Not only is he rich and popular online, but he also donates a significant portion of his income. There are dozens of scheduled payments to different organizations, ranging from mental health to food pantries to the environment. I had to sit with the information for a long time to wrap my head around his level of generosity.
He overwhelms me. Sends my neurons on the fritz when he’s in the room. He’s chaos wrapped in a go-with-the-flow bow. Loud, extroverted, laissez-faire. In every manner, he is what I am not. Or at least, that’s what I had thought.
While those things are true, he’s also empathetic, generous, loyal to his friends, and the first to celebrate those he loves. Spending hours watching him online offered a new perspective, and I’ve been forced to do a total reevaluation.
I’m still concerned we won’t work well together, but I understand why Mateo speaks so highly of him in a way I didn’t before.
“I can’t expect him to pay for all that,” Amy says.
“Oh, yes you can,” Vivian chimes in. “And I would, too, if I weren’t stuck in the middle of the ocean. A free trip to Australia sounds like exactly what you need. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet a hot man and fall in love.”
“I support Amy in all of her endeavors.” The abrasive scent of nail polish fills the air, and I begin the tedious task of painting my toenails. “I’m taking a new approach to my dating life. I’m calling it ‘not dating at all.’ Also known as giving up entirely.”
Realizing there are a lot of shitty fish in the sea demolished my delusional belief that jumping into the dating world would help me regain my confidence after Tommy obliterated it. The final nail in my dating coffin came a few weeks ago when the man I was seeing referred to me as his “West Coast piece.” Upon my pestering, he explained he has a girl in every region of the country and can’t betied downto one woman.
One thing’s for sure: He’s no longer tied to me.
“Probably for the best, sugar tits,” Charlie deadpans.
My red-light mask hides my response, but I’m frowning. In the background of Charlie’s video, her boyfriend guffaws. “Sugar tits,” he mumbles. “It’s still so funny.”
“It’s never been funny,” I yell. “Not funny, Charles.”
That was a story told in confidence it wouldneverbe used against me in the court of friendship.
“It’s hilarious,” Vivian deadpans.
“You’ve had a string of bad dates, but I don’t think that’s a reason to give up.” Amy softens her voice. “There’s someone out there for you, I know it.”
“There was the one guy from the engineering firm. He wasn’t so bad,” Charlie offers, but it’s a lousy save. He wasn’t sobad because the others were worse. On the online-dating scale, chewing with your mouth open is a mild offense compared to having multiple girlfriends.
“He chewed with his mouth open and spent the whole time talking about NFTs,” I remind them.
A chorus of “oh yeah” and “oofs” serenades me, and I even get a “Dios, no” from Mateo, who is crashing girls’ night.
Dating isn’t going well for me, nor has it historically, so I am removing myself from the equation until I can figure out what I’m doing wrong.
Hence my man ban.
An unfavorable silence stretches after my statement. They exchange glances, and Amy clears her throat. “Have you considered there’s a reason for the pattern and why the men you date are…”
“Mean to you,” Charlie finishes for her. “They’re assholes.”
“Why don’t we go back to talking about Australia?” I grumble, wanting to curl in on myself.
This isnota conversation I want to have.
“Tommy said he liked you best with your mouth shut and legs open,” Charlie says, outraged. “If Mateo ever said that about me, I would murder him, chop him into tiny little pieces, and feed him to the fish.”
“Charlie…” Amy scolds. “That’s not fair.”
The scar across Charlie’s brow tugs as her face turns crimson. “They fuckingsuck. I wish I had better words, but I don’t. If I ever meet Tommy, I’m karate chopping him in the throat and drop-kicking him in the balls.”
I never should have told them, but I was tipsy, fresh off another horrible first date (shocker), and in my state of self-pity, it tumbled out with the rest of my pitiful dating history.
Shame settles like concrete in my stomach. I recognize how poorly he treated me in retrospect. But he told me he lovedme, and for so long, I believed it above every other subtle jab or backhanded compliment. Love over the nitpicky comments about my body. I clung to the sporadic compliments to soothe the pain of the frequent complaints. Tommy was my longest relationship. Four years with him, and in the end, I was a shell of myself. I didn’t realize how hollow I’d become until I got out.
He had carved out everything I was until all that was left were the parts he admired. Pretty. Quiet. Reliant. When he broke up with me, it was like my world fell apart because I had madehimmy world.
