Warning: Damaged Goods

Over the weekend Michelle dropped an interesting bomb on me via text message. First she asked how I was (GASP!…no wait, that wasn’t the bomb), but I was busy watching a movie, so about 20 minutes later she randomly texted me this…

“hey just wanted to let you know that despite my actions or lack of it its not that i’m not interested because i am its just that i have baggage that makes it hard for me to get close”

For those of you who don’t speak ‘Crazy’ fluently like I do, I’ll translate. And if you’re wondering why I speak ‘Crazy’, it’s not because I’m actually crazy myself, it’s because the only women I ever date turn out crazy and I guess you can say I’ve learned the lingo. This is basically the translation:

“I am taking out every wrong my asshole ex boyfriends have ever done to me on you without hardly even knowing you.”

Isn’t that fantastic? I mean, I can basically map out the timeline in my head.

1997: Michelle is in high school. She is asked out by a dickhead who is known around school for being a manwhore. All of her friends hate him but she doesn’t listen because he told her he loves her and no one’s ever made him feel that way before. He breaks her heart when she finds him having sex with a freshman in the girl’s locker room.

2000: Michelle is in college. She is asked out by an arrogant prick who says and does anything his slime-coated brain can think of to get her into bed. Once he does, he leaves the picture. Oh yeah, and her friends hate him, but she gave him a chance because one time he brought her flowers that he bought discounted at King Soopers (club card mothaf**ka!).

2001: Still in college, and now dating a deadbeat that still lives with his parents and can’t hold down a job, but that makes him more desirable because he’s a ‘fixerupper’ and we all know girls love those. Her friends hate him and tell her to leave him, but he’s so good with words around her (i.e. he and his garage band wrote a death metal song for her in which he screams about Michelle’s rockin’ jugs) that she ignores them, even when he chooses black tar heroin over her.

2004: Meets a smooth talker in the club and falls for him instantly, even when her friends tell her that they see him at the club every week with a different girl and that he changes them like underwear. Is heartbroken when she comes home with him and two other girls are waiting on the bed. He says it’s hard to hear in the club and he must have mistaken ‘meaningful long term relationship’ for ‘bitchin’ foursome action.’ They do sound eerily similar.

2007: Finds a great guy through an online dating service and can really see herself with him. He is a great guy–so great that his wife wants him back. Michelle is broken this news at 3:00 AM by his wife who saw one of her text messages on his cellphone. Her friends never actually met him, because they only spent time together during lunch breaks at work and at 2 AM on Sunday night.

2008: Meets Bryan, a nice guy who knows what he wants in a woman and has never cheated, ever. However, now that she knows guys are only going to break her heart, she blocks him out and pushes him emotionally and physically away, because he is clumped together with all other men in to a group as being untrustworthy. Friends never meet him because she doesn’t want to let him in to any aspect of her life.

I’m guessing this doesn’t end well for that last guy.

Anyways, isn’t that fantastic that she was willing to trust most if not all of the assholes of her past but now won’t trust the nice guy because she’s been burned too many times before? That the same naively optimistic chance she gave all the rest she’s not willing to give to me because *I* have to pay for *their* mistakes? I’ll tell you what, this little gem would have been nice to know *before* she spoke about being ready to get into the dating game and wanting to find ‘Mr. Right.’

Oh well. I’m not holding my breath, because frankly, I deserve better. The foundation of a relationship shouldn’t be me proving to her that I’m not a lying, cheating dog, because I’m not, and if she needs to conduct a full, thorough trial just to prove that, then she can go find someone else. I don’t feel like fighting any uphill battles just to find basic happiness.

Until next time, I think I’m going to go dump oil in the ocean, shoplift from Salvation Army, and shake a baby. Remember, I am a man after all.