Ok so I left off with the disaster of Jeff safely behind me and starting over in a new city. Although I did have a lot of scars from that relationship mainly cause I really did think that is what love was. I dated unsuccessfully the next few years and honestly my choices of people were not all that great, but you have to remember that my standards were so low. I mean pretty much anyone was better then Jeff. It’s hard to realize that I deserved so much more back then. There was more then once when I actually said to myself something along the lines of “well at least he isn’t trying to kill me that’s a step up” sad huh.
I spent the next few years not just dating but moving around. I met my second real boyfriend Brannon while I was living in Reno… But I was moving to Denver in less then a month when we met. I was at a bar with some friends and I remember him coming up and asking if he could buy me a drink. He seemed nice and he stayed at the table with us and talked with my friends until we were ready to go. He then asked if I wanted to get breakfast before going home. I of course said sure and off we went. Brannon was a few years older then me and he was working at one of the best steakhouses in the city as an assistant matre D. I didn’t think he was all the attractive, I mean he wasn’t bad looking either, just not the type I would go for normally. What I was attracted too was the fact that he seemed really put together. And considering that I seemed to have a bunch of chaos in my relationships I was ready for someone put together.
We had a nice first kiss that night and plan to get together a few days later. I was working overnight at one of the casinos and he was working evening so we fell into spending the mornings together after I got off work and before he went in. Because I was leaving in a month I wasn’t very committed to my jobs or quite frankly my life anymore at this point. I pretty much started to give Brannon all my time and attention because I figured it would become a great month and then I would move and that would be it. That was pretty much how both of us expected it to go, but somehow as the weeks went by he started to mention maybe trying the long distance thing, and having him help me move out to Denver and get me set up. I figured that things were going along well enough and I did like him so I said what the heck. Maybe it will be worth trying, so he helped pack me up and together we made the two day drive out to Denver.
I went to Denver to go to school, so I knew that I was moving this direction with my life, where I was trying to become more stable and less floaty. We spent a great first week in Denver together and had a tearful goodbye at the airport as he flew away. I was excited about my new life in school and in this city that I actually really really loved. I thrived in school and made friends and was happy. Me and Brannon would talk, he would tell me how much he missed me, and I would say honestly that I wasn’t feeling this same amount of missing him, I am nothing if not honest. A month or so later I got a call from him asking me to come pick him up at the train station. It was late I remember and he wasn’t supposed to be there and it was a school night so I told him no. I told him to take the bus that would go right up to my house. He said that he couldn’t get on the bus because he had all his stuff with him. See he quit his job and was going to move to Denver to be with me. Needless to say I was shocked, and honestly I was kind of pissed. I mean what right did he get to move here and then to try to make it like he was doing it for our relationship. What relationship? I knew him for a month and yes I did like him, but I was moving forward and starting to get my own life and was ok with him not being in that new life. Now he was forcing this relationship on me. Brannon was pissed cause I told him that he could only stay with me a week until he had to find his own place. I really do think that he was just expecting me to be all excited that he would live with me.
I’ll skip the rest of the parts and move to the end. Yes Brannon and I continued to date. He proposed to me super fast and I told him No. He wanted to move in and I said no. See one of the major issues I had was that he ended up being this super co-dependant person who all of the sudden gave up his stable life and now was floating around looking for me to give him some direction. Where I was finally figuring out what the direction I wanted my own life to take for the first time as an adult. I wasn’t interested in figuring that out for him and expected him to do it for himself. He wasn’t strong and put together, he was a child… He held zero responsibility for his actions and constantly tried to make up for these insecurities by being fake. He did that thing where he would go to a restaurant early so that he could leave me a card so it would be at the table when we arrived. I know that sounds like a super sweet thing. But I hated it. I am a person who has issues with being the center of attention and struggle with feelings of worthlessness and is socially inept. These gestures would make me be the center of the attention for all those servers and I would be so uncomfortable I couldn’t even enjoy my night. But he did it all the time regardless because see he wasn’t doing to be this sweet boyfriend; he just wanted everyone else to believe that he was being a sweet boyfriend. Get it…. I don’t think I explained that very well but hopefully you see the point. Needless to say I kind of tolerated this relationship because figured once again that I wouldn’t get much better and heck at least he was better then Jeff.
We did eventually move into together and right around this time I finally sought out a little therapy for my worthlessness issues. It helped me tremendously I discovered. About this same time I found out the Brannon was embezzling money from his company. He had taken about 20,000 dollars had been given the ultimatum for either going to jail or paying it back. Needless to say I was pissed and disappointed and felt pretty betrayed. But I still stayed with him. I even ended up giving him the money so that he could pay off the debt and we struck a deal that he would work his ass off to pay me back by not just working one job but two. Are you surprised to learn that he didn’t do any of that? He pretty much stole from me and remained in my lifelike a slug and refused to move out of my house. Finally I had to have someone else intervene to get him to move out for good. To this day I have gotten so little of my money back even though I have taken him to court and have a legal contract he should be upholding. I honestly don’t even care about the stupid money. I am just glad he isn’t in my life any more.
But see here is my dilemma. I mean I look back on these two relationships and can see that they were super fucked up. I mean I know that I deserved so much better then they were able to give me and that I didn’t deserved people who would do things this horrible to me in the first place. It’s taken me a long time to realize that though. So now I am moving forward with trying to date. I am so scared of doing it though, because I don’t want to end up in another situation where I am allowing people to treat me like crap, but at the same hand it’s so easy for me to let them do it in the first place. I honestly don’t even think that I believe in healthy relationships. I mean I truly have just become this bitter person who is waiting for the next bad date or shitty thing to happen. It’s become a vicious cycle and honestly who can really blame me. I don’t understand why I am this way. Well I guess I do, I guess it is because my standards are so low, because I do feel so worthless, and because I have such little social skills, that I don’t expect anything better to happen to me. It’s pathetic honestly, but something I am trying to break out of and change this cycle.
I don’t want you all to feel sorry for my or anything. Because this last year and a half has been really great I think as far as the dating has gone. I have really grown up and have become a heck of a lot less tolerant of people and their actions. I am starting to understand that part of this process is forcing myself to go out into the world and be honest with people about my past and to stop settling for the first thing that comes along. I have dated some pretty cool people and the reasons it didn’t work out were honest and just. I have also walked away from some pretty crappy situations that in the past I might not have been able to walk out of, because I knew that it wasn’t something that would bring me anything positive. I am still out in the world looking for someone awesome and I do unfortunately date a lot. But I guess for the first time in a long time I am getting that I can just be someone awesome and still be alone. I hope that’s not the case, but I’m trying to make peace with it in case it is.
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