Feigned Love - Part 2

I knew Perturbado was cheap so I opted for the 2 for $20 deal. This was our second time going to Applebee’s. Not because the food was great. I just knew that he preferred cheap dates. I hated Applebee’s. He thought it was me being stuck up which couldn’t have been farther from the truth. I liked good quality. But I would eat at these places because he liked it.

Before the waitress could arrive to our table he asked me “Do you really think this is going to work?”

“Yes.” I answered before even having a chance to fully process what was going on. I wanted it to work. I asked him if he was breaking up with me and he laughed. “What exactly did you think we have here?” Perturbado responded.

I thought we had something. Something of a train wreck. But it was something.

Restrained head deep in a pool of desperation and the fear of being rejected while at dinner sitting in front of this man that I thought would be my future husband: I pleaded. I told him that he confused me and that we could work if we communicated better. I told him he was pushing me away and not opening up his heart to find love. At that moment, I believed all the things I said to him. I knew that he was making a mistake and that he would regret it later. All the ups and downs in our courtship was due to him. He created the tension. I’m the one that should be breaking it off with him. After all the things he’s done to me. I’m a great girl. I thought he knew that.

And then Perturbado said “I know you were worried about me leaving you after we had sex. We can still continue to have sex. I’ll still be there for you”.

Okay. Sex. He wants sex.

We dated for about a month and a half until that night at Applebee’s. After dinner, during the car ride home, he told me a secret. A secret that most would find disturbing. I tried comforting him. But from there I realized that his guy really has issues. Issues that could possibly put me in danger. He told me that he was cold, I was sensitive and that he didn’t want to hurt me. But he had already hurt me. On numerous occasions he would toss my heart in the air as high as he could and then have target practice. Shooting it to a pulse before it managed to hit the floor.

I slept with him that very night after dinner. And when he dropped me to my car the next morning I was somehow still swimming in a deep sea of denial.

It didn’t really hit me until that afternoon. Perturbado dumped me. He didn’t dump me… he discarded me. He used me. He wanted to continue using me. We weren’t in a relationship but rather a situationship. Something that started off fast yet so beautiful and then quickly turned into souring milk on the longest summer’s day. But all I wanted to see was the initial beauty and promise. All those things he said in the beginning was just a water hose of endorphins being released in my brain. 

You're the girl for me. You're mine. Always. Only. You. Hermosa. Mi Vida. Mi amor. Beauty. Sunshine. Care. Attention. I miss you. I want you. Being with you is like being in heaven.

Lie.

After lie.

After life.

After lie.

After lie. 

I got addict to the way he made me feel. That undivided attention. The sweet words that held my future... those words that seemed honest at the time. Those first two weeks had me on a cloud so high, you couldn’t see me with your bare eyes from earth.

Hot and cold. Everyday was a gamble. I never knew what I was going to get. The only thing consistent about Perturbado was his obsession with saving money and his appetite for sex. I held out as long as I could… which was pretty long for me. His sexuality confused me. Did he want me or did he want to have unrestricted sex with me. I knew the answer then, I just hoped that I was wrong. I tried to rationalize it by telling myself that he was older… that maybe he had stronger urges than most. But it made me feel uncomfortable. Why was I okay with feeling uncomfortable? The first time I turned him down, he reminded me of a spoiled two year old child that couldn’t get his way. Pushing himself to the other side of the couch while giving me short lived silent treatment. That wasn’t love. It was nothing that could blossom into love. The seeds were planted in polluted soil. Even weeds knew better than to grow there.

It wasn’t until we stopped talking when I started to look back and realize that he was pretty fucked up. I always knew it deep down… but deep down I also wanted someone to love… so it didn’t matter. The little jabs he would take to wound my confidence. Nights were he wouldn't respond only to text me in the morning saying he "fell asleep". How he would talk on and on about himself and not ask me a thing. How he would try to turn every phone conversation into phone sex. (No exaggeration.) And every visit into sexual intercourse. I mean, Jesus… find out my favorite color first! 

Every nuance can’t be detailed. Mostly what I remember is the way he made me feel. Unwanted. Desperate. Used. Judged. And I wanted him. I was drawn to him. I admired him. I wanted to love him and I wanted his love desperately. I would probably still be talking to him ‘til this day if he didn’t try to call it off with me at dinner. Five days after that night at Applebee's, he invited me out to eat. And I realized then more than ever before that he was willing to drag me along as long as I will willing to let him. So I declined. I wanted to go with him. But I saw that as my chance to escape the hurt. Because living with my stomach in knots was starting to take a toll on me. Surely, being single couldn’t be any worse than this.

So, I decided to move on.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Feigned Love - Part 1

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As I approached my 30s, I was hopeful that some good would fall into my lap. That I would fall in love and move on to the next stage of my life. I didn’t do so blindly. I took a few necessary measures. At the time, I was entertaining two men romantically. One of them, whom I now believe to be a selfish moderate sociopath, and the other I had little to nothing in common with. Well, a few days after I turned 30, I stopped talking to them both in order to make room in my heart for someone much more deserving. 

The selfish moderate sociopath was very mentally stimulating and connected with me in many ways. But he was also a liar and would ever so often be unnecessarily critical and demeaning. Despite being married, he downplayed it and pursued many others outside of his relationship... including me. The other, was a man who only petitioned for the pleasures of life and didn’t feel the need to work hard for anything. He drank heavily, partook in cigars and hookah during his down time, ate horribly, and was overtly sexual - only fluently communicated  about sex and when we would  talk about other things (which rarely occurred) it bore me to the point of no return. Everything about him was uninspiring! But he carried himself as if he was god's gift to woman. Both of them did.

They say that who you are in a relationship with is a reflection of yourself. And despite me not being in a relationship with any of these men, I have to look back and ask myself “What the fuck was I thinking?” While I didn’t sleep with the moderate sociopath… I did sleep with the boring slob and it was unmemorable. I remember at some point of our “situationship”, I convinced myself that I liked Mr. Boring. I tried to convince myself that he was something to hold on to. He was tall, attractive (he was cute facially but his personality was so dry it was suffocating), owned his home, someone I thought to be financially well off (until he revealed some telling signs of having financial issues later on) and he was single. What more could I ask for? Why not just be with him. I can grow to like him… as long as he treated me right (which he didn't... but at the time how I defined "treating me right" was very obstructed).

To make matters worse, at one point I thought I was in love with the married sociopath. He asked me questions no one ever cared to ask me.. He knew my interest and stimulated my mind. Despite him being in a relationship, he found time to court me and proclaimed that I was the “one that got away”. I found that phrase very endearing at the time. The only thing you can build with a married man is a bed of lies and mistrust. Not only that... he was dogmatic and arrogant. Traits that I do not find very appealing. He would tell me that every man cheats, as to say that it was something I should just accept. A mentality that would help justify his [our] behavior.

Ultimately, my biggest downfall with both men was that I sold myself for cheap. That is the reflection that I see when I look at those two men... someone unworthy of pure unadulterated love. Here were these two unsatisfactory men that presented themselves. Broken. Not whole. Lacking. Insufficient. Sponges. And despite knowing and feeling that it wasn’t right, I entertained them. I gave them more of me then they should have ever deserved in this lifetime. I was looking for companionship. And with that, my definition of love was so incomprehensible I couldn’t read the fine print anymore. Were the lies considered love? Were the sex fueled text messages love? Was the rejection after I refused to have sex love? Undoubtedly so, I was seeking love… was I not? So why did I entertain things that were obviously not love?

I have never been in love. I’ve had verbally abusive relationships. I've dated many men that made me feel like I was just an option and not a priority. So if I walked away from every guy that treated me poorly, I would have never had a boyfriend. I would have been single 'til this very day. So I date these guys, even though I know it isn’t right, just so that I could experience some form of companionship. I thought those experiences were worth the inevitable heartbreak. I thought those few superficial embraces were worth me potentially dying more inside. I wanted to seize any fugacious moment of intimacy because I knew tomorrow would bring it's sorrow. I thought those experiences were worth the damage that would be done to me at the end. I felt that way up until the last guy I dated. 

The last guy I dated... He wrecked my fragile world. And now I realize, some experiences don’t need to be had. It was an experience that I can honestly say I could have lived without. He could have easily been the master of my destruction. He had a hold on me that I didn’t know was possible. I will call him Perturbado...

[TO BE CONTINUED]