LoserEx Answers Your Questions

Here at LoserEx, we consider ourselves experts on dating. And as such, we feel qualified to give out unsolicited advice. Unlike other advice columns, we're not very tactful. Actually, we're pretty bitchy. We plan to continue giving our advice to people who sound like they need it, whether they want it or not. If you actually want our advice on something, feel free to email us.

Today's questions come from The Washington Post's "Dear Prudence" chat:

Dear Prudence,

I fell in love with a married man and slept with him. Clearly one of my worst moments as a human being. When his wife found out about our affair we ended things. Somehow their daughter found out, and she has been harassing me ever since. She wrote me several long letters in which she told me how much she disliked me and how gross and pathetic I was. She messaged the letters to my Facebook friends before I made my friend list private. I think she got my phone number and began prank calling me several times a night, sometimes three times an hour around 2 a.m. I changed my phone number. Now she is showing up where I work (a department store) and coming into my area. She has done this twice. I am always hesitant to talk to her because the wife and my affair partner threatened legal action if I ever contacted them or so much as looked at one of their kids. I do not have the money to hire a lawyer to contact their lawyer. Should I accept this teenager's behavior as a consequence of the affair, or am I within my rights to find a way to get her to stop bothering me?

Restraining order. Seriously. Don't think twice about it.


Dear Prudence,

I am against torturing animals. I never thought I would need to clarify that, because I assumed most people oppose torturing animals. Then I met met my daughter's fiancé. I found out he was arrested twice as a teen for maiming and torturing animals - his own and others. He has apparently not had an incident since he has to do tons of community service when he was seventeen. He and my daughter claim his abuse of animals was a reaction to his stepfather's abuse of him. My daughter thinks it is ridiculous to care about something her fiancé did years ago. But ever since finding out, I have not been able to look at her fiancé the same way. Am I overreacting by not fully trusting him?

You're not overreacting. He's probably a serial killer.

Shrek is an Ass

A few months ago, I found myself thinking about Shrek for the first time in a long time. A few months into our relationship, he told me that his mother had terminal cancer and was not seeking treatment for it. She only had a couple of months to live. When I asked him about it, he wouldn't say anything. He would lash out at me for no reason or tell me that I needed to be more sensitive to what he's going through. I spent the next year walking on eggshells around him for fear that something would upset him.

His mother sent him cards monthly over the next year we were dating, and they were all chipper and mentioned nothing about the cancer. At the time I just thought they all were ignoring it and that was how they dealt with it. After the first month when he brought it up, he never spoke a word about it again. I didn't ask him any questions about it because I didn't want to bring up a sore area. When he wouldn't talk, I just assumed it was too hard, not that he didn't know how to follow through with his story. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I accepted that his mother did have cancer. I trusted the person I was dating, so the idea that he would make up an outrageous lie about his mom never even crossed my mind once.

Then a couple of months ago I found myself thinking about it again. So I did what any crazy person would do and Googled his mom. Not only did I not find her obituary, I found plenty of evidence that she was alive and well. Eight years later.

I found myself suddenly remembering the circumstances of when he first told me. It was after we got back together after er had broken up due to the fact he had slept with a girl who lived on my floor. It seems so obvious now. Of course he had done this to manipulate me into putting up with his terrible behavior. He knew were were on thin ice and the only way he could think to keep me around was to make me think his mother was dying.

After my revelation, I spent the next few days beyond angry with myself. I was furious that I had let myself believe such a ridiculous lie. I spent over a year with him after the news because I thought he needed someone. He was consistently horrible to me, but I put up with it because I was convinced that he was going through what I imagined to be the most traumatic thing possible. The whole time, the only one going through something terrible was me. I'd never been so disappointed in myself.

Until I realized that I'm not the loser in this situation. I'm not the one who is so insufferable that the only way I can keep someone with me is to convince them my mom is dying.

Seriously Shrek, you're a fucking tool.

South of the Border

When I first met Fred, he decided one day that he wanted to go on an impromptu road trip to Mexico. After having gotten out of a terrible relationship with Shrek, I was up for any sort of adventure. So I quickly packed a bag and was ready to go. As we were walking to the car, he informed me that he actually was driving some friends to Texas for a party, but we would drop them off then go to Mexico. It seemed a little weird, but whatever.

When the friends (a guy and a girl who were dating) got in the car, it was obvious that they had no idea about the Mexico plans. Fred brought it up, and the girl freaked out. She immediately made it clear that she wanted to be back home in time for their anniversary dinner the following night. She made it very clear that she believed I was the one insisting on the Mexico trip.

Well, despite his friends' objections, Fred insisted we go to Mexico anyway after dropping them off. So we drove late into the night, staying at a cheesy motel right across the border so we could cross over first thing in the morning.

The trip over the Mexico was a unique experience. We mainly just drank and bought the tackiest souvenirs we could find. One thing that really stuck out though was how many people tried to sell us drugs. After turning down some, Fred told me he thought we should buy some illegal substances. I told him no, since I really didn't want to get stopped by border patrol and go to jail over some Mexican weed. He was insistent, but finally accepted that I was not going to allow it to happen.

It was a good thing I didn't give in. Sure enough, we were stopped by border patrol. Fred was asked to pull over and have his car searched. He tried to convince me it was because he had New York tags. This didn't make sense to me then and it still doesn't make sense to me now. We were pulled into separate rooms, questioned and searched. I had no clue what was going on. I didn't know if he had bought some drugs while I was in the bathroom and didn't tell me or what. When the border patrol agent told me the dogs had smelled drugs in the car, I almost passed out.

After two hours in the border patrol station we were finally free to go. As we were driving away, I asked Fred what the whole incident was all about. He chuckled that he had been hot boxing in his car the day before we left. Charming.

We got back to pick up his friends late, and the girl was none too pleased. She made it very clear that she felt I was the one to blame and proceeded to give me the stink eye the entire way back. The two friends ended up getting married and living in the same area as me, so I see them from time to time at alumni events. The guy is very friendly, but the girl still goes out of her way to give me the stink eye.

As truly annoying as this is, Fred's gift of a lifelong enemy still isn't nearly as horrible as the gift of the lifelong memory of my run in with the law. Thanks for the awesome souvenirs!

My Boyfriend is Weird

There are a lot of reasons my boyfriend is great. He likes everything I cook, he knows exactly what books and magazines to get me when I am sick, he lets me test eye creams on him, he is proud of me for being thrifty when I use a coupon for his birthday dinner, he can usually dress himself.

But despite all his great qualities, he's freaking weird. Earlier this week, he realized there was a mosquito in his apartment. It happens, we live in a swamp. Little did I know he had a solution to the mosquito problem.

Early this morning, he left my apartment, returning 45 minutes later with an interesting purchase.



Yours for only $44 on Amazon.

 Yes, he bought a freaking bug zapper to use inside his apartment to take out a single mosquito. Furthermore, since he is concerned about the fire hazard aspect of this, he plans to sit up all night until the bug gets zapped.

The Crimes of Inanimate Objects

My fiance is fast on his way to becoming my ex-fiance. It has not been the easiest process (and has not been without a fair bit of bad behavior on my part), but its high time he got a loser-ex post of his very own.

I'm going to try to tell this story without falling into "why my ex deserves to rot in hell" territory, so there's going to be a good bit left out. But what's left is still pretty nuts.

Let's start by saying that, of the contributors to this blog, I am likely the most tolerant, most liberal, and least affluent one of the bunch, with the shortest list of deal-breakers. I'm also the only one still stuck in the South, so maybe I just have less to choose from. At any rate, I put up with things that, frankly, I don't think RGB would. In fact, last time I saw her, she point blank told me that she had very serious concerns about my current relationship. I'm pretty sure she told me that I SHOULD NOT marry my fiance. And she was, as she so often is, right. But this blog is not about the serious reasons for the demise of our relationships, so we aren't going to get into that.

I'm a bit of a partier (causing RGB to despair of my poor behavior on numerous occasions). So, naturally, I often end up with men of a similar mindset. My soon-to-be ex-fiance (let's call him Beethoven) is an example of this.

Beethoven had (how shall I put it?) a problem with illegal recreational substances--and not just the relatively innocuous one you're probably thinking of. He has since gotten over this, but when we were first dating it was bad. Unfortunately, it took me quite some time to understand just how bad it was.

One night, after we had moved in together, he came home quite intoxicated--alcohol, plus other things. I tried to get him to go to bed, but we ended up in an argument instead. He left and I went to bed.

Several hours later, I awoke to screaming coming from the living room. I walked into the room to find Beethoven sitting on the love seat, yelling at my body pillow (which was propped upright on the sofa), accusing it of having stolen the television. And, indeed, our large and expensive flat-screen television was gone.

You can imagine my confusion. I was still groggy and Beethoven was telling me that a pillow had stolen our television. Looking back on it, several years later, it has become no less absurd.

To this day, we do not know what happened to the television. Beethoven has no memory of the night and our best lead implicates a navy blue body pillow in the theft.

So, beware of rogue pillows. Apparently, they are more sinister than they first appear.

An Open Letter to a Particular Loser

Dear Loser,

I'm glad you were able to make it to the event on Friday. I hope you had a good weekend. Mine wasn't so great. Well, what I remember of it anyway. Oh, that reminds me. Thanks for slipping me a roofie.

I had thought that date rape drugs were limited to frat keggers, but you really took it to the next level by drugging my drink at a professional event. Classy. Like most people, I naively thought that only 19 year-old fratstars have the necessary lack of compassion to drug an unwitting woman, but you have shown me that even middle-aged men with wives, kids and houses in the suburbs are capable of this disgusting act. You're a fucking sociopath. Trust me, I will be much better about watching my drink in the future.

I will also be much better about watching your creepy ass, and so will everyone else I tell this to. If you feel like you're getting a lot of dirty looks at a party one day, it's not your imagination.

Thank you for the valuable lesson in safety. I'm sorry I made it to a cab before you could rape me.

Cheers!

RGB

Jeepers Creepers

I recently went on a trip and since the mailman has not been delivering my Economist, I was stuck with nothing to read except Cosmopolitan. So I read it like a million times. And while I enjoyed reading the article that made Lea Michele sound like an insufferable bitch, I was a little shocked by some of the advice they are giving to women.

In the past, Cosmo has given really bad advice, like suggesting you use a thong to tie your hair back during sex. Or that you stick your scrunchie on your man's dong (Really, who wears scrunchies? That advice is sooo 1993). Or that you decorate your room by putting a colorful scarf over a lamp (Hello, fire hazard). In fact, more than a few times, I have speculated that the writers are making fun of their readership. But, of all the bad advice Cosmo has given throughout the years, this issue really took the cake.

The article in question discussed ways to meet men. Some of the suggestions were actually pretty good. For example, throwing a party and telling your friends to each bring someone you don't know. This is a good way to meet people. The chance that your future husband is already in your extended social circle is pretty good. Plus, you know he's not a total psychopath if your friend hangs out with him.

But some of the ideas were shockingly terrible. One was that you meet cute doctors by hanging out in the hospital cafeteria. Seriously. There is so much wrong with this. First, the food is nasty. Second, this is a place where people go when they're sick, not a place to go to meet men. That is just wrong. Then, there is the fact that you're bothering some poor guy at work. This is especially bad considering that being a doctor is really stressful to begin with. The last thing a "cute doctor" needs is to be hit on when he's trying to grab a sandwich and get back to saving lives. This wasn't the only suggestion to creepily stalk people at their place of work.

There was another suggestion to look up Realtors online, find a cute one, then call to schedule an appointment to see something he is selling. Really? You think it's cute to waste someone's time? Not to mention it is beyond creepy to stalk someone on the Internet then get them to meet you under false pretenses. Just imagine if this were the other way around and some creepy man looked for attractive female Realtors online and then made appointments just to hit on them. This is gross and would probably be grounds for a restraining order in some places. 

I find it incredibly irritating when someone hits on me at a work function. I would be livid and creeped out if I then discovered that the person hitting on me wasn't there on any sort of business other than to hit on women. Seriously. Do not bother people at work.

Also, really, Cosmo? You do a ton of pieces about how to stop creepy men then turn around and encourage women to be creeps? Not cool.