The Story of Us

I started my first blog my junior year of college. Putting your innermost thoughts on the internet and putting the link in your AIM profile is probably not the smartest thing to do, but all of my smart/witty/deep friends were doing it and we all do really dumb things in college. At least I didn't get herpes or something.

The next summer I dated MB. MB wasn't as smart/witty/deep as me and my friends, but he wanted to pretend so he started his own blog. Unfortunately, having already graduated from college (and I am using the term "college" very loosely) and being marginally employed, the content for his blog was pretty mundane. He attempted to make up for it by posting song lyrics (usually Italian opera lyrics that no one understood) and some of his original poetry (he was self-published). Shortly after we broke up, he took a stab at writing fiction. Really grotesque fiction (think scripts for snuff films). About me. Using my real name.

I am not going to go into details, but let's just say with a good bit of alcohol in my system, I could probably be persuaded into a few kind-of-kinky things. Necrophilia is not one of those things. Especially if I am the dead one.

Ordinarily, this would be terrifying and I would look into restraining orders, but, as I may have mentioned before, MB was questionably literate. So much so that you had to read each sentence three or four times before you understood what he was trying to convey. So instead of taking out a restraining order, I printed out a dozen copies of one of his creepier stories and left them on the editing table of the newspaper office on a Sunday afternoon.

My fellow editors are to this day some of my best friends because just like me, they are a) anal about editing things and b) willing to do just about anything to avoid doing actual work.

My friends didn't let me down and immediately began editing MB's prose and researching the submission requirements for the literary magazine (as in we called the editor of the literary magazine, told her we were writing a story about it and asked a bunch of "interview" questions--then, so no one would suspect anything, we stuck a random "call for submission" text box on the A&E page). We put MB's real name on his story and stuck it in the magazine's on-campus mailbox in the middle of the night.

I wish I could say it got published, but it didn't. Surprisingly, the literary magazine actually gets enough submissions that they are able to reject some. I never heard about it again, unless you count every editorial meeting for the rest of the semester.

I guess it's all for the best, as it probably would have resulted in both of us getting in real trouble if it had been published. And while I am all for making my exes pay for their transgressions, I don't think any of them have done anything bad enough to deserve jail time.

You don't care if it's wrong or if it is right

I think I'm just going to make it MB month.

I think I've said this before, but when MB and I were dating I was really really sick with RA. For those of you who aren't familiar with the symptoms of this disease, you can look it up on WebMD. Basically imagine the worst case scenario and that's where I was (and this time I am honestly not exaggerating).

When I was first diagnosed I could hide the pain. I didn't limp and as long as I didn't sit in the same position for too long I was okay. But of course things got much worse before they got better (and they did get better--if I didn't tell people they wouldn't know today).

The worse things got, the more self-conscious I became. I knew people on campus were talking about me and why a former dancer now stiffly limped around the quad. My hands swelled up and began to disfigure. I couldn't walk in high heels anymore. I lost a lot of weight (actually, that wasn't so bad) but I also lost all muscle tone (that was bad).

I didn't feel pretty or attractive at all.

To make matters worse, I became completely uninterested in sexual activity. Frankly, it hurt too much to fool around.

To his credit, MB was really good about most of it. He didn't press things too much and he understood why I clutched his hand in a really weird way when we went out. I'll never complain about how he dealt with the RA.

Until the night he decided he needed some action and went to the strip club.

There are few things in this world to which I am unequivocally morally opposed. Selling sex is one of them. Call me a prude or whatever, but I think prostitution or any of its derivatives is absolutely repugnant. I can stomach most "sexual eccentricities" (I don't engage in them but when I think about others doing so it does not make me physically ill). I have no tolerance for a woman (or a man for that matter) selling her body. And I have no tolerance for men (or women) who are willing to pay for the experience.

(Can you tell I took Sex Ethics for my religion Senior Sem?)

But putting that aside, if you know your girlfriend is stricken with a chronic deforming disease and you've talked about how unattractive she feels do you really think the best thing to do is go to the strip club with the guys?

It accomplishes nothing (other than destroying the trust that should be present in an intimate relationship). It's not like the strippers will finish you off so you have to do it on your own time which men do anyways. The only difference is you are now thinking about some other woman's ass in your face.

To say I was hurt would be an understatement. MB could have backhanded me and it would have stung less. Of course in the end it bit him in the ass because it only made me even more sexually reclusive than I already was. I didn't want him to even look at me because I was afraid he was comparing me to the lithe, able-bodied women at the strip club.

We broke up a few weeks later because I could not trust him anymore. Maybe that was irrational of me, but when it comes down to it, if he did something that bothered me that much the relationship was not meant to be.

Throwing down the plastic

Hmmm...more on MB

He really really liked these two singers. I really like these two singers too so when I heard they were playing in Columbus, I got tickets (at $150 a pop). MB assumed that since the concert was a few weeks after his birthday, the tickets were my birthday present to him and made plans to come to Columbus to see this show. The thing is, we weren't dating when I bought the tickets and we sure as hell weren't dating when the concert rolled around. In fact, I was dating another guy and was blissfully happy with him.
But on the day of the concert, MB showed up in Columbus (he drove seven hours to get there). Feeling really bad that I didn't make it incredibly clear to him that he wasn't invited (I thought the fact I was dating another guy was was a sure sign), I cancelled on the girlfriend I was going to go with (the current boyfriend wasn't too keen into these performers and he had some stuff to do anyways) and told MB I would pick him up at five. That was my first mistake, I really should have held my ground.
We're sitting in the concert venue and I'm a little pissed about the whole situation but I'm trying to make the best of it so I ask what's new in his life.
"Well, I don't know how to say this but I'm dating someone."
"Really? How long has this been?"
"Since Mardi Gras. " (Note: Easter had been early this year so Mardi Gras had fallen at the beginning of February. According to MB, I "ripped his heart out" in late January. How bad could it possibly have been if he was DATING EXCLUSIVELY again at the beginning of February?!?!)
"Okay. What's her name? What's she like?"
"Her name is Jan, she's 30 and has about 15 pounds on you."
Niiiice (I am a firm believer that it is downright insulting to date someone uglier/fatter/not as gainfully employed as your ex. I realize this makes life difficult for my exes, but they should consider it a small price to pay to date such greatness).
Needless to say, I was pissed that he made me waste my concert-going experience (not to mention the price I paid for the tickets) so that he didn't have to tell me over the phone that he had a new girlfriend. Furthermore, what the hell was his girlfriend doing, letting him drive seven hours to essentially go on a date with his exgirlfriend? If my boyfriend tried to pull this one over on me I would nail his testicles to the wall. Literally.
So we get through the concert and I'm expecting him to at least buy me dinner. I subtly hint at this in the usual form ("Are you hungry?") and he ignores it. Right before I'm about to drop him off, he's like "can we go through the Wendy's drive-through?" and I'm like sure, thinking french fries sound incredible at this point (with a side of chocolate ice cream and maybe a bottle of beaujolais). Since I'm driving, I get to talk into the little box so I relay his order and then order my french fries. I pull through to the first window, expecting him to hand me money and he gives me exact change for his purchase.
So the bastard ruined the most spectacular concert of my life at my expense and then wouldn't buy my damn dollar-menu french fries. And since he was already my ex, I had no way to recoup my losses.
Cheap asshole.

You don't sweep me off my feet.

Okay, my turn.
I'm still pretty good friends with many of my exes so I am rather limited in the people I can say things about but let's talk about MB for a second.
MB is short for "man boobs". My friend Dave gave him this name when he was looking through vacation pictures and found one of MB and I. "Wow, this guy has man boobs!"
A lot of men have man boobs. But there is only one MB.
But that's not the story.
When I dated MB, I had really severe rheumatoid arthritis. Oftentimes the RA made walking and moving extremely painful (actually, sitting was also extremely painful--RA is the most painful thing I have ever experienced). There were times when we were dating, that the pain was so bad I couldn't walk and MB (who is significantly larger than I am) would carry me around (NB, it wasn't like we were going to the bars and stuff. Most of our "dating" involved sitting in my living room, watching movies because I could not go out. At the end of the night, he would help me get upstairs so that I could go to bed because I physically could not do stairs--stuff like that--if we were in public, like at dinner or something, I would hobble around on my own).
MB and I subsequently broke up. To this day, he still gets drunk and blows up my cell phone with text messages about how "he carried me around when I was sick and I never loved him back," as if that's going to make me come crying back to him.
Just remember this ladies, if I guy ever causes your feet to leave the ground, you have to marry him.