Side Effects of Dealing with Fuckboys

Y'all, the next time I get super bored on Sunday because I am sullen about how lonely I feel these days PLEASE remind me that that does not mean I should unblock certain fuckboy's who were recently banished to fuckboy island because I was feeling sad and despondent and lonely. Deal?

I am so annoyed with myself and lack of will. I recently discovered (aka was told repeatedly by multiple family members and close friends) that I don't set boundaries and this is why people take advantage and smother me to the point of exhaustion. And because I am on this continual journey of self discovery and growth..I naturally sulked as this truth floated to the surface with arrogant buoyancy. Fuck you truths, can you stop being a know it all for like 2 seconds!

There has been a drastic change in my life these last two years and for the first time in a while I feel...alone. Like I did in college, except worse because I now know what I am missing.  I don't have as many friends as I used to and my free time is endless. Gone are the days where I could barely squeeze in time to eat because I was hanging out with friends and dealing with Sean and working two jobs and going to the city every freaking weekend. Suddenly, there are quiet nights at home, weekend running errands and an occasional dinner date with friends if we can find the time to catch up.

But the level of activity has decreased ten-fold partly by my own doing but also because growing up comes with a lot of losses. People settle down, have children, move away and life just goes on. And while I know this, I live this, I must admit I am fucking miserable in my current state. I don't miss Kat or Matt or Sean but i do miss having plans and things to do and people to text regularly. I do miss being needed even though that meant being used.  In retrospect I was almost willing to accept the disrespect and the smothering and the meanness because they filled a space that was so empty before. I was so lonely and then suddenly I wasn't and for once I felt like I belong.

But those relationships weren't healthy: Kat was co-dependent, Sean was a sociopath and Matt...well Matt has narcissistic tendencies and he valued his time and sense of being more than anyone I have ever met. So I wasn't growing and evolving and living the best version of my life with those people in my life but am I living it now? Sure  I  made a swift exit from those relationships but I am now consumed by boredom. Utter boredom.

My day to day consists of: waking up extraordinarily early so i can make the rounds of all my social media accounts. I then get ready for work which involves giving myself a pep talk in the mirror followed by several instances where I utter " i really don't fucking want to go" before i drag myself to work. Then there are 8 hours of desk sitting, filed by maybe an hour of actual work but mainly just sitting and daydreaming and podcast and then music and desk sulking. Then i go home, prepare my lunch and outfit for the next day before falling asleep to ANOTHER Dateline marathon.

This is my life! And I guess this was kind of okay, when my weekends were filled with activity and interactions and friends but now they are sort of just filled with weekly Target runs and then self loathing. I am in such a transitional moment in my life and I am not adapting as well as I wish. I know that things will get better. I know that I am measuring my successes more harshly because FB keeps reminding me that people are "happy" and "coupled up" and living their best lives while I check my message-less phone and eat popcorn for dinner for the second night in a row because I am too lazy to microwave anything.

I know that there is so much in store for me and I just have to be diligent and also patient. But while this occurs, I miss certain things, I want new things, I crave stability while also wanting to just upend the status quo. And yes these are all contradictory wants but I am bored, oh so very bored. I am annoyingly looking for affirmation in all the wrong places and on Sunday after spending most of my day in bed watching another British cooking show, i started making excuses for Matt's poor behavior and disregard and general lack of respect because I feel...alone.

I know this is not a good reason to make any decision and since that lapse in judgment, I have installed all of the block measures again (except for the FB block because there is a 48 hour grace period to mourn your dumb mistake) because I deserve better.  What i wanted, didn't match up with who he was and what he wanted and he was wasting my time which is a huge offense.

The other day I was listening to the  podcast Small Doses by one of my favorite comedians Amanda Seales. She continually drops life gems on her Instagram page that punch me in the stomach with it's relevancy. So naturally it made sense to subscribe to her podcast for weekly advice and life lessons. Yesterday's podcast was about Fuckboys and the literal damage they are inflicting to the dating world. Until recently I did not think Matt fell into this category. He was a nice guy after all, well educated, culturally and socially woke on the surface, and champion for women.

But now that I look back on all of our interactions, I think Matt was the epitome of a Fuckboy because of his nice guy Schick. He'd talk openly about the #Metoo moment and respecting women but than would go into an hour long spiel about he couldn't really like a girl until he had sex with her. He constantly described what he didn't like in women which almost exclusively was looks based. She couldn't be too short, she could only have long hair, she couldn't wear rings (because he preferred bangles), she had to smell a certain way and wear specific colors, she had to also be a brown girl who didn't want to have children nor cats.

Under his "i'm a feminist" facade he constantly crossed sexual boundaries with me, that I let slide. He was never EVER physical but now that I look back on it, we talked about sex inordinately. And don't get me wrong, I love talking about sex but the only person who needs to know how many sexual partners i've had and whether I like "going down" should be a person who I am or will be in a relationship with. My platonic male friend should not ask the questions Matt asked of me and I regret that instead of shutting the inquiries down, I laughed and mistook it for affection. I mean he once asked me (in the  middle of watching a movie)  how many holes i'd be open to having filled in a sexual encounter and when I showed general discomfort at the question he laughed and said he liked girls who didn't embarrass so easily. 

He talked openly about his physical love for minorities and mainly brown females but expressed little sympathy for brown skinned men while also reverting to typical stereotypes to show superiority. He used to tell me all the time that he loved {insert specific dark skinned race] because the men in [insert same specific dark skinned race] don't treat them well. He'd say Asian men had small dicks and Hispanic men were not smart and African American males were prone to laziness. All of "these" men treated their women so poorly he was in theory "saving" brown women by loving them so much.

 It was always "god, I love black women BUT i don't understand why black men aren't smart and rely only on {insert black male stereotype} to get by. He made me as a black female feel like I should be grateful  that he took an interest in my beauty which society has been slow to accept. But his interest seemed more like a fetish than anything else.

I am fuming over these realizations now. It's been a month since I last talked or saw Matt but I clearly saw the signs early on but  i sort of just (as I always do) made excuses. I am still making excuses.  Once I have made up my mind about a person (either good or bad) I am too stubborn to change that initial perception even when presented with that facts. And I wanted Matt to work out for my own selfish reason.  My mom was happy that i found a guy and my friends were excited that I was finally about to be coupled up. And seeing that happiness from my friends and family were overwhelming. Like the only thing I was missing in my already decent life was a man. So i was willing to try and have him fit that mold until...well it and him crumbled under his fuckboy reality. 

But I cannot place all the blame on Matt. I have to take responsibility for the fact that I saw  past obvious red flags. It was weird enough that he reached out to me after a 5 year silence. Especially since we weren't that close at the store and had had several miscommunications while we worked together. It was strange when he called me his best friend after hanging out for a month. It was also weird that he wanted to regularly hang out at my house for 12 hours straight but had no interest in dating me. He was a time waster and it is not only clear that he reached out to me out of desperation but because he knew I'd respond. Like I always do because that is who I am an emphatic person who loves a good sob story.

But moving forward, I have to set boundaries and have standards and hold people accountable when and if something is crossed. I have to stop being so damn accommodating. For someone who can be opinionated and forceful with her words when I need to be...I tend to give romantic prospects the benefit of the doubt. I become submissive and passive and unlike my real self out of fear that they will reject me if they knew how strong I was. But who gives a fuck? Especially when this passive approach makes me susceptible to assholes.

So I am making a list. An Oh No list to figure out what my boundaries are so that I can be more explicit about them moving forward. I am sort of a a boundary-less person because I am a people pleaser and I want to be accommodating because I have mistaken it for showing devotion. But fuck that life. No more going out of my way to live up to someone else's expectation when all I am given back is scraps. Or worse....they do not live up to my own expectations.

So outside of the general "Oh no" deal breakers like: someone who is mean to children or animals, someone who expresses any sort of racism or discrimination or general cruelty to people, someone who is nasty to hospitality workers AND anyone who is a Trump Supporter (this does not mean conservative, this just means Trump supporter), I need to have a concrete list of unacceptable things that cross a boundary for me. I can only hope in doing so I can avoid these landmine of assholes in my periphery and maybe even pave the way for something greater. 

Birthday Miracle.

I have been a little mum on my financial situation these last few months because honestly I didn't want to jinx it and make it any worse than it is. I was fearful that even talking about how broke I was (am), how many bills I have forgone paying (except rent clearly) and how little food I have been eating was not something I wanted to put out in the atmosphere because I didn't want karma to have it all blow back in my face ten-fold because you know, life likes to kick you when you are down.

Honestly though, since December I have been living paycheck to paycheck...even tho my paychecks barely cover rent. This is literally the broke-st I have ever been in my whole life and I once lived off of 7.75 minimum wage at the library job when I was in college, so i know what broke looks and feels life.

I can't say my current lack of money has anything to do with quitting Le Sad Store but it did a little. Even though I only worked there two nights a week and I would bring home about $100 the cushion was nice. The hemorrhaging of money began with the big move in October, which led to money having to be spent on transportation (which never was an issue before) and now that I have a kitchenette the amount of food I spend on groceries has been in play concluding with my general cost of living...I simply don't make enough money at the University alone to pay for my life expenses.

The biggest issue has been the job at the University which recently cut the hours of all part time employees because the school is on the brink of bankruptcy. Instead of being able to work 30 hours a week we can only work max 20 hours, but that was the max was the best case scenario , since the cut and the snow days I probably work 15 hours a week and two weeks ago I only made $266 for the pay period. I may have cried so much I turned into a puddle for everyone to trek their soles through. It was depressing.

I immediately amped up my job search and got lost in the dark twisted world of temp agencies, job hunting websites and craigslist (which is an entity of it's own). For anyone who hasn't faced the desperation of job seeking, I will tell you quite painfully..it is the fucking pits. I'd wake up and apply to jobs, I'd search for listings on my phone on my way to work, i'd get to work and search and apply and repeat this process until my shift ended. Then, i'd go home to search and apply until I fell asleep. I spent 3 miserable weeks doing this, only to get less than a handful of interested employers.

And the few places I did apply to were great but fell through quickly:

there was an opening at the University for a full time job, in the city, with a bunch of job and fun employees (before my interview began, i heard someone crank up the radio because R.E.M was playing). I was probably older than the guy who interviewed me and we were both very informal and enthusiastic about me joining the department. But then he broke the bad news towards the end of my interview. The job's starting salary was less than my asking price (by like 10k) and while I was a shoe-in for the job he wanted to make sure I would be okay with the pay and having to commute to the city. Of course, I joyously replied that I would make it work because I wanted nothing more than to stay with the university. We shook hands and he walked me to the door and said he was looking forward to working together.

As soon as I got home I crunched numbers and realized I would not be able to live off of the salary and instead would be paying the University to work there. My paychecks per pay period would roughly be around $400 dollars ( 2 paychecks per month) and to put things in to perspective traveling to Manhattan per month alone is $436. While I was desperate and had no other prospects I emailed the interviewer and told him I could not accept the job offer but was grateful for the opportunity.

THEN, I had an interview with a publishing company in the city. My brief stint in publishing was not a great one. I love reading, I love writing but I simply have no interest of working in publishing.  Unfortunately, my degree and retail experience is tailored for the industry. I ended up finding a job at a small publishing company that was seeking a web savvy and adorable receptionist...and who else could fulfill the position but me. I interviewed with some awesome ladies and made an adorable impression on several of the employees (it involved me struggling to open the main door to the building, which lead to concern looks but eventual help from some of the staff smoking cigarettes outside). Before the interview ended they asked me for 3 references that they could contact. I scribbled down two of my current managers and then my friend Heather (who has helped me out so much with everything this past year). I placed Heather's name on the top of the list, hoping they'd call her and then left the interview feeling super confidant so much so that i spent the rest of the afternoon in the city hitting up comic book shops and flirting with booksellers.

But silence followed said awesome interview. No request for a second interview, no phone call, no rejection letter,  just nothing. I was so confidant that i'd gotten the job and so elated from the feeling of a new start that realizing I hadn't gotten it hurt. I just didn't understand why it didn't work out. A few weeks later my current boss called so we could go over some job related things. Before he hung up, he asked "do you know a woman named [insert interviewers name] she called a few weeks asking if I could provide some info on you but I was nervous it was a scam so I pretended like i didn't know who you were or what she was talking about". My heart freaking sank. He knew I was job hunting but he didn't necessarily know where or when and I made the mistake of thinking they would call Heather instead of my manager.

I slowly tried to recover from the setback but nothing clicked. I got a few calls from hiring agencies that all promised awesome opportunities to work in finance which only convinced me they hadn't properly reviewed my resume which showed little to no experience or interest in finance. I applied to several part time jobs in my neighborhood because of my eagerness to work anywhere but they were all looking for high school or college students..not me.

The week before my birthday my luck turned around, I got 5 interviews out of the 40 jobs I applied to and I spent 5 days talking about my self to various employers. It was rough.

One of the jobs i interviewed for was with a girlfriend of a friend who basically contacted me via facebook and told me there was an opening at her job and she wanted me to apply so we could work together. She used to work at Le Sad Store and dates my close friend Justin (they were the couple who threw the Halloween party where I learned all the crazy shit about Sean from his cousin). She is sort of quiet and withdrawn but super nice and every time there is a group outing she and Justin attend.  I wouldn't call us friends but she is definitely someone who I get along with and could become friends with down the line. Because we border on the friend/ associate border I was a little confused by her offer and general excitement to interview me (yes! she was the one giving the interview). So I took off from work, trekked to this lavish building and sort of hung out with her for a good 40 minutes while she went over the job and what i'd be doing.

She spoke as if the job was already mine and I asked questions as if the job was mine as well. I couldn't imagine her asking me to apply and interview with her only to be turned down for the job. That would be weird and insulting right, like dangling food in front of a starving person. Towards the end of the interview she admitted that she had interviewed a few other people but did not like them, obviously, as much as me but that ultimately she would not be the decision maker in who gets hired. She also added "so please don't hate me if you don't get hired. I really want you to get the job but my boss pretty much decides". She walked me to the elevators and then gave me a big ass hug and  I left sort of confidant but also pretty sure i'd have to move back to South Carolina if I didn't get this job.

As soon as I got home and undressed I got a text from Justin's GF "i have great news...call me back". Two minutes later she giggly said the job was mine if wanted it because her boss felt confidant with whomever she, Patricia, wanted to hire. And with that I now officially have a new job with benefits that pays well and I don't even have to work on the weekends.

I start this Thursday (current boss, perhaps feeling guilty for the reference fumble so he was okay with me starting the new job sooner than usual) and am nervous but also very excited. I have never had a full time job before. I have also never had money, livable or disposable income. I have had such a shit year I wanted nothing more than to enter my 29th one with a renewed sense of possibilities. And all of a sudden, almost out of nowhere I have been given one. It feels strange and odd and yet necessary like the more I distance myself from the missteps of Sean and Le Store and my old apartment and the endless tears the better the outcome for my life.

At least that is what i hope. So yay! I hope this trend of good news continues. I could seriously use a break and a change for once.