The Boys Are Back in Town: The Return of Mr. Ex

On Monday night, I ended up at an "Ethiopians for Obama" celebration on U Street. It was pretty random considering that I'm not anywhere close to being Ethiopian and I did little to help Obama get elected other than casting a vote in his favor on Election Day. Anyhow, the event was a ton of fun. Ethiopians really know how to party... Who knew?! The real news for Monday night was this: I ran into Mr. Ex's much saner, much more accomplished older brother at the party. He's ivy-league educated with an MBA (compare that to Mr. Ex's basic level of literacy) and his spirit is generally calmer than Mr. Ex's. If it wasn't for their dark and handsome good looks and charm, it'd be difficult to tell that they're even related.

Our encounter was awkward even though he and I had always been cordial even after my breakup with Mr. Ex, but I was thrown off by seeing him at this particular event (he is also NOT Ethiopian nor did he assist with the campaign) so our conversation was stilted. I noticed him watching me while I was making conversation with other partygoers and I knew that hed be texting Mr. Ex before the night was over with news of our run-in. That's why I was surprised - but not shocked - when Mr. Ex called me early the next morning.

I was watching CNN footage of President Obama leaving Blair House and on the phone with a friend when I got the call from an "unknown" number. Normally, I don't answer calls from blocked numbers, but I'd invited a number of people over to watch the Inauguration and I wasn't sure if maybe one of my guests was calling from an unfamiliar location. I answered and he said "Good morning [Brown Girl]. It's [Mr. Ex]. Happy Inauguration Day!". His voice was thick with sleep, so if he hadn't announced himself, I wouldn't have known it was him. He attempted to carry on a conversation with me, but I shut down every opening that he tried to create. He asked why I was being so short with him and I told him it was because we are not friends and that, from my perspective, there was nothing left to discuss. He asked if I still had his number. I'm not sure why, but I was honest with him. I told him that I did.
"Well, if you have my number, why don't you ever use it?" he asked playfully.

Dude, didn't I just tell you we have nothing left to talk about? I think to myself. But I don't say anything in response to that question.

He continues: "I think I'm still a great person and so are you and I always thought that, no matter what, we'd be close."

All I could do was laugh at that one. I mean, HE thinks HE is a "great person"?? That's pure comedy if I've ever heard it!

In his defense, he really sounded sincerely confused about why I wouldn't want to maintain a friendly relationship with him. In a way it was funny, so I laughed. He laughed, too.

Wow... this dude thinks I'm laughing with him when I'm really laughing at him. In a way, the whole phone call was just pathetic. Why wasn't he this interested in establishing a good rapport while we were together? Instead, he was off sticking it to the world... literally.

At any rate, I told him I was on the other line and had to go and he asked me if I would come to visit him in New York. I politely declined and, as I was hanging up, I heard him make a request for me to call him sometime. I've gotta give him credit for something - the dude is persistent, that's for sure!

I quietly reflected on that phone call for about two minutes, and then I allowed myself to once again get swept up in OBAMAnia. I spent the morning cleaning and the afternoon cooking for the friends who'd stopped by to watch the swearing-in and parade with me. We'd considered going down to the National Mall since it's only about 30 minutes away by Metro. But most of the natives I know decided to watch from home like everyone else across the world was doing. Sure, it would've been nice to BE there, but then I wouldn't have been able to SEE anything. With CNN, I had a front row seat!

At my house that day, everyone was in a jovial mood and we were all just in awe when Obama was sworn-in. Even when Justice Roberts flubbed, we just grinned through it. The time spent with friends and family was the perfect way to end such an amazing and historical weekend.

And, after I hung up with (on) Mr. Ex, I can honestly say I didn't think of him again for even a moment that day. I thought of him again a few days later when I decided to document the phone call in this post. But I can remember a time - and it wasn't too long ago - when any contact from him would've sent my world spinning off it's axis. I would've been second-guessing myself, analyzing every second of the conversation, or just would've been feeling generally BAD and uber-pensive. But, this time, I didn't even think about it. It was so irrelevant to me, I even forgot to mention it to my girlfriends until DAYS later (this was major).

It felt so liberating to not let him alter my mood. Just one word from him can turn me into a bitter, brooding, bitch... but not this time. My President is Black. On January 20, I was rejoicing. And nobody could take that joy away from me. Not even the infamous Mr. Ex.

To me, my reaction to his phone call was a sign of something...

Growth.

I like the way it feels.



Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

It keeps getting weirder...

I sincerely apologize for the delay in posting. I have been dealing with a migraine for the last three days and can't seem to shake it. That impeded my creativity just a little bit (obvi). I really am working on being more consistent, but it's turning out to be more of a challenge than I could've ever anticipated. Anyway, I am working on few more posts so I can have some waiting in the wings already prepared for you in anticipation of weeks like this one when I can't focus because my head feels like someone is banging my skull with a sledgehammer. Ugh! Calgon, take me awaaaay!

Just when I think that things with Mr. Ex can’t get any more annoying, he went ahead and put the icing on the cake a couple weeks ago.

In the week before Mr. Ex was coming to my town, my friend Allegra, tired of the wack dudes we meet on a pretty regular basis, decided to put a personal ad on Craig’s List. She sat down and drafted a blurb that described her and the type of person she is looking for, included a picture that partially hid her face (but showed enough to peak someone’s interest), posted her ad, and waited to see who would bite. She got a lot of crazy responses from a lot of weird guys and a couple responses from a few that were worth exploring. She had her hands full with communicating with the few seemingly decent guys that had hit her up, so we didn’t speak for a few days.

When we finally got a chance to chat about her success, it was a Friday night. She starts telling me about one of the guys who had responded. She thought he was cool except he had not one kid, but TWO. That was a bit challenging, but she was interested enough not to cut a good brother just because he was a dad. And we agreed that, as long as he was actually taking care of the kids, their mere existence wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker.

In the midst of our conversation Allegra says: “Oh, and why were you sending me messages with “Mr. Ex’s” picture in them?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, completely dumbfounded, because I hadn’t sent her any message at all, much less a message with a picture of Mr. Ex.

“You know,” she said in an irritated voice, “Those stupid messages you sent me in response to my ad. That really wasn’t funny.”

“Yo, I didn’t send you any messages.”

“Do you have an AOL account?” she asks.

I think on that for a minute. “Yes, I have an AOL account from back in the day that I don’t even use anymore. It’s been years since I’ve logged on!”

“[Brown Girl], are you sure that you didn’t send me any messages?”

“I promise you that I wouldn’t have wasted my time or yours by sending you fake messages with pictures of my ex-boyfriend.”

“Yeah, now that I think about it, that doesn’t really seem like something you would do,” she said.

“So, what did these messages say?” I ask, already knowing that Mr. Ex himself was behind this debacle.

Turns out that the messages Allegra had gotten were being sent from my old AOL account. Mr. Ex had said that he would be coming to town that weekend and was wondering if Allegra (he did not know it was Allegra at the time) would be available to hook up while he was in DC. He also gave a brief description of himself that included his name (an alias that he had apparently acquired since we broke up, because the name he gave was not the one he was born with), height, weight, age, and the fact that he has no kids and NO GIRLFRIEND, which – at this point – we know to be untrue.

Anyway, Allegra thought that Mr. Ex was really me, playing some sort of practical joke on her and her personal ad. So, she responded back to the message thinking she was replying to me.

Her response was something along the lines of “Wow, you must not have enough work to do. I’m going to call your boss and tell her that you’re playing on the computer during company time.”

By the time Allegra tells the story to me, she has already disposed of the messages she got from Mr. Ex, so we feared there would be no evidence of them. But, at her encouragement, I logged into my AOL account just to see what Mr. Ex had been up to. He had cleared my inbox completely, and there were no messages in the sent mail folder. BUT, there were a few messages in the “Old Mail” folder. I opened them up and , lo and behold, there were the messages from Mr. Ex to Allegra and from Allegra back to Mr. Ex (although she thought she was writing to me).

A few hours she tells me all this, my phone starts blowing up with Mr. Ex announcing that he was in town and I begin to wonder how this could possibly get any more ridiculous.

Now, Allegra is convinced that Mr. Ex knows that the personal ad is hers. But given the fact that half her face is concealed in the picture, that is unlikely. I think it’s just a really, really unfortunate coincidence that of all the women that Mr. Ex could contact on Craig’s List, he chose one of my closest homegirls. When I call to tell my other homegirl, Katrina, about the irony of this situation, she accuses me of taking the incident too lightly.

“He’s trying to talk to other girls and still be on some get-back ish with you,” she says angrily.

But the funny thing is, I don’t really care that he was trying to contact other women. Good riddance to him. Let him become someone else’s problem. That’s fine by me. What really bugged me is that I couldn’t understand why he was using MY email address to do it. He has his own. Why would he choose mine to do his dirty work? Maybe he DID know that Allegra was the person behind the Craig’s List ad… Whatever the circumstances, it was just a really weird turn of events.

As I shared the story with other people, I kept hearing the same advice over and over again. Everyone I spoke to said that I HAD to confront him about this situation. It was weird and it was troubling and I needed to put a stop to him using my email address. So, once I was sure that Mr. Ex was on the bus on his was back to New York, I sent him a text telling him that we needed to talk. When he got the text, he called me three times back to back. I ignored his calls because the Grammys were on and I just didn’t have the energy to discuss the situation and nor the patience to deal with the nonsense he was sure to pull out of his ass.

The next afternoon, I called him up and he answered on the first ring – almost as though he were expecting my call. Within seconds of us exchanging pleasantries (I don’t even know how I managed to be pleasant during this call), he asked me what exactly I needed to discuss with him.

“Allegra put an ad on Craig’s List,” I start.

I hear a low moan escape from him, but I continued talking. I explained how she had asked me why I had been sending her messages with his photo embedded. I explained that, of course, I wouldn’t have done any such thing. And I also explained that my email address had been used to send the messages.

“So why did you do it?”

He starts to chuckle, which only infuriates me because there is nothing comical about our conversation.

“DC is just way to small! When she responded and I saw her email address, something told me that she was your homegirl. But I met that chick before and that picture she posted didn’t look like her.”

“Look,” I said. “I am not concerned about who you talk to. Knock yourself out with that. What I am concerned about is the fact that you are using my email address to contact strangers on the internet. Please stop immediately.”

What he didn’t know was that I had already logged into the account and changed the password so that he could no longer access it.

“It’s just weird and I want you to stop,” I said forcefully.

He apologized, but he gave no real explanation for why he was using my address. Then, he tried to make small talk with me, but I wasn’t having it.

“I gotta go,” I said.

“It was good talking to you,” he says.

I hang up the phone and stare at it in disbelief.

Is this dude serious?

BTW (by the way), this is a totally true story. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

"The Boys are Back in Town" = Mr. Ex

You may have noticed that the layout has changed several times over the last week. I decided that The Brown Girl's blogspot needed some redecorating. I thought I had settled on a layout and was pretty content with it. But, sadly, I have received complaints. So, I'm taking another shot. Maybe the blue is too much? We'll try it on for size for a while and if it isn't a good fit, then we'll go back to the drawing board. Now, on to the main event. Today's blog:

This weekend, my phone was ringing off the hook. Not exactly people calling me to inform me of events to fill up my social calendar. Not because of any number of crises that could have arisen. No. None of those things. My phone was ringing because Mr. Ex was in town and he made the mistake of thinking that I actually cared.

The first time my phone rang was on Thursday. My cell phone rang around 9pm. My phone lit up and I looked at his name and number emblazoned across the widescreen. I sent the call directly to my voicemail. And when it buzzed to indicate that he had left a message, I waited almost two hours before I listened to the message.

You see, the last time we spoke, he told me the goings on of him and his new girlfriend. Of all the things that could’ve devastated me about our ridiculously emotional breakup, the thing that had been the biggest slap in the face was the fact that he had gotten another girlfriend in record timing. Like, immediately. I wasn’t surprised. He had moved back home to New York in a rush and I recognized that he had probably packed his bags so quickly because there was somebody there waiting for him. It was obvious that he had been cheating on me through the majority of our relationship, which explained why he was so frequently perturbed by questions about his whereabouts and whowiths.

Anyway, he spent that last phone call telling me about how he had discovered that New Girlfriend had been cheating on him. As he started giving me ALL the gory details, I contemplated hanging up on him. And then, I realized that I was really curious about what he had to say. It occurred to me that this is possibly how he might have spoken about our relationship drama to other friends in the past. I wanted to hear more. Hear what he was thinking. He told me the whole sob story. Explained that he had cried as a result of what he had discovered. I remained silent, which only made him agitated. He prodded me with questions. Wanted to know what I thought about his situation. I had little to say up until the point where he told me he had cried. Then, I burst out laughing. I mean, pure, unmitigated joy spilled out of me from the depth of my soul.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked.

I caught my breath from my belly-shaking laughter. And, once I got my bearings back, I was furious.

“What do you want from me?” I demanded. “You have a lot of nerve calling me and telling me this nonsense… as though I would actually be interested in what is going on with you and your “new” girlfriend. Although, something tells me she is not so “new,” I finished.

He was quiet for a moment. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he said. It was more a statement than a question.

“It means that I am not stupid. I know you were probably screwing around with this girl while we were together. The funny thing is… I don’t even care anymore. And now you are calling me and telling me all this drama. As though you want me to feel SORRY for you.” I spit out the word “sorry”. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

He was quiet again. “So you don’t feel sorry for me?” he asked. The gall of this dude!

“Feel sorry for you??! Sorry? The only person I feel sorry for is your girlfriend. Poor thing. Trapped inside all of your drama. How are you going to be mad at her for cheating on you when you have probably been cheating on her the entire time you all have been together?” I shot.

“What makes you think I’ve been cheating on her?”

“Well, have you?” I asked, not even needing to hear the answer because in my heart I knew he had.

He chuckled and I felt nauseous.

“You’re pathetic,” I said.

“I know, aren’t you glad you got rid of me?”

“More glad than you’ll ever know,” I said. And then I hit the little red button on my cell to end the call.

He called right back. I ignored the call and went on about my night.

A week later, I got the phone call from Mr. Ex letting me know that he was going to be in DC for the weekend. And, I could’ve cared less. The next day, I received a text message, saying:

Hey, I’m in ur town so if u want 2 get up just call, but if not I understand 2. Be good [his nickname for me]. Lol! That was for old times.

"Old times"?? Screw “old times”!! "Old times" were NOT good times. I have no desire to revisit the past. So, I ignored the text and continued with my Friday night plans.

The next day, I received another phone call from him, which I, again, ignored. I still haven’t listened to the message.

What good could possibly come from us seeing each other again? Whenever we speak, he never ceases to upset me. And I have been living such a drama-free life without him in it.

Although Mr. Ex repeatedly tells me that he knows he messed up and that I am the love of his life, I know that he isn’t the one for me romantically. I am not interested in being “friends”. So, it’s best for us to just let each other live... without interrupting each other's lives.

When we broke up, I was so hurt, so devastated, so betrayed by all of his transgressions during our relationship, that I had nothing but incredible anger in my heart for him. I thought of a number of things I could do to get back at him. I had his bank account information. I had access to his cell phone bill and could've decided to call every number listed and tell whoever answered some ridiculous embarrassing secret. I asked people what they would do to get back at people who had done them wrong just to get ideas on things I could do to Mr. Ex... or to his "new" girlfriend. But, in the end, I didn't like the idea of who I had become as a result of my anger. I am not a hateful person, but I seemed bitter and temperamental. I finally decided that I wasn't going to let this man change my personality and I wasn't going to let him turn me into a bad person. So, instead I prayed at night for God to handle the situation. And he took care of it. Better than I ever could've handled it on my own. Leave it to God... he always delivers.

But, I am not all revenge and hate when it comes to Mr. Ex. I truly do hope that one day he grows and matures into a man who respects fidelity and loyalty. I really hope that he will be able to make some woman happy and that he will find a way to be content with his lot in life. But I will not be there to see it because I have decided that I am done.

Maybe one day we can be "pals" who hang out whenever we visit our respective towns, but today is not the day.

"The Boys are Back in Town" = Jeremy (Part 2)

After I sat and stared at the phone in complete and utter silence for approximately 30 minutes, I started panicking. Why didn’t I ask more questions? I need to know who this girl is! I called my bestie and my roomie and put them on a three-way (I wasn’t even 21, so this was acceptable. LOL!) and explained what just happened. They both encouraged me to call her back. When I did, she answered again. After being sure that we were discussing the same Jeremy, Keisha explained that she and Jeremy had been together for 2 years (he and I had only been together for 6 months) and that she had no clue about me. I was equally clueless about her, so we were pretty much stunned. Neither of us was mad at the other. In fact, we just sort of got the info that each of us was looking for and then we hung up. It was very civil.

I called Jeremy to confront him and, of course, he feigned ignorance about Keisha’s identity. (In case you were wondering, me misdialing the number by one digit was obviously God’s way of letting me know about this situation. Turns out that Keisha and Jeremy shared a cell phone account and the two phone numbers were exactly the same except for the last digit. I’m dead serious!) Anyway, Jeremy said he didn’t know a Keisha and I cursed him out, hung up, and vowed never to speak to him again. I cried for days and he called every day, multiple times a day, telling me how much he loved me, and how he was so sorry for everything (by now, he was admitting guilt). He wore me down after about a week and I took him back. We sailed along smoothly for quite a while.

Fast forward… another 6 months go by.

By this time, I am a college senior. I have moved out of the dorm into an apartment and am basically loving life. On this particular day, Jeremy was at my house, sitting on my bed, watching television while I showered. I walk into my room still damp from the shower and he says, “Your phone was ringing. I didn’t answer it.” I notice that my voicemail light is blinking. I call the voicemail service and I hear this:

“Bitch, if I ever hear about you messing with Jeremy again, I will fuck you up.”

My heart sinks, stomach drops, and I look at him. He has absolutely no idea what I have just heard. I say his name and he turns to me, recognizing just by the tone and the way I have said his name that something bad has happened. I replay the message for him and he lies and says that he doesn’t recognize the voice on my voicemail. I redial the number, cuss out the chick who answers the phone, and break up with him again. I put his ass out on the spot and don’t accept his phone calls for a two weeks. Two Saturdays later, he shows up at my door at 7am, begging my forgiveness. And, guess, what everyone? I took him back! DUH!

God, I was so stupid.

I am ashamed to say that it took me getting played by this dude twice more before I finally cut him loose for good. By the time we broke up, we were pretty much living together and I simply got fed up. One day I snapped. I emptied the closets and his dresser and put all his clothes in the middle of the living room floor. Then I went to my parent’s house and waited it out.

I had left a note on top of the pile that said “Get all your shit out of my house by tomorrow morning or I will throw it out of the window.” We lived on the 15th floor of a building that overlooked the highway. I was tempted to sprinkle his designer clothes and sneaker collection all over I-495. Not because he did anything that day. His track record had actually been pretty decent in the days leading up to our split. He had decided to go back to school to get his bachelors degree, which he hadn’t even started when we met, my aunt got him a really great job in the federal government where he was well-liked, and he decided to retire from his illegal side gig. Things were looking up for him. But the sum of all of our experiences was enough to send me over the edge.

By the time I returned to our apartment later that week, his things were gone and so was he. And we didn’t speak again until two years later.

By now, it’s 2004 and I am in the middle of studying for the bar exam. My 25 birthday is spent sitting at the dining room table studying some God-awful outline on secured transactions (whatever that means!). My friend Kyra asked me to go on a double-date with her. I think that BLIND double-date + birthday = disaster, but for some reason I agree to go and wrap my studying early so that I can meet her in Adams Morgan for our date. Turns out the double-date was a rouse for a surprise birthday party that my friends had planned for me at my brother’s Adams Morgan condo. It was a really great party!

I don’t know what crack my friends were smoking, but some genius thought it would be fun to invite all my ex-boyfriends to the party. Robert was there. So was Jeremy. It was the first time Jeremy and I had seen each other since the night before I set his clothes in the middle of our dining room floor 2 years prior.

He looked good. And, apparently, he thought I looked good, too. He was acting very… protective a.k.a. stalkerish. He was sort of hovering, which was annoying. I kept thinking, back up off me, dude!

Before he left the party, he asked if he could speak to me on the terrace (gosh, I miss that condo!). We walk up to the roof and stand looking out over the DC skyline. He told me that he had gotten a promotion at his job and was making even more money. He was also mid-way through his bachelors degree. He was like a totally different person. Then he clears his throat. ‘Oh Lord, here it comes,’ I thought.

“[Brown Girl], I’m so sorry for the way things turned out. You were exactly what I needed at the time, but I was too immature to realize that. I am so sorry for everything that I did. And, truthfully, you are the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t met you. You motivated me to go back to school, you got me my job and turned me into a legitimate working man. You showed me that there was so much more to life.”

We are silent.

I don’t know what to say! I had hoped... dreamed... that one day he would acknowledge that he had made a mistake by letting me go. I had comforted myself by saying that one day he would realize how great I was and he would regret cheating on me and breaking my heart so many times. Now, here he was, telling me everything I had wanted to hear. And although his words were satisfying, I didn’t get as much joy out of it as I thought I would. I looked at him and really searched inside myself. I was happy for him. Genuinely happy that he had attained all that success. Genuinely. But his regret was too little, too late. All that trouble, all that heartache, that whole emotional rollercoaster that I was on for those years we were together was so much time wasted! I breathed a sigh of relief, kissed his cheek, turned my back to him, and went back inside to join the rest of the party. I was over it. I was (finally!) over him! And coming to that realization was the most satisfying thing of all…

"The Boys are Back in Town" = Jeremy (Part 1)

Jeremy broke my heart into so many pieces I swore I would never be able to put it back together again. When I found out he cheated on me – the first time – my roommate took me out on the town to try to cheer me up and I cried in my beer the whole night – literally. I just couldn’t stand the thought of him being with someone else. We had met about six months before on the street – of all places! My roommate and I had gone to a club in downtown DC and Jeremy was driving by in his gold Nissan Maxima. I thought that car was so damn cool!

He had only gone as far as high school, but we were still able to have very intelligent conversations, which is huge for me. As most people know, I am allergic to stupid people and he was far from dumb. He may not have had book smarts, but he definitely had street smarts. He worked for the government, in a menial job, but always had money. I knew that was suspicious, but I had a pretty good idea where the money was coming from and I didn’t really want to be involved, so I asked no questions.

Jeremy wined and dined me. Every night, we ate at a new restaurant. We went on trips together, and he always footed the bill. He was the first man (besides my father) to buy me a diamond. He spoiled me. And I got used to being spoiled.

The night that I met Jeremy was also my two-month anniversary with David. David was a good boy. He played football at Syracuse, had just graduated and was about to start a good corporate (read “boring”) job in Northern Virginia. David was friends with my next-door neighbor at my dorm (one of the perks of a coed dormitory). When we met, sparks didn’t exactly fly. I mean, by most standards the boy was fine. And he played college ball for a recognizable school, which I guess meant a lot to my college girlfriends. I had no idea why he was interested in me because I treated him like crap. But, he kept coming back for more. Once I met Jeremy, I cooled off toward David. He would call the dorm and I would tell my roommate to make excuses as to why I wasn’t available. After a while he just stopped calling and a few weeks later I saw him on campus holding he hand of some freshman chick. I figured he was over me, and I was surely over him! By the time I spotted David with the freshman, Jeremy and I were hot and heavy.

Looking back, I now notice a pattern. I tend to meet men and rush into relationships. I am what my friends call a “serial monogamist”. I don’t date around. I find one guy and stick with him. That’s something that I’ve gotta get over.

Back to the story.

The only complaint that I had about Jeremy was that he could only hang out at odd hours. And when he was around, he always turned his cell phone off. Now, in my defense, I was young and dumb and hadn’t really experienced much. My last boyfriend was Robert who was always present and accounted for. So I wasn’t sure whether I should be suspicious of this dude. Was he really shady or was I just overreacting? I couldn’t be sure. And, at the time, I followed the philosophy of not doubting someone’s explanations until they gave me a reason to doubt them. So I let him breathe and, again, didn’t ask any questions when he told me that he just couldn’t spend anymore time with me during the week. I wondered what he was doing with his time (aside from the obvious illegal activities) but, to assuage his guilt, he bought me more nice things, took me out even more places, and I kept my suspicions to myself.

One day, I was sitting at home and hadn’t heard from Jeremy all day. That was relatively unusual. I called him from my landline, so I had to actually dial his number rather than just selecting his name from my address book. The phone rang a few times.

A woman answered.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello…” I said, very confused.

I looked at the phone just to be sure that I had dialed the right number. I had misdialed by one digit.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I have the wrong number,” I explained.

“Who are you trying to reach?”

“Uh… Jeremy.”

“Oh, he’s not available right now.”

Huh?! ‘He’s not here right now”? Well, uh… I had misdialed the number but clearly she knew who I was talking about.

I was shocked into silence.

“Ok, thank you,” I said. A million thoughts were running through my head, but obviously, the first thought was why did this woman act like she knew my boyfriend? I mean, there is the very unlikely possibility that I could’ve misdialed the number and that phone belonged to another Jeremy, which was not necessarily a common name. There is also the possibility that this woman could have just been playing around with a “wrong-number” that was obviously confused.

If only it were so simple.

To be continued…

"The Boys Are Back in Town" = Robert

This post is the first in a brief series called “The Boys Are Back in Town” [TBABIT]. I have been thinking of writing this series for a while, but it wasn’t yet complete. I was waiting for one more person to pop up and, it took a while, but he finally did.

TBABIT is a series that focuses on each of my long-term boyfriends. They are all exes now, but at one time they were a super-significant part of my life. I was just saying to my male BFF that, not to toot my own horn, but every single dude who I’ve dated long-term has f*cked up in some way, which lead to our breakup. And every single one of them – except my high school/early college ex – had come back to me suggesting that he never should’ve let me get away.

But then, yesterday, the final chicken came home to roost and my story was complete. So, again, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but: toot toot, beep beep. What goes around comes around, peoples. Remember that.



#1 – Robert

Robert and I met during my junior year of high school and his senior. I went to his prom with him, he accompanied me to mine the next year. We went on dates. Real dates where he would scoop me in his little white sports car, greet my parents, and pay with his own well-earned money. We had a good relationship. We spent holidays together, mostly with my family (which was a plus). He humored my idiosyncracies, encouraged me, and we trusted each other unconditionally.

We dated through my last two years of high school. When I got to college, we both lived in the same dorm, him on the eighth floor and me on the sixth. He had already been there for a year and I was just beginning. We spent a lot of time together. This was the first time in our relationship that we weren’t under the watchful eyes of our parents and we took full advantage – at first.

In the middle of my first semester of college, Robert decided to get a job. He would go to school and then go to work for three to four hours in the evening. But, it got to the point where he would expect me to be home when he got home from work, and he also expected that I would go to the dining hall and get him dinner so that it would be waiting for him when he got home.

To me, this felt too much like marriage. You go out and work and I am supposed to be sitting, waiting at home with dinner on the table? That will not work for me. And, I was only 19.

There had been a few days that Robert had come home and I wasn’t waiting for him and there was no dinner to be found. He was getting irritated, but I was too busy with my new college friends to notice. One night, I had been out with a few other girls from the sixth floor. When we returned home, there was a big “1” scrawled across the dry-erase board on my dorm room door in red marker. My roommate asked if I knew who had written the number.

I told her I didn’t have a clue.

A few days later, I had gone out to study at the library with one of my classmates and when we got back, there was a big “2” scrawled in red marker across the board on the door. Ok, this was a pattern. I erased the board and headed upstairs to see what was going on with Robert.

“How was your day,” I said, plopping down on his small twin bed. “Hey Kyle,” I said to his roommate, a tall, gangly white guy with a buzzcut who was sitting on the bed across from me. He waved at me and put his headphones on and went back to reading a magazine.

I leaned over to kiss Rob, but he turned his face so that I got a mouthful of cheek.

“Damn, no kiss for me,” I said, laughing.

“You weren’t there again,” he said with a straight face.

“What?” I said.

“You weren’t there again,” he repeated.

“Um… ok.”

“That was the second time.”

Ahhh… it was all starting to make sense now. “Have you been the one writing on my door?” I asked.

“Yup,” he said without hesitation. “That was your second strike. Three strikes and you are out,” he said seriously.

I began laughing uncontrollably. So loud, in fact, that Kyle heard me despite the music blasting in his headphones and looked up from his magazine.

“Negro, you cannot be serious,” I said, sobering up. “Don’t threaten me.”

“I’m not threatening you. I am just letting you know how I feel,” he said.

I stood, looked at him for a moment, and then went back to the sixth floor.

It was pretty much downhill from there.

The girls I was hanging with were boy crazy. They weren’t hos or anything, they just had info on every guy on campus. Plus, I was meeting a new guy every day in some class or at some on-campus event. As I began to assess the situation, I realized that Robert and I had a great high school relationship, but once I was exposed to the different types of guys that were accessible, I was losing interest in him – quickly.

In particular, I had a friend, Kenny from Boston. He and I were tight. We rolled together everywhere. And, though we never crossed the line from friendship to benefits, he opened my eyes to the possibility of a guy who was smart, cool, cute and fun to be around. Robert was a big deal at St. John’s College High School, but once I was exposed to the other guys on campus, I felt like he was small potatoes. And Robert was treating me more like a wife than a girlfriend and I felt as though I was being taken advantage of at the tender age of 19. My reasoning is all effed up, I know that now. But what can I say? I was young, dumb, and hella immature.

Robert and I were approaching our 3-year anniversary and things were very rocky by this point. By the time the actual date rolled around, we still hadn’t decided on any plans. I went looking for him around dinner time, because it was unusual for us not to go out on a dinner date for our anniversary. I found him in the fitness center playing basketball. He acknowledged me… sorta. And I left and went back to the dorm.

Later that night, he came into my room and sat down in the chair.

“It’s our anniversary,” I say.

“I know,” he says.

“You smell,” I say. “Why didn’t you take a shower before you came down here?”

“You never used to think I smelled bad before.”

“Well, things have changed. I don’t think I like you anymore.”

“I don’t like you anymore either,” he blurted.

“Wanna break up?”

“Uh huh,” he said.

“Cool.”

He got up, walked out, and we didn’t speak again until six months later. Our 3-year relationship was over - just like that. Miraculously, I never even saw him on campus. Funny enough, this was the easiest, least painful, most sane breakup I have ever had.

After our six month hiatus, we weren’t immediately friends. But, we were always civil to each other. Eventually, our contact become less and less frequent until, finally, there was no contact at all. Not even a birthday call or a Christmas text. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Up until yesterday, I hadn’t heard form him in three years.

Yesterday, my mom calls me at work and said: “You’ll never guess who called us [she and my dad]!”

“Who?”

“Guess,” she says, excitedly.

“Mom. I am at work. I don’t want to guess. Who?”

“Robert!”

“What?!” I nearly drop the phone.

“Yeah, he said that he looked us up on the internet, got our phone number from our website and wants me to pass his number along to you. Now, please call him, because I don’t want him to think that I didn’t give you the message,” said my mother being her ever-so-polite self.

“Ok, will do.”

I stared at the information that my mother had relayed to me, but hesitated to dial the number. What could he possibly want?

When we finally spoke, it was a 2-hour conversation. During the course of our talk, he told me that he never cheated on me (not even once), he told me that the highlight of his dating life was our relationship, he said that I was the only woman he ever completely trusted and hat he knew for a fact that I had never cheated on him either. And, then, he said it. Robert admitted that he had fucked up and wondered aloud where we would be had we stayed together. I didn’t even entertain that last part.

“Your problem was that you had changed,” Robert explained.

“Your problem was that you hadn’t,” I said.

And that was that.

Yet another case of the chickens coming home to roost.

The satisfaction wasn’t as sweet with Robert because our breakup wasn’t bitter, but with him uttering these words, the circle is complete.

“The Boys Are Back in Town” Part II = Jeremy, coming soon. (That one is an interesting story…)