The Next Guy
I had been out with friends drinking like usual, and one of my friends mentioned that their friend was having a bonfire. We headed over to his house, and this was the first time I had met him. We all spent the evening together and I didn’t think much of it at the time, until the guy whose house we were at added me on Facebook and Snapchat and started chatting to me. We instantly hit it off! He was extremely talkative and engaging. At first, I was quite hesitant to meet up, so we stuck to just talking for the first 2 months. Eventually, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he finally came over to see me. Mind you, I was mainly afraid because my ex was still stalking me, I was very afraid of what he might do if he found out I was trying to see someone else. Despite my fears, I now began to see this new guy here and there because he seemed so interested. I really enjoyed us staying up late talking and of course drinking, but my favorite part was how he expressed his want to start a family and how his dreams all aligned with mine. His family had been interconnected with mine, and we shared many similar struggles and interests. How was this happening? Was it this easy to find the guy of my dreams after such a horrible divorce? Nope, nope it definitely was not.
Once I finally began physically seeing this man, I began to realize things were not as they seemed. I was expecting to be treated with respect and probably end up in a long-term relationship eventually, due to our 2 months of getting to know each other. Instead, I found him to be an extreme alcoholic, who really only cared about partying and had an extreme fetish with sex. In the beginning I was very committed to only dating him because of all we had talked about. He was able to relate to me through our family history, family diabetes, having been divorced himself, and also the things I thought he wanted in the future, and of course both our current, what I considered to be "phase" of partying. He turned out to be an extremely manipulative person who really only wanted to add more numbers to his list and drink himself into the grave. This had a terrible mental effect on me as well, I had never been lied to and run around like this before. Before I had gotten married, I had only had a few boyfriends and I was very young. I did not know what kind of things to watch out for in the dating field. It was all new to me. Somehow, I ran into the worst right off the bat.
Once I realized what was happening, it was too late. I was already attached. Everything got turned around on me, excuses of why we couldn't date or move forward with any of our plans, and everything was twisted. I was being told we should begin to see other people on top of already seeing each other to keep things casual. I was told we couldn't move forward because I was pending the end of my divorce, when he was the one who pursued me! I had such a hard time dealing with this. Every time I saw him get drunk, not eat, and his blood sugar was at the point of going to the hospital I was so triggered and could only think of my own sister having Type 1, it made me feel like I had to be there for him and couldn't leave. Like it was an excuse for staying around. Or the fact that our grandparents were friends and flew out of the airport my family owned together (for reference, our small-town history has deep meaning for me and my family, I am very passionate about this). Or all the things we talked about... weren't they true?
I cried and cried. How much can a girl handle? This year could not be any worse.
