Day 8 ~ Someone Who Made Your Life Hell, or Made You Feel Like Shit

OK, sorry Kevin, but it isn't just you.

Pretty much every boyfriend I ever had made my life hell at some point, and they all definitely treated me like shit.

I think it is part of the marathon of dating and finding your true match.

I think it is part of growing up and learning about yourself.

Because I can promise you that I dished out my own hell, and have treated people like shit. I am often thoughtless like that.

I try not to do that anymore. I am sure that I have done it though. It is all part of becoming the person that you want your kids to think you are.

Writer's Workshop: Ex's and Poo

Every week, Mamakat suggests 5 things to write about, and you are supposed to write about one of them. Or all of them, or whatever. She doesn’t really care if you break the rules, she breaks her own rules all the time.

This week, one of the prompts was to list 5 people that you forgot about and felt as though they were due their 5 seconds of fame on your blog, and then expand on one of them. Another prompt was to describe a time you put your foot in your mouth. I am going to weave these two together so intricately, you won’t even notice! OK, so you will, but I can’t help but think about one without thinking about the other.

My five people are all ex’s. I don’t know what started me thinking about my ex’s from my teenage years, but I had recently remembered something which made me hang my head in shame, and then I read Mamakat’s orders, so I started thinking a lot more about that time so, so long ago. Mom…you may want to stop reading now.

1) My first (real) boyfriend. He was my first kiss, and I don’t really remember much else about him, other than a present he gave me for Valentine’s Day that I had to lie to my parents about where it came from; and how when we broke up, I didn’t really care. Sorry Chris!

2) My second boyfriend. We drank together, and consequently we fooled around more than I did with my first boyfriend, and I was crushed when he dumped me for his ex. CRUSHED. It’s not like I thought we were going to get married or anything, but I think it was the humiliation of it all. The funny thing is, I don’t really remember much about him either. Sorry Craig! (Wait…I’m not sorry, you cheated on me!!)

3) The guy I dated the summer before my senior year of high school. Or was it junior year? Oh hell, I don’t remember. We fooled around a bit, and drank together as much as teenagers with limited access to alcohol could. We had a similar group of friends, my friends were dating his friends. Convenient. All I really remember about him was that I loved his sister, he had blond hair and blue eyes (total cutie!!), and I stole a pair of his boxers. But I DO remember this is where my “diarrhea of the mouth” starts. It had to do with his ex-girlfriend who was coming to town for a visit, and if you refer back to #2, you can see why I might have been a bit nervous. It was totally rude and uncalled for and I am still embarrassed. Sorry Chris!

4) The guy I dated before my freshman year in college. We also had a group of friends who inter-dated, and there was much, much more alcohol involved at this point. I don’t remember much about him either, but my diarrhea of the mouth really kicked in on this one. It had to do with his DAD. Yeah, that’s right, I talked shit about his dad. I can’t blame it really on the alcohol, although there may have been a couple of beers in my system at the time. He was a super-nice guy, and I totally wasn’t nice to him. Sorry Jason!

5) This last guy can’t even be counted as an ex. I’m not going to lie, I don’t know his name. Here’s the thing, I NEVER knew his name.

Here is the extent of what I do remember. My friend from high school went to a different college than I did. She met a boy there, and after our freshman year, she wanted to go visit him. He lived in a different town maybe 45 minutes away. (But I can’t even remember which town!) So I agree to go because she is setting me up on a double-date because my current boyfriend was an ass...I wanted to get back at him.

We go to someone’s apartment, drink, and the guy was there. All I can literally remember is that he was tall-ish, with dark hair, and was sort of cute. Definitely not unattractive. Cuter than the ass that I was dating at the time. And we drank and maybe fooled around a bit. And then we went home. And I think maybe we went back once. And I talked to the boy on the phone.

His name was either Brandon or Andrew. And whichever one it was, I called him by the other. I am not kidding, when I called this guy, I asked for him using the wrong name. (Which I am sure was not a turn-off at all.) After a very short period of time, I think he tried to be nice and be like, “Umm…so yeah, I’m not really interested in you.” (shocking!) My friend told me that too, but for whatever reason, I felt compelled to keep trying to talk to this guy.

I can remember sitting on the floor of my parent’s bedroom, on their corded phone, and he’s talking to me, but not really talking, and basically telling me to take a hike, and I kept spewing these nonsense words! Like, if you were listening to the conversation, I sound like an insane stalker. He could not get me off of the phone; I just kept talking like we were dating. The one thing I do remember was he was saying that he had horses or his aunt had horses or something like that in southern Indiana. That was the wrong thing to say to me, because I LOVE horses. I wouldn’t care if he was Jeffrey Dahmer at this point; I just wanted to go horseback riding. I just couldn’t be like, “OK, so it was nice to meet you. Have a nice life.”

I didn’t even know this guy! Like, even a little bit! I couldn't even get his name right! And I really didn’t even CARE to get to know this guy! I think I just didn’t want to be rejected again. The greatest part of the story is that my friend wound up marrying the guy she met freshman year. And all he knows of me is this one incident with Brandon/Andrew. So when I saw them at our 10 year high school reunion, he was all, “Oh yeah, Brandon/Andrew has 2 kids and is married” or something like that. And I just stared blankly at him. Because he called him by the wrong name, and it took me a full 3 seconds to realize who the hell he was even talking about, and THEN my face turned six shades of red. How embarrassing, 9 years later. So I guess I owe my friend and her husband an apology for being completely insane.

Sadly, that is not even my worst case of diarrhea of the mouth. The most memorable times are after I’ve had a lot to drink, because at that point, there is just no sensor. If I think it, I say it. Which can be very, very bad. And even though I really don’t remember much about these guys, (and that is because I didn’t know much about them to begin with), they have the distinct honor of being the first recipients of me. Sticking my foot in my mouth. Thanks MamaKat, for bringing up such fabulous memories. It was fun!

Boys will be boys

I never really realized it, but my husband and his brothers are really kind of funny.

While surfing over the weekend with a friend on the lake, the friend asked, “If you have any pointers or see anything that I am doing wrong, feel free to speak up.” BIL’s response? “Surf better.” Really?? Surf better?? Thanks! Amazingly enough? It worked! (although I feel that my advice to “widen your stance” was probably more beneficial, but “surf better” may have helped too) (also keep in mind that I have never actually let go of the rope while surfing and these guys are heads and shoulders above anything that I will probably ever be able to do on a surfboard behind a boat…but I’ve watched enough people get up, fall, get up, let go, fall, etc. that I feel like I’ve picked up a few things)

After watching Michael Phelps win his record tying 7th gold medal by less than one one-hundredth of a second on Friday, my husband says…
“He didn’t break the world record? What a failure.”
(the fact that Michael Phelps can swim faster than he could ever run is besides the point)

My youngest BIL has too many off the wall one-liners to think of…but my drive to dinner Saturday night re-assured me that I think I can handle being the mom of boys, if that’s what I have. I don’t know what he said, (I think it had something to do with being the best looking of the three) but the entire 20 minute drive was my husband and his brother beating on their little brother. And all I did was stay between the lines and smile…let them beat the crap out of each other, at least then they’ll leave me alone!