I Bought A Car! Wait, What???

In my sheltered life I have a number of things that most people experience earlier than me, and some things I never thought I'd do. Living in Chicago and not needing a vehicle, I didn't even bother to get a license until I moved here. And that was only because Grizzbabe had no interest in driving me to work every day, and where we live, public transportation to my job would be impossible. We existed as a one-car couple for several years. On weekends when I worked I drove the car alone, and when we both had to work, she dropped me off and picked me up. Then I scraped up the bottom of the car and Grizzbabe's uncle came to our rescue in his pickup truck, and he told us to keep it for as long as we needed, so when her car got fixed, I just drove the pickup as if it were mine. The plan was always to save up and get another car, but in the meantime, we put a lot of time and money into maintaining the 2001 pickup. Finally, in November the ABS and brake lights came on and the brakes felt very soft, like, I had to really force the brake pedal down to stop the thing. One repair joint replaced the brake hardware for $1400 and the lights were still on. Another place said they couldn't figure out what the lights signified because the truck was so old that they couldn't read the diagnostics. Then the dealership said that the ABS switch was broken but couldn't be replaced because no one made the part anymore. I asked if the truck was safe to drive, and the repairman said the truck was at risk of locking up since the antilock switch was dead. "I'd get rid of it," he said without a hint of care.

It was easy to drive my wife's car for the last few weeks because she works from home right now thanks to coronavirus. But I know eventually she will have to go back, so I started looking into what it would take to purchase a car. I knew that we had a couple thousand dollars saved because last year my wife made me start throwing $300 per month into a savings account with the purpose of having about $15,000 for a car in about five years. So I had those parameters: I can put $2,000 down and I can handle $300 per month. From there I just had to figure out what I wanted. I think when I started looking that I had the goal of something with less than 80,000 miles on it that cost less than $15,000. But a couple of factors made me come off of that mindset. For one, my wife got a used car a couple years ago that was certified pre-owned, which takes the process of wondering how healthy the vehicle is out of the equation because it's been fully inspected, so I refused to look for anything that wasn't certified. And second, being a big fat ogre, I was keeping all searches limited to not just mid-sized and larger, but only those with good safety ratings according to the Consumer Reports Buying Guide, and it had to have decent gas mileage. Basically, using those guidelines, it became clear that in my price range I was going to have to take cars that either were about five years old with way over 80,000 miles or something from last year or a couple years ago with 40,000 or so miles already racked up.

Then I saw a unicorn in the field: 2020 Altima, 4,000 miles, in my price range. Sent in my credit application to the dealer, traded phone calls, decided to go over there this past Friday after work. I'm three quarters of the way to the place when the guy calls me and starts stammering about "I-I-I got some bad news about your car, man." He claimed that another dealership got the car from them while they were putting together my deal, and by the time they contacted the other dealer, it had already been sold. I didn't like the smell of that tale, and my uncle was quite upset when I told him about it, calling it a classic bait-and-switch and suggesting that I write up a bad review of them. So back to the drawing board and using a broader search engine at the request of my uncle, two more unicorns come up, also in the 3,800-4,000-mile range, and guess where they're located? Yep, that same dealer.

Meanwhile, I had already sent another credit application to a Toyota dealer near the house because I saw a car that I decided would be good enough: In my price range with over 42,000 miles, but it was a 2019 Camry. It had been a rental, which explained why it had so many miles, and its second owner had hit an animal according to its Carfax report, and I decided that I was fine with that because it's still certified pre-owned, so whatever damage was done, it couldn't have been that bad. Looking back now, I don't know why I decided that was my car. When everything you're looking for comes in around the same price, seeing something one or two thousand bucks less must have popped me as a sign that I have to get this car. Smarting over my experience with the Altima dealer, I contacted the Toyota folks and told them I'd probably be there Sunday to talk. By that time, I saw another Camry at that dealership that was the same year for about the same price with maybe 4,000 less miles and no deer dings on its Carfax.

Sunday turned out to be an eye-opening day. Remember, I never owned a car before, so all of what happened was new and I had no idea what to expect. My uncle had shared his bad experience buying his first car, getting exploited for 22% interest, so he told me that with my good credit I should ask for what kind of rate I would get before I go any further. My plan was to go to the dealer and discuss the numbers before I even looked at the car so as not to fall in love with it before I knew the real price. The salesman was smooth, of course, and brought the car around for me to get a peek. "You really need your wife here before you make a decision?" he asked, and I said yeah, because I never did this before and I was hesitant. He wanted me to take it for a spin, but he would need my license and insurance card beforehand. Insurance card? Why, I don't have driver's insurance. I've been tooling about town in my wife's car and her uncle's truck, and they have insurance, so I never considered needing my own. The salesman was bewildered. He drove me around instead, and informed me that no sale or test drive could happen until I got insured. I went home. I was flustered, so without shopping around, I decided that GEICO looked like they had pretty low rates and just like that, I signed up. Grizzbabe asked if I really wanted to wrap this up, and I said I think so, so she got dressed and we went back up to the dealer. I now had my insurance, but the salesman then informed me that I needed a second proof of address besides my license, and again, because I'm a 44-year-old child, I was caught offguard and couldn't produce any documents. I don't pay any of the bills or mortgage, and I didn't know how to access my pay stubs on my phone. Eventually I figured how to bring up my bank statement, but it look an embarrassingly long time to think of that. I was allowed to take my own test drive, where I noticed the gas pedal doesn't accelerate very swiftly and the inside door on the left felt a little flimsy, but I blew those concerns off not wanting to start this process from scratch. After all that, the finance guy whisked us to the back, where the paperwork was already drawn up on this electronic tabletop. That was what I was afraid of, because now whatever interest rate he gave me would have to be really bad before I got up and left. Indeed, it was slightly higher than what I thought it would be, but I was in too deep now. I signed my life away with my wife silently watching, and the deal was done. It was more of a monthly payment than I thought it would be thanks to the extra insurance I have to pay as well. But I am now the proud owner of a six-year car note. It is what it is.

It had started to rain rather heavily when I finally got the keys, so while Grizzbabe went home, I sat in the car for a few minutes trying to wrap my head around what just happened. It was a whirlwind experience. I didn't know if I had done the right thing or if I should have waited for something else, something cheaper, something with less miles, something roomier...as is my personality, I was swamped with doubt. Then I called my uncle, I guess expecting love and support for this decision as if I was still a kid. He couldn't hide his disappointment at the mileage and the interest rate, then he caught himself and said if I liked it and didn't feel ripped off, that's all that mattered. And you know what? I like the car and I don't think I was ripped off. I nervously babied the car home in the rain.

The stress of that process was what I called "adulting," or doing things that normal grown people have to do sometimes. I'm acutely aware of how un-adultlike I am and how I can get stressed and panicky about things most everyone does, like buying a car or working on my marriage. This Sunday buying the car reminded me of another day of adulting that I did in that six-year hiatus since I blogged. On July 19, 2017, the new owners of the student loan I co-signed for "Shelley" contacted me and offered to bring the loan to a close if I gave them about $3,200 cash. This would be in addition to the years I had spent sending in $100 per month while she paid zero. I was conflicted by the thought of coming up off that much cash to finish a transaction that I never started, but the thought of having the loan dead was very tempting. So without any legal advice, I took a shot at negotiating and I told them that I couldn't give them that much today, so I'd have to go back to sending installments, or I could give them $2,000 to close it, their choice. They conferred with their people and got back to me a couple hours later and accepted my terms. I don't care how dumb it may have been to give that much to kill off an eleven-year loan, I don't care if they may have accepted even less if I offered, I was over the moon that I was able to pull off the end of that long nightmare by calling my own shot. And I was proud of how I kept paying on that debt for years, setting the stage for having the ability to kill it off with only two grand. Not only did I do it because it was the right thing to do as the co-signer, but I did it because I wanted to protect my own name and credit for the future, and dare I say, I couldn't have financed the Camry if I hadn't taken care of that cunt's debt from 2005. So it all came full-circle. And BTW, the iPod with all the dozens of songs that I talked about in my last post? I connected it to the car through Bluetooth, and for the first time ever, I will have the ability to drive to and fro playing my favorite songs from childhood through adulthood as loud as I want. Like an actual grown-up.

Saying No To A Woman (For The Very First Time)

So I'm sitting there Friday night at my aunt's house waiting for my laundry to finish the spin cycle when I get a text message. I got excited because the lady I am visiting next week had not talked to me in a couple of days while preparing for a weekend retreat, and I assumed she was giving me a quick hello, which I would have done to her earlier but I didn't want to disrupt her. Instead, it was "Shelley" telling me that her school asked if she wanted to renew the loan that I co-signed for her at the end of last year. You know, the loan that she received and then dumped me right after getting the first check. Due to old habits of doing anything a woman asks me to do and the fact that I did tell Shelley that I would help her any way I could (before I read her e-mail and found out that she had multiple sex partners while telling me that she wasn't seeing anyone else), my first reaction was to text her back, "Tell me what I have to do." She tried to call again and talk, but I have been ignoring her messages and e-mails since she dumped me, and I didn't answer this call because I really had no desire to talk to her. So why did I arrange through text message to meet her Monday after I got off work to do the paperwork for the loan renewal? I'm sure there are deeper psychological reasons that I haven't explored, but the basic reality seems to be that I am so lonely and horny and desperate to be loved that my initial reaction to a woman walking all over me is to lay down and allow it. Even after all the reflecting and vowing to never let someone screw me like that again right after it happened, I had agreed to incredibly LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.

But common sense kicked in, and I spent the next three days deciding how I was going to tell Shelley that I was not going to renew the loan after all. I knew that it would be hard, I knew that Shelley would give me all kinds of hell and guilt trips and sobbing, but I didn't call or text and cancel the meeting because the one-on-one face-to-face meeting had to happen sometime, and I wanted to be as soon as possible so that I could make it clear once and for all that I was through with her. Some people can be adults and do the grown-up thing no problem. I don't know how to be an adult. I have to basically guess at what an adult would do in certain situations and then attempt to copy that method. And I came to the conclusion that the most adult thing to do here would be to meet Shelley face-to-face, tell her that I'm sorry that I led her on and made her think that I was going to renew the loan but that I can't do it because I don't trust her, let her get her feelings and frustrations out, hang in there, don't give in, repeat that I can't let myself get used again, and leave.

And that's exactly what I did. Oh, she gave me the works too as far as trying every trick to persuade me and lead me to think that not only would she be willing to try again to have a relationship with me if I renewed, but that she would have to drop out of school and default on the loan if I didn't renew, putting me in the exact situation that I fear, having to pay the loan off myself since she doesn't work. So what she was saying is, either co-sign for ANOTHER $13,000 loan and take confidence that she will use that money to finish her studies, get a great job, and pay off the loan no problem, or don't co-sign for another loan and watch her have to default and stick me with the original $13,000. She completely ignored the possibility that she would default on BOTH loans and stick me with $26,000. She acted as if there was absolutely no chance that would happen. She said that somehow co-signing these loans work out great for me because they go as positives on my credit report. She didn't mention the negatives of the default that is sure to come. She claimed that the reason she was so bitchy to me all the time and the reason that she needed space when she dumped me is that she was dealing with the trauma of a miscarriage. This is the absolute first time she has ever mentioned a fucking miscarriage. One of her roommates was at the restaurant where we met, and she vouched for everything Shelley said, which made me wonder if she was just going along with Shelley's improvisations on the spot or whether they actually sat there and hatched this bullshit together in advance. It took all my strength not to laugh right in her face when she threw that at me. I give her credit, she gave a hell of show trying to convince me that she liked me all along and that she was feeling better about things and was ready to try again with me...if only I'll co-sign another loan for her. She grabbed my hands, she cried a river, she made her bottom lip shake when she described the horror of not knowing she was even pregnant until she lost the fetus while on the toilet, she begged and pleaded with me a million times to just trust her and that I was her last hope. But she did some things--besides dumping me when she got the money and giving me her e-mail password and letting me see what kind of a slut she was, of course--that betrayed her sob story. When I arrived at the restaurant, the first thing she did was hug me, but the second thing she did was whip out the paperwork for me to sign, even before I sat down. She was always about the money, from the moment she sensed that she could use me and that I would allow it. She claimed that she was just about to buy tickets for us to see the musical "Rent"--but if she has no money and needs this loan, where was she going to get the cash to do that? She once again never mentioned the possibility of finding a new apartment as a way of lessening her financial burden; I guess a crib overlooking the lake on South Michigan Avenue is too juicy to give up. And, most importantly, she never mentioned any other method of supporting herself. I must have asked her a hundred times what she would be doing now if I hadn't signed the first loan and what she's going to do now that I won't sign another, and she was so bent on making me feel guilty that she presented absolutely no contingency plan. "Guess I'll move back to St. Louis and be homeless," she had the nerve to say once. But I didn't budge. I suppose at some point I could have put the shit from her e-mails that I read on the proverbial table, but in a way that wasn't the point. Whether she's a cumsponge or not, I had to stand up and tell her in no uncertain terms that I was not going to do this "favor" for her because it jeopardizes my future and I have to think about myself for once instead of giving everything of myself to someone else and getting nothing back.

She said "I knew you weren't going to do this. Thanks a lot" as I got up and left. After all I had done for her, she still was spinning it in her mind as if I was doing her some great injustice. Unbelievable. But it's over. I looked a woman--a white woman no less, swearing her purity and innocence and trustworthiness as if it were the gospel--in the eye and I said no. And I'm not looking back.

The Saga Of Shelley

Okay, that's two days I've showed up at my college around noon to get my U-Pass, the bus pass that every student at a City College of Chicago can receive when they enroll for a semester of 12 credit hours or more, and that's two days that many others and I have been turned away because they gave out tickets earlier and ran out, even though nowhere on the 57, 923 signs around the building displaying the hours that one can get a U-Pass does it say anything about arriving before the earliest hour displayed so that you can get a fucking ticket. Yeah, I'm a little pissed. I considered barging through the doors and demanding to get my pass since I was, you know, actually there during the hours that they ask people to come get a U-Pass. The only reason I would consider something so rude is because it seems like something "Shelley" would do, because she believes that the world owes her anything she wants, or at least she acts like it. So since I have an hour and a half to kill before my first class, and I'm very pissed off, it seems like a perfect time to write about the woman who singlehandedly made me vow to never hand over all that I am to a woman ever again, the Dyke Princess herself, Shelley.

Shelley posted an ad on craigslist.org saying that she was "now taking applications" for men who wanted to be her lover. They had to be confident men who liked bigger women and would have patience and realize that she was rather inexperienced with men but that once she felt comfortable she would be "...open to anything." I came on strong with some response about how she better not be a hooker because her location was the Loop, and the women I saw putting out ads who were in the Loop usually were call girls. She assured me that she wasn't, and she said that I had her attention. So, I continued with the confident, aggressive tone of my e-mails. I could only laugh when she asked if, being a black guy, I had a problem hooking up with a white woman; she actually asked if I had ever been with one before. Her name on her e-mail account was that of a famous character in Chicago movie history, but I didn't know that wasn't her real name until she told me. So it was obvious that she was in love with Chicago and that she was doing all she could to take it in and live it up, as if she was Carrie on Sex And The City. Soon we talked on the phone, and she told me some things about herself that were eye-raising right off the bat. She said that she writes an online lesbian dating advice column. She said that she didn't have much experience with men because she was a lesbian for ten years. The last couple of years, she was in an off-on relationship with a black guy in her hometown of Kansas City. She said that she wouldn't call that relationship dead, that they were still friends and that she still cared deeply for him, but that she was looking for someone to be with while she was here in Chicago going to school. Her mean, angry demeanor had not been shown yet, and neither had my meek, introverted style. We were going to meet for drinks the night of Game 4 of the World Series, but with the White Sox poised to clinch, we thought it best to wait until the next night. She wanted someone who could host because she was living with three roommates, so I invited her to my danger zone of an apartment, and because I was working at CEDA during the day and watching and celebrating the Sox at night, I did not make time to thoroughly clean the place. As a result, my first impression to her was that of a slob, and I'm sure that didn't help what I perceived to be the main problem between us, that she didn't like or respect me. I honestly don't think she would have used me the way she did if I was the strong, aggressive type of guy she thought I would be.

Shelley waited for me outside the Red Line train stop two blocks from my apartment, but she was wearing a black coat and had a scowl on her face like someone had just knocked her upside the head or something. She told me to look for a trench coat but didn't say what color, and for some reason I was looking for a tan or brown coat because that's what my brain thinks when I hear "trench coat." And the one picture of her face that she sent was of her smiling, so silly me thought that she looked like that all the time. (I have rarely seen her smile since.) Add to that the fact that she's not tall, and I actually walked right past her and into the train station looking for a smiling brunette in a brown or tan coat. I came back out, looked at her weird, and stammered, "Shelley?" She didn't seem happy at that. So I don't know what her first impression of me physically was, but she did nothing for me. She was short, her ass was huge, and she had that scowl that looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there. It would have been different if she was smiling and happy to see me. She has a great smile. Unfortunately, I don't bring it out because I'm not the aggressive hardcore nigga she was hoping I would be. She knew that I don't drink, so she actually brought along her own mini bottle of white zinfandel, which was another thing that bothered me. She didn't even want to get to know me, she wanted to loosen up so she could get laid immediately. Once she got over the shock of my messy place, she saw a wrestling book that I had lying around, and she got excited as she told me that her father was a famous wrestler. So with that as a background, after she lost interest in an erotic R-rated Gina Gershon movie I popped in, we wound up watching part of an ECW DVD I have. Somewhere along the way I got up the nerve to kiss her, but on our way to the bedroom, here's the list of things she complained about: The chair she was sitting in while I was kissing her was uncomfortable, the floor on her way to my bathroom was too messy, I didn't prepare the bedroom and put some music on while she was in the john (because I didn't know if she was coming back to watch more of the DVD or what), and once we got in the bedroom, the bed was uncomfortable and I didn't move fast enough to take off her shirt and bra. (And the only two compliments were that I was a good kisser and that my bathroom was clean, but the bathroom comment was an insult because it suggested that she expected shit on the walls and scum in the bathtub due to how messy the rest of the joint was. But I guess I deserved that.) Now, if a man can't get excited after all that scolding, then he must not have a pulse, right?! My head was hurting at that point. After I gave her an orgasm with my fingers (and got scolded because my nails were too long), I tried to give her the real thing, but the combination of her fat, my fat, and the angle we were attempting resulted in no penetration after close to a full minute. She then asked if I was wearing a condom, and because my previous lovers couldn't get pregnant and swore they were clean, I had been going bareback since high school. So I had to run to the living room and open the box of condoms I had bought a year ago in preparation to visit "Jane" in Kentucky before she canceled. The combination of the pressure to perform for a new lover, all of Shelley's cutting comments, being in the dark, and not having applied a rubber in over a decade made my dick start to get softer as I tried to put it on, so I asked Shelley to give me a hand, literally. Her response: "Oh no, you're gonna have to give yourself a hand." It was as if my cock was toxic and she didn't want to touch the damn thing. That was the last straw; my erection went completely away, and for the first time as an adult, I had a woman lying naked in a bed waiting for me to fuck her, and I couldn't.

Shelley came back two days later on a Saturday, but she claimed to be extremely tired from running around shopping and went straight to my bedroom to take a nap. When I tried to cozy up to her, she reminded me that I had a paper to write for a class and basically kicked me out of my own bed. I let her sleep for an hour and a half, did the paper, came back in the room, and got up the guts to kiss her, strip her, and finger her again. She then became the first woman I've ever been with to complain about her orgasm. She said she came so hard that it gave her a headache. With that looming over me in addition to the events of the first night she was with me, when she told me to keep going, I realized that I couldn't, because I wasn't at all aroused. I didn't even bother taking my pants off this time. We watched a movie, then she left. That was the last time she ever came to--or in--my apartment. She explained later that I had to grow some balls and step to her if I wanted her to come back because she was tired of being there when others are down and encouraging everybody in her life. "Right now, the cheerleader needs a cheerleader," is how she put it.

This is where Shelley basically decided that I would be good for nothing other than entertaining her and paying for whatever she wanted, and it's 100% my fault for letting it happen. She stopped pretending that she wanted to be intimate with me. Once, I commented that I had not had a real kiss from her since she came to my apartment, and she got upset because: "I don't have to sit on your lap and shove my tongue down your throat to show you that I like you." In other words, she didn't have any desire to give me a real kiss. We would go out to dinner and I would pay every single time. She claimed that she couldn't even put anything on a credit card or write a check because her credit was so bad, she couldn't get a card or a bank account. She said that she was having trouble finding work because she was afraid of a background check, which would turn up something bad in her past. At least four times she gave me this line about a friend who works at Sprint having a job interview lined up for her in some suburb, but she needed $20 from me to take the CTA and Metra to this interview. The interview never happened; it was always canceled by the manager of the store because new personnel had come in since the last time, and they didn't know who she was, so they blew her off. Sometimes she didn't even make up a story. She just said that she was broke and needed money. She would usually make the comment that she felt like a whore always asking me for money. But she never stopped asking. I resisted the temptation to tell her that she couldn't be a whore as far as I'm concerned because whores actually fuck their clients, but she could respond that she was lying there waiting for me to fuck her and I couldn't. She knew a lot about whores, as it turns out; she claims that her lesbian lover and she used to run a brothel. She wasn't a working girl herself, she says. But she sure knew how to turn on the sympathy when she needed money. That one-week stint she had at my job at CEDA as a file clerk was lined up before she met me; she had been talking to Smart Resources about a gig before I ever came into her life. But once she got let go from that, she seemed to lose all interest in finding work and started concentrating on what she said was the only way she could stay in school and keep living in Chicago, her big score on me, the wimpy nice guy who couldn't say no: She asked me to co-sign a student loan for her.

Shelley had argued with me a couple of times at this point, berating me for not looking happy enough when I was with her, even though she seemed downright disgusted to be with me. Once, we met at a Borders, and I walked ahead of her going down the escalator, and she exploded, telling me that I didn't respect her and the fact that she was "bleeding like a cow," as she eloquently put it, but stuck around downtown to meet me anyway. When I e-mailed her later asking what she wanted from me, she responded, "Nothing. It's obvious you don't want to live life because you're too busy rolling in your own shit." I left her alone and didn't write or call, and wasn't ever going to again after that comment, but she called me four days later apologizing and saying that we should move on because we were both assholes that day. I forgave and hoped that she would start treating me better. Then I remembered that I had told her that I received the tickets for the play Chicago that I bought for her birthday, November 29, and that's why she had to make up with me. So there was always something in it for her when she saw me or called me or said she was sorry for the way she treated me. I saw all this, but I didn't care. That's how bad I wanted a woman in my life. She was at the height of her manipulative skills when she told me she needed me to co-sign the student loan for her. She invited me to her apartment, told me to bring food for her, and broke down while telling me that she can't stay in Chicago if I don't do this for her. "I'm taking a chance on dating you, so please take a chance on me," she said. Then we watched The Godfather, and she cuddled up to me on her couch, put my hand on her breast, and gave me a real kiss for the first and last time since the weekend that we met. How could I say no? Well, I really wanted to, but after spending Thanksgiving weekend trying to figure out the right way to tell her no, I decided that I couldn't tell her no. I didn't want to send a woman willing to sleep with me away, even if it was clear that I couldn't trust her. On the day at her apartment that she asked me for the loan, I asked her what was so bad in her past that she couldn't get the loan or a credit card or a bank account. She said that it was check fraud. I still said yes. She told me many times that she and this guy in Kansas City may get back together someday. I still said yes. No matter how she treated me or what warning signs I saw, I said yes to basically anything Shelley asked me to do. That's how bad I wanted a woman in my life. Several days after I signed the paperwork came the day where I met her, paid for lunch, listened to her say that she was going to invite that guy in Kansas City to stay at her apartment over the Christmas holiday because he needs to get away from his drama at home (after telling me that men can't stay overnight at the apartment because it's a deluxe dorm with dorm rules like no men overnight and no alcohol), and then decide that she was tired and wanted to go home. I told her to go ahead because she got what she wanted from me--a free lunch. She called me a bastard, I stormed off, and I thought that was it. Nope. She called and gave me five seconds to apologize, and of course I did. She couldn't just let me go at that point: The loan paperwork was still in progress and not yet finalized.

Then came the night that changed everything. Shelley claimed to not have a computer in her apartment, but rather, she used the common computer room on the first floor of her building. I don't know what she was doing up at 1:30 in the morning, or if they even let you use those computers at that time of day, but she frantically called me saying that the student loan company had sent her a message in an attachment and that she could not open it on the particular computer she was using. But instead of e-mailing me the attachment as I expected she would, when I turned my computer on, she gave me her e-mail password and let me go in and look at the attachment, which didn't say anything of importance, as it turned out. The e-mail account was different from the one she used to e-mail me, and I fought the urge to see what was in her e-mail and if the password would work on her other account as well. But curiosity got the best of me, and I checked both e-mail accounts one morning and found evidence that she was still corresponding with someone else who responded to her ad, apparently trying to settle on dates that they both had free so that they could finally meet. Ironically, I arranged that trip to see "Torrie" again the weekend after the argument where I told Shelley that she got what she wanted from me, the free lunch. But once Torrie saw my blog and told me off, I canceled the trip, and accepted Shelley's invitation to a drag queen show at her school and dinner at a fancy sushi restaurant, which I paid for of course. Shelley was going to meet this guy that weekend because I had told her that I wouldn't be around, but once I canceled, she had to frantically e-mail him and tell him that she had to cancel with him. So the deceit and trickery was pretty thick between both of us.

On my birthday, Shelley told me to wait at the movie theater for her to arrive at 7P. This was the same day that she received the first installment of her student loan, so I anticipated her paying for the movie and dinner, which she didn't. What she did instead was splurge on a fancy Pulsar watch as my present, which she says is valued at around $200. She put all of her stuff in the seat between us during the movie, saying that she always does that because she's a big girl and she likes her space. (Remember, she didn't mind being close to me on her couch the day that she asked for the loan.) I thought she was happy to see me when she got to the theater because she got her money or because she knew I would be surprised by the gift or because we were going drinking after the movie. "Nothing can wipe the smile off my face today," she said. But when I checked her e-mail again the next morning, I saw that she was happy because she had met someone at 5P either on my birthday or the day before. I don't remember if this was the same guy with whom she wrote suggestive e-mails back and forth that at one point had her saying how horny she was, the guy asking what was on her mind, and her responding: "My mouth your dick." (Remember, she never touched my dick, much less expressed interest in sucking it.) I don't remember if this was the same guy to whom she sent topless pics of herself. (She never sent anything like that to me.) I don't remember if this was the guy to whom she expressed her love of being tit-fucked: "Makes me cum instantly," she told him. (Never mentioned anything like that to me.) Basically, she was fucking several other guys, or at least leading them to believe that she wanted to fuck them, while she was dating me and pretending that she liked me. It was the way that my life has gone that made me check that e-mail account the morning after she gave me such a great gift and we had such a great time drinking and eating and living life. Simply put: I knew that it couldn't be that perfect.

But it was the light that I needed to see. I had to realize that I was only being used by her because I was allowing myself to be used by her. And after spending Christmas weekend having that familiar feeling of being punched in the gut that I had after "Karen" and her bisexual swingers group...and "Sarah" and her leaving me because I didn't humiliate her enough...and "Jane" canceling meeting me after a month of phone sex and "I love you"s...and Torrie dumping me after I arranged to fly to her yet again even though she never came to see me, I finally figured out probably the most important thing: No matter how much of myself I give, I still don't own anyone. Shelley NEVER promised me that she would fuck me and only me. Shelley NEVER said that we were anything more than just two people dating. Shelley NEVER said that we were dating exclusively. As much as I wanted to get mad at her, I had to arrive at a place where I could just let it go, because she's not mine and she can fuck whomever she wants to fuck. I knew from the moment I responded to her ad that I wasn't exactly what she wanted. She wanted a confident guy to take control of her and make her his slut for however long the sex session would last, five minutes, three hours, whatever. She never wanted meek, shy little me, but I tried to be something I'm not. And although I will pay a heavy price for the rest of my life once she defaults on that loan, I came to the conclusion that no matter what I do for a woman, I cannot buy her loyalty, her love, her life. I'm not the owner of Shelley. She can do whatever she wants, and I can do whatever I want. I can't ever give all of myself to someone again, because that leaves me with nothing for myself. This is not what my mother gave me life to do, put it on a platter and give it to any fat white chick who shows me a little attention. I get it now, finally. It's my life. I don't owe anybody anything. I need to do exactly what I want to do at all times, because no one else will do it for me. I can still be the nice guy, because that's my genuine nature. But I cannot give and give and give unless I meet someone willing to give back, and until then, I have to do what's best for Dre.

As for Shelley, she called several days ago to borrow my suit jacket because it goes with the outfit she wants to wear to a friend's bachelor party. It's crazy, but I still have work to do on saying no. At first I said yes, then I remembered that I'm going to a funeral Thursday, so I told her I would get it to her after that, then I told her that I would be with my family after the funeral so I couldn't get it to her after all. That would be the second time I didn't give her something that I told her I would, the first being that night in my bed. But it's okay. I didn't have any trouble in bed giving "Grace" whatever she wanted a week and a half ago, because she's not a using, conniving, manipulative bitch. We all get what we deserve in life.

Getting Dumped Is Becoming A Habit For Me

"You're not going to write a big, angry blog about this, are you?" asked "Shelley" as she told me over the phone last night that she doesn't have time to see me anymore. "No," I told her. And I told the truth--this is not a big angry blog entry. It's a short mournful entry, and it's a precursor to a longer, more detailed entry at a later date when I'm ready to reveal all of the elements of our "relationship." It's a doozy, and it really was the last straw as far as making me realize that I can either allow everyone to walk all over me for the rest of my life or I can enjoy life while I have it and let everything else fall into place. I had not heard from Shelley for two weeks while she was supposedly in Michigan with her roommate's family. And I didn't give a fuck. Let's just say that I know that she spends some of her free time sucking and fucking other guys, and once I found that out, it was a slap in the face. I was doing the usual shit that I do when I'm seeing a woman--giving her everything I have, taking whatever abuse or neglect that she gave me and being understanding, being faithful (unless I feel abandoned and alone, which is how I felt the other two times I cheated)--and this time with Shelley, it was rock bottom. When I say I gave her everything, I gave her everything, but because I'm not a debonair wine connoisseur who shoves my cock down her throat, she never respected me. But she couldn't throw me away like she wanted to because I paid for everything, and she wasn't used to the treatment. Then she made her big score, and now my financial future is fucked, all because I wanted to make her happy. What was her big score? I'll talk about it in a future post, after I've gotten over the fact that she has nude pictures of herself and so many fetishes and ways that she gets off, and I, the guy she was dating for the last three months, never knew about any of that until I discovered those things on my own. "When you want something, you gotta take it," she explained to me last night as she told me how much of a turn-off it was that I didn't attack her and grab her and throw her on my bed and try to kiss her even though she told me that she felt cheap when I tried to kiss her because she didn't have to "shove her tongue down my throat" to show that she liked me. Bottom line: I was never what she was looking for and I was never what she wanted, because, repeat after me:

WOMEN DON'T WANT NICE GUYS, THEY WANT ASSHOLES.

And she is why I am a free man today, why I am doing whatever I want to do from now on, why I am dating whomever I choose to date and not handing my heart over on a silver platter ever again, why I am living for the moment from now on. Or, as one of her favorite lines from the musical Rent goes, "No day like today." I may be a little mad at her now, but I am a damn good man, and it's her loss that she didn't treat me better, but in the end, I have a whole new outlook as a result of my time with her. Someday when I'm bailing her out of jail, perhaps I will thank her for that.

The One-Month Countdown

It's a little scary that in a month and a day, I will be 30 years old. At the same time, it's not so bad. "Torrie" told me that she freaked a little when she passed the milestone, then looked back and wondered, "What the fuck was I freaking about??" In other words, life goes on. I didn't know if I was going to be blessed with turning 30 when I was a kid because so much had already happened to me. At the same time, I can see the other side, that not much at all has happened yet. I haven't achieved a college education and all that hopefully comes with that. I haven't gotten married or had kids. Hell, I may not yet have met the person I am meant for.

Or maybe I have.

"Shelley" hates my down-in-the-dumps attitude about things and my sedentary, solitary lifestyle because she says it reminds her of herself before she met someone who introduced her to heavy drinking as a way to loosen up. So when she's in my face every 30 seconds asking me, "Are you all right? Are you having fun? Do you want to be here??," she's just trying to get me to be a little more livelier. I do enjoy myself with her--she's very quick-witted, she's intelligent, and she's sassy, a "Sex And The City" kind of sassy, not the down-home, "Hee Haw" kind of sassy that I got from "Sarah." Shelley knew all there was to know about the bags in the Coach store on the ground floor of my temp job, and she entertained herself immensely while waiting for me to come meet her for lunch a couple of weeks ago. Then last Tuesday, after we actually argued pretty badly the previous weekend, guess who was working at the file desk when I walked in that morning? That was a surprise. I knew that she had interviewed with Smart Resources--she actually was trying to set that up before we ever met, but by mentioning me and CEDA, she was able to steer herself towards that particular place of employment--but I had not considered that she would catch on there because it would have been something out of a sitcom. "Dating her turns out to be more than Balki bargained for when she shows up at his office--on the next Perfect Strangers!" Sadly, that came to an end today. The agency called her and told her that they were cutting back on file clerks, and you know the rule in those situations--last one hired, first one fired. I'm not sure what she's going to do. She's here in Chicago from Kansas City going to design school, but she can't afford her luxury dorm room without a job. So her immediate future is looming on the horizon. I'm between classes, so I'll have to talk more about her later, but I like her. She's got a sharp tongue, and she's not afraid to put her foot in my ass, and I need that. I'm afraid that I'm not what she wants, though. She wants me to be more aggressive and more confident, you know, a real man. I'm not sure if I'm ready yet. Time will tell. But I will definitely get around to filling in the details this weekend after Thanksgiving. I've been so busy seeing her and working that I haven't had time to talk about anything. In any event, happy Thanksgiving to all, and I'll be back in a few days.