Here's how I know God hates me

So I used to have this... let's call him a boyfriend for the sake of argument, who I dated at the end of college. We will call him college boyfriend. I was a senior, weeks away from graduating and he still had a few years left. We had already been friends for years. He was younger than me, shorter than me, smarter than me and I love, love, loved him. I could have been happy with him forever.

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I moved home and so we lived 2,000 miles away. We still talked and emailed and visited each other here and there for about a year after I graduated, but we never really discussed any specifics, like whether we were actually together or not.* In the end, the distance got the best of us and whatever we had died. Fast forward five years and I have moved to the city where he lives. Unfortunately, he now has a girlfriend.**

So one day a few weeks ago, I notice on Facebook (Facebook: ever the crusher of dreams, the informer of exes loves lives.) that he and the gf are engaged. Engaged! The horror! I send off a few texts lamenting this fact to friends who knew us as a couple, looking for some consolation, or at least assurance and validation that despite not being engaged myself, I'm still a good person, (or at least cooler/better looking than the fiancee.) I was bummed, but it was nothing a little whiskey and a good cry couldn't fix. I go into work the next day feeling much better about the situation. I'm practically over it.

So I'm on my lunch break, reading a magazine on the outdoor 10th-floor balcony of my building when I hear a voice. HIS voice. And I don't mean Jesus. I turned and there he was. What was he doing in my building?! I started sweating. At first I didn't think it was a big deal because people tour my building all the time. I figured he was on one and would soon be leaving. But then I noticed he was sitting down to eat his lunch with a bunch of similarly aged and attired people. I think maybe I can wait him out. But I've got work to do and I'm beginning to get sunburned. I start to search for escape routes, but he's sitting right in front of the only door back inside. Convenient. There's no way I can slip past him without being spotted. There's no avoiding it. I'm going to have to say hi and make awkward small talk.

So I go over and try to act all surprised to see him and pretend like I haven't been fidgeting and panicking for the last 10 minutes. I'm literally shaking. The engagement is the elephant in the room and cannot be ignored. "Congratulations," I say, hoping he will want out of this awkward exchange as quickly as I do. No such luck. He starts gushing all about how he proposed on vacation and how he ordered the nice bottle of wine and then he compared the feeling to skydiving. I had had enough. If he didn't shut up soon, I was going to sky dive myself right off that 10th-floor balcony. I mumbled something about how we should catch up sometime and ran away.

Turns out he's an intern in my building all summer. It's a good thing I like eating lunch at my desk. All I'm saying is when the whole (main) reason it didn't work out for us was because of the distance, and now we spend eight hours a day separated by just two floors, that is not irony or a coincidence. That is the universe shitting on me.

*So the year after college graduation was a pretty bad one for me. I was underemployed, bored, depressed, lonely and living with my parents. I needed something and someone to do. So I kind of started dating this other guy, let's call him K, while the college bf and I were still-together-but-not-really-together. I didn't even like K. No one liked K. He was a douche. Like I said, I was bored. So when the college bf was coming to town, I stopped returning K's phone calls and started blowing him off. This, apparently, was suspect to him.

So one night while the college bf and I are canoodling on the couch at like midnight, the phone rings and it's K. He had apparently driven to my house, peeked in the windows, seen the canoodling, flipped his shit and was now screaming at me on the phone, calling me every name in the book and vowing revenge. (Now, keep in mind, we lived in a very rural area. Cars do not sketchily park on the sides of the roads and their occupants do not prowl around houses at midnight and play peeping tom without someone alerting the residents of the house, most of all the family dog. This was how I figured out our old dog was going deaf. That fucker. Thanks for nothing, fleabag. You've got like one job and you can't even do it right.) I ran to the door and locked it. The only thing that prevented K from busting down the door and getting his revenge was the fact that my 60-year-old parents were asleep upstairs. I had never been so happy to be living with my parents in my entire life.

This little incident more than likely contributed to the demise of both relationships. I was a jerk. Lesson learned: Get a new dog when yours starts going deaf.

**I met his gf a few times at parties and such. I wasn't impressed. At this one party last year, the college bf and his girlfriend were talking about how they had done this 10k race that morning. It's a very well-known and popular race and apparently you have to submit a previous 10k time for them to seed you correctly. You have to prove you have done a 10k in less than an hour and a half.

Well, as usual, I had had a few drinks and since I was pretty sure I, or any person in reasonable health could WALK a 10k in less than an hour and a half without breaking a sweat, (I have gone a 52-minute 10k in a triathlon for chrissakes and I'm no runner) I (loudly) proclaimed that it was insulting to have to prove it to the race directors and if they wanted proof, well here was my proof: I am not 300 pounds nor am I 80 years old. I sat back and waited for the laughs. Turns out the gf clocked in at 1:21 for a 10k.

Ok, I'm an asshole. And she probably wasn't impressed with me either. But, seriously, how do you marry someone who takes 1:21 to do a 10k? That's just embarrassing.

Life In The Weird Lane

"Hey Man, are you available next weekend? I want to serenade Danielle again."

That is apparently a real sentence said by a real man who lives right here in the United States of America. My co-worker told me that he was asked to be a part of a makeshift barbershop quartette put together by his buddy to serenade his wife. So many thoughts swirled around my head once I stopped laughing so hard I was momentarily blind. First, this is a level of sticky sweet hokeyness I would never wish to be a part of. Overtures made via jumbo tron, people springing from cakes, men stripping to a group of squealing girls, sky writing, and awkward friend serenades all fall somewhere just above drugless root canal on my list of leisure activities. Secondly, I want to meet this man's wife. I can't seem to get a second date, she is pulling down repeat serenades. I will bring my steno book and see what I can't glean from observing her operations. Off the top of my head? I suspect she might be skilled in the powers of hypnosis or do-it-yourself frontal lobotomies.

This story reminded me of the only time in my relationship history that I have been publicly recognized (humiliated) by my significant other. It is now referred to only as "The Poetry Slam". A day that will live in relationship infamy.

It started innocently enough. ( I always say that. Note: Get new Lead in.) We had just moved into our new apartment are were hosting all our local friends to warm the place as you do. A lot of booze, a little BBQ, lots of people crammed into a small space we didn't own, the usual. Then it happened. Most of this next part was told to me by my friends who watched in horror as I drank white wine directly from the jug in the kitchen.

My Ex, who shall remain nameless, let's call him, Narcissus, gathered everyone around for some kind of announcement. Some people later told me they thought he was going to propose. No, no, not a proposal. Instead he proceeded to read a 12 page book of poetry he wrote when he was in High School. Now, not everyone had come inside for the first announcement, but once poetry was promised the husband of my good friend from college ran outside and announced "GUYS! he's going to read poetry, GET IN HERE" With friends like that, who needs enemies? Anyway, clearly the old friends knew it wasn't a proposal. I can't blame them for wanting to witness the inevitable humiliation. No one goes to Nascar to watch left turns all day, they come for the potential fiery crash. This was a guaranteed car crash, an impromptu stop on the Whitney Houston revival tour or Sarah Palin campaign speech. Good Stuff, Cheap.

He recited poems on such subjects as Dutch Babies (a fattening breakfast item apparently), his favorite hometown breakfast locale "OId South", and, my personal favorite, his high school sweetheart. After the one about his high school love, I heard a collective "Awww" come over the crowd. I peaked my head out just enough to shake my head and say "Not me" then returned to my jug. Some one of my sweet girlfriends tried to defend me and asked why on earth he would be compelled to read a poem he had written about another girl at our housewarming. A valid point, and I do appreciate her attempt to come to my defense. Yet, alas, she unwittingly made it worse. His brow furrowed almost audibly and he said "I'll be right back" and shut himself into our bedroom. I wish this night had continued to follow the teen horror movie arch and he had been carried away by an ax murderer after this declaration. No such luck. He emerged ten minutes later with an uninspired ode to me that he read to the group. I was so flustered that I dropped the jug, shattering it and spilling the remaining contents all over the kitchen floor. A silence fell over the place. Cricketeers. A couple people got up to help me slop up the wine. I overheard my friend Sarah soberly mutter "Wow, Jacqui is a really good girlfriend. I never knew." That story still comes up a minimum of twice monthly. Frankly, I wish more people had been there. Hindsight, it's one of the funnier moments of my life.

Sometimes I think maybe I'd like to meet someone "normal". But who am I kidding? Normal isn't my color of wonderful. I love a good story.