The Story

Do you remember this story? The one about the great first date? Well, things snowballed from there to a great second date (wine! sunset! pretty view! dinner! lots of talking! intimacy!). "Nice Guy" and I really hit it off; we had instant chemistry and a good rapport.

On our third date, he got a phone call - he got his dream job in his dream city. Things ramped up from there - he asked me to go apartment hunting with him, I helped him pack, we were legitimately dating. Soon after we started being exclusive, though, we started fighting. Our high moments were super high - very open emotionally, but the low moments were mind-boggling. He was moody and not very nice about it (so much for the Nice Guy nickname).


But, things moved forward. I got a new job and moved, too. We did the long distance thing, seeing each other on weekends and talking on the phone every day.Things got serious quickly, but I was frustrated by how our attempts at communication would devolve into long, dragged out, emotionally draining fights. He told me I was too closed off to him, that I was negative and cautious. He seemed to be moody and critical about just about everything. I tried breaking up with him. He begged me not to and promised to be less snappish. I gave him another go.

But, as you'll recall, I met this guy online. Before our almost-breakup, when we became exclusive, I disabled my online dating account. I told him and asked if he was going to disable his. He said he would the next time he got on the computer. But awhile after that, when he was showing me something on his computer, some email notifications popped - he was still active on the dating website. He said he just hadn't gotten around to disabling his account, but that he hadn't been on it since we started dating. I was skeptical. (Remember, this was when I was already thinking about breaking up with him...I was, admittedly, looking for problems.)

I'm not super proud of what I did next - and it did factor into my decision to just break it off with him - I didn't like what our relationship was doing to my sanity level. When I realized that he hadn't disabled his account, I got suspicious. I wanted to know if his story about not going on the website lately was the truth, but I no longer had an account to check his from. Sooooo, I made a fake one. Yeah, going into crazy girlfriend mode. Like I said, not proud. Anyway, I made the identity for the account someone that I knew my boyfriend would be into if he was single - smart, sporty, living in his town, and his favorite hair color (not mine). I even pulled a profile picture from the internet.

I went to check out his account. He had been telling the truth - he hadn't been online in weeks. Phew! But, he had updated his city. I thought that was weird, since we were already dating by the time he moved. I was annoyed. I "favorited" his account from my fake one; I wanted to see if he would log back into the website if he thought there was someone checking him out.

Then, you know, I thought about it and decided I should just break up with him. It wasn't working for me. So, I tried. Except, we had a big long serious conversation and he convinced me to be with him. And I cared about him, so I agreed. We moved forward. I forgot about the fake dating account. We got even more serious and started saying the "L" word. It was quick, but intense. Intensely good and intensely bad.

(On a side note, when I told a particular friend about the intensity she asked about the sex. I told her it was great - best ever. She said, Yep, the crazy ones always are!)

We continued to fight and to make up. We both really wanted to make it work, because when things were going smoothly it was really great. But, we didn't communicate in the same ways. We were both hopeful, though, and talked about a future together. We spent time with each other's families. We met some of each other's friends. We spent as much time together as we could. Including a long weekend earlier this month when we spent several days together being very couple-y. It wasn't all rainbows, but it felt like we were finally on the right track.

Until that Monday night when I happened to check an old email account. Coincidentally, the one I used to set up that fake online dating account. And lo and behold, there was a message from my boyfriend. My boyfriend. He had sent a message weeks earlier to this fake girl, telling her he was intrigued and asking if she wanted to go out sometime. My. Jaw. Dropped.

And then my eyes narrowed.

I logged into the fake account and emailed him back. I wanted to see if he was still trying to meet up with other girls. I hoped that he would ignore it or reply that he had a girlfriend now (maybe that message was sent in a moment of doubt or after a fight? I played all sorts of scenarios in my mind). He had asked the girl what she was looking for in a guy, so replied and told him that "I" was looking for a serious boyfriend. I wanted him to be clear about what he was getting himself into.

He emailed back almost immediately. He chatted a bit and asked her out again, so I went along with it. I set a date for Thursday night at 9pm. He picked a bar that he'd never taken me to and said he was looking forward to it.

It was all I could do to not throw my computer across the room. Or blow my cover when texting with him the next day. I wanted to catch him in the act, to prove unequivocally that he was trying to cheat on me. I didn't want to let on that I was on to him.

When I spoke to him Wednesday night, I mentioned having dinner plans with old friends the next night. He was irritable and made a snide comment about it, like he didn't want me going. I played nice and told him I'd call him after dinner. He started stammering, trying to back out of getting me to call him when he knew he had his date scheduled. He told me he'd had a rough week at work and was just going to check out the social scene in his town after work. He would be busy. I pretended to be super cheerful and chattered on about maybe if he found somewhere fun to go, he could take me there the next time I was in town. He was surly and told me (and I'm quoting here) that he didn't "want an assignment", he just wanted to cut loose and have a laid back night. What an ass. I smiled sweetly and told him he deserved some down time.

Thursday came. D-day (D, as in dumping). We had been to a sex toy shop over the long weekend and bought a bunch of fun items. He was broke, so I paid for them. I was pissed when I realized that, even though they were still in the packaging (still in the shopping bag, actually), they were non-returnable. Grr. I fueled that irritation back at my shitty boyfriend. I picked one of the least desirable toys and put it in a box and addressed it to him. I included a note: "Thought you might want this... so that you can GO FUCK YOURSELF." I went to the post office and mailed the surprise to him to arrive the next day.

Thursday night finally rolled around. My dinner had been cancelled - my friends' kids were sick - so I paced around my apartment and called my girlfriends. They gave me encouragement. I drank some wine to calm my nerves. At 9:10pm, I picked up the phone. I called the bar where he was supposed to meet his date. I told the bartender that I was urgently trying to reach my boyfriend but his cell phone was dead. She went to go hunt him down for me. The phone call went like this:

Me: [Name?]
Him: Yeah?
Me: Maybe it's just my negative perception of things, but it seems like my boyfriend is cheating on me. So, fuck you.
Him: What??
Me: You heard me, fuck you.
Him: [My name!]
Me: <click>

And then he called me a million times and texted and emailed and sent flowers to my office and cried and begged and was generally sniveling and pathetic. And I went on a planned trip to visit my single girlfriends and realized how great it is to be with people who don't bring you down and how nice it is to talk to men who are positive and normal. The end.

I'm back, baby!!

(Oh, and BTW, this was definitely a THROW.)