homegirl confessions – Homegirl Confessions

Dealing with Rude People

I feel the need to talk about this subject because…well, it just feels like I’ve been encountering very rude people lately. You see, the kind of energy I tend to give off is very positive, encouraging, and supportive, so when someone comes into my life spraying poison and negativity all over the place guns a blazing…I notice.

This was, and still is, a big issue for me, especially when it comes to responding back to rude people. I seem to have only two gears, both of which are the polar opposite of each other. I’m like Winston from New Girl when he pulls pranks — they’re either too little or too much (Watch video here). In other words, I either underreact and let the rude person get away with their bad behavior, or I overreact and cuss them out and then some.

After working for years at an entertainment company, learning valuable info about therapy and psychology in grad school, and going through general life bullshit, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to respond to rude people. My answer is to either ignore them, assert my opinion and rationally explain the facts, or kill them with kindness.

If you’re a crazy person like I can be sometimes though, ignoring them can be hard. At the same time, asserting yourself might be tricky as well. I remember sending a friendly message (or at least I thought it was friendly) to a fellow freelance writer before. A little background, we were responsible for double-checking whether or not someone else had already written about a particular topic, and I saw that she pitched an idea that I had already done. In my friendly message, I just told her that I had written it before–and her response was kind of aggressive.

Me: Hi *Chick, I saw that you posted this idea, I wanted to let you know that I already wrote that one! *insert article link here* You might have missed it, but I wanted to give you a heads up before the editor notices it.

Her: I don’t care if she rejects it or not. You wrote an article that was greenlit, and it was pretty much the same as mine and no one said anything. Why don’t you mind your own business?

*PAUSE*

This is when I was thinking to myself, “OK THIS BITCH.” If this were in person, I’d be ready to take off my earrings and throw down. Lol, jk I wouldn’t. I took a few minutes to cool down before responding.

Me: I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I sent you that message as a courtesy.

Her: No you didn’t.

Me: I did. I’ve read your articles, and I think you’re a great writer. There’s plenty of articles to go around for both of us, so there’s really no reason for me to be upset.

So you saw what I did in my response? Old me would have been like, “You’re fucking crazy, stupidass bitch.” and then try to make her feel dumb and then threaten her lol. New and improved me is still the same girl, but a different story. I’m an adult now and I need to learn how to get along with other people, even if I don’t like them. You ever hear the term “Kill them with kindness”?

What was bonkers is that after I responded that way, she became very friendly. It was weird. That bitch was legit insane. She Facebook friended me and she asked if I wanted to go out and get bubble tea with her. WHO DOES THAT? Anyways, things were dandy after that exchange. She eventually got fired because the editor deemed her “too defensive,” which was true. I occasionally look at her Facebook and read her rants. It seems like she regularly gets into fights with her friends as well.

Back to my topic. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH RUDE PEOPLE? Well, here are a few questions to consider before you impulsively respond.

Are you reading too much into it?
Sometimes, people just have bad messaging etiquette. It’s uncanny. I’ve emailed and texted with people who just seemed so short and rude, but then in person, they’re actually the sweetest. Maybe they’re just being normal, and YOU’RE actually the one who’s being too sensitive. This is my rule of thumb for gauging whether or not you’re reading too much into something. If it’s a *questionable* statement that can go either way, I ignore it. However, if it’s blatantly rude like the one you see above…they’re using “you” in an attacking manner or if they’re like *Chick above and they say, “why don’t you mind your own business?” Stand up for yourself, but remember to do it in a classy way. REMEMBER, KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS.

Are they projecting their insecurities onto you?
Maybe someone had a bad day. Maybe they just broke up or someone died. Maybe they’re busy and everyone’s bombarding them, and they just flipped. Recognize the situation. If you feel like someone is verbally attacking you, but the things that they’re saying are absolutely untrue, it might be that they’re just projecting their own feelings onto you. Whenever I recognize that this is the kind of person I’m dealing with, I avoid them. I understand though that when I’m a therapist one day, it’ll be different. In therapy, they teach you how to be like Teflon, letting this bullshit just slide off you. Stay true to yourself and YOU KNOW who you are, don’t listen to them. In fact, it makes me feel better simply reminding myself that this person might just be so deeply insecure that they feel the need to be rude to others. It actually ends up making me feel sad about their situation.

Are they socially awkward?
Believe it or not, there are people who are just emotional robots. They don’t know how to properly respond, react, or communicate with others. These people tend to be blunt in their exchanges, and though they don’t mean to come off this way, their lack of empathetic words, emojis, intonations, and overall blank expressions might translate to others as rudeness. If you’ve observed this person already, and you know they’re socially awkward like this, my advice is to get used to it. Unless they’re blatantly being super rude in a way that will impact, I dunno, a working relationship or something or they’re your underling at work and their behavior is getting in the way of communicating with others, there’s really no need to say anything. Think about it. If they’re socially awkward, they’re probably either really nice inside or a sociopath inside. You wouldn’t want to react badly in either situation.

Are they being defensive?
Maybe you were the one who said something wrong. Maybe what sounds like just your average everyday speech is actually you making someone feel bad. Maybe you’re the one who said something offensive. Did you talk about their parents, kids, friends, family? You might have thought you were being nice, but did you say something mean about fat people, gay people, minorities, or a certain group? Perhaps they identify with that group. Maybe you were just trying to be funny or amicable, but your joke just fell short. People say that in every joke, there’s a little bit of truth. I personally hate being trolled by people–I think that people who spend their time bringing others down for fun need to go see me in therapy because you need to address that shit. See, in that sentence alone, I probably offended some trolls. The world needs more people who want to build others up. I love those people.

Are they just plain mean and condescending?
If they are, don’t waste your energy on them. They might not be deeply insecure, they might just think they’re better than you. There are people like this in the world. I’ve grown to believe that I’m equal to everyone. NO ONE is above or below me no matter who they are. I don’t care if you’re famous or you make a lot more money than I do. I don’t care if you’re older than I am or if you’re more educated than I am. I am confident enough in myself as a person and the things that I do to recognize that I’m happy. If someone is being mean and condescending to you and they’re your boss, you can quit and find another job or secretly make their life miserable. Like put little pieces of shit in their office. If they’re mean and condescending and they’re not your boss? Ohh…*rubs hands together* get ready to throw down.

I’m just kidding, just walk away. When I’m in that situation, I look them straight in the eye and I tell them. I don’t care how wealthy you are, and I don’t care about your job, or how smart or popular you are. I judge people by their character, and right now, you’re acting like a condescending pretentious piece of shit…

And then I would go into full cuss mode.

Anyways, that’s how I deal with rude people. LOL. Honestly, killing assholes with kindness has been working for me the past few years. Nothing’s more annoying than someone who’s trying to insult you, but there you are, with a shitass eating grin on your face acting all classy and nice. It makes them look bad, and it gives you POWER.

I’m sure there are some bits of reasonable advice in there. Hope you guys have a lovely day! Feel free to drop a comment below.

xoxo,

Homegirl.

Handling Criticism With Grace

Whether you’re pursuing a career in entertainment or a career in finance, if you want to be great at anything, you need to learn how to handle criticism with grace. How else can you get better?

Working at my school’s Writing Center, I look at all the graduate and doctoral students I tutor, and I’m inspired by them. Not gonna lie, a lot of them are already really successful folks in their own right. Some of them own their own companies. Some of them are strong advocates for the underprivileged. Some of them are high up in the government.

But how did they get that way in the first place? Being successful I mean.

Well, first off, they are not afraid to admit they might need help. Obviously, they’re going to the Writing Center with their drafts, and they’re handling critique and feedback on ways they can improve. Many of these students, even if they’re already solid writers, want to become better.

They openly listen to comments without being defensive, they make their own judgments, and they change what they see fit. They’re not afraid of constructive criticism because it helps them be better, and sometimes you need another perspective to do that. This is called having thick skin.

I say this because so many people, including myself, are afraid and or hostile towards this kinda stuff. In my work as a writer, there are some writers who absolutely flip out when an editor has something to negative to say about their piece. Or if the editor comes back with some corrections, reactions would flare. As a result, these writers are let go because of their pride and defensiveness.

However, without acknowledging your own weaknesses and accepting help/advice from others, you fail to grow.

PS. You’re never too old to grow.

I dunno, that’s just what I’ve observed, and that’s just my two cents. As a writer, I’ve always held my tongue and looked at feedback as a way to improve. The editor may not even be right, but most likely, they know their brand more than I do. I’ve always responded to editors with a positive and “glad to be here” attitude because let’s face it–if I’m difficult to work with and lowkey hostile, they can easily replace me with someone more amenable.

I will end this off with a quote that is kind of related, but not really. Kind of.

“Open-minded people don’t care to be right, they only care to understand. There’s no right or wrong way. Everything’s about understanding.”

Make good decisions y’all!

Being Stuck in the Past

There are so, so many reasons for people to get caught up living in their past. Doesn’t matter if it’s good times or bad times, at some point in a person’s life, they start lingering on things that have already happened. I’m definitely guilty of it. Thinking back on my teens/early-20s, I feel like I just squandered away all of that glowing potential I had…and for what? To pursue boys. My God, where were my priorities at?

Now? I’m the same girl, just older and I know a bit more. It would be unrealistic to say that I don’t reminisce about the past (sometimes it can be helpful sharing stories with others), but the difference between me-now and me-before is that I’ve learned to be more mindful about over-indulging this behavior.

What’s mindfulness? Simply put, it’s the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. This sounds pretty straightforward, but boy oh boy, it’s actually a pretty difficult habit to get into. Why is mindfulness important for me? So I can catch myself from becoming that annoying person who’s always talking about what happened before, and what I should have done, and what it was like during the good ole days.

There’s a saying I keep hearing. “Depression is always about the past, and anxiety is always about the future.” For the most part, I agree. Trying to re-live your glory days, or constantly talking about that ‘one who got away’ reveals a lot about the person you are at the moment. Your happiness is coming from the past, and at the moment, you’re not living in the present.

When I first noticed my obsession with the past, of course, I wanted to change it. I would talk about the worst times of my life, the struggles I’ve gone through, the accomplishments I made, and for what? It would make me feel good at first, but as the day went on, it would make me feel vulnerable and unfulfilled. I know my experience, but did I really have to share that with others? Sometimes, I’d even spill my past to complete strangers. It was ridiculous.

So I practiced mindfulness and stopped whenever I caught myself going into past-talk. I tried to focus on my present and aimed to become a more future-oriented individual. I would set all these goals for myself and worry about how much money it would take to get there, how much time I’d need to set aside to get there, and whether or not I was even good enough. My insecurities came pouring out. Unfortunately, it seemed I had an issue with the future as well.

My issue with making plans for the future was that I would skip the present, and that’s when my anxiety came. Fear of my future and what’s to come. Lack of control.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I ever really dealt with my anxiety. I guess I’m still a work in progress. However, after setting up all these ambitious goals for my future, I eventually began recognizing that in order to actually achieve these dreams for myself… I needed to put in hard work, without complaining about the past or being overly optimistic about the future. You know how to do that? By practicing control.

Yes, I was scared of my lack of control about the future, so I did what I could by controlling my present, learning from the mistakes I’ve made in the past, changing, and working on moving forward. I needed to accept change, little by little every day, and then eventually one day, I will be there living in my present. I needed to let go of the past. Accept that the past has shaped me into the person I am today, and move forward from that.

Many people forget that their present self is constantly subject to change based on whatever current experience comes their way. It’s up to you if you want to change for the better by living in the present, or don’t change at all, and stay stuck in your past. OK now, I’m just rambling. I feel like I was really close to getting to my point though.

The quote that I mentioned above was actually from the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu. The full saying is, “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

There you go, people! Start living in the present and be at peace. How you get there is up to you.

-Homegirl

Bringing My Dog on a Hike

Life has been a lot better now that I have my dog back (See Related: Who Keeps the Dog? Stealing Simba Back From My Crazy Ex). I’ve been hanging out with friends, getting my court papers in order, and getting settled into my new apartment. I’ve also been trying to get back into working out and being active, so I decided one day to go hiking with Simba.

We went to one of those dog-friendly hiking spots, just me and him. Since my little fur baby was getting older, I wanted to try taking him off his leash just to see if he’d behave. Well…right now he sucks. His normal while he’s on-leash is to pull, pull, pull. However, when I set this fella loose into the park, he ran around me like some little maniac. Then another owner and her dog walk by, and Simba began following that doggy.

When I mean “following”, I actually mean chasing!

First of all, I was confused and didn’t know what to do. This was a new thing to me. I guess Simba zoned out too because at one point he ran STRAIGHT AT ME, or rather, THROUGH ME.

Me: “NoOOOOOOO SIMBA STOPPPPPPPPPP”
*WHAM*

Like some kind of cartoon character, I was swept forward onto a faceplant. In front of my new friend Monica too!! That’s the name of the other dog owner — the one Simba was chasing. Anyways, she tried really hard not to laugh but girl busted out laughing. Double ouch.

I didn’t really care about the embarrassment, it was pretty funny. But DAMN. It fucking hurt. I now have scratches on my hands, elbows, hips, and I’m definitely going to bruise tomorrow.

Simba: 1, Homegirl: 0

Who Keeps the Dog? Stealing Simba Back From My Crazy Ex

After moving back to SF (See: Moving Back to SF and Jump-starting My Car), I didn’t have much. I didn’t have my own place yet (I’ve since moved into my new apartment), I haven’t moved out of my old apartment with my crazy ex (I’ve since received a police escort to retrieve my immediate things), and I was unemployed (I’ve since started freelance writing). Things were falling back into place except for one thing.

My dog. A beautiful golden retriever puppydog named *Simba.

I was on the fence about what to do with Simba. The apartment I currently lived in didn’t allow pets, but with the right service paperwork, I could keep him. That would take time though. The other option was giving him up to a nice family. Sad.

After chatting with my old co-worker about possibly finding another owner for Simba, she instructed me to send a short doggy bio and attach pictures, so she could forward it over to the appropriate people.

I sat in front of my computer staring at the cutest pictures of Simba, and I just didn’t have the heart to do it. I could not give my baby away. So I ended up thinking very hard.. and came up with a third option. I needed to find someone who could temporarily foster Simba. Someone with dog experience who lived in SF.

It took about an hour, but I finally found someone who fit the criteria. His name is *Troy and he was an old acquaintance from college.

I didn’t go into detail, and I honestly didn’t know what he could do for me, but I contacted him. After a few minutes, this dude responds, “I’ll help you.” DUDE. He didn’t even know what I was going to ask for!

Troy: “If you’re desperate enough to ask me, then you’re probably in a bad situation.”

Wow. What a good guy. He didn’t even want to hear the entire story, respected my privacy, and was willing to help foster Simba. I owed him a huge favor.

I realized I owed a lot of people huge favors. All my life, I prided myself in not needing anyone for help, and here I was depending on strangers and friends to keep myself afloat. I will repay them in the future for helping me go through this tough time in my life, I swear.

I happily emailed my old co-worker telling her that I found a solution, and I’m going to keep Simba forever. I’m in it for good now. She was happy. I was happy. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Even though I officially had a plan for Simba now, I was still worried. My ex kept threatening he was going to sell him on Craigslist. He kept complaining so much that I was concerned about my dog’s safety. If I know my ex, I know he’s irresponsible and inconsistent. He would overfeed Simba one day and another day completely “forget” to feed or even bother walking him. He’s threatened to give him away before, but when the buyer asked for Simba’s paperwork, it had MY NAME on it as his owner. HE’S MY DOG YO, so my ex couldn’t legally give him away without my express permission.

<^>(0_0)<^> The hate is real.

Anyways, I met up with my friend *Lily, and we went on a mission to save Simba from my ex. You see.. Simba lived in my old apartment. I was so scared to enter without a police escort, but the time to call them had passed. I needed to get in there. My ex knew this, which was why he held onto Simba in the first place.

My ex was under the impression that Lily was going to come pick up our dog alone, so he would need to wait outside to let her into the apartment. Nope. She didn’t want to interact with him at all, so we both went stealth-mode in my car. We spied him waiting outside the building, and I snuck in through the side garage, out of sight.

The plan was to get inside undetected, and grab Simba and his things as fast as we could before my ex returned. Unfortunately, Simba threw a fucking wrench into our plans when we got there. Did I also mention that my ex owns a parrot? This parrot might as well been a guard dog because that little thing was squacking away.. drawing so much attention.

To top things off, Simba PEED all over the place from excitement. Does my ex not walk him? This dog peed a fucking ocean in the apartment! So here we were.. parrot screeching his lungs out as I scurried to clean up the pee-pee mess. The trashcan was empty with no bag or anything. I glanced out the window, and MY EX WAS TURNING BACK TO GO INSIDE. Fuuuuuccckkkk.

So in a rush, Lily and I left the mess on the ground and RAN. Barely missing him, I bolted out of the garage and drove AWAY!

We did a victory cheer on the way back to Lily’s place. I believe I even went into my canine-state and began howling. We walked Simba, he did his potty business, I thanked Lily for her time, and I drove straight to Troy’s apartment to drop off Simba. Everything was getting better, bit by bit.

Troy and I came up with a plan: I was going to come by during the day, while he worked, and he could watch Simba at night. I would be around to help as much as I could, and I could also write at his place. Probably better that way.

I was very grateful to everyone who helped me without asking for anything in return, and it’s something I’ll always remember. I’m happy I got my doggy back.

Moving Out of My Ex’s Place

I don’t even know if I want to share what happened when the police standby finally arrived. It was really awkward. There were two cops…one male, one female. They asked me if my ex wanted me to leave, and what he would possibly do. I said I honestly have no idea because he changes his mind everyday, and it’s difficult to know what he really wants to do. I just wanted to move my things out.

When we arrived, of course my ex was there.. he tried to play everything off as if I was making a big deal over nothing. He apologized to the officers for the inconvenience, and I was relieved they didn’t really fall for the faux-charm. He followed me into the bedroom as I was packing and hugged me. Awkward. I didn’t want him to touch me. After I rejected his embrace, he tried to compromise with me about what to do about the apartment, with our dog, with moving, with expenses. Buddy.. it’s a little too late for that. I gave him several opportunities to talk to me about that stuff. Besides, everything that we would have discussed at that moment would only be changed later on because he’s unstable as fuck. I just wanted to grab my things and dip.

My ex hovered as I packed the rest of my belongings, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to bring the television. Ugh. Not strong enough. I was going to take the dog too, but after my ex helped pack the first round of my things into my car, something snapped in him. Perhaps he realized that this was real. That I was actually leaving. There was no hope anymore for us to rekindle our marriage. He flipped. His good words suddenly changed into, “You punched me in front of my mother” or “You cheated on me, and you are addicted to weed. You drug addict.” He even turned to the police officers and asked them if I could get in any trouble, since he has pictures of when I punched him in the face during our fight.

I kept silent. What could I say? I knew what happened. I remembered how much he bullied me when we were together — how he’s still bullying me even as I was leaving. I knew he twisted the actual story around so much that I almost felt gaslighted. What could I say? I was so tired of repeating my version of things, I gave up. But my ex didn’t. It’s all he-said-she-said, and useless to me. I just wanted to be free.

Finally, the female cop lost her patience and said to my ex, “OK. Whatever happened between you guys, she’s LEAVING now. So what’s the problem?” Hallelujah praise the Lord, Miss Cop you are awesome. My ex quieted down and directed the anger towards me again. “You don’t deserve our dog. I’m keeping him. You can go.” It’s amazing. The lease was under my name, all my things were in the apartment. Everything inside.. mine, and here he is kicking me out of my own place. Robbed and robbed some more.

We ran into the building manager while we were with the police officers. Oh man, the look on her face. Shock? Intimidation? I asked timidly, “So…we need to end our lease.” She just shook her head and nodded to everything I said. No questions asked. We exchanged numbers (I’ve been trying to reach her repeatedly), and she said she would call me. After that happened, my ex was saying how I humiliated him, how this was not necessary, how awful I am…blah, blah, blah. I just got the fudge out of there, because I did not want to deal with it anymore. I left with the police officers, and drove away with the rest of my clothes.

Back to my actual shitshow of a love life (Related Posts: Out With the Old, In With the New). After I left my old apartment, I drove down the street and pulled over to send some texts out. First to Ronny, I explained that I moved my clothes out and spoke with the landlord. He was less annoying and more supportive. Then I texted Officer Cheddar and said that I needed a drink. Because honestly, I totally did. For now though, a cigarette would do. I needed to reward myself with some lunch…I was starving, so I went to my favorite Korean comfort soup spot. Sat there just eating and texting, and then I went to get some bubble milk tea afterwards.

I decided to grab another bubble milk tea drink for Officer Cheddar since he was kind enough to help update me with my police escort, and I stopped by the station. He came out in his uniform and damn. He looked good. So powerful. I don’t know if it’s the stench of manliness and confidence…and just.. Homeboy carries a gun for goodness sake.

He tried to ease the tension by giving me a hug, and speaking to me in such a gentle coo-coo voice like honey to my ears. I gave him a deep hug. I really needed it. Pressed my body all up against his, which I’m sure he didn’t mind. He only had a few minutes, but I’m pretty sure he was amused after observing my body language. He could tell I was nervous. Crossed arms, darting eyes, tightly wound up. I felt awkward, and he could see it. I did not act like this before! What was the difference now? Ah. It didn’t seem to deter him. He went back to work, and I gave him another hug. I was going to see him the next night, so this was a good pick-me-up.

Nothing like a good ole rebound. Dun dun dun.

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.

Moving Back to SF and Jump-starting My Car

After a couple months of living with my family back in *hometown, I felt like I was finally ready to move back to San Francisco. After all, I needed to move out of my old apartment with my ex, and I also needed to be in the city to look for a full-time job. I was finally in a place where I felt emotionally strong enough to face my ex (Related Post: Moving on the Unhealthy Way), and I was ready to build myself up again.

When I moved back to SF, I immediately met up with one of my best friends Josie, and caught her up on all my boy drama. I was excited to share my interest in Ronny (Related Post: Falling for an Unavailable Guy While Still being Married), and she shared her guy troubles as well. We went on a mission to retrieve my car, which was parked in my apartment’s garage. We were supposed to *quickly* retrieve my car, so I would be able to drive myself around.

However, when we got there.. I noticed the driver’s door was slightly ajar, and my coin bag along with some petty cash — stolen. As added icing to this terrible cake, my car’s battery was also dead. Completely dead.

Me and Josie freaked out. The whole point of this whole drop off was so I could grab my car and skedaddle the fudge out of my garage before my ex showed up. To this day, I have no idea what the full story was behind my car. My ex has a history of picking locks and breaking into places. Did he break in and purposely kill the battery so that I had no where to go? Was I in such a state of emotional turmoil before I moved back home that I left the doors unlocked? Anyways, there was no time to wonder. We needed to fix this problem and get out of there.

I texted Ronny to see what I could do. No use. He was trying to help, but how can a guy with a girlfriend have time to help me anyways? Was he supposed to come meet me? Nope. Not possible. Word of advice? Don’t get involved with dudes with girlfriends.

Me and Josie were racking our heads trying to figure out how to do this. The person who really saved the day was my sister. She sent me a YouTube video on “How to open the manual release of my car” and it was such a lifesaver! I learned that even though my car battery was completely dead, I could still manually put the car into neutral, and pop the release out with something knife-like. Once that happened, I could push the car out so that Josie could jump my battery. Oh yeah, did I mention that Josie keeps jump cables in her car? Pretty damn awesome.

Since we didn’t have anything that resembled a knife, we decided to improvise and use the back of an earring (props to being girls!!!!) I jiggled open the release, and we did it! Take THAT dead battery. After successfully jumping my car (after a few hours), I went back to another friend’s place to get some rest.

Even though the day didn’t turn out as planned, I felt one step closer to fixing my life.

This was my checklist:

Get car, replace battery
File a police report at the station
Request a police escort to get things from apartment
Move everything out of old apartment into new place
Figure out a plan for rescuing my dog from ex
Figure out a plan for getting a marriage annulment
End contract with immigration lawyer for ex’s greencard
Get a full-time job
Change health insurance

OK, so I didn’t really do ANYTHING on this list except for “Get car” but I still felt better. I felt a sense of accomplishment for being able to jump-start and push my car without the help of a man. I was tired of being the damsel in distress–that shit was not for me.

There are clearly so many things in my life that I could stress over, but I wanted to focus on the positives. I was so lucky to have Josie and my sister helping me. I was thankful to my other girlfriend for letting me stay on her couch for a couple weeks. I was grateful that another friend of mine let me take over her bedroom since she was moving out. I can pretend that I’m so independent and I don’t need anyone, but that’s not true. At the end of the day, all I needed were my friends and family. Although my car needed some hardcore maintenance done to it, I could still make it work. It was still operable.

In other news, I checked my email, and I had an interview for a pretty big online company. Fingers crossed on that one!

First Time Using Tinder as a Hook-Up App

That’s right, Tinder. The Craigslist of dating apps. Oh, and I actually used it as a hook-up app. That was one of the steps from my last post on Moving on the Unhealthy Way, and I planned on following through with it!

I had kind of half-hooked up with Keith (Related Post: My Long Term Casual Hook-Up), but I was trying to get laid. After being separated from my ex and fighting for the past couple months, I was starting to feel the thirst.

What?! Women have needs too. This is what happens when I don’t have a vibrator, and I’m living at home!

Anyways, after a couple weeks of swiping through the uglies and weirdos on Tinder, I finally matched with a guy I thought was sexy as hell. From his pictures, he was cute, lean, 6’0″, heavily tatted. His name was Dan, but I’m just going to call him Tinder guy. We chatted, and it was actually the first time I felt like I connected to one of these online dudes (on a very shallow level). Of course, I wasn’t looking for anything serious with him, but I wanted to at least get along with him.

The conversation started off friendly enough, but then it turned sexual.. which was what I was going for. This was my sexual adventure! I asked him what his shoe size was, and he said 13, and so I put his contact on my phone as “Dan Size 13”. Since we had good chemistry, we decided to meet before I moved back to SF. By “meet” I mean, him coming to my place to pick me up so I could stay over at his place. Something like that.

After reading all these horror stories about Tinder, I decided to take some precautions. I wasn’t planning on getting kidnapped or killed, so I told my overprotective little sister about my conversations with him. Well.. she kind of found out when she saw me texting on my phone. She looked over when she saw me smirking and read the contact name. “WHAT THE FUCK, WHY IS HIS NAME ‘DAN SIZE 13’? GROSS!!!!” Lol.

When he arrived, my beautiful and lovely little sister followed me out of our apartment in her sweats. She goes up to Tinder guy’s window and says, “I took a picture of your license plate and inspection sticker, so if anything happens to my sister, I’m watching you.” It was really sweet that she did that, but homeboy was also blasting Michael Buble from his car. He was NOT going to do anything to me.

I was actually pretty nervous meeting him since we had been chatting online and through text for a couple days already. I told him that I wanted “the boyfriend experience” hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I realize how weird that is right now, but whatever. I did not give a fuck.

He actually made my first and only Tinder experience pretty nice. I think we would have been good friends in another life. We were supposed to go to a bar or restaurant to grab some beer or something to drink/eat, but it was getting late so I just suggested his place and delivery. Keeps it simple bro. We hung out with his roommate, watched some TV, went upstairs to his room to watch some Netflix, and he gave me a toothbrush because I didn’t have one. Tinder guy was seriously a gentleman outside, but once the doors closed, he ended up being a beast in bed. BEAST. The only bad thing was that there was no kissing.. and I really love my cuddles and kissing. It was purely sex, and I got what I needed and had a good time.

The next morning, Tinder guy even made me coffee, and we watched Forrest Gump before he drove me back. I ended up coming back home with some delicious leftover buffalo wings and a new toothbrush! Is this how Tinder usually works?! Hmm.

To this day, Tinder guy still checks in on me (even though I live 3000 miles away).

All in all, I’m describing this as if this was really “good” treatment. It’s not. If you’re looking for something healthy, definitely don’t follow my example. I’m the wrong person for that. A real stand-up guy would not discuss sex until way later on, they would go out of their way to treat you with respect, and they would be honest, patient and kind. Quality guys want to get to know you as a person, while sharing things about themselves too. From life experience.. these guys are not on Tinder. These male unicorns are self-assured, confident, and don’t need to be on Tinder. I’ll save that topic for another post.

So if you’re looking for love, don’t go on fucking Tinder. Even if you match with someone, it doesn’t matter if you’re actually an amazing person, they’re going to have a different perception of you. Well, I don’t know — I’m sure there are exceptions. But personally, I wasn’t looking to impress anyone really. I knew what I was getting into when I started trolling Tinder for sex. I was looking for something exciting, which in my book meant being shady AF with a stranger.

By the way, I’m not trying to hate on anyone using Tinder. Practically all my friends are on it, and I just shared this ratchet story of mine. It was a fun experience, just not the first place I’d go if I was looking for love.

(If you want to read more, check out my first post: Moving Back Home)

My Long Term Casual Hook-Up

I’m going to talk about a long-time hook up of mine, Keith. I’ve been chatting with him regularly again ever since I moved back home, and it’s been interesting. We have the type of relationship where we are friends, we can talk about anything, we find each other somewhat attractive, and we are honest with each other. But there is absolutely zero romantic chemistry or future between us.

There are only a handful of guys in my life who have stuck around and maintained contact with me throughout the years, and Keith was one of them. It’s interesting to see how our relationship has changed (is still changing) over the past 7 years. Damn it’s been awhile.

In my last post, I talked about Moving on the Unhealthy Way. One of my strategies included hanging out with an old hook up. I didn’t go looking for Keith, he just happened to be free, and I decided to hang out with him when he asked. I needed a distraction from my mess of life.

For years already, Keith and I have had awkward sexual encounters. I’m talking awkward AF. They’ve always been terrible. We first met in college when I went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate a birthday. Keith was the manager at that particular bar back then, and we ended up chatting at my table while my buddies were busy alcohol poisoning the birthday boy. We didn’t really hit it off, but I thought he was cute so we became Facebook friends. Since I was in the middle of moving apartments, I sent out a story blast the next day, “Any strong men willing to help me move? I’ll buy you lunch.” Not sure if Keith had other intentions (let’s be real now, he probably did), but he volunteered to help. Yay, strong men. Anyways, he spent the whole weekend helping me move my shit, and I guess the sexual tension between us was so impalpable that we ended up hooking up. Kind of.

The first time we hooked up, we were both sexually frustrated 21-year-olds who were going out with other people. He was with a girl he had been dating for 4 years, and I was in a new relationship with a playboy. Yes, it’s already been established that I have questionable morals. Anyways, even though we were both trying to control ourselves, we actually ended up in awkward half sex. Basically, we started kind of making out…not even.. more like lips hovering near each other’s faces.. Hmm. I guess it was more like intense touching and lips brushing, while our pants came off and his penis went inside.. ONE STROKE. Then we both snapped to our senses, we immediately stopped, and he rushed back home to his girlfriend. End of story one.

Our second encounter was over a year later, after I had already moved across the country. I was newly single this time, and so was he. The timing was right, so we tried giving it a shot and started flirting again. Kind of. He wasn’t very good at it. Anyways, we chatted for a few weeks up until I went back home to visit my family for a few days. I decided to stay the night at Keith’s since we wanted to actually hook up this time. We didn’t have any boyfriends or girlfriends making us feel bad. It was cold and snowing in Connecticut at the time, and we walked to the gas station to buy condoms.

Homeboy had amazing foresight and only bought one condom (sarcasm). When we got back to his place, I realized he had a cat. Dun, dun, dun. I’m very allergic to cats. Long story short.. he didn’t last that long, and it was too cold to go out to buy more condoms, so I just laid there.. in frustration.. AND THEN THE CAT ALLERGIES KICKED IN and I turned into a sniveling mess. Luckily I had some Benedryl, so I could sleep that night, blue tubes and all.

The next morning, we both woke up at fucking 6AM because…dun dun dun. The building next door was literally ON FIRE. That shit was burning down. I remember running down the stairs, past Keith’s hallway window that caught a bit of the flame. What?! We ended up standing on the sidewalk in front of his house while the fire trucks came. At least he held me to keep me warm. I guess that was cool. But bizarre as fuck. Sign from God that we just weren’t meant to be.

We met a few times a couple years afterwards as friends. We didn’t do anything because I was seeing someone, and he was too.

But recently was our third time meeting as singles (I was already single in my head since my ex and I had broken up terribly). It was supposed to be a quick friends writing session and some bubble tea, but my self control went out the window, and I went back to his place. I tried inviting my sister, but she was like, “Oh HAILLLL no. Sounds awkward AF. See you at home.” I have a great sister.

Keith ordered some Chinese food, I said hello to his dog (cat was gone), and we watched old episodes of Friends. It wasn’t until we started playing a new show on Netflix when we moved things over to the bed. He didn’t pressure me at all, since we’re friends and all.. but I guess I missed being held. Things escalated, and we ended up hooking up. Kind of. No condoms and we didn’t plan on it!

Funny story though, I mentioned something about a vibrator as a joke, and he suggested using his electric toothbrush. Little did I know.. he was serious. I was shouting, “GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!!!” But I let him try it anyways.. and I’m ashamed to say that it was the most intense and orgasmic 20 minutes of my life. It was so fucking weird though because I wasn’t even turned on by him. It felt really clinical. I don’t know man, but it was time for me to skedaddle. I was not trying to stay over.

As we were leaving, I asked Keith, “Is it true that guys can be intimate with someone and not get attached emotionally?” He answered yes. Then I hit him with, “OK. Do that with me.” I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings. But seriously. Something had snapped in me. I felt a bit of guilt because I was technically still married. Even though it was a shitty, abusive, manipulative marriage, it was still a marriage. At the same time, I also felt liberated. Like I couldn’t go back now.

There was hope for me to move on. Just not with Keith, because he was my friend. The PERFECT friends with benefits. We cared about each other with no emotional attachment. We did what we had to do to get each other off. Friends do that for each other. Where’s my crying face laughing emoji?

When I got back to my apartment, I felt a little bit of sadness, but the moment was fleeting. For the first time since I moved back home from San Francisco though, I didn’t bother to check my spam messages, and I slept fucking well that night. Zzzzzzzz.

Moving on the Unhealthy Way

I tried to be healthy, I really did. I spent all my time with friends and family, in relative seclusion. I didn’t really go out or party too much, and I focused on my own shit, while helping out at home. Unfortunately, that approach was too slow for me. I like to get things done quickly with a bit of excitement. I did not want to waste any more time pining over an asshole. I hated being in that position.

Fast forward a month into my stay back home in Connecticut, I was doing my darndest to get over my ex. Blocking his number and email? Check. Deleting all of our pictures together? Check. Trying to forget about him? CHECK FOR SURE.

After my last therapy session, I decided that I was going to give our marriage another chance.. that I was going to see what . That night, I called him, and instead of being grateful that I was even giving him the time of day, he accused me of cheating on him. When I wasn’t. Here I was.. actually in a place to try again with him after he had been an utter shithead to me. Ugh.

I flipped my shit after our call. Being accused of things that you have not done SUCKS, especially when you’re trying your best. I was drug and alcohol free, and I was still being faithful even though our marriage was basically over. When you are going out of your way to give someone the benefit of the doubt, being honest, and trying your best.. it’s pretty damn demoralizing when they’re still trying to tear you down.

I hung up on him and decided that if he’s accusing me of being a cheater, being insecure and irrationally possessive/jealous.. it was time to move on.

Anyways, that was my final, last straw past no point of return. Forget giving us another change. You want to know how I moved on from my ex’s dicksand? Pretty crude, but I basically flirted my way out with a bunch of fuckboys.

For the first weekend, I completely ignored my ex’s emails. I had never even went a day without checking his emails before, but I did it that weekend. Here are some shady/thirsty rebound shit I did:

Downloaded Tinder, Home of the Fuckboys

Tinder was basically my first step to moving on.. I just wanted to find a hot guy to chat with online. I had no intentions to meet up because I was fucked up like that. I just wanted that ego boost to know I still got it. But DAYUM yo. After HOURS of swiping, swiping, swiping. NADA. No guys I was interested in. Hartford is small dude. I didn’t realize exactly how small it was until I started swiping through Tinder. I swiped past like… eight different guy friends in the area too. MY FRIENDS. *shivers*

After living in San Francisco, where the people are plentiful and beautiful, I forgot that the singles selection in Connecticut was whack AF. Not to be super shallow or anything (but yes, this is literally super shallow), these East Coast guys that I’d normally label as 6’s or 7’s were considered 8’s and 9’s here. The profile bios for these dudes would be like, “Graduated from Columbia/Harvard/MIT/attorney/doctor/researcher [insert important sounding occupation/prominent university here]”

Whereas in SF, there were so many 9s and 10s who would be like “Oh, I’m a model/actor/director/producer/musician/athlete/host blah [insert entertainment occupation here]” There’s really a huge difference in Tinder game between the coasts. From my experience, East Coast guys were nicer, more educated, not as pretty to look at, while the West Coast boys were hotter, dumber, and inundated with a bunch of basic bitches.

Opened Lines of Communication with a Guaranteed Fuckboy

This was my second step to moving on. I put a lot of my pent-up feelings and energy into chatting with Ronny (Related Post: Falling for an Unavailable Guy While Still being Married). I knew nothing long-term or serious was going to happen with him. Afterall, he was 3000 miles away with a girlfriend.

Sure, he was saying shit like “Oh, it takes time to break up with someone.” UH. Homey, you think I’m stupid? I’ve been around a number of fuckboys throughout the years, and come on, let’s be real here.. I’m in the middle of a marriage separation with annulment plans for the unforeseeable future. You think I want to jump into anything? Secondly, you think I actually believe that you’re going to leave your girl for me? I’m not about dat life, and I would not want a man like that anyways.

The way I saw things, I was using regular fuckboys to move on from King Fuckboy. That way, I didn’t feel much guilt when I would ultimately ghost on them. To be fair though, I did kind of develop a crush on Ronny. He was sweet, complimented me a lot, and it was clear he kind of cared about me and my situation. He could never actually “be there” for me since he was taken already, but I didn’t want him to do that anyways. I didn’t want a good guy right now. Not only that, but it would be best if good guys stayed away from me during this period. I had nothing positive to offer them.

Went on a Date with an Old Casual Hook-Up

For my my third moving-on step in this fucked up process, I decided to meet up with Keith (Related Post: Just Got Two Dates). I already knew from past experiences that I wasn’t going to get all emotionally attached to him, and I also knew that he was a low-key fuckboy slash friend. Not to mention, he lived in Connecticut too, and it would have never worked — especially since I fully planned on moving back to SF. Haillllzzz nah to long distance. Eff that jazz.

Keith was a safe option for me because I had known him for years already — since our college days. Back then, I thought he was really cute and smart, but alas, he had a girlfriend at the time, so things got confusing between us. By the time they ended things, I had already moved out to SF, and got a couple boyfriends of my own. A couple years ago, we tried rekindling things, but then I decided he was too boring. Although he was definitely my type in school, it had already been five years, and tastes change.

Anyways, apologies for the boring ass backstory, but my point is — I trusted Keith enough to know that he wasn’t batshit crazy, and he wasn’t going to make me feel uncomfortable or pursue anything serious with me. However, he was good for cheering me up at the moment without pressuring me for anything.

There’s that ever-popular saying, “the only way to get over someone is to get under somebody else.” I wasn’t really in a rush to get under a bunch of dudes, so I stuck to flirting for a bit.

After following these three steps for a few weeks, BOOM. It worked. And just like that, I no longer obsessed over my ex. Sure, he was still a pain in my kaboose, but at least I could see more clearly now. I could see the way he tried manipulating me, and I could also see him from a more objective point of view — but to be honest, would it ever be completely objective?

(Check out my first post here: Moving Back Home)

The Story of My Toxic Husband

I first met Pierre while I was out with some friends at a local San Francisco dance bar. I had been single for a month after getting out of a four-year-long relationship. I was very drunk when we met, but I was having a great time hanging out with my friends and meeting new people. I was a social butterfly that night, and I looked great in my high-waist jeans and flowery crop top. I was also wearing my signature dark red lipstick.

Anyways, in my intoxicated glory, I was (loudly) complaining about how I was the only single one out of all my married friends. Pierre heard me mention “single” and he came right up. To be honest, I didn’t even remember what he looked like the following day. I gave him my number though. I think I thought he was good looking. Afterall, homeboy told me he was a model. The French accent also seduced the crap out of me.

I remember he called nonstop the next day. I found it endearing. At the same time, after chatting with him for a bit, I found it really weird he wouldn’t share his last name with me. He also didn’t have a car. He really wanted me to go over to his apartment to have some “barbecue”. Model or not, he was a stranger. I didn’t care that he was tall, dark, and handsome. I’ve read Ted Bundy’s Wikipedia man, and I did not want to end up being murdered.

After hours of talking on the phone, Pierre finally agreed to take me out to a damn restaurant. I would pick his ass up and drive us there. We had an OK time, but I was distracted by how good looking he was. Those eyes could pierce into your soul for years, but there was a darkness in them. Pierre was hot, but he definitely gave off that serial killer vibe.

I noticed many red flags during that first date.

He ordered two shots.
He talked about himself the entire time.
He flirted with our waitress.
He paid in crumpled bills.
He kept pressuring me to go back to his place.

Got damn why did I ignore the fucking red flags!!!!!

It was my first date in over three years, so I was rusty at filtering out guys. I should have just left and never talked to him again. At the same time though, I was fascinated with him. He was different and foreign to me, which was what I was looking for. I wanted adventure. I wanted to live life with excitement. I thought he could offer that to me.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about Frenchmen and their reputation for being great at romance. That shit is all true. It was a whirlwind in the beginning. After one week, I became his girlfriend. After two weeks, he told me he loved me. After one month, I moved into his apartment. After half a year, we got our own apartment together. After 9 months, we got a dog. After a year, we got married. That shit all would have been great if we had a good relationship.

Unfortunately, it was full of fighting from the very beginning. The first week we dated was probably the most peaceful time for me. I fell for his spontaneity and charm. I thought his craziness was refreshing. Our first fight wasn’t until the two week mark.

My friend Stella had invited me to a house party with some friends. I told Pierre that I didn’t want to go because there were a couple guys there who had shown interest in me before. After hearing that, he insisted on going to the point where I just went so that he would stop. At the party, he was cordial and engaging enough.. until he told me he loved me. Uhh.. I didn’t answer him, which made him mad, so he left the party. What made him angrier was when he realized he left his phone in the Uber.

I SHOULD HAVE LEFT RIGHT THEN. This dude started going on about how he KNEW there was something shady with our Uber driver (our Uber driver was a very nice guy by the way), and how the driver was probably going through all his pictures. Pierre was being a huge drama queen, and I hated that I was the person who needed to take care of him. I tried to make things easier for him, but he was acting like such a spoiled brat.. screaming at people on the street, asking me why I brought him to this party.. I called another Uber to pick us up, but once the driver pulled up and saw how Pierre was acting, he CANCELLED THE RIDE and drove away! That has NEVER happened to me before. This guy was going to kill my Uber rating too?!!?

I ended up forgiving him for that, and I told him I loved him back a few days later. Crazy bitch up in the house.

At the time, I was subletting my friend’s apartment and in the process of moving out of my old apartment with my ex boyfriend. I was going to hire movers and put my things in storage, but once Pierre heard about this, he insisted on helping me move. He also volunteered his apartment for me to store his things. We had only been dating for a month, so I wasn’t completely comfortable with this. At the same time, I thought about how much money I would save by accepting his offer.

“You can leave your things here and move them back out when you find your own apartment,” Pierre said to me when I told him I wasn’t comfortable. I thought it was disrespectful for him to come move my stuff out of an apartment that I shared with an ex. I don’t even know what happened, Pierre kind of steamrolled past my wishes, moved my things out of my old place into his bedroom, and basically claimed it as his own. When I finally found a place I could move into, he guilt tripped me, “You’re going to move into an apartment without me? We’re going backwards if you do that.” Ugh, the manipulation. I see it so clearly now, why didn’t I see it before? It was my fault for letting him do that though.

After living with Pierre, I found out a few more unsavory things about him.

He was living in the U.S. illegally because he had overstayed his visa.
He was wanted back in France for almost killing a dude.
He was an alcoholic.
He was self-centered, insecure, jealous, and spiteful.
He had a record for harassing women in another state.
He had no real friends.

WHY DID I STAY WITH HIM!!!!! Ugh. I was so in love and so whipped, that’s why. By the time we moved in together, all my friends hated him. He was starting to severely insult me.. with choice words that rhymed with “You ducking hitch,” you are a huge blut, and you’re probably out ducking some guy’s tick.” Yeah, the whole verbal abuse thing. We already had countless fights, and I tried to leave him several times. I always came back.. he was always so sincere and sweet when he apologized. The makeup sex was really good. Sorry, I forgot to mention that he also had a huge schlong, and he knew how to use it. I made excuses saying that the alcohol made him act that way, and he would change if he stopped drinking.

Blah, blah. Fast forward.

We started living together. Pierre was telling me about how things would be different once we were out of his apartment with his roommate. I believed him. We were fighting all week before we even moved in, and just a few days before, he had poured soda all over my car dashboard because we were arguing. That was some cray cray shit. I felt like I was dating a psycho hot cheerleader.. the kind of person who would slash your tires. I STILL TOOK HIM BACK AND THEN I MOVED IN WITH HIM WHYYYYY!!!!

It felt like I was with him for a lifetime. While Pierre could be really giving.. he would cook, clean, do my laundry, and help me any way he could.. he could also be the exact opposite. When we were fighting, he would make a mess, leave me upset and crying, call me the dreaded b-word, make me feel trapped. I admired him for his persistence and dreams for himself. He really wanted to make it as an American actor (Don’t even get me started on that.. the whole time we were together, he bragged about how he was going to make great movies one day, and how shitty other actors were). He had stopped drinking for a few months already too, so he was just acting like a normal asshole instead of a verbally abusive asshole.

Anyways.. around the one year mark, I decided to marry him.

We got married at City Hall, and the whole process was pretty easy. I actually remember being really happy that day because we didn’t fight at all. I loved him. We hired an immigration lawyer to help him become a U.S. Citizen too.. and then I got laid off. I didn’t have the extra money to support him anymore. Things got pretty hard.

During this entire period, I had stopped hanging out with my closest friends. Especially my male friends. Conversation was kept at a minimum. I never said anything bad about Pierre. I never ate out at restaurants because it was a waste of my money. I was no longer a social butterfly, I actually became more reserved and timid as a person. I had stopped working out everyday. I stopped going to basketball practices (FYI, I played in a co-ed basketball league). I was in dedicated wife mode.

Yes, I lost myself, but things were pretty smooth up until his family paid us a visit three months after we got married. The night they arrived, Pierre drank again and came back home in a violent mood. This wasn’t the first time he secretly drank, but it was the first time his verbal abuse escalated to physical abuse.

His sister told me that Pierre had a really troubled childhood. Their father was his hero, and he was very abusive to their mom. He grew up with the belief that women and men were not equal. Men were better. He also grew up spoiled, never hearing the word no. His sister also told me that Pierre knew he was an alcoholic for a long time already. He didn’t care.

This was his own sister.

Anyways, shortly after this, I didn’t feel safe around Pierre anymore. Sure, I grew up with hardcore daddy issues, but my dad never laid a hand on my mom. It was not the kind of household I wanted to be in. I ended up calling my mom to bring me back home to Connecticut, so I could figure things out and move on.

(Read my first post from when I moved back to Connecticut: Moving Back Home)

Falling for an Unavailable Guy While Still being Married

I’m not sure what shitstorm just happened over the past few days, but I am now captivated by Ronny, an old co-worker.. who also has a girlfriend (Related Post: Feeling Thirsty and Uncomfortable).

OUT OF ALL THE FUCKING GUYS I DECIDED TO CHOOSE FROM, I SHOWED INTEREST IN THE UNAVAILABLE ONE?

This is seriously a very bad cycle, but right now.. it feels so good. Especially in all the drama that is my husband.. Ronny has been such a comfort. Yes, I know I should be looking at comfort within myself. I know I should ignore him, and push all these guys away as well. I am also well aware that I’m being a terrible person — especially towards his girlfriend. Yada, yada, ya.

I KNOW I’M TERRIBLE, BUT I HAVEN’T HAD ANY ACTION IN A COUPLE MONTHS, SO THE THIRST WAS SO REAL.

My sister thinks I’m too boy crazy, perhaps I am. But ever since I started getting to know Ronny, I stopped obsessing over being separated from my toxic husband. For the first time in over a year, I felt freed from his tight grasp. Hmm.

It’s quite possible that I’m transferring my feelings onto another person so that I could move on with my life. It’s the way I cope. However, would I be able to handle what happens with Ronny? And his girlfriend? I definitely wasn’t looking for a relationship or anything serious with Ronny, but I also wasn’t very happy about being a side bitch. Ronny was trying to have his cake and eat it too.. and right now, I was willingly giving it to him through Instagram DM. So shady!!!

Anyways, let me rewind a little bit and recap the past few days.

I was doing so well. I sent Ronny a message saying this was not for me, and I think any normal man would have respected that. I did, however, continue responding to his ongoing messages. I took pleasure in his affections, compliments, and attention.

I remembered I had met Ronny earlier a couple years ago at a work event, before I met my crazy husband. He approached me with his friendly charisma. I had already noticed him when I walked into the room — dude was seriously cute. Anyways, we chatted for a bit at the event, but I left in a hurry because I parked at a street meter. He tried several times while we worked together to engage in conversation with me, but I never reciprocated. Mostly because I was either tongue-tied or preoccupied with other thoughts.

What. Is. Wrong with me? Prepare yourself because I’m about to go full-on boy crazy right now. I liked that Ronny was more experienced. I enjoyed the attention he gave me. It was nice that he craved my conversation and my body even though we’ve never been intimate. Shit, I think we’ve only ever shook hands, not even.

Ugh. I repeat, the thirst is so real. We started sexting.. the best sexting of my life. I was eating up his words, and what he wanted to do to me. Gawd, it was like dirty poetry up in that DM chat. I loved being able to be open to him without judgment. What I didn’t love was that he had a girlfriend. What I didn’t love was that I was still married.

Unfortunately, I would never trust Ronny completely in any serious relationship, and with my big secret (only a few people knew I was even married), he would never completely trust me. I only told him that I had a crazy ex, and we broke up because things got physical. This was all true, except I didn’t mention that it was an ex-husband type of deal.

We both agreed that I should not be in a relationship for a long time.. yet he still wanted to “make love” to me. He wanted to be friends with benefits with me. Was I emotionally capable of that? This was a vicious cycle of bad relationships and bad decisions that could only lead to disaster and shitty outcomes!! I could SEE it, but I’m enjoying Ronny way too much at this point. I could see myself getting hurt. I could see myself pushing my ex towards a breaking point.

I cancelled my date with Adam for tonight. I also cancelled my date with Keith for tomorrow night (Refer to: Just Got Two Dates). Just wasn’t feeling it.

I had yet to respond to my ex’s emails. It’s been three days. That’s the longest I had ever gone without giving him news. I blamed him for pushing me to this point. By accusing me of cheating on him, when I wasn’t. I wanted to make myself feel better, I gave into my comforts, and I engaged in the seduction of several men.. so now, his insults are justified. Yup. This marriage could never work out. I wonder, if I ignored him long enough, if he would move on. Or would he continue to wait? I felt guilty because he was faithfully going to his AA meetings (or was he?), though some of his text messages sounded completely drunk sometimes.

It was difficult to believe anything he said. I didn’t want to believe him anymore. After all his insults and aggression, our marriage was past the point of returning for me.

My ex never asked me about my day. He never asked me about what my plans were. When he DID happen to ask what my plans are, he didn’t actually respect my decisions. That was no life to live. At least with Ronny, we were on an equal playing field. He had been honest and straightforward with me about his relationship (hey, at least he wasn’t currently married) — meanwhile, I was hiding my marriage.

Honestly, I think Ronny would understand though. Regardless, even if we got together after I moved back to San Francisco.. I really don’t think we would work out. Either way, I know what I’m doing is “morally wrong” and as Ronny would say, “Yes, on paper it looks bad” Whatever the fuck that meant — but he made me feel good for the moment. The first good that I’ve felt inside for a long time. I’ve been talking to him for almost a week already, and we haven’t argued at all. Sure, I’ve gotten annoyed, but Ronny was apologetic and he knew exactly how to sweet talk me. That shit was amazing to me.

I could barely get my ex to be polite, patient, and understand things from my perspective for even one full day. Three days tops.

I should give Ronny a timeline for when he should leave his girlfriend, but it’s hypocritical of me to demand that. I was still married.

For now, I will stop talking about exes to Ronny. I cannot push anything with him and his girlfriend, and I should probably set some clear boundaries between us. I should. Should..

So many things I should do.

(Read from the beginning: Moving Back Home)

Feeling Thirsty and Uncomfortable

I’ve been having trouble sleeping at home. The place was a small and cluttered two bedroom that comfortably fit my mom and sister. The couch was comfortable leather, but I was too tall for it.. my sister snored like a monster, and my mom’s bed was solid as a board (she prefers it that way). So I waited until my sister left for work at 6AM before I could sleep in her bed.

After two hours of sleep, I woke up to a painful and irritating itch on my belly button. Damn straight. Belly button. By the time I get that figured out, I couldn’t sleep anymore!

I originally planned on getting up, getting some work done, getting my lashes re-done (yes, lash extensions are da bomb), do laundry, and work out. I wanted to get all that energy out of me. But I was so tired. I messaged my girlfriends and asked for a good salon to get my girl maintenance out of the way.

While waiting, I checked my dating app and gave my number to Adam (Refer to previous post: Just Got Two Dates) before shutting it down, and I checked my spam mailbox for incoming mail from Pierre. For some reason, I felt a bit uncomfortable and ended up dozing off again.

Hours later, I woke up and saw that I got a new text message from Adam. I also received a friendly hello from Keith, my old college friend/hook up.

Just when I thought I had my hands full, I received a direct message from a cute guy I used to work with at my old job. Ronny. It started out innocent enough at first, but then he started complimenting me.. then sharing his personal life. Apparently he was having trouble with his girlfriend, so yeah. He was bad news! I tried to stay cordial though, but what do you do in that situation? When you used to have a crush on a guy, but he doesn’t show interest in you until he’s having girlfriend troubles?

Meanwhile, Pierre was in a friendly and apologetic place today. I was relieved I didn’t spent all my time stressing out about him like I did before. It was always the same pattern with him. Apologetic and nice one day, then manipulative and insulting the next day. Shit is stressful and was slowly driving me insane.

I had been so distracted from talking to Adam, Keith, and Ronny. What is going on? Do these guys just wake up and think, “Hey let me hit this girl up and see if she wants to hang?” With the exception of Adam, I was quite confused. It felt a bit like I was a walking time bomb that attracted nothing but trouble from different directions. Should I just shut all communication with dudes down and ignore all of these dead ends, just focus on me?

The obvious answer was a resounding YES. I needed to. I needed to be strong. Concentrate on other things like reading, writing, working, spending time with friends and family, cooking, sports, politics.. anything. But why was that so hard?! Scratch that – the hard part would be late at night, when everyone’s sleeping, and I’m up feeling lonely.. looking for attention. Craving it. Gawd I’m crazy.

Well.. maybe a little crazy, but I think the overwhelming mood I was in was THIRSTY. I was feeling thirsty. Even though I was trying to stay “friends” with guys, it came off as flirting. Maybe it was flirting. I don’t know man.

What I really needed to do was channel all this excess energy into my work. I was determined to do that. I started feeling like maybe I was putting all my attention into the wrong things these past few days (guys), and it was really starting to mess with me. Dictating my life. Where do I find a balance!

I was trying so hard to just write. Write. Write. “I do not need a man,” I told myself. I needed to drill that into my brain. But I really.. missed having someone hold me. I think my belly button hurt earlier because my tummy was slowly expanding from being a useless lump of laziness the past month!

After forcing myself to be productive and mulling my life over for a few hours, my sister finally came home from work. Thank goodness! Spending time with her helped take my mind off of other bullshit. I helped her with her homework (ahem, she forced me to do it), and we watched that VH1 show, Catching Kelce or something like that. The show about a bunch of girls from every state competing over this hot football player. Entertaining stuff.

(You can read my first post here: Back at Home)

Just Got Two Dates

After trying out Match.com for two days, I decided to stop all the dating apps. This was way too serious for me. I know I wanted an escape from my nightmare of a marriage, but this was not it. Before shutting down the last one though, I got a response from the one guy I thought was attractive and interesting. (Refer to previous post: Browsing Through Match.com)

We chatted for a bit through text, and he asked me out for Thursday evening later during the week. I said yes. Though I was about 90% sure I was going to cancel. This was totally counter-productive. I was afraid to tell my therapist because she’ll realize the extent of my nutcase-ness. Did I just dig myself into another hole or was I moving on?

Later that night, I got a message at 2AM from an old friend/hook up, Keith, asking to hang out. I was very hesitant, but I agreed to see him the upcoming Friday. He was a good looking guy, successful and Chinese.. unfortunately, he had the personality of a wall. I felt no chemistry with him. Just pure physical attraction. But he was also the type of guy my family would approve of with flying colors.

What was going on?!! In one day, I managed to snag myself two dates already. I would have felt guilty, but then I checked my spam inbox again and read another threatening email from my soon-to-be ex-husband Pierre. Apparently I was his top priority now, and he would make me “pay” for the rest of my life.

(You can read my first post here: Back at Home)

Browsing Through Match.com

So I tried Match.com’s free trial period because there was no way I was gonna pay for that. When I started filling out my profile, there was a section that asked if I was “single”, “divorced”, or “separated”. I know I should have checked off “separated”, but shame made me check off “single”. I hated that this was going to stick with me now. I felt marked. Damaged goods.

I know I said I was only window shopping (Refer to my previous post: The Last Call We Had), but I couldn’t help but look over some profiles. I didn’t realize that whenever you visit someone’s profile, they see that you looked at their page.

When I woke up the next morning, I saw that I got an overwhelming response. What? Hello, ego boost!

I scanned through my spam inbox. Insults from the soon-to-be-ex-husband ensued. I’m over the insults. I’m so tired of fighting. I’m so exhausted from babying this guy. I felt less angry at him now though. After a year of being accused of cheating when I was being loyal, at least the accusations were kind of founded now. Pierre always considered himself a psychic. Now that I know him, I realize that whatever he said ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anything that was in his control.. like predicting that “something big and life-changing was going to happen” when his family visited, he made sure that “something” would happen. It was his own actions that propelled me out of his life. I didn’t want to think about it.

Instead, I set my mind to checking the Match dating application. Meh. Lots of guys interested, but I wasn’t interested in anyone at all.

Well, there was one guy, Adam, but he didn’t poke me or whatever the hell you were supposed to do on this website. Oh well. If I thought he was the only hot dude on the website, there were probably loads of other ladies who thought so too. I have good taste in men *wink*.

I really don’t know how people get over their significant other the healthy way. The only way I’ve ever known for moving on from someone was by locking onto another love interest. I’ll save that one for my therapist.

(You can read my first post here: Back at Home)

The Last Call We Had

Pierre called today.

I was hanging out with my mom and sister when I saw his name pop up on my phone. Buzz Buzz Buzz. Do I pick up? Of course I do.

The conversation was definitely strained. It started out friendly enough, but it was evident that there was boiling below a shaky surface. He asks me when I’m coming home.

How do I answer that? Do wives just come back to their abusive husbands on just his word that he has changed? I tell him what I’ve been telling him for the past couple weeks. I don’t know. I’m undecided. I’ve been seeing a therapist to talk about this bullshit. I’ve been spending time with my childhood friends to catch up and to talk out some feelings. My sister and all of my friends hate Pierre. My mom is whatever about him.. mostly because he reminds her of my dad. P.S. My dad is also an anus-hole.

“When are you coming home?” Pierre repeats on the other end of the line. I had walked out of the apartment and was smoking a cigarette outside.

“I don’t know,” I said. I was so undecided. I was so hopelessly in love with this guy. I missed being in his arms, gazing into his eyes. I missed kissing him.

I told him that it’s not black and white. The decision to stay with him was not a clear one. I wanted to try for the sake of being married, but at what cost? I let it slip that I preferred that he cheated on me so that I could make a clear decision.

He gets mad that I mention that.

“You’re being a beech, you know?” Pierre sneers in a thick French accent. He proceeds to accuse me of cheating and the insults ensue. Per usual, I lose my cool, and I threaten to get a divorce right there, but who was I kidding? I needed to be in San Francisco for that. I couldn’t afford a family law lawyer right now either. What I really needed to do was move on.

He was still disrespecting me. All I wanted him to do was keep composure and respect me for a couple weeks straight. I wanted to see if he could practice restraint. I wanted to see that he was making a noticeable effort. Instead, he continued cutting me off by throwing a tantrum, convinced that I cheated on him. I hung up.

I tried to distract myself. I watched some mindless reality show on VH1. I tried reading a book. I showered. I wash dishes. It was almost 3am. I tried sleeping, but I couldn’t. I tried surfing the Internet looking for advice on what to do. I finally settled on joining a dating website against my better judgement — despite my efforts to be alone. I told myself I’m just window shopping, when really I had no idea what I was doing. I mostly wanted to keep myself distracted from checking Pierre’s insulting emails.

It sucks to be accused of cheating on your spouse when you’re being faithful. It’s the worst feeling. Even under these fucking circumstances.. dude put his hands on me. We were separated for a month already. This whole month, he would constantly let his insecurities get the best of him and accuse, accuse, accuse. My goodness dude. I just couldn’t anymore.

Anyways, I joined a dating website that night. Window shopping.

(You can read my first post here: Back at Home)

Lost Opportunities

I was sitting at home alone.. happily eating take-out from my family’s restaurant and watching a Halloween special on ABC Family when I received an alert on my phone. I got a new message on LinkedIn from my recruiter friend, Michael, for a job in San Francisco. It was a coordinator position for the development department.

Before moving back home, I had been living in San Francisco for the past 6 years. I spent my last semester at University interning and taking night classes in SF. It was always my dream to move there — and I did. I built a life and community for myself before my life went cray cray and went to shit after meeting Pierre.

A part of me wanted to ignore the job opportunity so that I could watch this damn movie, but reality sunk in a bit. It was relaxing and stable at home with my family, but I needed to get a job. Finding a job in SF while living in Hartford was not easy, so of course I was going to jump on this chance.

Unfortunately, after hours of touching up my resume, the hiring manager decided my background was too creative. Darn. I was bummed, but it was probably for the best.

Pierre calls, and the conversation is friendly enough, but he didn’t ask me a single question about my day. It was all about him. Actually, no, some of the conversation was about our dog. To be fair though, I didn’t volunteer any information. I wanted to see if Pierre could change. I wanted to see if he would ask.

He complained about his sister and blamed his previous behavior on how his sister was so inconsiderate to visit during that time. I was annoyed (still am) because I could clearly see his pattern of blame shifting towards different targets. It was frustrating that he wasn’t taking full responsibility for his actions. His sister did not force him to drink alcohol when he knew he shouldn’t have even had that first glass. She didn’t tell him to come home and insult me. She didn’t tell him to yank me back by my hair when I tried to leave to sleep in the car. His sister was not the one who held me down, threatened my life, and destroyed my things.

I should have probably kept those thoughts to myself, but I blurted it out. I was angry. I wanted him to see that he was a huge anus-hole for doing what he did.

Just disappointment. He would never see it.

Worst of all? I missed the whole damn Halloween movie!!

(You can read my first post here: Back at Home)

Tamera and Jay Get Married

Today, I accompanied my sister to her friend’s wedding in New Haven. It was small, humble, boisterous and beautiful.

Apparently the mother of the groom-to-be passed away last week, and her memorial was held just yesterday. Tamera, the bride-to-be, spent the entire year planning their wedding, and wanted to postpone the date because of the unfortunate circumstances. Due to the funeral costs, the groom, Jay, was worried about whether or not he could afford the wedding. At the same time, he did not want all of Tamera’s hard work to be for naught, and strongly refused to postpone it.

Tamera and my sister work together as infant-care specialists at a local daycare center. Earlier during the week, one of the parents asked Tamera about her wedding. She responded, “We might have to postpone it…” The parents nodded their heads and took their baby home.

Later that night, Tamera received a text message from the baby’s mother, “Just thinking about you. Was wondering if you could tell me the reason why you are postponing wedding…” Tamera didn’t want to delve too far into the actual story, so she simply told them, “Financial issues, we’re going through a rough time right now.” The baby’s mother texts back, “You’re like family to us, and you are so great with our kids, we are lucky to have you. Please accept $1000 from us so that you can keep your wedding. Don’t postpone it.” After much thought, Tamera texted back, “Thank you…but no thank you. We cannot accept that.” It was in a grey area of the daycare rules. Professional life should not be slipping into personal life. However, after one last push from the baby’s mother, “Please accept it as a wedding gift from me and my husband. We are lucky enough to have well-paying jobs, and we can afford to give you this money. Like I said, you are like family to us, and we want you to use it for your wedding. We insist.”

After my sister told me this story, I thought it was beautiful that there were still such generous people in the world.

And that’s how they kept their wedding date.

Anyways, I went to this wedding — the second wedding I’ve ever attended in my life (family don’t count). It was simultaneously happy and sad, loud and tranquil, disastrous and masterful, rude and respectful, and needless to say.. lots of shit happened.

I don’t even want to get started on what occurred on the dance floor. Those children were like baby professional dancers. I shit you not, there were four-year-old kids doing jump splits on the dance floor. FUCKING JUMP SPLITS! Everyone went up and did the electric slide, the walking dance, and it was also the first time I’ve ever witnessed a real-life soul train. Loved it. Everyone was free, uninhibited, and absolutely gorgeous.

You could feel the love the bride and groom had for each other. Tamera spoke about how she first met the man of her dreams. Her rock. She spoke about their family, and how she was so happy to spend the rest of her life with him. Jay pretty much said the same thing, and he hilariously compared her love to a three-layer chocolate cake — which has scarred me for life, since I LOVE chocolate — but his heart was in the right place.

What really hit home for me were the speeches from the Best Man and Maid of Honor. That shit really got to me. Even though the Best Man clearly prepared a lengthier and more quality speech compared to the Maid of Honor, both parties spoke positively about the bride and the groom. They spoke about how they respected them both so much because they each brought the other stability and happiness. They were perfect for each other, pushed the other up, supported one another, and completed one another. I listened to their speeches in both awe and sadness.

This was a solid foundation for a marriage.. with loving friends and family surrounding the bride and groom. Unlike the way I did it. No one was at my wedding, there were no vows. Tamera had a beautiful dress. Belle of the ball! I had a cocktail dress that I bought from Forever 21. We just walked into City Hall, said “I do” to a judge and BAM. We were married just like that. With none of our loved ones to see. I never want to do that again.

Watching Tamera and Jay’s wedding made me think. It made me realize that you should be proud of the love you have for someone. It also made me realize that marriage was more than love. It was hard work. It required trust and patience. It required a strong foundation. Something me and Pierre did not have from the very beginning.

(You can read my first post here: Back at Home)

Testing My Patience

Do you know what true stability is?

For me, true stability is not having to worry about what will happen to my dog for a month straight. Just the assurance that he will be in good hands. True stability is the ability to have a peaceful dinner with my grandmother and aunt without being bombarded by text messages and calls from my estranged husband, Pierre, who is lost in Los Angeles and needs my assistance to get to where he needs to be because he doesn’t have GPS on his phone. True stability is my knowing that if I wanted to stay at home for a little while longer, that my husband wouldn’t threaten to abandon our apartment for the month and complain about how lonely he is. True stability.

Most times I have no clue if I love him or hate him.

This is what happens when I give him another chance to prove if he is worthy. I had the option of short-term pain in exchange for a lifetime of peace — or at least my own definition of peace — versus short-term happiness in exchange for a lifetime of headaches. Dependence. Mood swings. Fear. Anger. What the fudge?

I realize that Pierre is making an effort. He has been attending his Alcoholic’s Anonymous meetings, and he has spoken to a therapist on the phone (supposedly). However, two and a half weeks of clarity and self-improvement is not enough time to heal decades of psychological damage and addiction.

Hope. I want to believe that our love is strong enough to defy all odds, and I want to prove all my friends wrong about us. Sadly, homeboy doesn’t even respect me enough to grant me some time to myself after I text, “Please don’t contact me for tonight. I will talk to you tomorrow. I need to calm down.” Scratch that. He gave me 45 minutes before he broke. On the bright side, after I chewed him a new one through a series of frustrated follow-up texts, he chose to heed my advice. That’s a start.

Everything was going well, but after two days of respectful texts, emails, and phone exchanges, my husband decided that it would be great to plan a month-long trip to Miami to visit his friend.

Positives: He needs to be around friends, and it would be good for him to be around people who love him. His friend is clean — meaning no alcohol, no drugs, but mostly no alcohol to tempt him. My husband was practically begging me to understand his point of view.

Negatives: It disrupts his daily pattern. Does he really expect to go to meetings in Miami when his friend is there? That shit ain’t weird? Another thing — suddenly, I’m the one who needs to figure out what to do with our dog, and I’m 3000 miles away. Pierre tells me his family will be paying for his flight out of town. He’s a 30-year-old man, and he’s still depending on them to do that when he would be perfectly fine staying put? He doesn’t see that this just stirs everything up? The one part that pushed me over the edge was when he told me that he would be staying in Miami for up to one month.

What the hell does he want to do there for one month? Because he can’t be alone? Suck that shit up, fool. If the situation were switched, I would happily embrace loneliness and time to improve myself. I’ve done it before for three months, and I grew into a much more independent and stronger woman because of it.

He tells me that I don’t understand. I really do understand, but what I’m looking for is seriousness and stability without worrying for my dog’s well-being every single day. Who’s going to watch Bear when he’s gone? Pierre made a deal before I left with my mom that he was responsible enough to watch him. He was still a puppy of 8 months. My mom was silly and believed him, when I wanted to take Bear with us.

I understand Pierre’s point of view as well. Truly. It’s not fair that he is alone in our apartment with no knowledge of when I’m coming home. He thought I would come home sometime this week — but I made it clear to him that would not be the case. In reality, I was thinking of staying here for another three weeks. I get it, but right now, his time alone is the true test of his endurance, dedication, and loyalty.

My therapist saved me from going Hulk on Pierre by sharing some coping techniques for anger. If it weren’t for her “take a step back and pull yourself out of the anger mode” chat, I would have unleashed a scary beast on him via crazy text message rants. Instead, I pulled back, watched half an episode of Grimm, smoked a cigarette, showered, and washed the dishes. Hooray for self-improvement.

However, this erratic behavior is forcing me to second guess my decision to give him another chance. The smart decision would be cutting things off permanently and experiencing that short-term pain. However, looming around the back of my mind is this. Will the pain really be short-term? Or will I be suffering from lost and disappointed love for the rest of my life? Has he really changed this time around?

I am pretty sure I know the answer, but I don’t feel like admitting it to myself right now. I’m drained. Je suis fatigue. Bonne nuit.

(To start over and read from my first post, click here)

Visiting My Dad in Prison

My mother and I both stayed up all night and left the apartment at 5:30 in the morning to catch the first train. Out of all the double-seaters to choose from, she decided to make a bee-line towards the lonely seats in the back of the train, surrounded by empty soda cans and trash. I don’t understand her. We managed to catch the 8AM bus to New York and slept the entire way through.

When I woke up, we were on Canal Street, New York City. My mom asked me to input the addresses for our Uber, and to be honest, I felt a slight discomfort entering in “Federal Bureau of Prisons” as our destination. Our driver, the owner of a modest Honda Civic, was a nice young man named Shondelle. He asked if we wanted to listen to any particular radio station, to which I numbly replied, “No, we’re cool with whatever,” and closed my eyes as the latest Drake song started playing. I fell back asleep and opened my eyes as we pulled up to the building. “You just beat the rain!” Shondelle smiled and waved as he dropped us off.

I was grumpy. Perhaps it was from the lack of sleep, or perhaps it was because I held some resentment towards my mother for dragging me out here to visit my dad. I hadn’t seen him in five years since my college graduation.

For as long as I can remember, conversation had always been superficial between us, barely lasting over five minutes per meeting. Now, I had to spend two hours speaking to a man I hardly knew. Though I’ve watched popular prison comedies on Netflix and understood that many people make mistakes, I felt deeply ashamed that I was here.

A bearded inmate tickled his laughing son while smothering him with kisses. An older prisoner rapt in an intense conversation with his brother. A jolly fellow finished off his buffalo chicken wings while asking his kid whether his Jordan’s were authentic or not. A dolled-up woman bragged to her man that she stayed home, while her friends went out to the club.

In all the bustle, my mother and I sat with an empty seat between us in silence as we waited for my dad to arrive. After a few moments, I saw him. He gained some weight and rocked a salt-and-pepper buzzcut. He looked almost natural in his brown jumpsuit and Nike sneakers. I couldn’t bring myself to stand up and hug him, so I just took his hand and gently squeezed. I didn’t know this man.

My father sat next to me, “Meimei, why you so skinny?” With all the strength that I had, I muttered, “I don’t know…” and the tears began flowing down my cheeks. Great. Just great. I felt like every cliche loved one going to visit their family member for the first time. Embarrassing.

I watched my mother buy snacks from the vending machine as I wiped my face dry. I could feel my dad staring at me, but in this uncomfortable moment, he just took my hand. Between my own shit and his shit, I’m overwhelmed, but was relieved the attention was taken off me when the inmate eating the buffalo wings looked up and greeted my father, “Doctor Chong!”

What the fudge? My dad was definitely not a doctor. I had absolutely no memories of him tending to any scraped knees or broken bones. I wasn’t even going to ask about that.

I decided to share more about my own life and be direct with him for the first time.

“So I got married,” I volunteered nonchalantly, “and I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Mommy told me.” He didn’t sound angry, “Why so fast?”

“I fell in love and didn’t realize he was crazy.” I gazed down at the floor, dejected, “I’m getting the marriage annulled.” The entire room was bursting with laughter and gregarious voices, but the silence between us was impalpable.

“You know, if this was in China,” he searched for the right words, “if you got marry in China, this would be bad.” Still not a reprimand, but I guess it was the truth.

My mom returned with a bag of Doritos and two cups of Yoplait. My dad eyed these snacks, picked up one of the yogurts and said, “Eat. You too skinny.” I shook my head because I wasn’t hungry. My mom opened the chips and slowly began munching away.

“In Chinese, we say, ‘Good looking guy cannot eat.” My dad gently tore off the yogurt lid and began eating, “For a husband, he must have good heart, good to you, good to people, good to himself and stable job.” I gazed blankly ahead, taking in what he just said, mute.

Growing up, my dad did his business elsewhere, and my issue was that he was never present as a father. Sure, my friends had fathers they weren’t particularly close to, but they always came home everyday. Mine didn’t. On the rare occasions he showed up, he was either passed out after a drunken haze, smoking cigarettes in the living room–regardless of the “no smoking” signs my sister and I plastered around the house, or making bets on the latest sports teams.

The man I was listening to now was old and weary. It was a departure from the man I grew up with. I remembered one particularly snow-flurried morning when I was thirteen-years-old, after missing the bus, I begged my sleeping father to drive me to school. The words he said to me were, “I don’t ask you for anything, so don’t ask me for anything.” My mother ended up calling a cab for me to get to class, and I never tried waking him up again.

Finishing up his second cup of Yoplait, he snapped me out of my reverie. “Daddy was not a good person. It’s why daddy is in prison.”

I really wanted to ask him if he changed now. I wanted to ask if he learned his lesson and if he would get his shit together and be a good person for the family. I wanted to scream at him for all the monstrous crimes he did over the past couple decades. I wanted to tell him that if he couldn’t do that for his daughter, he wouldn’t have me anymore. Instead, I asked, “What are you going to do when you’re out?”

“I’m going to work at 4th uncle’s restaurant, then I’m going to start my own restaurant. Or maybe do real estate with my friend.”

“I hope you do it legally.” I muttered, still avoiding eye contact.

“I learned my lesson. Of course” He turned to chat with my mom, who’s been quiet the entire time.

It was pouring rain when my mother and I left the facility. We grabbed another Uber back to Chinatown and bought tickets to go back home.

I checked my spam email and blocked messages on my phone and saw that my estranged husband, Pierre, had left a few messages. They were all encouraging, loving, telling me that he missed me and to come back home. He sent me pictures of our dog and emailed that he was very proud that I went to see my dad.

One email went, “You only have one dad in your life, and you are very lucky that yours is still in your life. I know your dad is very smart, and in the future, I can give him power, and we can make a lot of money together. I know, I’m psychic.”

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my husband.

Per my mother’s request, we snagged two seats on the third row of the bus. For the first time since we’ve been separated, I sent my husband an email that I would consider coming back home, and I slept the whole way back to Connecticut.

(To start over and read from my first post, click here)

Tag: homegirl confessions

Dealing with Rude People

Handling Criticism With Grace

Being Stuck in the Past

More Posts to Come Soon!

Bringing My Dog on a Hike

Who Keeps the Dog? Stealing Simba Back From My Crazy Ex

Moving Out of My Ex’s Place

Out With the Old, In With the New

Getting Asked Out By a Cop

Moving Back to SF and Jump-starting My Car

First Time Using Tinder as a Hook-Up App

My Long Term Casual Hook-Up

Moving on the Unhealthy Way

The Story of My Toxic Husband

Falling for an Unavailable Guy While Still being Married

Feeling Thirsty and Uncomfortable

Just Got Two Dates

Browsing Through Match.com

The Last Call We Had

Lost Opportunities

Tamera and Jay Get Married

Testing My Patience

Visiting My Dad in Prison