Out With the Old, In With the New

I’ve always been a relationship girl. It’s kind of a huge issue. For the past decade, I’ve been in back-to-back long-term relationships. Most of them were good but boring, while a few were straight up toxic love kind of romances. I had about one or two well-balanced relationships where we could have gotten married, but I dipped when things started to stagnate. Since my freshman year college, the longest I’ve been single was for 3 months.

It’s almost like it’s impossible for me to be truly alone. Anyone who knows we well enough knows this all too well. With that being said, no one was really surprised that by the time I moved back to SF after being “single” for a month and a half, I was already talking to two dudes.

One dude was Officer Cheddar, and the other dude was Ronny. For the past couple weeks, I had already been chatting with Ronny almost everyday. He kept saying things like how we should meet up now that I’m finally back in town. Honestly, I wanted to because I liked him.. but for more obvious reasons, I mostly didn’t want to. I mentioned this several times already, but dude has a girlfriend. I don’t ever take these kind of guys seriously because a) grow a pair of balls and either fix your relationship or break up, and b) if he can do it to her, he can do it to another girl.

During this point in my “healing process” (Related Post: Moving on the Unhealthy Way), I was a big fan of “dispersing my love.” This is a technique that emotionally unavailable people do while they’re dating to guard their heart. If you put all your love into one person, you’re bound to get your heart broken. However, if you put a little bit of love into multiple people, the pain of heartbreak and rejection isn’t so bad.

So here I was.. dispersing my love between two guys. After texting Officer Cheddar back, we ended up chatting throughout the day. Our conversation started off innocently enough, but I think we were both in a place where we weren’t looking for anything serious at all. Not only was Officer Cheddar in the middle of a divorce, he also had two kids. Ahem. I’ve never dated a cop, a divorcee, or a father. I was in unfamiliar territory here.

The fascination of possibly going on a date with a cop kept me occupied for most of the night. I was so obsessed that I spent an embarrassing amount of hours Googling shit like, “What is it like to date a cop?” or “Dating a divorced father of two” or “Personality of a police officer” or “Are police officers jerks to date?” or “Sex with a cop.” If you were to look that shit up on Google right now, trust me when I say that I’ve read through all the top search articles. The thirst was real.

Officer Cheddar was a bold and direct guy though. He asked if I had a problem with tattoos, and I said nope. Shortly after this exchange, I found out he was almost completely tatted. Yummy. Tattoos on both arms, his chest, back, leg. Woof! This was gonna be fun. Perhaps I was caught up in the haze or missing attention, but it consumed me for a few days. I didn’t want to do anything! All I wanted to do was flirt with cop guy all the time. We planned a date for two nights later. Cheddar said he was going to handle everything and get reservations — all I had to do was to look beautiful, relax, and bring myself. I liked that. A man who could step up and not have me worry.

I was honest with Ronny and told him that Cop guy asked me out. Ronny’s jealous monster personality reared its ugly head after that, which was annoying. It was alright that he got jealous.. I mean, it’s a normal reaction if you like someone, and they start showing interest in someone else. What was NOT normal was when Ronny started saying things like, “Promise me you won’t sleep with him before you see me” or “Are you seriously already going to bang this dude this fast?”

First of all. Cut the crap. You have a girlfriend, and you have no claim over me, what I choose to do with my body, or how I handle my life. I’ve been in a fucking controlling and unhealthy relationship and shitty three-month marriage with the ultimate fuck boy already. There’s no way I was going anywhere near that territory ever again. I was having fun, so let me have fun if you really “care”. What was his story? Am I to assume that Ronny wasn’t having sex with his girlfriend? Geez. He was beginning to irritate me.

Even though he was “there” for me during my struggle times the past couple weeks by giving me some valuable life advice, he still had NO RIGHT to tell me what to do just because he felt like he needed to see me first. Hypocrite. He sure as hell better not judge me or ANY OTHER WOMEN for who they choose to have sex with. I can’t deal with these misogynistic men.

Meanwhile, I was actually starting to get pretty attached to Cop guy when in fact, I barely even knew him. There were a few reasons.. a) I liked the novelty of flirting with a cop, b) I liked that he was an alpha male while still being a gentleman, c) he was helping me handle my police escort case with my ex (Related Post: The Story of My Toxic Husband), and d) believe it or not, I was attracted to him because he was divorced.

One thing about being in a state of limbo with my ex was that I didn’t really know what term to identify myself with. I was technically not single. Technically not married either. I guess separated, but not legally. I was ashamed of my relationship with him, and Officer Cheddar was the only guy who knew about my divorce process and understood the struggle.

I think I’m going to try to cut Ronny loose though. I ain’t got time to deal with petty arguments and drama from grown ass men anymore. It was time for me to listen to Officer Cheddar’s advice.. “look beautiful, relax, loosen up a little.”

Blah, blah, blah. That’s all for now.

Getting Asked Out By a Cop

I woke up the next day on my friend’s couch, but I had some things to do. I needed to replace my battery ASAP (Related Post: Moving Back to SF and Jump-starting My Car). I also needed to visit the local police station to file a report, and figure out how a police escort would work. A lot of thought went into my decision to contact the police. I didn’t feel safe around my ex, and there was no way I could go in there alone while avoiding his harassment. I also did not want to drag any of my friends into this mess.. I just wanted to safely retrieve my things from my apartment.

After getting my car battery fixed (I also got an oil change), I went to the police station. I waited a little bit in the seating area before going up to speak with Officer Cheddar (in case you didn’t notice, the name is changed). Officer Cheddar was a big guy, and by “big” I mean.. holy bajeeebus he was the jacked bodyguard type. Not my usual lean type, but if I ever needed protection…HELLO Officer Cheddar.

I guess I was dressed pretty nicely that day. Hair was slicked back in a ponytail, I had on a sheer top, colored contacts, skinny jeans and sensible heels. Shrug.

Officer Cheddar was really friendly. I told him that I needed to file a report because someone got into my car and stole some things. He wrote down my information, and he followed me back to my car for an initial inspection. For some reason, as I was walking back towards the door.. I felt like he was staring at my ass.

Like forreal, that’s what I felt!! I hope I wasn’t walking like a turd.

After Officer Cheddar examined my car, he said there was no forced entry, so it’s likely I left my own door open. His keen eye also caught the stains on my dashboard, “Wow, whoever broke into your car poured soda all over it,” he said. “That sucks.”

My response was an uncomfortable, “Oh.. that was my ex” Which led me to continue, “…so, I came here with another issue as well…” He immediately looked up, and gave me a safe space to be open.

I told him that I recently left my husband a month ago, and you know what this weirdo Officer Cheddar did? He said, “I’m just ending my divorce too, high-five!” It was comical, but a bit insensitive.. but since I needed a bit of laughter in my life, I awkwardly high-fived him and averted eye contact. So fucking weird.

I was asking him for more information about a police standby, while he started initiating idle chit-chat about my personal life. Not gonna lie, I loved the attention. I’ve been to a police station before, and the officers there did not give me this treatment. He told me he needed to re-write my paperwork, and we went back inside the police station.

Officer Cheddar was extremely good at multitasking. He was thorough and took his sweet ass time going over my case, while interweaving questions about my personal life. Getting to know me. “Where are you from? Are you a sports fan? Your ex was a model? You guys would have had good looking children. Are you Chinese?” Dude was flirting for sure. A girl knows this stuff!

After he finished all my paperwork, he told me that I actually went to the wrong station. Since I was in a different district, he couldn’t personally handle my case, but he was going to fax my paperwork over to the correct place. He went back outside to examine my car again (he didn’t need to do this), and he stood nearby to chat for a little bit before going back inside the station.

While I was sitting in my car, I was texted Josie to see if we could meet for an early dinner and do some errands. She replied, “Haiilll ya.”

While GPSing directions to Union Square, I spotted Officer Cheddar coming back from the corner of my eye. Did he forget to tell me something? I opened my door a bit, and he said in a very businesslike manner, “If you have anymore questions, you can actually reach me on my cell phone.. do you have a pen?” Surprised and a bit flustered, I rummaged through my mess of a car for a pen, but to no avail. I shrugged and just grabbed my cell phone and plugged his number in. I asked what his first name was. It was Jerry. He was officially on my contacts list as “Jerry Popo” because well.. he’s a cop.

He went back, and I sat in my car for another couple minutes debating whether or not I should text him. This had never happened to me before, and I was kind of in love with the novelty. I still had a shitload of personal stuff to do like moving out of my ex’s place, preparing for my interview, and figuring out what to do about my hot mess of a life. But I welcomed the distraction, so I caved and texted him, “Hey Officer Cheddar! It was nice to meet you, thanks for your help.” This shit was too intriguing not to follow-up on.

I started driving to meet Josie for dinner. By the time I parked and arrived at the restaurant, I checked my phone. One new text message.

Officer Cheddar: No problem. You’re very pretty.

Just like that we started chatting from there. Bom chicka wowowowowoww. Homegirl just scored herself a cop. A low-key unprofessional cop, but he was hot, and my fascination was piqued.