By R. CHASE
Bachelor Behavior
My muscles ache, sweat drips from my brow, and my fingers twitch. Am I crazy? Do I have PTSD? Why does every minute tick by, in fear, as I stare at my phone, terrified of what comes next? I’m living a Pavlovian nightmare, every time I hear it buzz my heart skips a beat.
If you want to blame the demise of traditional relationships on something, stop looking at gay marriage and start looking into Facebook and cell phones. I can guarantee that a sext message at 2 a.m. from some freaky girl you dated three years ago will put a raging halt to your relationship a lot faster than that lesbian couple down the street.
What is it about a woman that imbues her with an almost mystical sense of bad timing? Ever since I had pledged my eternal love to Sunshine they came crawling out of the woodwork, marching like ants, blowing up my phone at every inopportune moment. Ex-girlfriends, ex-lovers, one-night-stands, it didn’t matter. They all received the universal message that I was no longer available and in some spasm of self-deprecation they came hurtling across the universe to try and lodge me from my lofty perch. Even Hot Yoga Girl, MIA for eight months, was calling me on a weekly basis, leaving random and meaningless messages in the wee hours of the morning.
Why does this happen? And more importantly, what should a man do about it?
Sunshine had the answer. It was written in the furrow on her brow. It was written in the droopy lines of her pretty smile that vanished so prominently every time my phone went off. She wanted them gone. Forever. Hacked out. But was that the best answer? Some of them were people I cared about. I wasn’t about to cut somebody out of my life just because she felt threatened.
It was perfectly fine for her to have screaming arguments with her husband on the phone in the middle of our dinner. The sword upon which she threw herself was decidedly single-edged. I had to endure beneath the dour strain of a bitter divorce, but one text message to me from an old girlfriend would send her into a fit of paranoid suspicion. If her sword was single-edged, her standards were most definitely not.
Here’s the problem with all those ex-girlfriends: some of them genuinely deserve your attention, as friends, and as human beings. But some of them were crappy people and you need to let go. Just because she sent you a pic of herself in a thong at 3 a.m. doesn’t mean she’s worth hanging on to. In fact, it means she really isn’t.
Two things permit a man to keep those old girlfriends floating around: vanity and reality. Vanity; because we like to think that we’ve ruined her for all other men (we haven’t). Reality; because, how long is this current relationship really going to last? If it doesn’t, maybe that hot, crazy woman you used to date has suddenly become sane (she hasn’t).
Like smoking, getting rid of the ex-girlfriend habit was harder than it seemed. I ignored the desperate pleas for attention. I deleted them from my contacts. But they only tried harder. They were determined to sabotage my happiness. It was a conspiracy.
And let’s not overlook the fact that I was happy – I was in love with a gorgeous, brilliant woman who made me feel like I could do anything. I wanted no part of these old flames who were far too selfish or narcissistic to make me feel like Sunshine did.
But there it was, the pale LCD light shining on the nightstand. Buzz buzz. “I miss you…” (No she doesn’t). Buzz buzz. “I love you…” (Doubtful). It’s just a woman looking for attention from somebody that isn’t giving it to her.
Sunshine was there, next to me in bed, with her wicked, suspicious eyes. I’d done no wrong. I’d committed no sin. But it didn’t matter. I was on trial, and the jury was her deep-seated insecurity that was neither rational nor under any judicial instructions to weigh the merits of the case on actual fact. There is no way to reconcile lack of trust. Like a cult, it’s a belief system completely separate from reality.
I couldn’t eradicate my romantic past any faster than she could erase her marriage. It was piling up, like a snowball rolling down a mountain.
And like an avalanche, it requires only the tiniest of triggers to send a thousand pounds of snow crashing down on your head.
Who would have imagined that one little vibration from a phone could collapse an entire relationship?
Contact R. Chase at YourVoice@voice-tribune.com.