sort of thing played hell on my self-esteem back then, though for some reason I kept pining for the guy.
Maybe these memories of him have to do with not only this time of year but also this move. The last apartment was where I came to lick my wounds after returning from my military stint and healing up for a month with my folks down south. It was the place to put my stuff, the temporary living space to sort out where to go from there. And then I came here, to a new apartment right across town, in the same town despite plans to move elsewhere. It’s been an odd year, to say the least, and a lot has changed inside of me. So maybe this being the final moving/cleaning day and also New Year’s Eve is just tripping my mind up a bit, bringing back memories from times not so long ago that influenced this past year. *sigh*
Do you ever really know someone? Won’t all people disappoint you in some way if you give them enough time to do so? I don’t know.
Lexapro and counseling was what he encouraged and arranged. The counselor sent me home after two visits saying that counseling wasn’t necessary. The general practitioner he sent me to loaded me down with samples of Lexapro for the depression and anxiety “Boer” complained I suffered from. He went to marriage counseling and then later to counseling because his childhood wasn’t perfect (sent me to the same counselor btw!). Not that it was screwed up from what it sounded, and he was clear that no abuse or neglect took place. Seems odd a man in his 40s would seek counseling because he felt jipped as a child living in a working/middle-class family. His reply to stories from my past was that I simply needed to “let it go.” His response to my decision to leave the escorting industry was to distance himself further and to provide no encouragement or support at all. Not one bit. He resented me trying to leave the industry because it was a vital part of the fantasy he had woven. But leaving was too a vital part of my own fantasy. So he left me in search of other temptations. And that’s where it all left off, only to be resumed after I arrived back in town a few months later, angry, hurt, confused, humiliated. And here we are now. Me moving on after learning from him everything I’d come to hate so much about the industry. For that reason, he proved useful though I’m not sure if for much else.
I’m still bitter. It wasn’t just your typical, garden-variety rejection; it was cruel and unbelievably cold and final. No friendship to rebuild and no enduring bonds. The good memories appear so faded and dingy in hindsight – all a lie and an illusion. He may have walked away relatively unscathed, from both me and his marriage, but his time will come. Somehow, some way, someday, he’ll get what’s coming to him.
You cannot prosper living life that way. Can you? Toying with the young and vulnerable, the weak and submissive, the battered and jaded. And all for what? To make yourself feel like a good person because of what little comfort you did provide at one time? To feel like the king and the head honcho in a pitiful and disturbing fantasy where women never fully measure up and sex does not equate with intimacy? His motto should have been: what’s love got to do with it? Nothing at all apparently. I’m glad he’s gone.
It dawned on me earlier while driving home with a guyfriend that I still am unable to wish good things for Boer. Still can’t with the ex before him either. Both of them deserve whatever comes their way and I won’t pretend to wish otherwise. That bitterness seeped in as we were chatting and I realized that the two relationships I’ve been in since my separation from the husband have been complete nutjobs. Both men are people I’d never care to see again, not for a cup of mocha to catch up and certainly not ever for anything romantic or sexual. Fuck them both. Both were exploitative jerks, not only toward me but toward all women (or people) in their lives. They taught me about the side of man I have no desire to cater to. None at all. For that lesson I’m grateful, though I certainly would never thank them.
While they had very different personalities, there were some similarities. I used to wonder why I attracted that kind of man but now the more pressing question is how not to. Some days it seems like the whole world has gone mad, especially after spending any time in the dating circuit.
I’m tired, emotionally and in every other way imaginable. My body’s hurt a good bit this week, and my mind won’t shut off and leave me be. When you think the past is in its place, it has a way of poisoning the present and creating doubt in everything that otherwise should seem good and healthy and promising. I’m drained. Tired of the industry and glad to be one step farther from it. On one hand not wanting to be alone so much, but on the other, relishing my quiet time. This day hasn’t been awful but it has been awkward, and likely something else stupid will manage to happen before it’s over.
*sigh* Ugh. I feel like hell today. Like I told a friend earlier, we just need more drugs, alcohol and loud music to fix us up right. Not sure that I was joking, though the party we’re attending tonight likely won’t be a wild one. I’ve been left alone too much with these damned insecurities whispering in my ear this week. Maybe some sparkling wine would do me good right about now.
Not 21 any longer, never going to be gorgeous, probably will never be a great domestic goddess, and whatever intellect I have is competing with my lifestyle and currently losing. I’m just so damned tired. Tired of always remembering some stupid remark from some no-count person. Tired of the negative overshadowing the seemingly positive and having to lean on my friends so hard for comfort and support. These men don’t matter though what they represented did and in ways still does.
Oh well. It’s apparent that my experience in romance is severely lacking. Not sure what those relationships were, but to call them romantic seems a misnomer. Maybe the future holds better experiences. I don’t know. What I do know is my galpal is going to slay me if I don’t get off this computer and get ready for our night out. Adios and Happy NYE, folks.
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