Anyone who is close to me knows that I am the most dysfunctional person when it comes to dating. I am your typical stay at home, loves any and everything about the periodic table of elements and science (true chemistry major here), and can possibly set the record for fastest time consuming a medium pizza. Sounds like a dream, right?
Well, it took years of being an introvert to develop these dream qualities. I've never been the type of girl to put an emphasis on dating throughout my teenage years. Entering high school, I was coming out of the frizzy, curly, unkempt hair, wiry glasses, braces, "chunk monkey" stage (as my dad refers to it as). I dropped from a size 13 to a seven and slowly started to come into my own personal beauty. While others were focused on what they were doing that weekend with their boyfriends or girlfriends, I was dreaming of what school I would attend for my Bachelors. I always put my goals and dreams ahead of pursing someone to be in my life as a significant other. The introverted life I lived led to an aura of naivety that I entered college with.
My freshman year of college in September of 2012, I met a guy at a frat house while I was hanging out with friends. Sounds like a familiar tale for a bad ending, right? Well, this story took more twists and turns than I ever thought possible. He was a returning alumni with twenty-six years of life under his belt while I was a young, naive eighteen year old who was just discovering she had some kind sex appeal, whatever it may have been at the time. My naivety caused me to trust someone I had no business even giving any attention to. I had to learn this the hard way.
One night, at a party, I had been consuming a few drinks with friends and hanging out. I admit, I had pre-gamed a little too hard prior to leaving for the actual party. Yes, I know. Major party foul. At the party, I could feel myself getting sick from drinking and he knew I needed to leave. Of course, I was friends and didn't want to leave without telling them so I dug my heels in and stayed. I remember he got extremely angry with me and ended up leaving me at the party. After I found my friends and told them I needed to go, I somehow texted him and got him to come back to walk us back to the frat house because that's where we had started our night. The other girls were not ready to leave so he walked me back to campus and I had to sneak him back into the dorms so he could make sure I was okay. After a good comfort hurl and changing into my comfy pajamas, I crawled into bed with this guy I had been seeing, ready to drift off into a comfortable hangover sleep. He had other ideas. He kept talking to me in an effort to keep me awake and somewhat sober up. I still wanted to drift off to sleep. I remember having this burst of energy after an hour and that sleepy feeling was shoved to the back of my mind for a few minutes. He took this as an invitation to start kissing and touching on me. I recall thinking maybe if I give in, he'll let me go to sleep. I ended up losing my virginity to a drunken mistake that night. To make matters worse, he knew what he was doing from the start.
This mess of a relationship lasted for 9 months long distance with trips in between. I had flown out of state to see him (paying for my own ticket BTW) for a week. By day three, I was ready to leave. The whole trip was centered around his own sexual needs and fantasies as if I was some glorified sex object at his service. Needless to say, I got tired of the bullsh*t extremely quick and the naivety quickly faded away and I dumped him. Months later, I received a call from a girl that told me he had been talking to her as well and telling her that we were just friends. Thank you sir for showing me you are a grade A piece of sh*t. The experience did affect me, but I wouldn't learn until later what mindset he had put me in.
Fast forward to the summer before my junior year of college. I had already completed a year at my new school after transferring and decided to get out there in the dating world. I stumbled across Tinder and it led to several nights of swiping right and one-night stands that summer. Times I look back on for both laughs and regrets. After about a year to eighteen months on Tinder, I stumbled across my current ex that left a scar worse than an atomic bomb.
We started messaging over Tinder for 3 weeks before we actually decided to meet. He is in the army and stationed at Fort Stewart. He was six years my senior (I was 21 at the time). You would think I learned my lesson by now. Anyway, we had our first date in Savannah and really hit it off. A wonderful dinner overlooking the River Street and the Savannah dinner followed up by ice cream and wonderful conversation along the river. It was seeming perfect. We became inseparable as work schedules and a 45 minute distance permitted. Dinners during the week, spending entire weekends together, and even impromptu visits during the week just to fall asleep next to one another. He even met my close friends and my coworkers. These meetings were with mixed reactions. My best friend was immediately thrown off by him and was not feeling the relationship at all while I had a coworker and close friend who met him and loved him. Of course this caused a struggle between my best friend and I because this was the guy I really liked. Three months into the relationship, he started bringing up the idea of going to the courthouse and getting married. Don't fear, I was extremely against it when he brought it up and shut him down faster than an Xbox One.
The thought was nice though. I had a guy that was willing to accept me and my flaws, as well as love me while I was going through a lot of personal issues. To top it off, I almost allowed him to meet my dad, the most important person in my life. A huge deal for me. About four months in, I found a picture his mother had posted on Instagram with him, another female, and the caption "Lovebirds". I was hotter than the first level of hell in Dante's Inferno when I found it. I screenshot the picture with a message "who is this?" and let the games begin. Were the odds forever in his favor. I received an angry two minute voicemail as he was driving the 45 minutes to my house from base because I wouldn't answer my phone. He arrived with tears and "I'm sorry. I didn't know—blah blah blah." "She is just a friend I swear, nothing more." Classic signs of there's something more.
I should have left at that moment, but naive me chose to stay. A couple of months go by and he starts to become more distant. Then came the lies of a deployment and personal issues to where we didn't see each for a month. 45 minutes apart and you suddenly don't have time for me? Alright, let me step away and let you figure things out. The excuses mixed with me finding more pictures of him and the "friend", I became over the idea of being with him, but not HIM. After a week of not talking after we broke up, I was frozen dead in time with the biggest heartache of my life. With attempts to block me on both her Facebook page as well as his, it still got out. The Monday of my last week of finals for my Bachelors degree, I was slapped with the little black letters on Facebook: "Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. ****** " underneath a photo of him and his "friend" who was wearing a wedding dress.The "friend" was in fact the fiance. She of course lived nine hours away in another state and he was very keen on keeping "the single life" on his social media, while she on the other hand did not. I had no clue nor did my friends who were around him often. I mean, honestly, for six months up until the day you got married, you honestly want to do that to the woman you vowed to spend your life with?
Needless to say, I got through the rest of that week before graduation that Saturday with my best friend, her couch, and a bottle of Jack Daniels (yes, we made up like all best friends when a falling out happens).
Looking back, these experiences made me stronger as a person. Regardless of how awful the situation is, it happens more often than we'd like to admit. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Violence Center, one in 20 women report being sexually assaulted in college in the beginning of the year (with a year spanning seven months) with alcohol being a huge factor. If you have been a victim of sexual assault, you are not alone. There are others who have experienced a similar situation, myself included. Use different outlets such as friends and therapy to help you cope. My counselor did wonders for my life, and I cannot thank her enough.
As my younger sister prepares to leave for college, I thought back on all my dating experiences and pray she has a better experience than I did. I say I am a dysfunctional dater because I haven't quite grasped the idea of how to weed out those I don't need or how to categorize between a guy with boyfriend potential or only has a hook-up on his mind. I'm learning, but it's a process that will take time. I'm still repairing myself from these situations and the heartache, but I will rise above it, find my dream guy who is perfectly imperfect for my life, and become dis-functionally functional in the romance department. I live off of the motto "ask, believe, receive." Don't give up hope. You are so beautiful and loved in your life. Do not allow someone who is unhappy with themselves and has low self-esteem to try and ruin you with their actions. You can survive the tough times and come out a thousand times better than they ever will. Also remember that it was not your fault. There are times I lie awake at night wondering if there was a conspiracy against me to tear down everything I've worked so hard for. Truth is, there isn't. Although the situation was awful and should not happen to anyone under any circumstances, you will get through it and it will make you stronger. Look at your new personality and "I survived through your bullsh*t" attitude as a revenge body. Fiercer than ever and ready to take the world by storm. There is happiness after a devastating storm and I'm finding it every single day. You can too and I promise it is the most rewarding feeling you will ever have.
Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. "Campus Sexual Violence Resource List."National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) |. National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2016. Web. 12 Aug. 2016.
