More adventures in Never Getting Laid Again
Thursday night I had a surf/snowboard group happy hour in Williamsburg. I had a few drinks to loosen the mood and ended up giving my phone number to some dude. I had completely forgotten about him until last night when he texted me wanting to meet up for a drink. We exchanged a few flirty messages and I told him I’d be back in the Burg at some point next week and we could meet up then.
A few hours later my phone dings and I look over to see what looks like fucking War & Peace written out in text form. I grab my phone and it’s from him. Well, not really from him. The text was sent from his phone, but it was actually his GIRLFRIEND who was sending me the text. It was not some bitchy diatribe about me being a whore and to leave her man alone or anything like that, instead it was a very sad message about how she’s been with this guy 2 years and he has cheated on her multiple time, given her an STD, and how upset she is about the fact that she cant seem to find the strength to leave him.
My first bitchy thought was “why is this girl sending me a novel when she simply could have said he had a girlfriend”. That thought was replaced with being brought back to how I felt 6 years ago when I went through a very, very similar situation. I was with someone for 3 years, and lived with him for 2 years. I never trusted him, but because of how much I loved him I was able to chalk my mistrust up as just me being jealous and crazy. I was so blinded that I was able to completely second guess what I KNEW to be true, and then had to deal with all the confusion, self hatred, and sadness that went with that. It wasnt until a girl he was seeing on the side emailed me, that I actually got fed up enough to do something about it. I ended up finding out that he was in fact seeing people behind my back the entire 3 years we were together.
While I was devastated that I had to end a relationship that had meant the world to me, the sense of relief I gained in knowing that I wasnt crazy, or jealous was life changing. Knowing that gave me the strength to overcome my weakness and get out.
After a lot of self exploration and time I was able to forgive the person who did this to me, and while I dont talk to or hang out with this person much at all, we’re on ok terms now. Forgiveness was the most important part of moving on for me.
So the response I gave to this poor girl last night was to be strong, trust your own thoughts, and to move on. A serial cheater is not going to be able to change without therapy. And also to not get lost in anger, eventual forgiveness is the only thing that will really allow you your freedom.
