I met this prize in LA when my dear friend Rob asked me to help him out with one of his video projects. There would be swords and stuntfighting, so how could I resist? When I arrived and we started shooting, I noticed one of the stunt guys looking at me. Like, really LOOKING at me- the sort of piqued fascination which pierced through my shield of cynicism and got me LOOKING right back at him.
I thought, wow, that sparkle in his eye- is this indicative of some internal blazing fire of passion?
Negative.
It was the pilot light of insanity.
But he was sweet and he laughed at my jokes, and, regrettably, stretched that day in such a way that his shirt lifted up to reveal the most gorgeous set of abs I've ever seen. These abs essentially located and hit some sort of "power down" button in my brain.
Can I just, in my own defense, point out that I was in a really shallow mindset at this time?
If I could've just dated his abs, I would've- it didn't seem like we had a whole lot in common. I'm a writer. He gets lit on fire a lot. Hm. He was different from other guys I'd dated in two major ways- one, he was the first person I've dated who is shorter than me. Two, he actually wanted a relationship. He didn't want to "date," or "see each other," he wanted me to be his girlfriend. "He was done dicking around, and he knew what he wanted," he said.
Flattered, I still asked him to remove my photo from the homescreen wallpaper on his cell phone.
I mean, I didn't really KNOW this guy, and it made this sick hollow feeling leak through my gut every time he referred to me as "his girl." I was so confused- here was someone who was telling me everything I wanted to hear, but I had a physical reaction in my stomach every time he talked about how much he liked me.
Foolishly, I blew it off. Maybe it was because I was gunshy about getting hurt again. Maybe I was being shallow because he was short. I didn't know. I didn't know, and since I couldn't figure it out, I wanted to take things slow until I got to know him better. I told him I didn't want to have sex with someone unless I was in a committed, monogamous relationship. He assured me he had eyes only for me, and had stopped dating anyone else after we started seeing each other. He was fine taking things slow, he was fine waiting.
Then he told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
RINGDINGDINGDINGDINGADINGDING went every siren and red flag and warning alarm in my brain.
I didn't feel the right feels for him. I was attracted to his body, but everything about the rest of him made me really uncomfortable.
But he WANTED me, right? Unlike most of the guys I dated who just wanted to hook up, this was (seemingly) the one heterosexual male on the planet who was actually looking for a relationship.
But he was shorter than me. So surely that was the problem. I stuffed the anxiety and acid down and convinced myself it was just me being shallow. I'd get to know him better, then make an informed decision.
Besides, I liked how he let me treat him. He let me cook for him and take him to do outdoorsy things. Like a love-starved puppy, he was over-the-top enthusiastic about every little thing I'd do. Like thanking me profusely for texting him.
RINGDINGDINGDINGDINGADINGDING
New Year's Eve rolls around and I'm going to a party. He has to work, so I go alone, which suits me just fine. I was experiencing the very first pangs of growth as an individual and actually looking forward to some pensive reflection on the dock at the party.
I told The Stuntman this, and he agreed he'd give me some space.
I ignored my phone as he called 19 times after midnight and left 5 voicemails.
DINGDINGDINGDING goes the alarm, but I'm not paying attention as I enjoy the fireworks reflecting across the lake's black waters.
I make my New Year's Resolutions. None of them include the Stunt Man, but I was flexing my fledgeling wings and tried not to feel guilty.
We spent a lot of time together and after a few weeks, I invited him to spend the night at my place.
He took his shirt off (nnnnnooooooooo!!!) and climbed into bed, promising to be a gentleman.
...Anyone who's read any of these blogs knows exactly what happens next.
This was during my Ambien days, also known as The Days Of Bad Decisions.
I tell him explicitly that I do NOT want to have sex with him, that I just wanted him to sleep NEXT TO ME, nothing else.
The sex was amazing.
Or, I think it was. Stupid Ambien.
Really, what I remember, was this weird half-hallucination of him naked except for a Robin (as in, Batman And) mask. Urg.
I'd been on a big Batman kick at the time, and even my subconscious saw him as a lowly sidekick, but nevertheless, the sun came up and we had to have a chat.
He admitted he had perhaps taken advantage of the situation, and there I was having had sex with someone who was not my boyfriend.
My brilliant solution to deal with the consequences of my actions in an adult manner?
"Walp, I guess we're in a relationship!"
He was over the moon ecstatic. I felt positively sick and immediately regretted my decision.
After he left I went to go use my bathroom, and discovered that he'd left his toothbrush there.
I was instantly filled with revulsion. I wasn't charmed, I was angry- and I knew that wasn't the right reaction.
Was I turning into the kind of person who didn't want a relationship?
Was I (gasp) one of THOSE people who would have sex with someone they didn't care for, just for the sake of sex?
No. No, that wasn't me. I was a relationship person. It's how I'm wired- but as much as it was something I wanted, I knew it was wrong to be in a relationship with a guy just because I wanted to get laid.
Within an hour of agreeing to "be his girl" I began contemplating the best way to break up with him. The problem was, he hadn't done anything overtly breakup-worthy, and I couldn't really give him a solid reason... I felt lost.
Alternating between self-loathing and guilt, I told him we weren't going to be having sex for a while until I "got comfortable" in the relationship, and, ever eager to please, he and his abs agreed. We'd spend our time getting to know each other better. I mean, I hadn't even been to his house yet! How could I possibly have sex with someone when I don't know what their house looks like, right?
(facepalm)
I really, really wish I'd actually stuck to this rule, because there was a good reason I hadn't been invited over. His House is where his Crazy came out, and it came out swinging.
After telling me for weeks that he knows how "clean I am," and how he didn't want me to be grossed out by his bachelor pad, he finally invited me over. He insisted on staying on the phone with me to give me turn-by-turn directions over each and every speedbump, I arrive at his house. He owns a home, right? Bonus points, right?
Spoiler Alert: WRONG.
I see his car for the first time in the light of day, and I see an NRA sticker on one side and a Bush sticker on the other. I feel nauseous.
DINGDINGDINGDING
He takes me in, holding my hand as he shows me around while his frenzied dogs (who he's kissing on their doggy mouths) claw and scratch blood from my bare legs as they leap repeatedly. Their incessant barking gets maddening, so he ushers them into another room and closes the door on them as echoes of Son of Sam rampage on a shooting spree through my brain.
He suddenly takes both my hands- he's literally trembling.
"I'm sorry," he says. "It's just that I've never had any girls over here other than my mom."
RINGDINGDING
"I want you to be happy here- this is your home."
DINGDINGDINGDINGDING
He shows me the bedroom, wiping tears out of his eyes and proudly proclaiming that the only other girl in his bed had been his mother.
"Wait- what?"
He tells me that "he'd had a rough time" and his mother had come to sleep with him.
I immediately leaf through my mental calendar to pick an appropriate expiration date for our relationship. Sooner the better.
The only problem is his birthday is coming up and he's been so vocal about how his ex had dumped him right before his birthday one year. He actually makes me promise to not do that. Maybe he's kidding, but at this point I'm a little scared of him and how fragile he is, so I can't risk it. I mean Christ- he wants me to meet his parents. I start to hate myself for being with him and being too chickenshit to hurt him.
I don't spend the night that night (or any other night) because that day he tells me about his childhood. How he'd grown up training for athletic events and never had any real friends. How his parents are hoarders, and how he slept on the floor next to his dad for most of his life because there was never any room on the bed. How he'd been pushed, driven to physical perfection, to the point of multiple breakdowns. How college had been his only escape. And then drinking.
He tells me he's been in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is news to me because we've had plenty of wine with the dinners I'd cook and he never mentioned it. He tells me he's in the NRA. He tells me he voted for Bush.
This is how I felt hearing that.
It's over- I just have to let him down easy, after his birthday. It's in a week. I can do this.
He begs to spend the night at my place, and I agree but make damn certain I don't take anything that night. No more Ambien around him- I no longer trust him. But he's literally whining, and I'm exhausted and emotionally drained. Sure, why not- sleep here, because he has to work early in the morning and I don't want him driving home so far so late.
He tries to sleep next to me. "Sleep" is the best way I can describe it, but it's more like some sort of tortured wrestling match with himself.
Since I'm not drugging myself, I can witness him as he's literally writhing and twisting in my bed, growling like a wounded animal. At one point he flails an arm out and his knuckle makes contact with my head. I am annoyed but not injured. Later in the night, he makes a sudden roll towards me and his hand wraps around my throat. I am terrified.
The next morning I tell him we're not going to be sharing a bed any more, period.
He immediately grows agitated, wild-eyed and red.
He tells me he'll do anything. He offers to take some of my Ambien. He offers to let me tie him down.
I decline.
Then he gets really upset and starts tearing up. Ugh. I HATE it when guys cry.
He gets desperate, begging me, telling me he'll get some rope so I can tie him down and his night terrors won't affect me.
Citing "potential fire hazard" as an excuse for not imprisoning a man in my bed, I am officially completely turned off.
By now, all the abs in the world can't save him. He looks about this sexy to me:
A couple days later I find out he's a smoker. I would never knowingly be in a relationship with someone so willing to hurt themselves like that. The Stunt Man has been hiding this fact from me because he knows how much I hate it. He swears he'll quit smoking for me. I tell him not to, that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, because I am not planning on keeping him around. (I'm a dick.) I told him he should quit for himself and not for me.
I reach out to a friend I used to work with. She dated him for almost a year, and might have some advice about how to break up with him. However, I can't get ahold of her and her number is no longer working...
DINGADINGDINGDINGDING
I have to wait to break up with him until after his birthday because he's turning 30, and wants to commemorate the occasion by setting himself on fire and jumping on a pogo stick long enough to make it into the Guinness World Records. I'd hate him to get hurt because he was in some sort of funk on my account. After all, he'll be engulfed in flames.
DINGDINGDING
But it's kinda cool, right? Fire stunts and extreme sports?
Nope. DINGDINGDINGDINGDING
Ughhhhhhhh.
Like I said, this is mostly a story about how dumb I was.
His birthday comes and goes, and he survives the stunt despite Guiness assuring him they want no part of this particular category. He has a great night. The next night I take him out to dinner. He tells me he loves me. I thank him politely as I'm scripting The Talk.
Driving home from dinner, night-time construction began on the street we'd been driving on, and retracing my route home meant a strange left turn amidst dozens of cones which had not been there earlier.
"Is this the right way?" I ask.
"Yes," he says.
"But look at the cones- we're going the wrong way- this looks like a one-way street" I insist.
"No, it's fine" he assures me.
In the distance I see oncoming headlights and have to quickly reverse into an alley to save us from getting into a head-on collision.
He was dead certain we were fine, but my instincts were right and we were totally in danger.
Point made, Universe. I'd break it off tomorrow.
So I do, gently, telling him I'm not ready for a relationship after all. He takes it surprisingly well and says he'll wait for me. I strongly encourage him not to. He posts dramatic vows of staunch patience on facebook, accompanied by links of Jason Mraz's "I won't give up on you," until I beg him to stop. I promise we're still friends, and to prove it, I'd take him to a party the next week. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
This particular party is a gathering of artists who're seeking models to be photographed for some artwork as part of a book about mythical creatures. The Stuntman is game, so he arrives at my house for me to drive us to the party. Before we go, I hand him a bag with his toothbrush in it. Some sort of shadow passes through his eyes as he takes the bag from me. He does not speak on the way to the party, and sits brooding in silence behind dark sunglasses at dusk.
He immediately hits the bar at the party, downing a double rum and coke. They paint The Stuntman up like some boggy monster, a legendary creature famous for dragging unsuspecting swimmers to watery graves. He's greenish and wearing whited-out contacts, and seems to be having a good time until he begins stumbling. Soon he can barely stand and the photographer calls me over to collect him. He's mumbling incoherently and I lead him to the bathroom to get cleaned up and get dressed.
Half-speaking, half-growling, I can barely understand him through the bathroom door, but I get the impression he's trying to get dressed without washing off any bodypaint. I try to tell him to take his time, get cleaned up, take those contacts out because I know he can't see very well, but I'm interrupted by the crashing sound of glass smashing as he stumbles into the sliding glass door of the shower he's not using.
"Are you OK?!?"
"Just come in, come in," ...shit. He's crying again. God I'm an asshole.
I reluctantly step in and he grabs my arms, pulling me into him. He's smaller than me but stronger by far and green.
Staring at me with painted yellow teeth and white eyes, he's trying to tell me something but he can't speak clearly and I'm scared.
"Let go of me," I said, and he squeezes me harder.
I use a simple martial-arts twist to free my arms and jet out of the bathroom, telling him to get dressed, we're leaving.
Jesus, he'd only had the equivalent of two drinks, right? Fuck.
He gets in my car, green paint everywhere, still growling like some mini-hulk. It'd be comical if it wasn't tragic. Like this, but way way sadder:
I tell him he needs to take the lenses out before he drives home- that he can't see very well since they don't let enough light in.
Proving my point, he asks me where we are, tells me we're lost and he has no idea where we are.
We're a half-mile from my house, on a street he takes every day to work.
I don't want him coming inside. He's weird tonight. Weirder than usual.
He stumbles out of my car. I don't understand how he's acting so drunk- it's been 4 hours since he had that double. I ask him if he's taking any kinds of medications that might have interacted with the alcohol. He can't answer me clearly and now he's begging to come up and use my bathroom before his long drive home.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck DINGDINGDINGDINGDING Oh nowwww I hear it.
I tell him he can, but he has to promise to take those contact lenses out while he's up there. He agrees, and while the door is shut I text my friend, begging for help. This is Rob, the same friend who introduced us- he kind of owes me.
This amazing friend leaves the party he's at and drives 30 miles as fast as he can.
Sure enough, my Green Goblin is refusing to leave and literally making animal sounds when Rob bursts through the door.
By now the Stunt Man has gone into FULL freak mode, telling me he's had the FBI google me and they know all about me, and how he's also secretly part of the CIA and his dad is so disappointed with me.
Thank god for Rob.
I leave the boys to talk and finally my friend talks the Stunt Man into driving home. Rob follows him home, makes sure he gets inside, and texts me the All's Well at 5:30am.
I take out the knife I've secreted in my pocket, bolt the door and sleep easier that night.
EPILOGUE
...I get multiple texts from the Stunt Man. He tells me he misses me. He tells me he's "working on the set of "Supernatural," and that I should watch episode blahblah of season such-and-such because it proves that he was so right and I was wrong and soooo right." These texts come at 3 and 4 in the morning. "Supernatural" shoots in Canada. There's no way he's there, because his car is parked next to mine the next day when I leave my job.
This parking "coincidence" happens more than a few times and I'm complaining to a coworker when a manager overhears and tells me to take it to the police, just in case.
I send The Stuntman an email, telling him I was blocking any calls, texts or emails from him and that if I saw his car or him near me again I'd go to the cops. I told him not to respond to the email, and he very graciously did not.
About a month later, I run into his Ex- the one who broke up with him right before his birthday. The one I'd tried to call. I told her my story and she laughs, pulling out her phone and sharing a mile-long string of texts from him along the same vein.
The reason I couldn't call her was because she's had to change her number because of him. She'd also had to get a restraining order against him, since he was texting her things like "you and your baby have to leave the house, there's a bomb in it, my CIA team and I will sweep your house, get to a safe place and I'll text you the all-clear."
Jesus. I'd dodged a bigger bullet than I thought.
Then she shows me all the texts he'd been sending her about how he'd bought her an engagement ring, how he was going to propose. Despite her restraining order, these proposal texts had been sent by him during the time he and I had been dating.
Sigh. Ya think you can trust a guy...
I haven't seen or heard from him since, other than word-of-mouth that he's settled down and quite happy in a new relationship.
Phew. My god I was dumb. But here's what I learned:
1) LISTEN TO THE LITTLE VOICE. IT IS NEVER, NEVER WRONG.
2) WHEN IN DOUBT, SEE #1.
3) NO MORE AMBIEN AND BOYS.
It would take approximately two more bad decisions before I started living by those rules, and those two decisions involved the millionaire and the pilot from previous blogs. By then, I'd finally exhausted my capacity for idiocy. I became much smarter, and I stopped needing Ambien because the decisions I made during the day let me sleep just fine at night, alone, in my own bed.
I became comfortable in my own skin. I learned to enjoy being by myself, single, whole within my own skin.
Which, naturally, is when I was finally ready to meet my soul mate.
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