Shit Guy

This is a letter from an alcoholic ex after I dumped him (we dated maybe 2 months). For reference, this is his apology for when he showed up at my place almost 2 hours late, let himself in without knocking (first time ever), and spent close to one hour doing things around my house - including pouring himself several drinks, changing clothes, and taking a shit - before looking for me to say hello. When he finally came to greet me, I told him his behavior was unacceptable to me. He belittled my concerns, waxed belligerent about how I owed him so much, and devolved into further verbal abuse and disrespect. That behavior is non-negotiable End Of Relationship for me, and I asked him to leave. He refused until I made it clear it was O-V-E-R and I would be ready to call the cops on him.

Scroll down and enjoy the tantalizing tidbits of mommy issues that I am apparently to blame for, the eloquent descriptions of hives on a decrepit body, the problem with smoking and feces! Who wouldn't want to take this guy back? Seriously, The Onion can't make this shit up.

---

Welp, I guess I'll initiate a try at reparations.

As usual I have a lot to say, and this could use about a weeks worth of editing. It is largely stream of consciousness and I have barely looked it over. I'm sorry for how protracted it is. I don't have time to make it the way it should be. I'm sorry its somewhat disjointed. It does contain my real feelings for the most part. And though it ain't perfectly expressed, I hope you can see that, first and foremost, it comes out of a need to respect both you, and myself, and I hope that you can make any allowances where they may be needed most.

I know you've heard some of the following, but not all. Please bear with me?

... That Wednesday was pretty much the absolute worst kind of day for my hives. One of the only two really bad days all the way since last Summer.

When I arrived at your place, I'd just finished working 9 hours in largely 90 plus degree heat, mostly in a hot car with no AC. My hands, all the more irritated because I use them constantly at work, were swollen and covered with hives throughout that shift. I was constantly trying to hold and keep my fingers apart from touching each other, and trying to steer with what portions of my palms were not afflicted.

Around mid-shift, I started feeling multiple blooms of the lovely little bastards on my feet. These worsened as the night progressed, such that, in trying to reduce the friction against my feet that my shoes would produce while walking, I would strike one nearly as hobbling like an old man.

I was also on a double-strength dose of benadryl, which is about as strong as I dare go while working, because it makes my brain foggy, and me drowsy.

I can take a fuck-load of hardship. This is a proven fact. An average person would have been half out of their mind after 9 straight hours of the above, especially due to the maddening fact that the severity and occurrence of the happy little fuckers actually got worse as time went on. But it took its toll on me as well for sure. And by the time I was done I wanted to just stop moving and touching things for a while, to cool down, and to try to relax.

The point here is, when I got to your house, I had had a hard tired hot fucking miserable trial of a day, and I was looking forward to chillin with my friend for a bit.

Additionally, and I don't know why this is, every once in a while when I smoke a cigarette, it kicks my fuckin ass. My blood pressure drops and my limbs become leaden and I become weakened and unsteady. When this happens, I remain in this state, slowly getting better, for a good 20-30 minutes, or sometimes longer. I smoked (only part of) one in my car on the way to your house, and I don't know if it was the benadryl or what, but it hit me in an extraordinarily mighty fashion. The whole front facing surface of my body experienced this very strong sensation, with a ringing in my ears, and after a couple seconds of escalation I actually yanked my car to the side of the road, fearing I might be on the verge of passing out.

Anyway, the extremes of that experience passed. But when I got to your house, I was in rather rough shape; beset with hives, especially burning on my feet; weak; unsteady; and with muddled faculties of perception that didn't extend too far beyond my goddamned limbs.

Even outside of conditions like these, I can sometimes become very single-minded. I can have my focus beamed in on one thing such that other wholly valid or even wise considerations do not come through to me well.

When I got to your house I was focused on making just two things happen. I wanted to make a drink as fast as possible, and I wanted to be hangin with you, shoes an socks off, in a cooler environment, sitting still, as quickly as possible. I just wanted to get to you and a resting place as fast as possible. And I know it ain't really rational or logical or well thought-out, but going up and saying hi seemed to occur in the back of my mind as something that would extend the actions and the time standing between the crappy harried wiped out way I was feeling, and just being able to take it easy with you. I was not in good condition for rational thought, and I just believed I was in my friend's house and all I had to do was make a drink before I could see her.

But the first thing I did was forget something in my car. I remember seriously groaning and being pissed at myself—in my low ebb condition—that I had to go all the way down there and round the corner where I parked, and then all the way back up. This took like two minutes.

When I returned, the urge suddenly came upon me to poop. Incidentally, I didn't plan to come over to your house to use your crapper, or anything like that if that's what you ​​thought. Nor did I just nonchalantly decide to take a crap while I was there. You may not know this and it might seem ridiculous, but a cigarette can also stimulate one's bowels. (Look it up if you don't believe me.) And I just suddenly had to go.

Of further relevance, an older man, whose bowels ain't the fastest thing on this earth to begin with (yeah, I'm expounding about crapping here, please forgive me Your Honor) and who has been working in extreme heat for the past couple days, thus finding it a challenge to keep himself hydrated can, under such circumstances, sometimes take a while to... evacuate.

So I was in there a while.

When I got back out I just immediately pursued my directive; make a drink, get to my friend as fast as possible. As I said, I did think you could be sleeping—after all, I had come in by invitation several times when that was the case—and I pictured the noise of the air conditioner covering what sounds I was making. Perhaps I was rationalizing. (By the way, I do hate to disturb you when you're sleeping though Darling, did you know that? I don't think you get enough sleep.) But anyway, and I don't remember when it was, I must admit I recall thinking in the back of my mind in the midst of my single ​​planned task, that I had actually been there much longer than I'd realized, and certainly longer than I intended. And I thought "She might also be wondering what the hell I'm doing down here." But I remember being in the midst of that last effort before I could join you, and feeling that if you were awake and wondering, though it might at first seem rather odd, you knew me and it would be OK; all would be understood; I would be forgiven. I ain't tryin to make you feel bad, this is just what my damn brain thought.

I was looking forward to seeing you: I had a little food to share which I thought you'd enjoy. And I was going to get a certain satisfaction in presenting that to you, and, in typical human fashion, from receiving your appreciation for such things and crap as well. And I was going to get to just decompress in your preferred company. Make no mistake please, these things, along with any other similar expressions, are not anything you are supposed to be beholden to in any any way. Not at all. They are just, once again, implications about where I was coming from.

​​The girl that I found when I mounted the stairs shocked me. Threw me for a loop. Instantly, I was catapulted into having to defend my intentions, my character, and my integrity. I was accused of "hanging out" downstairs (incidentally, I was never hanging out in any sense of the phrase; I was constantly working towards getting to you.) and that I was taking for granted that I essentially lived there, and being presumptuous and disrespectful. It immediately resurrected some feelings I had when being seen as taking advantage of you in the past. Darling, I know you've been taken advantage of before, and that those times have been terrible awful experiences. But do you know what it's like to be seen as taking advantage of someone when you actually honor and respect and care for and wish to give to them? Do you know what it's like when you not only have nothing to do with those past wounds, and are actually a supporter of such a person, yet being seen by them in this way seems to be becoming a recurring theme?

As I implied, I was instantly revisited by the time we were speaking of me coming over to your house to eat, and you essentially expressed concern that you were feeding me all the time. As we touched upon then, my

presence in your life has made it such that you are spending less money on food—among other things—than if I were not in it, and in actuality it was I that was occasionally feeding you. (Please understand Baby, I am not saying this to make you feel bad in any way. I am saying it as a means to point to how I might feel. You have to be able to hear this, from the source, which is me Honey. Do not interpret in your head that I'm saying you are bad or am at all disparaging you. I am speaking from an entirely different angle. Overall, I am saying that WE are human, that WE sometimes fail to act as we intend, and that this can be totally acceptable.) After we discussed the food thing a little, you assured me that my altruistic actions had not gone unnoticed. As an aside, and in my respectful opinion, this dynamic warrants some consideration by you: You ultimately expressed that my generosity hadn't gone unnoticed overall. Yet in the heat of a moment, so to speak, your perception became caught up in the exact opposite idea; that you'd been being taken from too much.

In other words, within what you yourself saw as the larger and genuine truth, you mistakenly believed for a few moments, that this larger truth was the exact opposite.

You know what though Baby? You've not noticed or thanked me numerous times that I have given something to you thus. But—you know what else? I DON'T CARE. It doesn't concern me in the least! First of all, I do not give in order to be thanked. But of equal relevance, I am under no illusion whatsoever that you do not appreciate whatever you might receive, even if you happen to have missed expressing it. I believe in you, and I know that you are a good person and you will always receive the benefit of any perceivable doubt. You can simply be a little fragmented, or alternately focused sometimes—just like me.

I have to admit though, that in itself, being seen as doing the opposite of whatever giving I was doing did bother me a little bit at the time, especially for deeper reasons I'll speak to further below. But those bothered feelings had basically been lain to rest, until, as I said, I found myself having to answer to further accusations the other night. That situation immediately reminded me of the food thing, because when I reached the top of the stairs, you laid your charges down right smack dab in the midst of my completion of a task I'd actually undertaken as a favor to you. Point is, my hackles just shot up. I was worn very thin by my work experience. I was looking forward to seeing you and relaxing a bit. I was again in the actual act of doing one thing out of care, and because of what I believe was misunderstanding, was suddenly being seen as doing a version of the opposite.

And you just seemed so fixated on this idea that I was disrespecting you and acting like I owned the place. You seemed so unreachable. Where was the approachable thoughtful girl who told me I was one of the only persons she trusted? The girl who I could discuss things with? Where was my understanding friend who kept the big picture in mind? (Not that I myself was in the greatest shape to rationally discuss things really, but I did give it a go.)

Well Darling, you are not the only one who, being in a bad mood, or having had a bad day, can be testy and

olatile. As I said, I swiftly became really upset. It just seemed so damn unnecessary. I mean, don't we have enough conflict in our personal lives? How, I thought, could the hours of conversations we've had; the many, many times I've attempted to and have often successfully been supportive; the respect I have consciously shown you and your son and your household, how could all these things be marginalized by 10 minutes of out of hand speculation? How can there be no room held in reserve for plausible explanation? How can the very worst suddenly be assumed?

And Baby, you are not the only one that has had bad things happen to you that affect your perception. Not the only one that has scars that cause wariness and wounds that certain triggers can seem to re-open. I will mince no words here. I was flat out not actively disrespecting you in any way. I was at the end of a horrible consuming day and I was exhibiting afflicted absent-mindedness. But what you perceived in me was so reminiscent of how my mom treated me... You have expressed by the way, that you figured you​​ would tend to imagine yourself with my mom, or leaning toward whatever her position, even outside of knowing what went on between myself and her. And this seems to have something to do with who's male

and who's female. I have to ask you Baby, what about your ex's mom? Do you also defer to her, simply because she is a woman? But I digress...

I need you to fuckin hear me here Darlin. There were no "sides" to be on between myself and my mom. There were not equal players. There was an innocent young boy and a damaged adult woman. There was a mother who'd been abused as a child, and was unable to see how that abuse took an entirely new shape within her, and forged of her a new link in it's generations spanning chain. She failed to see how this abuse left her needing to see herself as innocent and saintly in all things. She was a paranoid narcissist that failed to see that this meant, in any disagreement—and her paranoia and defensiveness manufactured multitudes—that she saw herself as the innocent victim that could never do wrong. When this stance was applied to her relationship with her developing child, within whom she imagined devious, she failed to see that she sacrificed her boy's feelings in order to preserve her ideal view of herself. ​​

My mom falsely accused me, her young boy, over and over and over again without cessation. And she declared, to the same extreme, that I was deceitful; a good little actor; a manipulator, and because no one else believed this of me, a master manipulator who had everybody else in the world fooled except for her. And she told me that I fed on her suffering and the products of my manipulations like some kind of demon.

In short, my mom repeatedly told me, a child, that I was evil.

And once she trained her focus upon the bits of isolated information that she would construct her ​​accusations from—thereby making them essentially from whole cloth—she would never, literally ever—not even fucking once—afford me the benefit of the doubt. And believe me, the overwhelming lion's share of her accusations were built upon the doubt of conjecture. And furthermore, with her accusations being false, she would never ever ever recognize her misunderstanding, and say that she was sorry. About anything. Ever.

In that relationship, I didn't have the faculties or the rights of an adult. I couldn't figure out why my mom saw me or treated me this way or that it was even abnormal. She defined my raw materials, and had absolute sway over me. I couldn't remove myself like an adult could have done, even if it occurred to me. And her assertions hurt and impacted and confused all the worse because she Loved me, and I Loved her. I desperately wanted to make proud, she who had also given me many wonderful experiences, raised me with an open mind, and gave me great appreciation for the world around me. I desperately wanted to show her that I was a good boy who Loved and cared about her and others. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how proficient and consumed I became with getting through to her, I could not make it happen. I could not make her see me. Only she, and she alone had the ability to see me of her own power, and she could not do it.

I do not blame my mom. Because she was indeed once an innocent victim a long time ago when she was a child. My heart actually aches for that little girl. But this victimization stole from her a large amount of her ability to see objectively. She truly Loved, and Loves me, and all the damage she did was unconscious. Nevertheless, I was her child and she was supposed to protect and nurture me. But she did not understand that she was failing to do so, and this terribly broke my child's heart.

My point here is that in appearing not to afford me any benefit of the doubt, in accusing me for the second time of basically taking from you while all the rest of my behavior runs opposite to your accusation, and while seeming to do this from a place where I, as a caring and respectful person, could not reach you, you immediately touched upon reams and reams of ancient pain and frustration. And it hurt. I am fairly autonomous. Spoken words do not simply define me and that is knowledge by which I've survived. But at the time, it hurt a lot. And I, having moments before been looking forward to hanging with you and being at the end of a fucked up day and compromising experience did not react in the way I would have preferred. What I would have done, had I maintained my composure and wits, was assure you that I respected and made no presumptions about you or your household. I would have explained myself as best I could and apologized for being so absent-minded. And if you remained unswayed I simply would have cited preceding behavior, reaffirmed my respect and care for you, again plainly stated that you were misunderstanding me, and then left.

But I was at the receiving end of a perfect storm and I am indeed susceptible to such extremes. I got defensive, then I got pissed, then I got argumentative. I do not think, all things

considered, that I acted any differently than most people would. But anyway, I said some things, I got dictatorial—I'm sure being instructed upon how you should apologize probably still sticks in your craw—and was more repetitious, a bit condescending, and lingered in your space a little too long, and I regret these things and I sincerely apologize to you for them.

I allow no ifs ands or buts here however. I did fail to acknowledge you when it would have been normal to do so. But I adamantly maintain I did not do so out of a lack of respect or care or via some kind of presumption. Just as whatever things you may have failed to do regarding me were not done out of a lack of care or appreciation or respect for me. I further apologize to you, not for failing to respect you or the sovereignty of your household—for I have no lack of respect for either—but for failing to, in my state at the time, see my way through to the realization that I had been taking a long time and that I should say hello to you. I apologize to you, for a very preoccupied oversight.

Honey, ya gotta believe me, I would never wanna dis you intentionally or otherwise. I submit I am incapable of seeing you as unimportant or not worthy of acknowledgement. Come on now, seriously.

Again Honey, is there any room, any leeway in your heart and your head for the fallibility that I, and indeed you and all the rest of us are helplessly bound by?

I don't know where we are going yet. I have enjoyed the journey with you during most every single little part though.

But if we are to continue, I think you're at some point going to have to see who I actually am, rather than who you fear I might be. You're gonna have to exercise a little faith in me, even conceivably once in a while against your own loudly protesting fears.

I hope you are well, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Love.