So my seemingly almost-perfect boyfriend still had his nice moments, even though we were starting to struggle. For his birthday, we spent the whole day together, going to breakfast in the morning, and when I asked him what he wanted to do for the day, my treat, he just wanted to chill at home with me. Even though I tried to coerce him into doing something exciting, that ended up for him being tackling my garage. So we spent his whole birthday cleaning and organizing my garage, all so he could potentially park his car in there when he stayed over. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it much before, but Mr. Almost-Perfect was a bit of a projector, he often talked about our future together, what-if-we lived together, got married, etc. and though it freaked me out a bit (and I did tell him so a few times, but in a nice way) it was also almost refreshing to be dating someone who could see a future with me, and wasn’t afraid to say it. Of course, this also worked against me the next weekend, when he told me that he was starting to have doubts, especially since I was older than he and he was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to have kids if he decided he wanted some in a few years. Now, I am 32, and I realize that while that isn’t crazy young, I have never felt old before, and I have certainly never dated someone who called me out on it. Mr. A-P was younger, by four years, but I never thought of it as a big deal. How was that for projecting, all the sudden my ovaries were drying up, and I never even realized that I may not be able to have his future babies. He also ‘jokingly’ told me that I looked a lot older than him, another thing I never thought.
Backing up a bit, after spending his birthday together, Mr. Almost Perfect told me that he wanted to have some people over for his birthday mid-week. I had yet to meet his friends, so I suggested that he have a night with his friends alone. He seemed a bit thrown off by the fact that I suggested it, but I’ve always thought it’s good to have time apart when dating. I will admit that on Wednesday when he was hanging with his friends and I didn’t hear from him all night, I did feel a bit sad and wondered if he missed me at all, but it wasn’t a big deal. So I thought. Two nights later, I was out with a friend for dinner and drinks and Mr. A-P was a bit annoyed (yes, it was “date night”, but I’d had these plans for a while), and asked me to come over when I was done. I told him I didn’t know when I’d be finished, but I could probably come over. So I wasn’t expecting to get a text from him while I was out, telling me that he was having doubts about us and about whether we could really make each other happy. It sounded like a breakup text, and I was so thrown off by it. I was out with a friend, just trying to have a good night, and this is what he sends me? Through text?? Needless to say, that definitely put a damper on my evening. I told Mr. A-P I’d come over when I was finished and we could talk about it then, and later got a few texts about how he wished I would get there quickly because he missed me. I was so confused, and when I went to his house later and he hugged me and wouldn’t let go I didn’t know what to think. When we started talking, he seemed surprised that I took his texts as him wanting to break up, but that’s when he told me that he now had serious concerns about our future. I mentioned the fact that “I’m old”, but he also didn’t think we had enough interests in common. I mentioned in my last post, Mr. A-P had this “best friend” that he met online, and he went rock-climbing with her at least once a week, they did this ninja warrior thing, and I always heard about how amazing she was, so I knew he was referencing her. I asked him then if he would ever date Michelle, and he told me “well, not right now”. Not very reassuring, especially since he had just spent the evening watching a movie with his phenom best friend. For the record, I had told him several times I would love to try rock climbing, but he never invited me. I had a feeling he wanted his alone time with Michelle. He also was concerned about our differing dating style, because I had let him hang with his friends alone on his birthday (he wanted his girl glued to his side I guess), and the fact that I had had a freak out a bit over a week prior. Color me confused, but we talked throughout that evening and decided we definitely wanted to continue dating. I mostly had this awful feeling that I had broken the perfection bubble that we’d had the beginning of our relationship, and it was my fault that he was now freaking because of my freak-outs. I vowed to myself that I would work harder to make him feel comfortable and I definitely wouldn’t have any more freak-outs.
However, while I was trying to keep the peace between us and make him feel comforted in our relationship, I kept having this nagging feeling that he wasn’t Mr. Almost-Perfect at all. He no longer wanted to come to my house, and he always expected me to be available when he was, and got upset if I had other plans when he was free. But when I asked him to set a date for us to hang, he couldn’t commit, because he was much too busy. I’d go to his house, just to watch him “work” on his computer for hours (and he didn’t have cable or any good books to read), but if I asked him to look up something on the internet for me, he’d get annoyed because it didn’t have anything to do with him. The worst came the day after our big fight. It was Saint Patrick’s Day, and I had told him I wanted to go drink some green beer with friends. He wanted to go rock climbing with Michelle in the afternoon, which I was fine with, and he suggested I just chill at his house, he’d be back in two hours and then we’d go out. When he left at 1:30, I did his dishes to be sweet and popped in a movie. At 3:30, he wasn’t home yet, which wasn’t a big deal, but 3:30 turned into 4:30, which led to 5:30. I was getting annoyed, I texted him to make sure he was okay around 5, and I didn’t hear from him. Finally, at close to 6, he called and said “sorry, I started talking to people. I thought about calling you, but forgot”. I was beyond annoyed, we’d just had a big fight, where he tells me that I don’t have enough interests in common with him as Michelle, and now he spends all day with her (and the evening before- and they had ninja warrior coming up the next evening). Another thing he mentioned the night prior when he was freaking was how I spent so much time with my boys (even when they were gay) because when I did it they were “date-style hangouts” but when he did it, it was okay, because it wasn’t going out to dinner or to a bar for drinks. He “didn’t value eating and drinking” like I did he had told me, so I knew I had to do it with other people, I didn’t understand this thought. I just couldn’t believe that he couldn’t even call me and let me know he was running really late. To top it off, now he was so sore from his hours of rock climbing that he didn’t feel like doing much. We tried to go out to eat, but all the restaurants had waits (some as short as a ½ hour) so we ended up buying food at the grocery to get food to cook, and he promised that we would still go out for green beers. After dinner however, he promptly fell asleep on the couch, before 9:30pm. My evening, and great weekend, was shot.
A couple more things started during this new phase of our relationship I have NEVER experienced with other people I’ve dated (and I’ve dated a lot), was Mr. Almost-Perfect started getting a bit too comfortable for my tastes. He started by farting- all the time! I had introduced him to the Bolt House Farms juice/smoothies, which he drank a lot, and he blamed those (and me) for his new-found gassiness. That was bad enough, but then he started going to the bathroom with the door open. I hate hearing people pee, so that was bad, but then when I got out of bed and walked by the bathroom (which is in my bedroom) and he was SITTING on the toilet, I was so grossed out. Too soon was an understatement, I could go my whole life without having to witness that, but he just found it funny. I also found out that he still had a profile on OkCupid. I didn’t meet him from that site, but I knew my friend had first thought of setting us up because we both were Christians and had been on that site. But when I saw him going through his phone (and I wasn’t snooping, we were on the couch next to each other) and saw his OkCupid app, I asked him about it, and he told me that he hadn’t gotten rid of it because we kept having problems. Over two months in a relationship and he was still on a dating site? I was not happy with that thought. He told me he would get rid of it, but I will say that even after our trip to Tennessee together, weeks later, he still had his profile on that site.
So I had started to see his selfish side, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that Easter weekend, when I made him a cute Easter basket with a bunch of goodies, instead of being excited and appreciative, he went through the basket rooting through picking out what he liked, making comments about what he didn’t, and didn’t even say thanks. We had already made plans to go to Gatlinburg the next weekend, and I was seeing all these bad sides of him continue so I really was doubting everything we had. But it was mostly one of those things where when we were together, we were pretty awesome, and apart, it wasn’t great and we were both doubting so much. I thought going to Tennessee and hiking could be great, but it could also result in us fighting a lot.
Tennessee trip, next time…