My 'Ex' Story for Dawn

I've just been wandering around the blogverse, and I went to Lawbrat's site. For those of you who haven't - go check her out (link's on my sidebar - I'm entirely too lazy to put them in posts). She's wonderful and fantastic and smart.

Anyway - she had asked for "ex" stories. This one is way too long to put in a comment, so I decided I'd blog about it.

When I was close to 20, I started dating Dan. He was fairly nice looking - not gorgeous, but not bad. Longish light brown hair, decent build, older than me by 7 years. The older thing is almost always a pre-requisite for me. I've never really gotten on well with guys my age. Anyway, we started dating. He was my first long-term relationship. Why - I'll never know. When I look back now, I think I just wanted a long term relationship with someone who I considered halfway responsible. I was getting tired of the two-week or month long "friendships" I always seemed to be getting myself into. So I decided to commit myself to this one.

Dan lived in a trailer on his uncle's property. He was a flower delivery man. Yeah - real nice job, huh? Anyway, if there was one thing Dan NEVER was, it was on time. We'd make plans, he'd show up two hours late. See - he always said he hated schedules because he had to work by one day in and day out. Should have been my first clue there - I get a little irked when people are THAT late. I can handle a few minutes (shoot, I'm habitually about 15 minutes late to everything). But, I figured - it's just one quirk. No biggie.

I was still living at home, going to college, and trying desperately to make enough money to move out. I had a full time job, went to school part time in the evenings, and a couple of nights a week, I'd hostess at a local restaurant. That lasted about 6 months. See, Dan got all upset that he never saw me. Even though I spent every free moment with him, he'd get huffy when I told him I had to work my second job. I hinted that we might spend more time together if we moved into our own place, but he quckly (and I mean speed of light quick) put that idea to rest. He'd already been married once, and had lived with his last long-term girlfriend. He swore he'd never ever do that again. So, I quit my job.

Yeah - I was THAT stupid.

On my 21st birthday, some work friends decided to take me out. Now, Dan was very against drinking. His father was an alcoholic, and Dan decided he would never let himself become like that. So he looked down on drinking. I told him the girls were taking me to a nightclub, and would he please come along? Nope. Didn't want to even entertain the idea. Didn't want to be around a bunch of drunks. I even told him I was going to be driving, and wouldn't be drinking (I'm almost ALWAYS the designated driver when I go out with friends). Still - no go. So, I went without him. Had a miserable time. The girls I worked with were all really really pretty. I didn't get asked to dance once. I even called Dan from the club, and asked again for him to come, and tried to explain that I felt really out of place. Again - he refused. Essentially said I had made my decision for the night - live with it.

After we'd been together for about a year and a half, I finally moved out of my house and in with a friend. I got to spend much more time with Dan. One night, a friend of his came over. They were shooting the breeze, and I was just watching TV, when all of a sudden, Dan asks his friend if he wants some. I looked up, wondering if maybe he was offering soda, or something. Nope. He had a plate out, and was crushing up some white powder. He offered the plate to his friend, who snorted some, then took it back, and snorted some himself.

I was shocked, to say the least. I had no idea. After his friend left, I asked Dan what had just happened. He told me blithely that it was crank. I got up to leave, and he told me it wasn't a big deal, he did it all the time. Every day. Every day he'd ever gone out with me, he had crank. So it wasn't a big deal, and if I cared about him, that was part of his life.

I stayed. I don't know why, but I did. However, I didn't spend as much time with him after that.

In November of that year, Dan started getting very distant. I knew something was up, but just didn't dwell on it very much. The day before Thanksgiving, he dumped me. I took it hard, mainly because I didn't want to be the dumpee. I was looking forward to being the dumper. You see, I had met and gotten to know Lowk by that time, and was much more interested in him than Dan any day of the week. But still, I was angry about the whole dumping thing. A week later, I started dating Lowk, and haven't looked back since.

About two years later, I was visiting Dan's uncle. I adored the old man, and had known him years before Dan and I even met. I was showing him pictures of my new hobby - sidecar racing, when Dan came home. I was nice - cordial even. No hard feelings, right? Dan looked at the pictures, and listened to me rave on and on about the sport. All of a sudden, he comes out with, "If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn't let you do that." I looked right at him, and replied, "See, that's exactly why I'm not your girlfriend anymore."

Some guys just don't get it.