I HATE MEN

Yeh, so what’s the deal?! I seem to keep having repeat weekends here. A different night, new bar, many many miles away from my normal bars, and yet the inevitable truth follows me. I must have a neon sign that only ‘taken’ guys can see. Even the friend I’m with is different! But, ok, I’ll tell my story, although it doesn’t seem to ever change. I go out with a friend of mine, Paul, to here a band (I love going out to dance). So we’re there for a little while, just kind of hanging out, scoping the crowd. There’s this guy standing near me that decides to introduce himself. We’ll call him ‘Steve’. So Steve is kind of on the quiet side but we seem to hit it off little. I hang out with him for the next hour or so at the bar, just hanging out, enjoying the music. (No dancing. He doesn’t dance. …. ) The end of the night approaches, Paul is drunk off his ass. He totally blew his chances of getting the bartenders number when he yelled at her because the keg was kicked and she wouldn’t sell the bottles for the same price. To get him back (hell hath no furry like a woman scorned, you know) she cuts him off. I had to laugh! I’ve seen Paul drink before. He has NEVER raised his voice to anyone! But then again, he’s never been cut off…

But on with my story, Steve and I are hanging out talking all night, laughing. We even exchanged numbers and I invited him to hang out with a bunch of us the following night. It’s the end of the night, Paul just got finished arguing with the bartender and Steve decides to tell me about his girlfriend… um…. Yeh, that’s right. He just spent the night trying to impress and pick me up and then tells me about the girl he’s living with… and their 2 kids! I decide to be polite but change my body language and it’s soon time to leave.

Fast forward to the following night. We are all at our destination for the night. I go to the counter to order some water (I’m the DD for the night) and who walks up to me but Steve. He still wanted to hang out with my friends and I. He wants to get to know me better…. lol… ok, so I play polite, introduce him to all the friends I was with, etc. but then he just sits there quiet all night. Whatever…

After the bar, we all go for breakfast. He wasn’t invited but Steve is following us out the door. But by the time we all got outside, he was no longer with us. We go for breakfast and are now on our way back to my place to crash for the night. It is now almost 3:30 am. My phone rings… guess who…. I don’t answer. He hangs up and calls back, this time leaving a message. About 2 minutes pass and he calls yet a 3rd time. Talk about desperate! We get to my house and pass out. When we get up around noon, I listen to his message from the night before. “I’m in kind of a tight spot here. If you get this before you go to bed, PLEASE call me back. I have nowhere to sleep tonight.” Yeh right! He thought that’d work? What the hell is wrong with men?! Do I LOOK that stupid? Was I born yesterday? Hell no! Anyhow, he decides to call me again in the afternoon but leaves no message.

So I’m in class today, telling one of my girlfriends about ‘Steve’. She has a good laugh because she has seen the pattern of guys that approach me. After a few questions, we come to realize that she knows him! The situation with Steve and his girlfriend is that they have been together for years, unhappily but still…. She says if he was telling the truth about having nowhere to stay, it was probably because his gf had her other bf over at the house. To give a summary of their relationship for the past I don’t know how long… They are together but not really. They live together, even sleep in the same bed but they’re not totally together. They each are dating others as they please and their 2 kids have ‘happened’ since their new lifestyle situation has taken root. So God even knows who’s kids they are! Holy Shit!

So anyhow, I am left with 2 questions… Is there anyone that still places any value on a faithful, honest, long lasting relationship? And … Are there any COMPLETELY SINGLE good guys left or have they all past away 100 years ago? I don’t require much, honesty, integrity, respect, open communication, affection, commitment. Open doors, give a compliment, take me camping, humor me with my truck fetish, give me a run for my money when it comes to struggles. I don’t want someone to LET me win at anything. I’m seriously considering moving to a convent or becoming a lesbian! Holy Shit!

So I go out with a friend of mine this past weekend to a local country bar. Neither of us have ever been there and we thought it’d be a change from the norm and possibly even fun. Regardless, it had to be something worth talking about. Well! How right I was! But before I start, I have to tell you about how my day started…

I’m friends with this guy, we went on one date but soon realized friends is where it stays. So anyhow, I talk to him on Friday night and he says he’d like to come down Saturday morning to hang out. I get a call around 11:30 to say he got called to work, he’d be down around 1 or 2 and we will go for lunch. I get another call around 1:30, he’s running late, just got off work, going home to get showered then will be down around 3 – 3:30. I sit and wait…. around 4 I call but there’s no answer. And I wait…. It’s now quarter to 5 and I’m pissed. I decide to take myself out for a while and leave. I come home a few hours later and there’s a note on my door. He was there to pick me up and 2 messages both around 6:00. But, ok, he’s a “friend” so I call his cell instead of blowing him off… no answer. I make plans with this friend of mine to go to the country bar for the night. So as we’re driving down, I’m telling my friend about my ‘lunch date’ to which laughter was the only response. At just that moment, my phone rings, it’s him, wanting me to come out to the bar he is currently at. I declined saying I already made plans with another friend. His response? He tried to make ME feel guilty! We all know what it means when a female says ‘fine’. He tried that on me! It took all I had not to laugh! I’m sorry!

So fast forward to the country bar. It’s several hours later and I have been playing eye tag with this really cute guy for the last half hour. My friend and I need drinks so I go to the bar, next to the tag guy, to order the drinks, but act like I don’t see him sitting there. He starts talking to me about the cops sitting outside. And the conversation continues from there. Since I can’t seem to get my friend to slow dance with me, I ask him if he’d like to dance the next slow one with me. With a big smile he says yes. So at the start of the next slow song we find eachother and head for the dance floor. As I’m turning away from him, I notice his wedding ring! So we get out there and I ask ‘You’re married?’ ‘Yes’ he answers as if it’s nothing. No big deal. Like he has a hang nail or something. Upon an answer/ question but mostly just confession period, I come to learn that he’s not happily married. Has never been. They’ve been married for several years now and have a little boy but he’s never really been happy with her. I ask why he’d marry someone he’s not inlove with, happy with. Marriage should be taken more seriously! His response? He liked the challenge. When he met her, she was so innocent, pure and good. He loves challenges and wanted to see if he could change her. The thrill excited him. But now, after years of being together and no changes happening, he decides to just live like this because of their son. Ok, that my not seem so un-real but the ‘way’ he chooses to live is as follows: He switched jobs so he could work MORE hours in a job that is dirty so it covers the smell of cigarette smoke (she doesn’t approve and thought he quit years ago). He says she’s a ‘Bible Beater’ and so is her family. He tells me how if they are in a heavy discussion that needs to end, he says ‘This is pissing me off. Let’s change the subject.’ In her family, ‘piss’ is not acceptable and she gets mad. So all day while he’s with her, he has to play innocent and pure so as not to upset her and her family. But as soon as he walks out the door, until he walks back in, every other word from his mouth is a curse or profane in one way or another. Then every few weeks, she and their son go out of town to visit her family. He can’t stand them so, of course, he stays behind. Well as soon as she’s out of site, evidently, she’s out of mind and he’s racing off to the bar to pick up some chick.

Let me just end by saying that NO nothing happened between and this guy but HS!

The thing that makes this so funny to me is that we, my friend and I, just had this conversation on the way to the bar that night…’Is it worse to find out there is another woman or to to find out YOU are the other woman?’ Both of which I have experienced, obviously unknowingly… But Ugh! MEN!!!