Yikes
So I’m walking along, pushing my cart, heading for the canned vegetable aisle. I turn the corner and run smack into an ex-boyfriend. Working as a stockboy. At Skagway.
Like a deer caught in headlights, we stared at each other for what seemed like a Very Long Time (but was most likely a split second.)
And then I bolted.
I made a mad dash for the dairy aisle and became extremely interested in yogurt flavours. WTF was he doing there? I thought he left town. Crap crap crap. All this running through my head while I figured out how I was going to pick up the diced tomatoes I needed and avoid him.
He and I dated for several months not long after I returned home from England. I didn’t really know him, it was just sort of one of those things, how we met. I was out with a friend from work at a bar and well, he hit on me I thought he was cute and guys don’t hit on me much so we started dating. That sort of thing. He was a roofer at the time.
But I had no idea I was dating a guy who, when he drank, did it to get completely falling-down pissing drunk, was a bit of a loser, and evidently fell “in love” at the drop of a hat. He became incredibly clingy. He would come to my job and hang all over me, trying to see how far he could ram his tongue down my throat until finally, I had to dump him. It was weird. I’ve never done the dumping before and I did it badly, as you can imagine. I mean, I’m all for PDAs and a little smoochiness, but there’s a time and place for that, and on the job isn’t it. Aside from that, he showed up at my house one night incoherent, drunker than any drunk I’ve ever seen and he crashed on my bed. And while he slept it off he peed all over the bed. I’d never been so disgusted in my life. Boy had to go.
He came to the steakhouse, where I was waitressing at the time, for dinner soon after the ‘Stephanie bought a brand new bed and set fire to the old one’ incident. Sat in my section, and I was kind of cold towards him. As I back and forthed between him and my other tables, I told him we should talk. He laughed and said jokingly, “What? You breaking up with me or something?”
I froze and stared at him until he copped on to my meaning. He dropped his fork and began to cry. Right there at the table, tears. Thing is, I didn’t feel bad. Just embarrassed and relieved that he would soon be out of my life. If that makes me a bitch, as he came to call me later when the bitter drunk-dialing began, then yes, I am a bitch.
Eventually the calls died off and I never saw/heard from him again. I assumed he’d left town because this town isn’t that big. Eventually you run into folk, you know? So that’s why I was so gobsmacked to see him working in my favourite grocery store. I go there all the damn time. I’d never seen him there before. Argh. Now I’ll have to shop at Walmart. Grrrr.
It’s been a long time since I dumped him. I’m sure he got over it and who knows, maybe he’s got his act together now (tho.. he’s a little older than me. And working as a stockboy.) I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I just want to be avoidy.
I have never and will never date another guy I met in a bar. Ever. That was the first and last time. Lesson well learned.
