Post 80: The Dog Days of Summer

So, this is my 80th post. Woohoo!! A cold gin, please, in celebration of this momentous occasion.

As I'm sure you all have noticed, I've been a bit absent recently. From both the blogging scene and the dating scene. Coffee house pick up never picked me back up (though I did cross paths with him near my gym ... did he turn to take a second look as I passed? Yes, he did ... smile.) So, it's been hot and humid outside in the real world and dry and stagnant inside my dating world. I'm seriously thinking about going back to dating assisted since my aspiration to do this unassisted hasn't really worked out thus far. I'm trying not to consider this a failure or feel discouraged by it. It's just how it is, I guess. I'm blaming our instant gratification conditioned society what with all of the iPhones, pods, MP3s, ATMs, PDAs, Tweets, Twitts, Facebooks, IMs and other ... instant gratification providing things. Um, ok ...

Anyway, the point of this post is to relate to you all a very, shall I say, *interesting* encounter I had about three weeks ago. I should have posted immediately but was on the verge of leaving town for a much needed respite from work, life, etc. so was singularly focused on that. Now I'm back from that break, feeling refreshed and ready to get back on the blogging horse. Ok. Remember Cokehead XBF? Saw him. Ran into him. At a bar that I absolutely adore and haven't been back to since for fear that he's set up camp there hoping to "run into" me again. Here's what happened ...

It was Saturday night around 8:45. I'd just had a lovely early dinner with a friend who was coming through town on her way somewhere else and afterward, given the early hour and the nice weather, I had the itch for a couple drinks and wasn't quite ready to call it a night. So, I walked down to this little bar that I really, really like where I tend to go if I want to have a quiet drink alone. I always inevitably end up speaking with some other lonely soul at the bar who's also enjoying a solo drink and that always yields fun, spontaneous conversation. So, armed with magazine in hand I was ready to just relax and accept whatever the night brought me. Little did I know the night would bring me my XBF, wrapped untidily in bullshit and excuses, topped with a sobbing bow of sadness. Yeah.

I had only been there for about a half hour, sipping my drink, making small chat with the bartender. I was seated at the very end of the bar, sort of in a corner and there were several open bar stools next to me. Of course I was hoping that some handsome, interesting fellow would roll in, see me, choose one of those empty stools and then make some comment about the magazine I was reading to engage me in inevitably sparkling, witty conversation. Unfortunately for me, what rolled in was XBF, in a rumpled dress shirt, impossibly baggy pants, looking disheveled and disgusting. I heard my name, looked up and there he was. I haven't seen him in over three years since I dumped his sorry ass on a roof deck after he told me that he'd gotten some other woman pregnant. A winner, to be sure. He sat down beside me on one of those empty stools and before I could tell him to fuck off and get the hell away from me, he'd bought a round and started asking me how I was. I looked helplessly toward the door hoping ... hoping for ... well, anything. Hoping that someone I knew would come in and rescue me. Hoping that I'd see some other fool I dated who'd somehow sense my panic and swoop in, beginning what would surely be a rekindling of some long, lost flame. No such luck. I was stuck. So much happened, I'm going to have to slowly take each salient point one by one.

First, he is exactly the same. Same personality, same yucky conservative sense of humor, same offensive jokes. Same but uglier. He looked worn out. Washed up. This made me smile inside because I look ten thousand times better than the last time he saw me. Those of you that know me know why. I'll explain a bit later. I told him I was fine, job was good, life good, etc. I was trying to keep my answers short and tidy so as not to prolong this current hell. I watched the little water droplets of condensation slide down the sides of the glass in front of me. I couldn't even sip this vile drink he'd purchased. I think I feared it would someone infect me with him again and he'd snake his way back into my life via the vodka and soda mixed therein. So it sat there. And so did I.

Second, he insisted on telling me about his life. I did not ask. Though I was very, very curious about the wife, kid, etc. I was unable to inquire and treat this as if it were some happy go lucky chance meeting of two old buddies who were catching up. Couldn't do it! The whole time he was sitting there in front of me all I could think of was how good it would feel to kick the bar stool out from under his funky, evil ass and then just kick him while he writhed in agony and surprise on the floor. What brought me back to reality from that delightfully terrible little fantasy was when he mentioned in his droning on about his "kids". KidS?? You catch that? I sure did and said the first words that had come out of my mouth in some minutes. "Kids plural?" I said. "Yes." Um, how old are they?" "Three and Four and Half months." My head almost exploded. But, to my credit, I maintained my cool and let him continue talking about how his wife was evil and now he was only concerned about being a responsible Dad.

At that point, he excused himself to go smoke the first of many Salem 100s.

I should obviously have taken this opportunity to sneak out of there. Get the bartender to let me out of some back door, through the kitchen, into a dark, steamy alleyway so I could make good my escape. But I couldn't. Cokehead XBF smokes a fast ciggie and he was back before I could say 'check please'. Next up: CRYING. Yeah, you read that right. Picture the scene: me, horrified, trapped at the end of the bar, barely talking, mind reeling about how long I have to take this interaction before I can excuse myself. Him, reeking of cigarette smoke and the same cologne I remembered him always wearing, looking me dead in the face and grabbing my hand. I immediately, instinctively pulled away but he held tight, looked me directly in the face, tears welling up in his bloodshot, watery blue eyes and he started to cry. Tears. Big ones. Rolling down his cracked, smoke tanned cheeks. He has no regrets in life but me. He never, ever meant to hurt me. If he could go back and do it all over again, he never would've gotten psycho ex-wife pregnant and he would have committed himself to me. Well, shit! Guess that would have made me the luckiest woman on earth! Let's get Superman to fly around the world backwards so we can change history and do that!

Are you fucking kidding me? First, this scenario I realize now and realized then is the fantasy for any woman who's been fucked over. You always want to see that asshole and have him say everything Cokehead XBF said to me. So, on some level, I appreciate this for the fact that it's most likely a singular and unique event in my dating life. However, I didn't believe a word that came out of his manipulative, cigarette rotted mouth. This obviously made the moment less enjoyable that I had dreamed it would be.

Finally, he told me after the crying that I needed to be nice to him as he is perceptive and picked up on the fact that I was doing everything I could to try to get him to just leave me alone. I looked at him in complete and total disbelief ... I'm sorry? I have to be nice to you? Under what possible theory could this be true? He told me. I had to be nice to him now because he liked me back when I was fat. Yep. You read that right, too. And that's exactly what he said. Word for fucking ridiculous, hurtful word. You see, back when I knew him I weighed about 80 pounds more than I do now. Thanks to the gym, a mostly vegetarian diet free of oils, butter, and full fat anything, I'm maintaining a healthy weight now and have for the last 18 months. Given the fact that we haven't laid eyes on each other since I made this admittedly dramatic change, I sort of appreciated the compliments he paid me at the beginning of the conversation (he told me I looked beautiful, etc.). This little gem, however, put me over the edge.

I could not see ... I pushed the drink back from the edge of the bar, still untouched. Slid my tiny, cute little ass off the bar stool, slung my purse over my shoulder, bid goodnight to the bartender and to Cokehead XBF, and started toward the door. He got up too and asked me if he could at least have a kiss goodnight. I said no, of course and continued my walk towards the door. He then said, "No tongue?" At this point, I became utterly convinced that what I was dealing with here was someone who was not manipulative. Not evil. Not even slightly drunk. I was dealing with someone who was completely and irrevocably mentally unbalanced. Crazytown. Out of his coke addled, cigarette smoked, vodka curdled mind.

Needless to say, I turned and walked, letting nothing deter me until I was home, safe in my apartment. A couple days later I received multiple texts, emails, and phone calls of varying degrees of offensiveness from him. I didn't respond. He finally sent one that said: "Does this mean that you don't want to hang out with me anymore?" My response: "Not really."

Done and done. Apparently those are the magic words that got rid of evil Cokehead XBF. Haven't heard from him since. Still afraid to go back to the bar but I'll return. He already stole 9 months of my life, he's not getting one of my favorite bars, too.

Asshole.

Coming up: I'm going to investigate other online dating alternatives and possibly get back on the virtual horse. Because, well, honestly I'm kinda bored and really miss nicknaming people. See you guys soon!