My Latest Break-Up

Ok, break-up is a strong word here. We only dated for a couple of months (during which I was on vacation for several weeks), and we never even had the exclusivity talk. I was introducing him to people as my "friend," for crying out loud! But alas, I can't think of a better word or term for ending a brief relationship, and even the word "relationship" makes it seem like a bigger deal than it was. 

Anyway, I will admit that I kind of knew from the get-go that this would just be a summer fling. I already knew there were certain things about him that didn't make him a good life partner (read on), but he owns a boat, and gosh darn it, I wanted to go boating this summer! So I knew this wasn't going to last, but I figured we could still have fun for a little while. 

I'll list the reasons why he wasn't the right guy for me, starting with the more minor issues and getting to the biggies at the end:

• He was spitty. And I don't mean he would spit when he talked, or that he would hock loogies or anything like that. He's just one of those people who always seems to have saliva not only in but around his mouth, with the tell-tale white stuff in the corners of his mouth. He isn't a particularly slobbery kisser if it's on the lips, but he would leave wet kisses on my cheeks or forehead, to the point that I'd have to discreetly wipe my face off with the back of my hand. And he frequently sounds like he has a frog in his throat, but he won't clear his throat, so he just keep talking with the phlegm stuck there. It made me want to gag! I was thinking, "Man, just cough! Or drink some water. Do something!"

• He bragged about the wrong things. No one likes a bragger, but I can understand it if you're super-successful, have accomplished something few others have, etc. But this guy would brag about stuff that no woman wants to hear from her partner. He repeatedly would call himself a jackass or an asshole, but tried to make it sound funny or cute. Those are two words I don't want anywhere near the man I'm with. Why would I want to be with someone who acknowledges he's a jerk AND tells people about it? And on multiple occasions (we'll get to that later) he told me that he would have been the "cautionary tale" for coke, which he claims he would have loved if he had ever tried it. Maybe don't tell anyone that you're the kind of person who would have OD-ed on coke and would have liked it.

• He states the obvious. I don't know if he's trying to make himself look smart, or thinks women (i.e. me) are stupid, or if he just wants to fill the silence and can't think of anything else to say. But he regularly says things that are so obvious. I saw a church sign that said, "Mass on the grass," and I pointed it out thinking the rhyme was fun. He responded, "That's definitely a COVID thing." No shit! (and that's what I said to him, too!). Or when we were at the Brantley Gilbert concert (read that blog post here), he kept repeating that people were smoking pot or cigars. I have a sense of smell! I don't need you to tell me this; I am aware. You know the saying, "Don't speak unless you can improve the silence" ? I don't think he's ever heard it.

• He wasn't a good story teller. I'm an extrovert, and when I'm with someone (be it a friend, a partner, etc.), I want to have good, entertaining conversation. He could not do that, and it goes beyond him stating the obvious. For one, he repeated a lot of the same stories, and we had only been dating for a few weeks. I can't listen to the same boring stories for the rest of my life! He made me think of the famous saying, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." He's definitely more in the average/small minds category. He was also a slow talker: he'd start a story and then just randomly stop; you had to wait a beat or two before he started talking again. And he used a lot of filler, like "um" and "you know" (during which I had to bite my tongue and keep myself from screaming, "No, I don't know!" EVERY time he said it). It was actually exhausting listening to him talk. 

• He's misinformed. I like learning new things from my partner. It's fun to have someone who can expand my horizons. But if you're going to teach me something, it better be right. He would say things that I clearly knew were untrue, but I didn't want to seem like a know-it-all by correcting him (and honestly, as a man, he didn't want to hear it and be corrected by a woman anyway). For example, his neighbor kept mentioning that she had seen hummingbirds recently, and he told me that she was mistaken because the birds would have already migrated. WRONG! Hummingbirds can been seen in Maryland throughout the entire summer. Or the time he told me I shouldn't eat tilapia because it contains a lot of mercury. NOPE! Not only is this a smaller fish (and wouldn't have issues of bioaccumulation [a big word that I'm sure he's never heard] like swordfish or other larger fish would), but most tilapia is farm-raised, so the fish aren't coming into contact with pollutants in the ocean. I can't be with someone who not only believes but spreads such obvious lies. 

• He's a bad pet owner. Well, he may not have always been; he is still obsessed with his Newfoundland that died many years ago. But he's not the first man I've met who compares his new pet to his old one, and there is no comparison, so he never loves the second one as much. He adopted a dog during COVID, but I don't think he thought that through. He and I actually met a few years ago, but we only went on two dates because our schedules were so busy and we couldn't find time to hang out. And he's just as busy now, so I'm not sure why he thought he'd have time for a dog. She's terribly overweight, but that's because he takes her out for, what, maybe 20 minutes a day? Any large dog, but especially one that is overweight, needs 45-60 minutes of walking every day. Most of the day she's just left in a small section of his townhouse, just laying around waiting for him to come home. He also lets her get into things that she shouldn't, and then she gets sick. She chewed up and swallowed not one but two leashes, and both times she had to go to the veterinarian. He also gives her stuffed animals as toys, which is fine, but he lets her swallow the stuffing, which is NOT okay; instead of taking away the toy once she's punctured a hole, he lets her keep eating it. And she frequently licks a certain spot incessantly, and instead of checking out what might be wrong, he just tells her to stop; what if she has a hot-spot or a wound? He straight up said that he wouldn't spend a lot of money on this dog, especially at the end of her life like he did with his first dog. You should treat your pet like family: you will not spare any expense to save your pet. And if that's not how you feel, you shouldn't have a pet. 

• He's not a healthy person. Health and fitness are extremely important to me. You only have one body, and if you aren't healthy, it has negative impacts on every other part of your life. You should treat your body like a temple! And he does not. He used to be an alcoholic, and while he never admitted to smoking, he chewed nicotine gum incessantly, so clearly that was a former vice as well. And I know some people would say, "Good for him for quitting the drinking and smoking," but those are problems that are 100% preventable and never should have happened in the first place! I don't want to be with someone who is stupid enough to even get to that point (and I should say that he told me he became an alcoholic because he loved to drink, not because he had Daddy issues or was trying to hide some pain/trauma, etc.). He also doesn't exercise; he thinks being a lacrosse goalie twice a week counts (ahem, it does not). He has a tradition of eating Wendy's before every game yet claims he "rarely eats fast food." Sir, do the math: you have games twice a week, which is eight times a month...that is not "rarely" eating fast food. That is regularly putting garbage food into your body. And if it weren't for me packing picnics, we would have been eating Royal Farms fried chicken on the boat, another activity he does every week!

• He doesn't care about the environment. I grew up in a rural area near nature; our family vacations were mostly to national parks; I was an environmental studies major in college; before my current job I had exclusively worked for environmental non-profits. So clearly protecting nature is a passion of mine. And he could not care less about it. He doesn't recycle, uses single-use plastics (water bottles, Keurig cups, etc.), spits his nicotine gum out in the water... He doesn't care at all what impact he has on our planet. And while he agrees that climate change is happening, he thinks it's all part of a natural cycle and that people aren't the main cause of global warming. What a moron! 

I just...can't. And that isn't even covering the fact that he's been divorced, that he used to have insane credit card debt... He's just not at all what I am looking for in a long-term partner. And it got to the point that the boat wasn't worth the headache... So...buh bye.