No Joy 2

No Joy 2

He stole even the simplest joys. This is so trivial, but when I'm sitting in the passenger side of a car, I like to have my hand out of the window. The wind against my skin feels nice.

He often closed my window on me because he didn't like it. Claimed it blocked his rearview mirror on the passenger side.

In actuality it was because I enjoyed it. And he couldn't have that.

Flashback

He tried to push me out of his car while driving 80 km an hour.

He was cruel and I was crying. I had put my face out the window into the night air to try to stop crying and feel better.

In one smooth motion he undid my seatbelt and grabbed my door handle.

Had I not shifted suddenly at his abrupt undoing of my seatbelt his hand may never have slipped off the door handle preventing it from opening properly.

My crime? Someone might have seen me.

Setback

I’m driving around tonight in a bit of a state. My brain is doing a running inventory of Horrible Things That Have Happened and the Horrible People Who Have Done It.

There is so much, and all I can think is that I must be making at least some of this up.  There is no way I could have encountered so many monsters.

No one could really have this many horror stories to tell.

Cishet man makes woman extremely uncomfortable: volume 2318864314652217

I am a woman out after dark, so we all know I was asking for it, but this guy was something else. I was cruising on my phone on a bench in my city’s downtown.

Enter overly confident stranger stage right who invites me for a drink at a bar.  I hesitate for half a second which of course he takes to mean yes. 

Man: Of course you do, come on, we’re going. 

He’s invited me to one of my regular haunts, and it’s not far from where I parked, so I reluctantly agree at his insistence.  I order my usual and have to explain that I don’t drink.  He looks dejected for a moment.

Man: Maybe I should stop drinking too.

Uh huh.  Some chitchat was pleasant enough, then after some silly back and forth about “honesty” (”I have to be honest, I’m an engineer.  Do you hate me?  *eyeroll*) I let him know that I’m queer.  Silly me, thinking that this would shut his ass down.

He “doesn’t get” queer. So I, thinking his question was genuine, attempt to explain that it’s handy for those of us who don’t fit under the first four letters of the alphabet soup.  An umbrella term of sorts.

He asked about my sexuality personally.  This was a bit presumptuous I though.  However I explained that I am pansexual, and what that means.  

Man: So you’re still attracted to men!

Me: ...theoretically.  However my experiences have made me uninterested in men.

Man: Just experiences did that?  You can’t overcome them?

Me:  *a little more firmly* ... I don’t do men.

Man:  So tell me, do you find me attractive?

Me:  *takes a deep breathe*

Man:  No, no, I guess you don’t.  Don’t tell me.  I don’t want to hear it.

Me:  You are an attractive person.  I just don’t like men.

Man:  So what would make me attractive to you? 

Me:  ....  you could start with not being a man?

Man:   Well, maybe I should try to be a woman.  Or nonbinary.  Maybe I am a woman.  Or nonbinary.  I might like it.  I’ve never tried it. 

Me:  .... it’s not like.. trying gin for the first time...

Man:  but I’ve never tried it!

Me:  ... That’s not the way it works.

Man:  Do you want me to cut if off?

Me:  This is getting weird.

Man:  It sure is.  Do you have a knife on you?

Me:  Please... don’t.  I have to go to the washroom.

I told him I needed to be up for work in the morning, thanked him for the drink and ducked out despite his protestations 

Man: “Don’t you want to chill or something?”

No.  I didn’t.  I don’t.  My sexuality is not a whim or a joke or whatever you were trying to make it.  Furthermore, the gall of trying to continue to get me to fuck you after I’ve straight up told you I’m not interested is coercion  and I’m not interested in being with someone who can’t take a hint glaring, obvious note.  

I didn’t say any of the last bit, and I wish I had.  But  I’m proud that I got myself out of there.  It’s progress.  The old me would have suffered through that interaction further with the guilt of him having bought me a $1.75 drink. I may have even let him have me.

Not this time.  Not anymore.

More on the Ex

He kept her around, I am certain, because she worshiped him.  He told me that she had a tatoo with his name hidden inside.  I have no idea if this is true or not.  

I the early stages, his connection with her made me outrageously jealous.  He told me intimate and DETAILED accounts of their sex life, even when I told him I didn’t want to know that much.  He said he told me to provide “full disclosure;” this is absolute nonsense. For example, I have no idea why knowing that they had sex in a public restroom at a concert would be a need to know thing.

As I became more and more dead inside, I reacted less to him talking about her. I stopped caring if he’d stepped out; in truth I stopped caring about pretty much everything.  So he brought her up less and less.  Clearly he enjoyed my discomfort and moved on when this no longer achieved the desired effect. 

In the last year, while I was still allowing him to torture me, she started seriously dating someone else.  This man set the boundary that he wasn't comfortable with her and my ex still being in close contact. 

He was furious. He told her he was done with her, as he’d endured years of “bullshit” from me to maintain their friendship and she was now just throwing it away for a guy.  

My ex surmised this to be the result of abusive jealousy on the new guy’s part, and I suppose that could be true.  However my guess is he’s aware of their history doesn’t want it in their life.  Not a bad call, from someone who knows.  

Through a little bit of investigation, I suspect that he has been more active on her social media - liking her pics and such. This is hard for me to say concretely as I have him blocked, but evidence does suggest it.

Seems he lost two of us around the same time. And he’s losing it.

Pity.

He called me every name you could think of and insulted me any way he thought would hurt me. Nothing was off limits.

I called him mean. He couldn't handle this insult.

One time he screamed in my face "I'm not fucking mean!!!" And then physically threw me out of the house.