I was in the middle of the beginning of the end.
I didn’t know it at the time. I can see it now, of course, since it’s over. He had reached the end while I was still in the beginning of the end and he knew it. Unfortunately he didn’t have the balls to tell me. Having long ago been neutered by his mother, he preferred to let me fumble around in the dark like an old dog on a leash, barking and whining and nipping at his heels for scraps. In the meantime he looked for a convenient rest area to drop my sorry ass. After that all he had to do was take the next exit where a frisky young pup waited, poised and panting, to piss all over him with glee. I suppose that’s how all the big dogs do it, sniff around until they find the next bitch in heat to mount and then they’re stuck together until the passion dies and bam it’s onto the next and the next in an endless succession that in the best possible scenario leads to the propagation of the species and in the worst creates a society of mutts with nothing better to do than sniff out that next, better bitch. That, apparently, was his world. He was part of a common breed whose business it was to seek out and conquer females in heat. My world on the other hand was sufficiently different to spark an interest in him that went beyond his traditional breeding, ass sniffing behavior, but did not rise above the realm of the ordinary pissing contests to which he was accustomed. So in the beginning there was a lure of attraction of opposites combined with a vague notion of similarity. Suffice it to say we were both dogs, but each a different breed.
Directions for Love:
I know it’s a bad, ugly analogy, but I am going to let you in on a little secret and this is a long side note. The road to wisdom is not always bathed in sweetness and light. Expect delays. Expect road blocks. Expect pot holes. Expect to get lost. Oh, and if you think you’re lost, you probably are. So ask for directions. The trick about asking for directions is to first admit you are lost and then to find someone who looks like they know the area, after that following those directions is the key. So get out a pen and some paper then take the time to write them down. You can back track if you want to, but turning around means you will be covering the same ground in a different direction. And remember that when you are traveling it is best to have a first aid kit and a flash light because the way is not usually well lit or pain free. My experience was very similar to a car jacking. Also, Stay within 10 miles of the speed limit. This will prevent trouble with the law and will serve to slow you down a little. Don’t be in such a hurry to get to where you think you are going because before you know it, just like my marriage, it will be over, and like me you will be wishing you had paid more attention to the signs along the way. You will be wishing you had paid more attention to your trip. I am telling you my story in the way it occurs to me right now, in hindsight, so bare with me.
Relationships & Breeding Cycles:
So let’s get back to that nasty dog analogy which seems to be working just fine. Do you honesty think I would have compared our relationship to the breeding cycle of the American mutt when it began? Oh, hell no! I went through a lot to get to this point and if you hadn’t noticed I am not happy about it. Yes. I am a woman scorned. No, better yet, I am a woman scorched and I’m not too proud to admit it! I am being trite, littering this story with platitudes and clichés because it is ordinary, it is common. What I am writing is the un-love story, you know the one people don’t read because they prefer happy endings. I have always liked stories where you couldn’t see what was coming. That’s what happens in real life, or rather you can see what’s coming, but you don’t care, you just let it happen. You let yourself get lost in the drama along the way. Now that’s good stuff. Shit stinks, but it’s warm.
Internet Dating:
So let’s get back to the middle, because beginnings are easy aren’t they? I should say beginnings are easy after the awkwardness wears off and mine began something like this. Once upon a time there was a middle aged woman in heat. She entered this state of pathological desperation after the lover to whom she had been faithful and loyal for 8 years kicked her to the curb for a different breed. At her age the ease with which she had once attracted mates was sufficiently diminished to leave her foolhardy enough to plunge head on into the world of computer dating.
Hello. Can you see the signs? It’s a God damned recipe for disaster! And this was only the beginning, but it was easy. Now she could fill the void from the comfort of her own home while meeting multiple, potential, transitional men all the while bypassing the slower conventional modes of introduction that seemed vacuous and bleak. It was a pure numbers game. The prize was instant gratification with a stranger whose characteristics were printed on a page for the whole world to see. To her dismay the sites she visited did not have a shopping cart feature. But shop she did, and abracadabra within a few weeks of focused intent a boy disguised as a man who was really a dog of a different breed magically appeared. After a few kittenish emails and a couple of phone calls to take the place of, “getting to know ya.”, they decided to meet.
Love at First Sight:
You know this part don’t you? When they met their eyes locked and they both felt as if they had known each other before and by the end of the night they were scrambling to pull each other’s clothes off. After that they were inseparable, blah, blah, blah. I mean it’s the stuff of movies, the filler of romance novels, the reason for being, right? Wrong! Either way our beginning was very much like a story book. On our first date I did feel a comfort and ease I had never felt with anyone during a first meeting. I felt safe being myself and I dropped my guard accordingly. You see once the beginning of our story moved into being the middle of our story I saw him as something other than just another mutt on the street. He became something very much like water. He was a deep ocean from which all knowledge is gained, a reservoir of refreshment to partake. He ebbed and flowed to me and away from me. And like water through my fingers I could not hold him. I found myself wanting to be with him to take another inestimable drink, and after that I would thirst for another. Until I found inside myself a deep ache that only he could alleviate.
How to Get an Asshole to Fall in Love with You:
Ordinarily only fervent lovemaking could arouse such impassioned longing in me and yet sex with him, although frequent, was tantamount to brutish fornication. I feigned climax on every occasion except the first, when my naiveté compelled me to lay motionless beneath him while he balled me. That night I was disenchanted. The next day I found black and blue marks on my arms from his clutches. When I grew angry and shot off an email to complain his response was terse and commanding. In a sentence he ended our relationship. He told me I was very engaging, but that we were not right for each other. I had never been rebuffed in this manner, and never so succinctly. My astonishment turned smug and I began to wonder how I could let myself be subjugated by such an acrimonious asshole, and yet the fact remained that I had been. I was vexed. This juncture presented a veritable challenge. How could I bewitch him? The usual inducements were unsuitable. He didn’t want to please me. So what then? What did he want? Was it a flaccid servant desirous of a master? Yes, that seemed feasible. So I sent back an apology signed, “Yours in Total Submission.” His response was immediate, he said, “Now you’ve got my attention!” He had taken the bait.
What if Your Friends Think He’s Gay?:
Did I mention he was half German? Did I mention that although he was in his late 30’s he still lived with his parents? Did I mention he was an only child? Oh, and for much of his adult life he was a car salesman. These were certainly character flaws I failed to scrutinize. After introducing him to my daughter and 2 of my friends all 3 asked me in private if he was gay. He did love to shop! He didn’t have any male cohorts and females buzzed around him like flies. His predilection for bondage and domination should have been the final caveat, that and his bizarre fascination with anything anal. I didn’t take exception to any of his quirks until I noticed that climax for him was not a consequence of conventional sex and then he stopped kissing me. Forgive me if I seem indiscreet. I did discuss these intimacy issues with him and for each he made a bearable confession to which I would acquiesce because I felt his pronouncements were impossible to impeach. Even though I yearned to captivate him, I strove in vain. My highest ambition was to arouse his passion and adulation as if all I needed was a cryptic code that would grant me access to his heart. Thus he became my master. What could have been the end became the middle.
Is love blind or guilelessly indiscriminant?
For me this thing called love was nothing more than a misguided compulsion.
When I fell in love with him I felt like someone who decided to wear shorts in the winter. I knew it was wrong. I knew everyone was gawking at me in disbelief and even the threat of freezing to death didn’t cause me to desist. My step-mother, God rest her soul, would have said, “You’re going down the wrong road.” A sentence I heard more than once growing up. She would have been right too, but who listens to their mother?
Deluded Bastard or?:
Let’s talk about true love for a moment. Is it really a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person, or is it simply a preposterous ideation of a quixotic notion?
Does true love last forever? Are true love and monogamy synonymous? Or are these concepts nothing more than utopian ideals cooked-up by some deluded bastard bent on hornswoggling us? If so, his efforts have come to fruition with wild success and utter failure. For while we clamor to find that one true love, once that mission is accomplished it seems the novelty wears off and that profoundly tender, passionate affection we had for the other turns into subjugation. Rather than admit we have been bamboozled we continue in search of a dream land by looking for greener pastures on the other side of the fence, eternally hankering for just “the right stuff”? I think the P.C. term is serial monogamy and nowadays it continues until you are too old to care about impossible standards and you decide to settle for anyone just as long as they’ll have you, that is, unless you decide to grow-up. That’s right, I said it. Grow up! Accept the actuality that the dream isn’t real, at least not the way it’s been dispensed to you. You always see happy beginnings and happy ever after endings, but you are never privy to the ever after, also known as the middle. The movie ends, the credits roll and you are left with your imagination as to the rest. The human being is known through out history for taking the path of least resistance and the divorce rate is proof in the pudding isn’t it? It’s a kind of fast food mentality that gets us nowhere and leaves us scratching our heads wondering what went wrong. I am going to take a big chance here and mention that what went wrong was something inside you! Oh Holy Hell, now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve angered the audience, but before you go off half cocked, let me finish. Because if you don’t work it out now, in 5 or 10 years, you will find yourself, like I did, feeling purloined and pigeonholed going nowhere at the speed of light. You’ll have the company of hindsight and nothing more. It’s not warm and fuzzy, but it’s the truth.
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Don't Date That Dude 
