sucky boyfriend number one

 We had this work meeting the other day because there is all this chaos going on between out small team. One of the things that our boss said during that meeting really made an impact on me. She was going on about how you have to not use our co-workers to vent our frustrations… “talk to you partner, spouse, pets, go to the gym, whatever you have to do to get it out, but you cant go to another person who works here and use them as your sounding board.” well I put that in quotes but I don’t think she said it like that word for word but whatever you get the point right?

As I was driving home it hit me why that made such an impact one me. You see I don’t have anyone to go to when I have a super crappy day and need to vent. That is what I miss the most about being in a relationship. I mean yeah physical stuff is nice, sex is great, dates and all is awesome. But really what I miss the most is having that person who you call when something great happens and who you can cry too when something bad happens. I honestly don’t know if I’m ever going to have that relationship.  I really really really want it but I am loosing a lot of faith that it is in my cards for me to get to have it.

I will admit that I have not had the greatest history with dating.   I wasn’t that girl who had to have boyfriends in elementary school or middle school. By high school I knew that I was defective because I still hadn’t had my first kiss while some of my friends were doing much much worse. I finally got that first kiss when I had an awkward double date with a friend and some random guys we met in the mall. It somehow ended up with us doing much more then just a first kiss,  and afterward I was promptly told that he wanted nothing to do with me, and then  he proceeded to date my friend who was also on the date only with his best friend.  It was awesome for my sixteen year old self to go through that.

My first real boyfriend was named Jeff. I met him about a year later when I was 16 almost 17.   What was sad about my relationship (ok well a lot was sad about that relationship) but what I think started it of on the wrong foot is that I never even really liked him. See the whole first day he had this huge crush on my best friend at the time Jessica. So much so that he hung out with her all day without me and they went sledding and stuff. I think she either had a boyfriend or had just gotten out of a serious relationship, but Jeff didn’t seem to let that deter him from making all these comments about how pretty and cute and sweet she was. Yeah he was totally flirty with her. I didn’t care really cause like I said I wasn’t interested in him. So you ask how did I become interested and why does it turn so sad? Well see one night a few days later we met him again and that time he still tried to get with Jess. But after she fell asleep or passed out (I’m pretty sure beer and pot may have been  involved  for her that night) Jeff and I proceeded to spend the whole rest of the night talking and laughing. By the morning we shared a very sweet first kiss and he bought me (and only me) a slice of pizza as we walked hand in hand back down town. From that day forth he stopped calling anyone but me. It is sad because I was so fueled by the fact that he picked me over my awesome best friend that I ran with it. I allowed myself to get so wrapped up in him,  and for the first time in a while during that phase of my life,  someone gave me some worth when I was feeling super worthless (like I have mentioned in prior blog posts) Suddenly all that mattered was the fact that he could have had Jessica but he picked me instead.

God I was such a mess back then. Jeff crawled into my brain and it was like a parasite I couldn’t get out. I constantly thought about him, even after he did some truly unforgivable things. Such as stealing all my shit after he moved into my basement. Sleep with my underage neighbor after moving out of my house and into her crazy ass party house hippy place. Oh yeah and she was 13... He was 23. He crashed my car with a bunch of his stoned friends and then took off running leaving a very upset me to deal with the consequences. Honestly he tried to kill me and a friend one night in a drunken rage with a hammer. We were only saved by me begging and pleading literally for the life of my friend until he calmed down enough so we could go home. Yeah those events should have been it, but see I then reconnected with him again a year or so after the hammer incident. And I had another  even worse one involving some gasoline, a lighter,  and him trying to control me. And even more suckwas a few months after that,  I randomly saw him in the supermarket clean and sober for the first time ever. And we started right back up again like nothing had ever happened before. He moved into my place and shockingly  it ended with me locking him out throwing all his shit out and many a screaming phone call at my place of work.  He had some pretty serious issues and I wish that I could have not been so fueled up by this whole having him pick me over my awesome friend stuff. Because then maybe the fact that he lied about being 23 would have been the red flag that it should have been for a 16 year old.  I mean heck, the fact that he honest to goodness lived in a dumpster, oh sorry newspaper recycling bin, should have been a fucking red flag! But I couldn’t get past this whole him picking me over Jess thing to see anything beside the face that he gave me worth. He gave me worth when I was desperately without it and it became my drug.  It fucked me up super bad and I spent years trying to just stop driving by places looking for that brief glimpse of him in town. Even still I sometimes see someone walking on the side of the road and I check to make sure it’s not him.  What the heck I would say to him today I have no clue.  It took me a long ass time to realize that what we had wasn’t love. Fuck what we had wasn’t even respect. What we had was nothing but badness. is it sad that we spend off and on almost 3 years together. 

I didn’t date for a long time after Jeff. I’ll admit that he was a huge part of why I eventually left the Seattle area. I was 20 when  moved away.  In Los Angeles I had my first post Jeff date with a guy named Kenny who I met a work and who flirted heavy with me for a night or two.   Sadly we had a few dates, had some quick sex and afterword I never heard from him again. I was 22 by then.  OK wow, yeah somehow I got really really off track with this post. So since this has gone for long enough, maybe I’ll break it into two parts. I was going to name this post something like when the work place goes bad… But now I think I’ll change it to sucky boyfriend number one. Stay tuned for sucky boyfriend number two  posted sometime tomorrow.