Forgiveness

This week must be the week for all of my skeletons to trot out of the closet and say hello. There are only 3 people that I have ever made an effort to cut out of my life completely. Two were exes and one was a friend that I only knew online. The first was a guy I dated for a little while and then he proved himself to be completely insane so I cut things off with him. We had a big lame feud through our blogs and then eventually moved on with our lives. I mentioned in a previous blog that I unknowingly wandered into where he works a while back but I was able to leave before seeing him. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I ran into him somewhere around town. It happened on Sunday. I was at Walmart and had checked out toward the middle of the store and I was pushing my cart out of the store when I saw him. It was one of those horrible situations where you have a good 30 seconds to decide what you’re going to do but you can’t hide. In that 30 seconds I was kicking myself for wearing an ugly hat instead of putting product in my hair and I felt mangy since my beard was a tad out of control and I was wearing old ratty cloths. Luckily I had my nice long coat on so that covered most of me up. I could tell he was having the same thoughts and finally the moment came where we passed each other in the store. At the last minute he seemed to get very concerned about his cell phone and he seemed like he was going to pretend he didn’t see me. I was relieved for about a millisecond and then decided I had agonized over this too much to let him off the hook that easily. So, I said hello and called him by the shortened version of his name since I never called him by his full name when we were dating. He seemed surprised, smiled, and said “hi” back. And that was it. Quite the build up for an exchange of only 3 words… I was actually really relieved after that, since not knowing when I would run into him was worse than the actual event. I wish him no ill will, I would just prefer to never see him ever again. Since this is a small town, I will be civil. We both made mistakes.

Then last night, skeleton #2 came dancing out of the closet. I met this guy from Oklahoma online… gosh… was it last spring? Last summer? Two summers ago? A lifetime ago? I honestly don’t remember when. He seemed nice enough, smart, funny, very intuitive… so we chatted and got to know each other. He was planning on moving to Fort Collins soon for grad school and he was just trying to make a couple of friends before he got there. He had a tendency to say really insensitive hurtful things that got in under my skin. The shitty thing was that he was usually right most of the time, and that was why it bothered me so much. We had a few weird online fights every now and then and would eventually make up and things would be ok. Then one night we had this all out brawl where we both said a lot of really stupid things and I just logged out – today’s e-version of hanging up on someone. He immediately sent a really hateful text message to me, which I ignored. Then he proceeded to contact me using every email address and online profile I had. I woke up the next morning to a couple more text messages, a comment on my blog, and 2 emails. So, my “crazy meter” was going off the chart and I decided I didn’t want to have any more to do with this guy. I blocked him on every account I had and then sent him an email telling him that I was blocking him and that I would rather not hear from him ever again. Then I did something that surprised both of us. I told him I was going to leave him in my phone and that he could call me if something horrible happened once he got here and he needed help. I guess I just felt kind of bad for him since I knew he was moving so far from home and I was the only person he knew within 100 miles of his new home. He never used my number and I didn’t hear from him again for months and months, until last night. I logged on to gay.com – this horrible gay site that is supposedly the gay version of match.com or eharmony.com, except it’s mostly used by horny guys trying to get off. I am typically disappointed when I log on to chat, but I have met some of my best friends on there so I haven’t given up yet. Seconds after logging on I got an IM from him. I wondered for a second if he recognized my profile name since I had deleted my pictures some time ago (for good reason). But then I quickly realized that he did know who he was talking to. We had a somewhat awkward conversation that I wasn’t sure I wanted to have and he knew he was on thin ice. Then he finally just brought it up. He apologized in his way for being a jerk and assured me that he’s mellowed since moving to Colorado. I’m still skeptical. I couldn’t really even remember what our last fight was about so I looked it up in my chat history. I hate to admit it but I was just as much to blame. I was probably even the one that started it. But he was the one that went nutso on me with the texts and hurtful emails. I’m not sure what to do with him now. I don’t really feel like I can fully trust him to not do something like that again but at the same time I know when it happened he was just about to move hundreds of miles away from the only life he’s ever known and was incredibly stressed and scared. It was a pretty stupid fight, especially in hindsight. After our fight and in the months that followed his words really stuck with me. He said some pretty horrible things but they only hurt because they were mostly true. He had identified some of my worst traits and called them out, which is not something you want to hear… but it forced me to face them and start dealing with them. I’m probably a better person from having known this guy but I’m not sure I want a second dose.

Cautious optimism… I guess I can always use more friends.

I doubt skeleton #3 will come out this week, if ever. He’s probably too self absorbed to even remember me.