So here is a little heads up ladies …. If the man you are interested in does not possess a vehicle you need to run away. Fast. Like you are at a sample sale fast. This relationship is not going to end well, but it will end. Most likely with him suddenly disappearing and you broken hearted. Do I sound like I am writing from experience? Good guess. I am.
Let’s call this mistake The Bartender. I had known the Bartender for a while. He had come into my bar randomly here and there. And to be honest, I thought he was an asshole when I met him. First impressions are always right, remember that. However, he was hot. Tall, nice body, all-American hot. I should have just kept him as occasional eye candy that I enjoyed flirting with. But noooooo …. I never make the right decision. I decided to ask him out. Now remember, this is right after the Lump left me, so I was trying to validate my appeal to the opposite sex. He said yes to the invite and we made plans for the next week.
It’s funny, but as we look back on our lives, it’s amazing how certain situations that seem so small at the time end up being monumental occasions, for better or worse. This was definitely in the worse category. I should have never pursued this relationship. It had heartbreak written all over it. Helen Keller could have seen the signs it was so glaringly obvious.
Our first, I guess you would call it, date was on a Tuesday. Bartenders have random days off and because we have the same job this was an appropriate time to meet up. We decided to get together at the bar I work at. I had spent the day at the mall buying new clothes for this monumental occasion. I was looking good and showing a little glimmer of the self esteem that I had lost with the Lump. I walked into my bar and there he was …. With his roommate. Hmmmm …. Perhaps this wasn’t a date at all. Had I misunderstood our conversation? Maybe it was a group date? Should I have brought a friend too? Is he scared to leave his house alone? Does he not want to be alone with me? Am I that intimidating? I am pretty tall when I’m wearing heels.
Being a rather laid back chick (and under the spell of his hotness) I decided to go along with the extra company and enjoy the night. Now, I’m not sure at what point the answer to my burning question came up, but the answer to the tagalong was that the Bartender did not own a car. I should have lost his number then and there. This is a warning sign ladies! Listen closely. No car? At 30? Really? I could understand if we lived in a large metropolis with excellent public transportation. I lived in Boston and I never owned a car the entire time. However, we both live in a moderate sized city in New England. Our public transportation is spotty and generally a pain in the ass. Owning a car is a necessity.
Now please don’t think that I am a superficial bitch who rates people on the possessions they own. That is not the case. It was not WHAT kind of car he had; it was the fact that he DIDN’T have a car. I didn’t realize it at the time but this is a major sign of instability. Missing certain key elements that make up a normal adult life does not bode well for a healthy relationship. If a man is not functioning in his every day life, he is not going to be a good boyfriend. Simple as that.
At the time I wrote off his lack of transportation as a minor flaw in an otherwise amazing person. I was proud of myself for seeing someone for who they were on the inside and not judging them for the things they owned. Well, I’m telling you now, judge away!! My willingness to overlook such huge warning signs led to my heartache at the end. I can’t remember exactly why the Bartender didn’t have a car. It had something to do with some youthful discretion that had continued to haunt him years later. To be honest, he told me the story a few times but I never really listened. The fact that his past behavior contributed to his walking everywhere should have also clued me. Again, I was impressed by my ability to overlook someone’s past. We all make mistakes, right? Who was I to judge what someone did when they were 21. I am a Buddhist for chrissakes. Well, I repeat, JUDGE!!!
When a man is having turmoil or major disruptions going on in their life they are just not good candidates for dating. The Bartender seemed sweet and funny but in the end his personal issues were the demise of our relationship. Unstable men make rash decisions and quickly change course. They don’t have a life rhythm so they don’t see anything wrong with continual change and upheaval. In my situation, the Bartender just disappeared one day. Things seemed fine, we were hanging out having a blast, and then … nothing. Not. One. Word. No phone call to end things. No text message telling me I should make alternate plans for the Fourth of July. No email mentioning that he was about to fall off the face of the earth. I was so confused and thrown off by this behavior. I think I would have accepted smoke signals as an adequate form of communication. That’s how desperate I was for some kind of answer.
There may be nothing more confusing than when the person you are dating suddenly disappears. To add insult to this very painful injury, I found out from a mutual friend’s Facebook posting that he was hosting a Fourth of July party at his house. Ouch!! Really? I guess he didn’t die suddenly in a freak accident or wander off into the woods. Nope, he had just moved on. In the blink of an eye he had gone from loving boyfriend to useless jerk. As most things in his life, he saw me as another transient item. Enjoyable at the time; but no real commitment on his part. And that’s where the heartache comes in.
No one likes to be broken up with. There are thousands of sad love songs to prove this point. It’s a painful ordeal to go through even in the best situations. But when the person you have fallen in love with suddenly stops being in your life, the heartache doubles. Girls think. A lot. We think about what we did, what the guy did, what we could have said, what we shouldn’t have said. Hell, we wonder if we put on the wrong radio station and that in itself caused the jerk to leave. All I had were my thoughts and a phone that seemed to not want to ring. I blamed myself, I blamed him, I cried (a lot), I got mad, I told myself I didn’t care, but in the end all I felt was utter loss and confusion.
I never did get a reason as to why he left without a word. A few weeks after the Great Disappearance of 2009 I received a text message saying something about how he just wasn’t ready for a relationship. Too little, too late buddy. At that point it almost felt like a slap in the face. I had been doing my best to forget how much time I had wasted on this loser and all of a sudden he decides to resurface. With a shitty explanation to boot. I didn’t respond. I knew there was nothing to say. He wasn’t going to give me any answer that would have helped eased my pain. There are no magical words to erase behavior like that. Well, perhaps an all expense paid vacation to the Caribbean. But if this guy couldn’t even afford a used Geo, I guess island hopping in the tropics is pretty much out of the question.
So lovely ladies, here is the moral to the story. Do not date a man who does not own a car, have a stable living situation, or a form of employment. These men are toxic and must be avoided. You are not being a snotty bitch; you are protecting your valuable heart. Sure, they may be funny and hot like the Bartender, but they are not going to be good for you. Smile, enjoy the flirting, but lose their number. You deserve more. You deserve a man who is going to be upfront and honest with you. You deserve to be respected. You deserve true love.
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