I want to tell you three stories about three different men who hurt me in three very different ways.
Thursday Night: 7, the ex roommate who slept with me, and ruined our friendship by keeping his girlfriend a secret… we have not been friends for over a year
7 gchatted me this past week saying, “I’m in town for a funeral - can we meet for drinks?” Well, when you put it like that. The truth is, I still held strong resentment toward him, and I didn’t want to continue to burden myself with those feelings. I wanted to get this drink so I could look at him and feel ambivalent. No more cattiness, sadness, or ill will. I wanted to feel sorry for him and then feel nothing for him.
And that’s how it went. He met me where I asked, we shared a drink, he asked me to join him later in the night, and I said no. I went home. I had the self-respect to know that I don’t need to pretend to be friends with him when I’m not. Some people will back-burner you forever. I never got an apology from 7. All he gives is an arm around the shoulder, waxing on about how I’m the coolest chick he knows. That’s not friendship, that’s bullshit.
Friday Night: 66, the Canadian band member who fell for his “quintessential New York girl” and kept up texting and emailing as he toured the country
Sometime this summer, my friend Molly wanted to set me up with her friend, the lead singer of a band. I fell for his keyboardist. And we fell hard. With him being based in Canada, there were only emails and laughter and a mutual understanding that come tour time in New York, if we were both still single, we were taken for the night. Suffice to say the evening was wonderful, but something was off. I could feel it. And I presented him the challenge to prove it.
Me: I’m headed home. What’s your deal?
66: I’ve been wondering about that.
Me: How do you mean?
66: I have to tell you something.
Me: Whoa, no, this is something you should have mentioned hours ago.
I knew instantly. The pained look on his face, the indecision. All the things he’d said, the awkward ways he’d touched me, they all made sense. All the “god, why are you so fucking cool?” type of exclamations. The forbidden fruit always looks delicious, doesn’t it?
66: I just… I’m deciding if I’m a man of questionable morals or not.
Me: I’m not. Goodnight.
And I left. No amount of love, giggles, and once-in-a-full-moon nights should ever put you in bed with a taken man. Two blocks away, I started to cry. 66 was one of the good ones. Kind, thoughtful, vouched for by all our friends, and they continue to vouch for him through this simply saying that he has a life to live in Canada, but that doesn’t change the way he feels about me. He was stupid in how he handled it, but he was still good deep down… but that’s not how it felt. If he’s one of the good ones… how dare he?
I wanted to not care about the girl. I wanted to be able to say, “she’ll never know.” But that’s not how I felt. What I felt was disgust. I felt cheapened in that he thought that that decision was his alone. With all my feminine wiles, with years of plotting and cunning and Cheshire grins in my past, with everything that I felt for him, what I felt the most was better than that. I didn’t deserve to be led on like that… and neither did his girlfriend.
Saturday Night: 77, the one who told me I was everything he wanted, but he couldn’t date me
On Saturday night, there was a twenty percent chance I would see 77 at the concert of a mutual friend. After Thursday and Friday, I thought there was no way the universe would allow it to happen. No way could fate be so cruel.
Well, fate’s a tricky bitch. I was waiting outside for Wife, when 77 started walking toward me. His head tilted down as he took one more puff from his cigarette before putting it out. He walked right next to me and right past me on an open sidewalk. I froze like a blind dinosaur was walking by, not even my hair would flicker in the wind. As he walked into the venue, I burst into giggles and shakes and holy shit holy shit holy shit. If there’s any way to tell if you still have feelings for someone, I think that almost collapsing on the sidewalk with ALL OF THE FEELINGS is one of them.
I thought I could say hi and leave. I did not anticipate seeing 77 talking to everyone I knew. The next time someone tells you that New York City is a big city, let me remind you it is only a big city if you live a very small life. If there was ever a time to take my own advice, this was it.
I walked up to 77 with my thousand watt smile, Wife by my side, and said hello like I was hosting the evening.
77: Hey… hey! Holy shit, hi! You’re blonde! You look amazing!
Me: Thank you! I’m really enjoying it. 77, you remember Wife, right?
77: Yeah, yeah, of course, how are you? Been awhile.
Wife: Yeah I’ve missed some of the parties this one’s been throwing, like her housewarming.
77: Ah man, that was a great party, well.. until…
Until you told me we would conquer the world together but you didn’t have time right now?
Me: Well it was so nice seeing you all, and Lead Singer, such a great show tonight! You’re such a wonderful performer.
77: Well wait, where are you headed?
Me: Just out to see some friends in the East Village.
77: Do you have to go? Do you want to hang out for a bit?
Me: Well, I don’t have to go [smile/laugh], but I am. Really lovely to see you.
77: It’s Vince’s birthday tonight, you should hang out.
Me: Sure, have Vince give me a call later and maybe we’ll meet up. Good to see you!
And I left. Like a fucking badass. Ethereal, gorgeous, classy, and fucking badass.
Look, it’s insane that all of this happened in one god damned weekend, but the point of this is, even though I did the right thing every night, I’m still left a bit sad, and you need to know that that’s OK. Self-respect won’t have you calling your girlfriends, debating and analyzing. Self-respect won’t keep you warm at night. It won’t make you giggle in the morning. There’s no euphoric high in behaving with integrity. Self-respect is an investment. It is something you add to the bank of self over and over. You will never see an immediate benefit, but what you will see, years later, is how people respect you when you respect yourself.
Yeah, ideally 7 would have apologized, 66 would have had the balls to tell me the truth from the beginning, and 77 would have run after me into the night, but that’s not why you do the right thing. You don’t do the right thing hoping for something magical. You do the right thing for you. Invest in your self, respect your self, because people can see that, they can sense it. In the end, you don’t want the people who lied to you and hurt you, you want the people who would never do that to you. Maybe it’s not fun, maybe it’s not romantic, but it’s the building blocks of the best relationship you can have in your life: the one you have with yourself.
