We all have collateral damage in relationships: That necklace you spent half of your paycheck on for her birthday, she's keeping it. The entire bathroom's worth of toiletries including the $25 shampoo you can only get from your cousin's girlfriend's mom in Cali all of which you bought just to have a second set at his place, it's his now. Your favorite pair of Adidas sweats that she claimed she kept hanging on to because they made her feel closer to you, they also make her feel closer to Hagen Daas and Bridget Jones now too- forever and always.
The collateral is the cost on top of the heartbreak. It's the stuff you can't ask to get back either because the breakup was too sad, or it would be rude to ask for it, or in my case, the risk of having to talk to that person again and ask for your stuff back is too high. Sometimes, it's best to sever the ties and consider the losses part of the net positive.
I am no stranger to the heartbreak. I am also no stranger to the mentally unstable, emotionally stunted, grown ass adult men- who call me "crazy." (I swear to god, the next person to call me crazy will understand the true meaning of the word, only because I have been driven there.) In my case, I had to accept the harsh reality of never getting my N64, two controllers, and 7 games including Goldeneye and Smash Bros back from him. Let's call him Mike.
Mike and I met online in the one month I was on Match.com. My roommate was on the site and talked me into getting an account because I was new to town and it was a better option than hanging out in college bars. She, seemingly, had great luck with it- in fact, she's marrying one of the greatest guys I know and she met him on Match. They are so happy and I am actually going to be in their wedding next May. So, you know, it can work out. Just not for me. The surest fire way to make sure every man I meet is either desperate, emotionally unstable, or so insecure that when the wind blows southerly he blames me for his failed love life, is for me to look online.
In theory, online dating is a great idea. It takes the guess work out of whether or not he is looking for anything. You don't have that awkward moment of not wanting to give someone your number, you can just ignore their advances. You get to sift through and add credentials to what you are looking for, like no less than a doctorate degree and between the ages of 26 and 27, about 6'5" tall athletic build and within walking distance of my favorite froyo place. You get to see a picture of him so you know you're not meeting Quasi Modo. In theory, it's genius, really.
In execution; men lie, they're all balding, a man's 6'5" is a woman's actual 5'9", they don't pay for the first date because that's expensive for someone who has 5 first dates a week, and that doctorate degree is from Pheonix University Online and it's in Literature- specifically Star Wars.
Needless to say, Mike surprised me a little and I liked his sense of humor. We liked the same music, and if you looked at him head on, you couldn't tell he had a beer belly. A good looking guy who paid for dinner, my standards were lowish so I was hooked.
We spent the next three months back and forth. He took me to the State Fair and put up with me drunkenly demanding to see the Blue Ribbon Hogs. He didn't judge me when I laid in the pen with them and the farmers let me feed them marshmallows. He loved watching movies and cuddling. Cuddling turned into things. I still have yet to see The Big Lebowski through to the end. We tried watching it several times. He introduced me to Moscow Mules- which I hate, but at least he could introduce me to things. He was well traveled and his dad was the mayor of the next town over and from South Africa. He was intriguing. We talked craft beer and he didn't judge me at all for taking my dog everywhere with me including the gay bar when we went out one night.
Things were pretty freaking cool.
At three months in, I asked him about us. What it was going to be and what it was now. In all fairness, I should have seen the signs. I just thought I was being the "cool girl" not asking too many questions, and letting him have his space. I justified all of it. Until this conversation.
At the three month mark, he was candid and honest with me. He said "we are what we are." WOAH! What a fucking revelation! I never thought the answer to my own fucking questions was the question itself! I can't believe I didn't think of that before- she said facetiously...
I asked him what exactly were his intentions. Did he eventually want a relationship with me? He responded "Isn't that why you spend time with someone?" OK. So, why not now? Isn't three months enough time to know if you want to spend more time with someone you like? He did not agree. I played "cool girl" again for another few hours until he fell asleep and then it hit me. I was so fucking stupid the whole time. It was one of those nights that I knew it was over. While he laid there next to me snoring away, I was laying awake worried about things that never fazed him even if (the operative word here) they crossed his mind. I grabbed my dog and left everything else, including my beer and my N64 stuff and drove home in the middle of the night. I guess I was hopeful I would grab it later? I don't remember what I was thinking. I just left.
The solitude of my bed was so much more inviting than laying next to blatant rejection.
I started mulling over the details of the previous three months. I began to realize a lot of issues. He would occasionally disappear for a few days at a time, and I mostly went to go see him. If he came to see me it was because I begged him to make the 30 minute drive this time. At the time, as far as me going there, I kind of didn't mind. Our dogs got along (which, if you know my dog is a miracle) and I could take him with me. Mike had his own place, I had a roommate. It was a 90-10% effort on my part, though. Every time I would express a different viewpoint than he had, he called me "stupid." Me. Stupid. It never occurred to me how wrong he was until I was home and in my bed realizing the only thing I was ever "stupid" about was staying for so long. A million other reasons crossed my mind and I cried myself to sleep.
He texted me in the morning- he didn't call like he had any kind of concern- just texted me nonchalantly asking if anything was wrong. I didn't respond. I didn't know what to say. A week or so went by and he didn't seem to care that I had fallen off the face of the planet. I saw he came down to my city for the college football game and never even bothered to mention he was in town. I found out he had an extra ticket via Facebook. I think he was OK with it being over.
My favorite part of this story happened two days later. My least favorite part was several months later. I'm getting to all of it, just hold tight.
It was homecoming in my city and Third Eye Blind was playing downtown. I just so happened to be waitressing at a restaurant at the time and the band walked in. I had no idea who they were because I wasn't even thinking about 90s B-list Celebs coming in to eat at our shotty chain restaurant steak house on a Wednesday night. But, nevertheless, yours truly was their waitress. They hung out long after close, but I took the opportunity to invite them for drinks at our hole in the wall afterhours bar that we blew all of our tips at after work each night. Wouldn't you know it, they met us there!
We had a great time chatting and getting to know each other. The bassist, Krys, from Ireland, was dreamy and funny. We got to talking and he mentioned his girlfriend back in Dublin. I asked how that was working out with him being on the road. He said it was great because they loved and trusted each other. Then he pulled out pictures of her and just kept talking. She was pretty, but I was less interested in talking about him when I realized he had a girlfriend and I began bitching about Mike. Fuck it, if we were going to talk about shit the other person didn't care about in the slightest (e.g. his girlfriend that hes totally faithful to 100% of the time on the road- not that I would have tempted him) I was going to talk about my shitty week. I mentioned everything, the disappearing, the calling me "stupid," the fear of commitment. He told me to call Mike and tell him that it was unfair the way he treated me and to tell him it was over for good. Not that I think Mike really cared all that much if it was. But, I still deserved to give the situation closure. Krys was right. 90s B-list celebs give the best dating advice.
I called Mike and I said he was leading me on when he wouldn't give me a straight answer and that I didn't think he could give me what I needed in a relationship so I wouldn't be calling him again. He agreed, and was actually very sweet about it and we hung up.
That part wasn't crazy or dramatic. I know you're thinking that the getting drunk with Thrid Eye Blind and standing my ground as a woman and demanding the respect I deserve and coming out ahead was the climax of the story. False. This is where it gets good.
Flash forward to December. In the dead of winter the middle of the night in Bumfuckegypt, Midwest I got a phone call. I looked at the time. 4a. I saw the name. Mike. I weighed my options. I assumed it was probably some form a booty call, because he occasionally threw those in over the last few months since I had taken Krys's advice. Against my better judgment, I answered. Somberly he spoke. He told me that his friend had passed away and that he was pretty upset about it. I could tell he was home because it was silent in the background and he told me he had been out drinking with his friends but he seemed coherent.
Then, out of nowhere, he blurts, "I took the rest of the bottle."
As you can imagine, my reaction was, "Excuse me?" I asked him to repeat himself and all of the sudden he couldn't. It was like he went from talking as clear as day to being nearly unconscious on the phone. I asked again, he tried to repeat. I asked what he took. He said the name of some drug and I panicked. He told me what he took but I couldn't understand what he said. I asked him three more times and he was struggling to say the name, but he was definitely saying the name of a prescription drug that I was not familiar with. He told me he took all of it. He told me he was just so sad.
I woke up my roommate and her boyfriend-now fiancee and had them call the police to send to his place. The problem was he had moved since we last saw each other and I needed to get his address to send them there. I spent 30 minutes desperately trying to keep him awake and get him to give me his address. He would occasionally just yell words at me. I couldn't understand anything. I finally got his address and made them call the police as I hopped in my car and headed on the 30 minute drive to him. Within a minute of being in the car my call dropped. FuckingBumFuckEgypt. I called him 10 times in a row. I was begging and pleading for him to pick up. The images of me walking in on him unconscious with police around sent me into a panic attack. I sped down the highway calling and calling and calling.
Finally, an answer.
I screamed, "Michael!"
He replied, "You fucking called the police on me? What the fuck? Why would you do that?"
I argued that He called me at 4 in the morning and went from being coherent to unconscious minutes after he told me he took a bottle of pills. What else was I supposed to do? He then argued that he never said that to me and that he was fine. He couldn't understand why I would call him 10 times in a row and accused me of being crazy.
Right.
I'm the crazy one.
Because I called someone who I thought might be dying 10 times in a row to try to get them to answer. Right. No. I am crazy.
He said the cops showed up and he didn't understand why. He spoke to them and they left. At this point I was only 10 minutes away and I was still concerned because he either lied to me or he lied to the cops. I wasn't going to find out the hard way that he lied to them. I was going to make sure he was actually OK.
I got to his house where he just unlocked the door and opened it enough so I could see him walking back to his room. I stepped inside knowing that he now had roommates and tried to quietly ask what the fucking fuck was actually going on. He snapped back at me that I was out of line calling the cops on him. I argued that I didn't call the cops on him I called them to check on him. After a 5 minute screaming match in the living room- which I'm sure his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend would attest made me look insane, I told him I wasn't leaving until he woke up in the morning. I was going to stay and stay awake all night to make sure he wasn't lying to me. He didn't seem to mind that I insisted on staying (which is weird since he was so irate about me "calling the cops on him") and he went to bed. I sat on the opposite side of the bed fuming for hours. I couldn't sleep. I got up and walked around a bit and realized that this was really going to be the last time I would ever talk to him or see him again.
I got to thinking about my N64.
What a selfish thing to think, but he was snoring so I knew he wasn't dead. I could think about it. I had to wonder where the hell it could be. I walked around the house a little. I didn't dig through anything, I didn't search too hard for my stuff. But the only thing out in the living room was a game cube and those accessories. If he were still in his old apartment, I could have B-Lined it for the cardboard box under the sun-bleached quilt on top of the broken chair by the window to get all of my shit back in one fell swoop. But he had moved. I had no idea where to start looking for my stuff. I got some water and sat back down on the end of the bed and waited. I read some articles on my phone. I texted my best friend telling her about the insanity of the night before while he continued to snore. Mike didn't sleep long. 4 hours tops. When he awoke, I angrily addressed him and said, "I'm glad to see you're alive. I'm going to go home and get some sleep now." The conversation that ensued next was one for the record books. Really.
He asked why I was so upset. He asked why I called the cops on him. I snapped back on both accounts. He argued that he never said any of that. Please, reader, reference the point in the story where I asked him several times in a row to repeat what he had taken and he told me the name of a prescription drug that I couldn't understand through the slurs and unconsciousness.
He apologized.
I remained angry.
He apologized again and said he has no idea why he would have said that, because he didn't take anything.
I sat angrily in silence.
He touched my leg and propositioned me for sex.
I have never in my life stormed out of somewhere more ferociously than I did in the 10 seconds following his proposition.
I didn't even have time to save James Bond, or Mario. My poor Kirby and Link! I had to leave them all behind. I had to consider them collateral. They weren't worth me turning around and having to face him ever again. They were gone forever. Lost to my memories and the good times we had before Mike got his hands on them.
I have never missed a possession so much as I have those games-- especially when I realized what fair market value was for those games that were in great condition. Fuck. My. Life.
Still not worth me ever having to talk to him again...
He never even tried.
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