A friend of mine posted a Facebook status today that really hit home for me. He said, "Sometimes the person you fall for isn't ready to catch you." This really struck a chord with me because after one failed relationship this year, I found myself dabbling in matters of the heart again. It started out lighthearted enough: I actually met him on a dating website and on the first date, he taught me to play chess. We'll call him Sean for anonymity.
It was refreshing because I'd locked myself away from dating in order to get over my prior relationship. The conversation was great and he was handsome. Tall and brown and spoke very eloquently, save a few curse words! I had a few reservations: he wore really baggy clothes and told me he had recently been laid off from his job as a software developer. "Cool", I thought. "No job = safety. I won't fall for him." Having only recently been hired after an unemployment trial myself, I understood his plight and felt his pain.
Sean admitted that he was recently out of a relationship, but seemed very open to spending hoards of time with me. I'd take days off from work to spend with him. I, as always, became blinded by the physical connection. I ignored red flags from him for about a month. Red flags that included late phone calls from God knows who, his penchant for smoothly cursing me out and using profanity in all parts of our conversations, his stories about his former fiance that were always softly flavored with longing and sorrow. I thought if I just showed him that I was there for him during his unemployment and the self-doubt that comes with it, he'd see that I was worth his affections, and not just sex.
Well, that didn't happen! It all ended with him trying to show off in him fast sports car, being pulled over for doing over 100 mph and taken to jail. Ironically, my best friend (let's call him Russell), came to my rescue that night. Being stranded on the side of the road with this fool's manual transmission vehicle, and only being an automatic driver myself, I frantically searched through my phone for people who I knew that could drive a stick shift. Russell didn't hesitate to come get my dumb ass from the side of the road. I bailed Sean out of jail, and Russell and I made sure his car got back to his house. I looked at Russell differently that night. I knew I loved him, but things had always been so safe and vanilla between us, and he always had a chick on his arm every time I saw him.
A few days later, I was hanging out with the ever so grateful Sean, when his phone rang late at night and I asked him if he was still seeing other people. I told him it was fine if he was, I just wanted to be aware so that we could both be on a level playing field, knowing full well that I was already too far gone to play fair. His response to this inquiry was, "To be completely honest, you're in no position to be asking about what goes on in my phone..." I got out of his bed, put on my clothes and left this house at 3 am.
When I got back to my apartment, I cried, of course, to my cat, Lucy, and took a few selfies of my tear stained face so that I could remind myself in the future of what I'd allowed myself to become. I still have those photos.
Several dead-air filled weeks later, Sean sent me a text asking if I would help him pay his court fees, which amounted to about a thousand dollars. I think he got the hint when I didn't respond.
Cuffing season was not warm that year...
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