The 50's Called..They Want Their Life Back.

So many, many, many, many many, many moons ago when I was a wee younger lass I had just gotten out of a horrible, no good, really bad, terrible relationship.  Looking back, I sort of liken that whole chapter in my life to getting a pap smear at a drive thru window. You sorta stick your ass out the window, get your salad tong treatment, they smack you on the heiny, ask you if you want to supersize your order, then move you along. Totally surreal, not something you'd want to do in the first place, and certainly not something you'd ever want to go back for. Not even for the shitty happy pap smear toy.

There's a point to this. I promise.
STAY WITH ME PEOPLE.

Anyhoozles. Shortly after my escape, I needed some serious validation that I wasn't a troll doll and I turned to Yahoo Personals. That's how long ago this was. Yahoo Fucking Personals - online dating hadn't even really been invented yet. Is Yahoo even a thing anymore? Anyhoozles, Yahoo Personals is where I met today's Doozy.

And fuck, what a Doozy.
YAHOO.
PERSONALS.

The Tale of Gary, Legolas' Ugly Cousin

Let me preface this by saying that I was not in a good headspace. Not at all. This time around I was the one who shouldn't have been dating. Dammit it all to hell people, I'd just gotten out of what took me quite awhile to be convinced was an abusive relationship. Yes, yes, yes, all the victim blaming from friends and family didn't help me along in my little shame spiral, but that's a different story.

This story is about Gary.

Now. I met Gary through Yahoo. What the actual hell. He was attractive enough, in a doughy, Kewpie doll sort of way. And he dyed his hair red, which looking back seems kind of creepy to me.  Can't say why, it just does. A lot of guys dye their hair, but dying it ginger red just seems...I dunno...

Gary was the classic "nice guy". I bet most women who've dated know what I'm talking about, and I bet a lot of men are scratching their heads. If you don't know what the "nice guy syndrome" is look it up HERE, HERE, and HERE. This is a thing, and lord knows later in my life I ran into many "nice guys" while I was dating. Fuckers.

Anyhoozles.
Moving on...
Gary was nice enough, there wasn't a macho bone in his body, he was still best friend's with his ex, but he complained that women always looked past him because "nice guys finish last" (red flag!). Still, Gary opened doors for me, pushed in chairs, all that gentlemanly stuff that are nice things for men to do for women. At the time, I wasn't cognizant enough to notice all the flags at first. Luckily, we didn't date long.
But here's the thing...erm things...that led to Gary's swift and ultimate demise from my life (aside from my clearly shitty headspace and fallout).

HE
WAS
JUST
WEIRD


Maybe part of it was that Gary was way, way older than me (almost 15 years) and we had little in common, except we both loved pizza. I mean, Gary was obsessed with Elvis. 
ELVIS FOR FUCK SAKES.
In the 21st Century.
I remember there was this one time that the Gary took me out to a bar and there was Karaoke going on, and of course, Gary had to get up and sing an Elvis song. To me. Like Elvis.
And I wanted to slide under the sticky bar stool and mingle with the peanut shells on the floor in embarrassment as every head in the place swiveled in unison to look at Gary, then Me. Then Gary, then me; as he crooned out some Elvis tune, putting extra "oomph" at the end. Like some jacked up, white trash tennis match.
Of course all the other old people LOVED it, but I had no fucking clue what song he was singing and the whole thing didn't seem romantic, but really, sort of...well...weird.

Gary also had this obsession with some British soap opera called EastEnders. I dunno either. Okay, so I love Dr. Who, but mostly because David Tennant was awesome and I want my own T.A.R.D.I.S, but I don't obsess about it. And I love Top Gear, cuz, well = fast cars and stupidity. But Gary would want to come over to MY place and watch some weird British TV show all night. Like for a date night. That was it. His idea of a really hot time.
Oooh oooh.
Hold me down cowboy.

And Gary really wanted an old Jaguar, and he could totally afford to buy one, but was too chicken to. But he would complain about his car incessantly. I mean he would scan the car ads..yes people..this was SO long ago that Car Soup hadn't been invented. 
FOR FUCK SAKES.
Anyhoozles, Gary would scan the car ads for old Jags, go look at them, then wax poetic about them. 
BUT GARY NEVER UNZIPPED HIS NUTSACK AND BOUGHT ONE.
ISSUES. SO MANY ISSUES.

Also, Gary ONLY, and I mean only liked having sex from behind.
Uh...
Say what?
Nope. Not even fucking kidding people.

Now, you know me, I rarely talk about any sexual exploits, because, well, there aren't many. And for the most part my sexual conquests aren't that exciting, but Gary was...a special breed of person...human..organism.
Little foreplay, no passion, almost - mechanical.
So, Gary would be jack-hammering away back there for, I dunno..I lost track of time? And I would just be planning my grocery list, or reciting the Gettysburg Address or singing the old Friskies "Meow, meow meow meow meow meow meow" song in my head.  Just one step up from doing math, I guess.
So yeah, the sex was sub-par, to say the least.

But, as if I haven't already sounded like a cruel and heartless wench already, well I'm just going to go all balls-to-the-wall now.
SO BUCKLE UP PEOPLE.
See here's where I was in my life.
It wasn't good.

I had just come out of almost four years of hell:
Got divorced
Finished up graduate school while working full time
Doing that single parenting thing
And in, then out of a horrifically verbally and emotionally abusive relationship while all that other stuff was going on.
So, I hadn't slept for four years of my life.


When I finally wrapped up school, sleeping was top on my list of sparkly things to do besides spend time with my kiddo. And Gary just thought that was the funniest thing in the damn world and he would tease me about it. See, he worked second shift, and got off work at like 1:30pm, then went home and slept for four hours. It would be an understatement to say he had a fucked up sleep schedule.
But I didn't. At least not anymore.
However, on those kickin' British TV nights, he would want to stay up until 2am watching Masterpiece Theater, or a documentary on worms mating or something.
I'M OUT

Then come to bed at 2:30am and want to get frisky.

And here's the kicker. Gary then would blame ME for my overwhelming sleep deprivation and need for sleep.
GET
THE
FUCK
OVER
YOURSELF
Now. This was a very long time ago; even before I'd started "dating" dating, way back in the mid-2000's and I was SO not the same person that I am now. But I was a bit of a rage monster coming out of my bad situation. And Gary's complete dismissal about my wants and needs, coupled with his general weirdness just set my teeth grinding. However, my ladyballz hadn't completely dropped yet, so I didn't just tell him to take a hike. At least not yet.
It took a couple weeks.
But I finally did it. A quick, clean phone call (because smartphones weren't even really a thing back then. FOR FUCK SAKES).

And Oh. My. God.
So, you know how women always get a bad rap about being uber emotional, whiny babies, who are constantly PMSing about something and can't handle life's up's and down's without constantly crying and freaking out?
SO
NOT
TRUE

Gary lost his shit. We'd only dated for a couple months, and pretty casually; monogamously, but it wasn't like we were seeing or even talking to each other every damn day. But oh my lord, you would have thought that we had been going out, living together and picking out drapes at JCPenney from Gary's reaction to my breaking things off with him.
Remember, this was before the days of constant texting too, so it wasn't like today; where you communicate with someone everyday...all the time.
Email people. Email.
Damn, I sound so fucking old.

Moving on...

Gary had been falling for me.
Gary sent me flowers.
Gary wrote me sad cards.
Gary sent me sad emails.
Gary wrote me a sad song.
Gary started playing in a band again and invited me to come see him.
Gary probably had a shrine set up to me in his attic and was burning Doozy voodoo dolls every night. I don't fucking know.

At first, I felt bad for Gary's obvious pain. I don't like causing people pain. However, it soon became very clear to me that Gary was manipulating me to get me back. That's when I had to kindly tell Gary to fuck off and not contact me again.
I wasn't responsible to his feelings.

After I broke things off with Gary I figured out that I was angry. Really angry. I was angry at how I had been treated in my last relationship, I was angry at men in general, and I was really fucked up in the head. I knew that I shouldn't be dating anyone; that I needed to get myself healthy and well before I would be ready to be with any man.
So I forgot about the penises for a long time and got myself some help. I got my shit together to become the fabulous Doozy of today.

Funny thing is...I still have my Yahoo email; it's where all my spam goes. And a few years later I got an email from Gary; inviting me to see him and his band play. It was an Elvis tribute show.

Weirdo.