For a Pessimist, I am Pretty Optimistic

He may have turned out to be a selfish prig, but my mom’s eyes still glaze over when thinking about the first time she met my dad. “I was with my friend Iris,” she recalled. “We were walking home from the movies. Then your father came around the corner.” At this point, I always mouth along with her words. “He was riding a motorcycle and wearing a leather jacket. His hair was wavy and he looked like a character from a movie. He seemed like such a rebel.”

I hold this story accountable for all the men I dated who were just wrong for me. I had a thing for “bad boys”. Like mother, like daughter.

Sometimes I wonder, what will I tell my kids about how I met their Dad? I’d definitely have to make something up. There’s no way I would tell them the truth. Neither of us are portrayed in the best light. I can just imagine it now: my eyes get all dreamy and far away as I say “Mommy knew Daddy for a long time, but she didn’t pay attention to him until he was all sexy. Acting like a slut, Mommy slept with Daddy while she was in a serious long term relationship with someone else. But he was a loser, he did coke, which Mommy hated, and other drugs that Mommy MIGHT have participated in. Anyway, Mommy slept around, punched her old boyfriend, and possibly broke someone’s heart in the process –but at least it was true love!”

Like most of my stories about my Ex’s, this one begins with me dating yet another loser. Dupa* and I had been dating for a year until I discovered his love affair with cocaine. Interestingly enough, it was when he wasn’t high that we had a problem. The day after a binge, he would become depressed, irritable and emotionally abusive (surprise, surprise). We spent another year together constantly fighting.

One particular day, we were rushing to the train. Dupa was late for his first day of training at his new job. He was only scheduled for a few hours so I was going to go with him into the city, find, something to do, and then meet up with him after. During our power walk to the station, some sort of mix up happened and I was left waiting in the street while he went to the station himself (“I forgot you were waiting,” he would later explain, as if that was perfectly understandable). Furious with him, I decided that instead of spending the day in the city, I would go visit my friend Mike who was still attending SUNY Stonybrook.

Mike was surprised to see me, but even more so because he was on his way to TA a class when I arrived. We tried to think of what I could do for hours in his room with no TV or internet access.

“You know, Konrad just started going here,” he remembered. “I’ll give him a call and see if he can come and keep you company.”

“Aw, little Konrad is in college now?” Konrad was a neighborhood friend of Mike’s. He was 3 years younger than us and I hadn’t seen him since Mike went to college. Last I knew, his clothes were 2 sizes too big, he was at least 5 inches shorter than me, and had pimples all over his face with too big features. But he did always have a cute smile.

“He’s not so little anymore,” Mike said. “In fact, it’s a good thing you’re going out with Dupa already. Konrad’s turned into your ideal guy. He’s tall, white, and light eyed with spiky hair.” I didn’t bother to acknowledge that comment. I also had a weakness for Latin men and he knew it.

Mike left for class and I attempted to play Minesweeper on his computer. While I was angrily throwing the mouse after losing again in 2 clicks, there was a knock at the door. Looking out the peephole, I saw a tall attractive guy standing and looking aloof. When I asked who it was, I was shocked to hear “It’s Konrad.” I eagerly threw the door open.I stared up at him.

“Oh my God! You’re all grown up!” I exclaimed and threw my arms around him for a hug. Grown up indeed. I could feel his muscles through his sweater.

As we talked trying to catch up, I could feel myself start to flirt with him.“I heard you’re dating a Polish guy,” Konrad said giving me that still amazingly cute smile. “If he hasn’t taught you any of the curses, I‘ll try to tell you what I know.”Damn it. It wasn’t until Konrad reminded me of Dupa that I realized he hadn’t returned any of my 5 messages. In fact, it wasn’t until another 3 hours later that he called me. As soon as I picked up the phone, Dupa demanded that I come back right away. He said he had a hard day at work and wanted to see me. Always the push-over, I returned. Konrad drove me in his car, despite my protests.

In the following weeks, we started chatting online and spent entire days on the computer. I visited Stonybrook a few more times. Mike commented that it was the most he had seen me in months. He also pointed out that we never hung out without Konrad around. It was true, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

One day while online, Konrad asked me “If things were different and you weren’t going out with Dupa, would you go out with me?” I became giddy upon reading those words. I even danced around my basement for a minute before I responded responsibly.“Well, I am going out with Dupa. That’s all that I can and should say.”

He agreed with me and we both signed off.  Thinking we could still be friends, we ended up hanging out every day the next week. By Saturday we had slept together.

I seriously didn’t know what it was about Konrad that had me so infatuated. I wanted to spend every moment with him. I felt so happy whenever I was with him. The best part was that even though we were opposites, he embraced the fact that I was a bit of an oddball, just like I embraced the fact that he was so steady and logical.

We started to see each other more and more.  I was pretty good at sneaking about; Dupa worked a lot of nights at the restaurant. After work he would go to bars and do coke with his friends while Konrad and I would spend all night together. He never pressured me to break up with Dupa, but we both knew it was inevitable. Even if I ended up single, I had to leave him.  Dupa’s abusive behavior started to get more dangerous.

After one horrible fight where he broke my flip phone in half, Dupa broke down crying. I asked him what was wrong and he exploded. He accused me of cheating on him with Konrad.

I crossed my fingers. “I’m not sleeping with him,” I said.

“Yeah right. I’m a cokehead, but I’m not stupid,” he replied. Damn, was it hard to not laugh at that.

“I hate Him. I hate everything about Him. I hate that He’s also Polish, that He’s in college, that He has a car, I hate that He’s in such good shape. I hate that you had to bring Him here that time when He drove you. How can you bring Him into my own place for me to see?”

“Um, because I wanted you to meet him,” I reminded him. “You told me to invite him up.”

“Yeah, but that was because I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“I didn’t know that he was everything I’m not.”

I was blown away by that. How could I have been such a bitch and cheated on him? Even though he hadn’t opened up to me in over a year, I knew something must have been wrong with him emotionally. Though I had tried everything I could think of to help him, maybe I should have tried harder.

The next night, Konrad and I sat in his car 3 blocks away from my house. I explained to him what Dupa had said last night and how horrible I felt. I told how torn I felt and that I was basing my decision to stay with Dupa on the fact that Dupa needed someone to emotionally support him, whereas Konrad was so strong and independent. Yes, I know I’m a stupid, dramatic, romantic. I can’t help it. Trust me, I’ve tried.

At that moment Konrad started crying. I couldn’t help but think, oh great this is the second time that I made a guy cry. What was going on? That’s exactly what I asked him and he paused to contain himself.“How can you think I don’t need you?” He turned his beautiful green eyes to me. “I love you.”

This was the first time anyone had ever told me they loved me of their own volition. I’ll admit I’ve used girl tricks to prod previous boyfriends to declare the sentiment. One guy I knew would say it if I slept with him. Another said it after I threatened to break up with him. I even tricked a commit-a-phobe into saying it by declaring I didn’t want him to say it (resulting in him wanting the opposite. Men can be so odd in that way.) Was this bitchy of me? Of course. But the rules of karma are always in effect because in tricking these men, I screwed myself. I never knew if they truly loved me. Still, that was then. Now, I had someone right in front of me who did.

“I love you too,” I blurted without thinking. I knew it was true to minute I heard myself say it. Konrad and I kissed and I thought “Now what? I’m fucked!” We continued sneaking around for another week as I thought about how I would break up with Dupa. Fortunately, he helped me.

We were fighting once again and he questioned my faithfulness to him. When I didn’t respond, he took my pocketbook and threw it across the room attempting to hit me with it. As I gathered its contents, I screamed at him that we were through. I started to pace around the apartment, yelling about how 2 years of my life had been wasted on such a jerk. While pacing in a dark room, I turned around and there was Dupa, arms outstretched and reaching for my throat. Pissed at my ranting, he was going to choke me to make me shut up (he smugly admitted this). I snorted, pulled my right arm back, and punched him in his left eye. As he yelled and cursed, I called Konrad. Very matter of factly, I told him “Dupa tried to choke me and I punched him. Can you pick me up NOW?”

I told Dupa who I called and that he better not cause any trouble because not only would he get his ass kicked by a girl, but Konrad would kill him. He cursed and went into the bathroom where he stayed until I left. He must have been staring out the window waiting for him to come because when Konrad showed up, he called from behind the door, “Tell him he must not be so strong if he has to come out of the car holding a bat.”

5 months later, Konrad and I eloped in Vegas. Before that, we hadn’t spent a single day apart. It was sickening.

I guess some of that story is romantic. I’ll just change it a bit. I could always say that Konrad was a prince who rescued me from the mean abusive drug addict. “Even though Daddy rushed to Mommy’s rescue, she had taken care of the situation herself. It’s always good for a woman to know the art of self-defense.”  Ooh, that sounds good. AND I can use it as a don’t-do-drugs story.

Oh who am I kidding? My mom will probably tell them everything.

(* name has been changed to protect the idiotic)