It's Deja Vu All Over Again

Time is a funny thing. It has this way of making things that seemed so important kind of fade away, while making little things at the time turn out to be a big deal.

Then, there's everything else that's leftover. The flotsam and jetsam of memories that just sort of hang around in your brain, taking up valuable space that should be reserved for important things. Like....I dunno...brownie recipes or sex toy websites. MAKE STUFF UP PEOPLE.

Which brings me to my latest Doozy, which is a throwback to an old Doozy, and the whole thing brings me a mixture of schadenfreude laced with eating crow from some girlfriends who are saying "I TOLD YOU SO!"

The Tale of Needster McGee 2.0 - AKA- Skip, The Ghost of Christmas Past

I wrote about Needster McGee awhile back, then committed blog hari-kari and deleted the post because my ramblings really veered from "snarky" into mean. Not cool Doozy.

So. Let's recap, shall we?

Needster, AKA, Skip...

WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO..Tangent Will Robinson, Tangent:

If you recall in Charles Dicken's classic A Christmas Carol, the ghost of Christmas Past appears to show Scrooge scenes from his past that happened around Christmas (although Skip and I didn't happen anywhere near Christmas). The Ghost of Christmas Past also served to show the reader how Scrooge became a bitter, coldhearted miser. Thus, I give you Needster McGee 2.0, AKA Skip, The Ghost of Christmas Past

Moving on.

Skip and I dated for a couple months earlier this Spring. Those of you who read the original post, might remember that at first Skip seemed normal, if not high strung and somewhat neurotic - but sweet. He had a cute shaved head, a sweet dog and a sick, elderly mom who he ended up moving in with him.

And the mom thing shadowed the entire relationship. Not her fault at all. The couple times I met her she was very kind and sweet to me. However, she was ill and frail..and well..Skip had ZERO COPING SKILLS with how to go from his clean, organized, orderly life to suddenly having to care for another human being.

And boy.
Did that freak him out.
Like.
A lot.

Where, at first Skip came off as a bit OCD (red flag #1 for me that things probably weren't going to work: he HATED "stuff" like a normal amount of living things. His house was cute, but decorated very sparsely. I never let him come over to my place because I was afraid that he would judge me and say "OMG! LOOK AT ALL THE CRAP YOU HAVE!" When I don't have a lot of stuff. I have a normal amount of stuff for a 40-something woman. He was just a freak.) after his mom moved in?

HOLY SHITBALLS BATMAN

Off the charts neurosis. Pessimism. Insecurity. Anxiety. Control freakishness. And neediness.

OH
MY
FUCKING
GOD
THE
NEEDINESS

Now. I am a naturally extra, super, duper empathetic chick- it just comes with my ovary/vagina set up. So, at first I was all in with helping Skip figure out the stuff with his mom. Help him learn to cope with taking care of all the issues, the appointments, the stress of it all. And Skip ate up my help and sucked up my empathy like a man in a desert thirsty for water. And he just kept sucking. And sucking. And sucking some more.

Here's what happened. He pushed his need, his anxiety, his pessimism off onto ME. He tried to make HIS problems, MY problems. Then, Skip would get defensive and hair trigger on edge because he felt like everyone was criticizing him if we offered ideas on how to help.

Snort
Like that was going to last. Eggshells are not something I walk on anymore.

Look, here's the thing. I'm all about helping. I love to help! It's one of the qualities about myself that I love the most. But I'm not a fucking maid, a doormat or a social worker. And I certainly wasn't going to take some dude I just started dating behaving like a child in a man's body because he didn't have the plums to ask for help.

And all of it ended when Skip's neediness/jealousy and control freakishness reached a towering, climactic crescendo and I'd had enough. Boy, I wish I'd kept the texts - they. were. epic.

So, what went down was this.

I'd taken a half day off from work. And because I had a few hours alone, what does a Doozy do? I TOOK A GODDAMN NAP IS WHAT IT DID! Fuck yeah! However, when I woke up there were texts from Skip.

"Where are you?"
"Are you mad at me?"
"Are you alright?"

Now. Skip would go hours without replying to my texts, which I understood. He had obligations...and you know...a life. Like me. So, as he became increasingly needy and dare I say quasi controlling, I just lost my shit and replied with something snarky (I'm paraphrasing at this point) like this:

ME: "It's starting to really bother me that I feel like I'm always on call and if I don't respond to a text from you right away, you'll freak out. I'm not liking it."

And this was Skip's reply:

SKIP: "I think things just change for me/us."

Man. I'm so, so SO regretting not keeping that text conversation - which lasted almost 24 hours. There was some great stuff there. But I won't bore you, so let me just highlight...

Massive emotional manipulation rolling off Skip in waves. WAVES PEOPLE. Along the lines of:

"I don't like that I've made you so miserable. That I'm such a douchebag."

"I'm just such a shithead. I didn't know you were so unhappy."

Come on dude. Man up. I never said I was unhappy (although looking back, honestly, I was well on my way to unhappiness. Skip was toxic, had a toxic, pessimistic outlook on life, and it never would have worked)...I had said there was something that was bothering me. But instead of facing it head on and dealing with the behavior like an adult, Skip just peaced out and tried to make ME feels shitty for his HIS bad behavior. Like it was MY fault.

Uh.No.

This went on for hours.
And here's the ironic part, and my friends will back me up on this...when I was dating, I didn't have ANY problem just walking away. Still don't. It's a "Oh, you aren't that into me? kthxbai." type of deal. I walk away and I never look back. I just don't. There was only one man so far that would have changed that for me. And well, we know how that went down.

I Don't Waste My Time On People Who

Don't Want To Be With Me

So the fact that I tried so hard to change Skip's mind was a bit puzzling. Maybe it was the fact that we DID seem to get along so well in so many ways. But in the end, Skip's raging insecurities/jealousy/issues won out, and those weren't my demons to battle. This queen's horses wouldn't put that broken egg back together again. Although I do love eggs, especially scrambled. Oooh, with some cheese mixed in? Or some feta and dill? Super delish!

But I digress.

Oh then there was a the fact that Skip said that he expected that if we continued dating, I would have cheated on him. He basically called me a whore.
No one. And I mean, no one. Calls me that.
Unless we're naked and there's pudding involved.

But in a serious way? Like, really thinking that I would cheat.

No. Really. Fuck. You.

So yeah. That happened. Bye.
And scene.

Which brings us to today.
My girlfriends Tricia and Shelley are just butt dancing in their chairs right now, because THEY WERE RIGHT. There. I put in print, on the internets. I HAVE SPOKEN.

When Skip and I parted, I was damn sure that he was gone into the crazy ether, never to darken my door again. But Tricia and Shelley were SURE that Skip would be back. Because as they put it:

"The crazy, insecure ones ALWAYS come back."
Damn skippy. You're some smart chicks.

Cuz lo' and behold I got  an email from Skip this week. And fuck if wasn't a Doozy.

First off, Skip apologized for the way things ended. Which was good, and as he should have. Good boy. Skip also threw this little chicken nugget in his email, which I was chomping at the bit to respond to, but decided again.

"I always wonder how you are. I fucking hate it that we don't talk. I am hurt that you never tried to contact me...but I get it."

Why? Why would the fact that I didn't contact Skip surprise him? Why would he be in any way confused that after telling me to get lost, accusing me of someday cheating on him that I would just go on with my life? Did he really think that I would go crawling back or check in to make sure that little-Skippy-whippy's-fweelings weren't butthurt?
DIDN'T HE KNOW ME AT ALL? Apparently not.

Dude.
Ladyballs. I haz them.

Again. Let me repeat.
And anyone out there who struggles with not being able to "let go" in a relationship - use this mantra. It really helps:

I Don't Waste My Time On People Who

Don't Want To Be With Me

(because really, you deserve better)

But you know, the emotional manipulation is still there. The insecurity is still there, the mania, the anxiety the complete and utter lack of awareness that he needs some serious mental health help. After this little exchange:

ME: "You always said I should write a blog. After I stopped dating, I did just that. This is me. I'm Doozy. It's not pretty, but it's honest and people seem to really like it."

SKIP: "I'm glad people like it. Unfortunately, I fucking hate people."

ME: "That's too bad. I recommend therapy. It really helped me. Thank you, by the way for the apology. I've never received those before when I've been treated badly; So I appreciate it."

SKIP: "That's good advice. Regrettably, they could fucking fly in a team of highly specialized therapists to treat me and they would be throwing up their hands in a half hour. Mumbling to themselves as they run out the door... "this motherfucker is unsalvageable"...

Alrighty then. Good luck with that.

Skip's last email went on, gushing about our first date, how great he thought I was and what a "fucking idiot" he was. I'm not debating that point, since it's pointless. Frankly, it doesn't matter to me whether Needster McGee 2.0 - AKA Skip, the Ghost of Christmas Past is a fucking idiot or not.

Cuz, Skip doesn't matter to me anymore.
Any residual anger I had towards him is long gone; any residual...anything is long gone. There's just....ehhhhhh, think-I'll-go-make-a-sammich, left. Me? I've been in an egg salad kinda mood lately.

At the end of the day, Skip has ended up just like the rest of the dating stories...
Just some guy I used to know.

I think men should start dressing like Jean Claude Van Damme circa 1984. Then they would all dance like this. I'm looking at you James....

As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to leave comments or YOUR doozy of a dating story. Sharing is caring people.
-Doozy