In the summer of 2004, I took a part time position as a telephone interviewer. The work was mindlessly simple; I dialed phone numbers (usually without response), and in the unlikely event that the person on the other end of the line agreed to talk, I administered a survey and entered their responses into the computer. The surveys were, as such studies typically are, banal and uninformative.
We administered the same survey for months; it was about fatherhood. Or rather, it was supposed to be about fatherhood; it asked questions about marriage and divorce, yet not a single question mentioned children. Whatever.
I sat in the same cubicle every day, in the corner right next to the door. I typically sit on the edge in seating arrangements so I can escape easily if need be. In the cubicle next to me sat a thirty-ish guy we will call V8. Yes, as in the revolting tomato juice. No, not because he drank it. Well, he did, but that is not how he earned the nickname.
I first noticed him when I overheard him on the phone administering a survey. He sounded more mature than my college-aged coworkers, and indeed he was one of very few employees who was not under twenty-one. I'd always had a thing for slightly older guys, mostly because guys my own age were always too immature. V8 looked about thirty and had wavy, dark brown hair that I liked. He wore thick glasses over blue eyes, which, out of pure narcissism, I also liked. I also noticed that he seemed to be on good terms with our bosses and did extra work. I began looking for him around work, curious about the mysterious stranger. I sneaked a look at the papers on his desk during a break one day and used his employee number to refer to the schedule posted on the wall, from which I gained both his name and his usual working hours. I made a point of dressing more nicely when I knew he'd be there, and my efforts paid off. One night when several of us were sitting around the lounge in between shifts, he walked past me on his way out the door.
"Do you—Do you make your own clothes?" he asked. I looked up, surprised.
"Some of them," I replied somewhat truthfully. I made very few of my own clothes since I couldn't stand sewing, but I did enjoy knitting.
"You do a really good job of it," he told me. I wondered whether to feel guilty and decided against it.
"Thank you." He left; my coworkers stared; I pretended not to notice and went back to reading my book.
V8 and I did not talk again for a few weeks, during which time I agonized over whether we would speak again, what about, and what to say. I didn't want it to be like the Spanish Class Guy all over again, where one awkward non-conversation was all that never happened.
At length, I got my chance. While V8 was administering a survey next to me one day, I overheard him discussing the subject matter with the person on the other end of the line. V8 voiced concerns regarding his own capabilities as a potential father. (Note: Thank GOD that never happened.)
After he hung up the phone, I made my fatal mistake and leaned around the cubicle wall.
"I wouldn't worry about the whole fatherhood thing if I were you," I said. (Fair enough, in retrospect, since it would never be an issue.)
"What?" he asked, looking shocked.
" . . . I said, 'I wouldn't worry about the whole fatherhood if I were you.'"
This led to a brief discussion on my own father and former stepfather, which led to a longer discussion during our fifteen-minute break. My father had been a single father; my stepfather was an abusive creep who'd faced multiple jail sentences. I played the two against each other, summarizing the tumultuous years following my mother walking out and my lasting resentment. V8 was fascinated, and we kept talking when we saw each other at work.
A few nights later, V8 and I went to a park near a hotel and talked. He put his arm around me, which led to a kiss on a park bench. Indeed, he ended up unbuttoning my shirt, with which I was rather uncomfortable but not uncomfortable enough to complain. Nowadays, of course, if a guy unbuttoned my shirt on the first date, I'd flee there and then. Actually, I'd flee upon realizing that he was a thirty-one-year-old guy in a part time job and driving an SUV and without a history of any real relationships, but, well, you have to make mistakes in order to learn from them. And did I ever make mistakes.
Our first fight occurred on the very first day we were officially together, when I was supposed to follow him to work from a local hardware store. I had never been there and didn't want to get lost, so he was supposed to lead the way. When we left to head to work, he didn't bother to wait for me before pulling out into traffic, immediately losing me. We communicated via cel phone for several blocks as he tried to instruct me; I was angry both that he left without checking on me and that his directions were useless, confusing, and redundant. I told him never mind, hung up, and found my way to work by myself. Regrettably, I had the sense not to end a relationship over something so relatively mundane. We talked it out, and I forgave him. I dismissed it as a minor episode and was pleased with myself for not letting it spiral out of control the way it would have with Stalker. I resolved to maintain this level of practicality and overlook minor problems, which of course resulted in me later overlooking not-so-minor problems as well.
Over the course of the next three weeks, I liked what I learned about V8. He didn't smoke and rarely drank; he was not religious, or at least, he didn't obsess about it and didn't care that I was an atheist. Unlike my last serious relationship, he was okay with my choice of major (Radio-Television-Film) and didn't pretend to know all about it or tell me to change it.
However.
Trouble comes in many forms: Guys don't have to be abusive or shiftless losers to drag you down; sometimes "trouble" can mean "just plain annoying." For example, I soon learned that V8 participated in those Landmark seminars, which, to the uninitiated, well . . .
If that douchey picture from the index page of their site doesn't tell you why they suck, I don't know what will. But, determined not to start a fight over something that apparently mattered to him—I recalled my lasting resentment of the Republican, who disparaged all that I held dear—I kept my mouth shut and stayed with him.
V8 made himself annoying in other ways fairly quickly. I learned that he was from Wisconsin, which was interesting since all my exes were from Texas.
"Why did you move here?" I asked.
"I wanted to move for work," he said. "I wanted to start a business, so I studied the demographics, and Austin seemed like the best place to start a business. I got a job and moved down here, but that job laid me off."
I asked him about what kind of business he wanted to start, but he never did provide a detailed answer. His lack of description was, of course, a warning sign, but between not knowing much about business and not knowing how to recognize trouble, not to mention my reluctance to start fights, I didn't mention it. Nowadays I would dump a guy I didn't have anything in common with; back then, I tried to tell myself that genuinely caring for each other was more important than liking similar things. I have since learned that it is vital to have your cake and eat it too. Actually, I probably realized it even then but pigheadedly persisted. Needless to say, fights arose quickly enough.
V8 had lived in Texas for a couple of years and still had no grasp of the South, constantly making blatant generalizations based in stereotypes. I grew increasingly annoyed at his ignorance which remained impermeable to common sense, but I tried to be patient.
I also learned that the reason V8 was never at work on Thursdays was because he attended a local weekly dance. I have never cared for dancing except for ballet; I certainly had no interest in joining him in swing dancing with a lot of strangers. V8 of course eventually dragged me, and I resolved to go just to see what the women were like. My jealousy was justified since V8 idiotically told me about one of the women there who he "used to be" in love with. I later learned that it had really only ended a bit before he met me, which in turn caused me to wonder if it were really over. Actually nothing had ever happened in the first place, but it was still disconcerting.
I went to one dance with V8. I wore a skirt, determined to out-pretty this other woman V8 still saw, albeit supposedly innocently, on a regular basis. I did not like my surroundings and left fairly quickly. I noticed the woman he'd told me about looking at me oddly, which irked me. I fretted quietly for some weeks, trying not to make trouble. One night I finally brought it up, albeit in a roundabout way.
" . . . How do you decide which women to ask to dance?" I inquired.
"I knew you'd ask that," he sighed, quite pissily, I thought. I quirked an eyebrow and waited. "Well . . . I look at them and try to decide if she looks good—" —here I glared— "—I mean, looks like she's in a good mood, and I base it on that." (Some weeks later, when I was deciding how to break up with him, I recalled this incident and based my dumping in part on his apparent shallowness.)
We'd been together for several weeks now, and around this time, V8 began talking about taking things to the next level, meaning physically. Probably because he was older, he just assumed that we would be sleeping together. Nowadays I take that as a given in a new relationship, but at twenty-one, I was still a virgin and terrified. Yet it happened. I thought about it, thinking about everything I'd ever heard about virginity being a virtue (which I did not believe) and that it should be within the confines of marriage (which I believed even less). As Voltaire said, "God created sex. Priests created marriage." I'd also heard that it should be lost to the right person, which I did believe. I realized that V8 was in all probability not the right person, but I concluded that I wanted to get it over with so that I could enjoy it later down the road. Not a good reason, but it's never bothered me. So it happened. For the sake of not becoming any more squeamish than I already am in writing this, I'll just say that, holy crap, they weren't kidding about the pain. Even with a huge bottle of lube, I've never experienced pain like that in my life. Once again, thank God that's over with. I think I deliberately did it with the wrong person because I wouldn't have wanted to mark a really good relationship later on with that kind of pain.
It was now mid-September. V8 and I had a few good weeks of conversation and sex, though after the first couple of times, when I expected the sex to get better, it actually got worse. V8 appeared to suffer from a form of erectile dysfunction, about which he was utterly in denial. His incapability of sustaining an erection was extremely frustrating, though arguably not as bad as his belief that was dynamite in the sack. First, he genuinely believed that he was a pro at what he did; second, he never did anything that I hadn't already done in high school. Stalker, for all his faults, had a kinky side with which he was willing to experiment. Thusly, V8's attempts at wowing me with light bondage fell totally flat. Of course, as with aforementioned dysfunction, he was all talk and no action: He frequently talked about hardcore fetishes, describing elaborate suspension bondage, nipple clips, and so on, yet never acting on any of his apparent fantasies. Admittedly, I would have refused to participate since I am highly resistant to mixing pleasure with excruciating pain and do not appreciate the thought of bloodshed in bed. Nevertheless, the furthest practical realization of any of his talk I ever saw was a fair-sized ball gag he had purchased before meeting me. He kept it in a bedside drawer and never used it on me. I think I may have avoided that one by citing my sensitive gag reflex. Still. I wouldn't have said no to a simple handkerchief-style gag, but apparently that wasn't good enough; thusly it never happened.
I also realized quickly that his imagined expertise was in actuality severely limited: He never seemed interested in doing anything other than missionary style, in bed. I wanted to experiment with both positions and places, but he, apparently believing his prowess needed not creativity, never did fuck me like an animal.
I did, of course, tell him that I wanted to do something more interesting without reenacting his precious Story of O, which he had me read, presumably in an attempt to convert me to hardcore sadomasochism. On that tangent, I believe he actually did want to brand me, but as with everything else he did, it never got near that, and had I gone along with it, it undoubtedly would have been botched and anticlimactic. As it was, the closest we ever came to anything resembling one of his erotic stories or porn manuals (he had a couple of sex manuals, which by the way I have learned to look for as a warning sign with guys; if he needs a manual, he's either not creative or can't do it right by himself) was the scarf incident.
I had revealed to V8 that I was not opposed to being tied up as long as it wasn't painful, meaning no awkward positions that would cause me to cramp up. He discovered fairly quickly that my right shoulder is not as flexible as my left, but rather than listening to me, he tried to tie me up anyway. I yelled at him and made him untie me. He sent me to a chiropractor friend of his. I noticed right away that my complaints of my chronic lateral ankle pain didn't faze him, but my shoulder in inconveniencing him was cause for concern. Whatever. I went to the chiropractor, whom I instantly distrusted since his office was filled with New Age crap and the doctor himself did not conceal his attraction to me very well. I told V8 that his friend made me uncomfortable, the obvious interpretation of which he dismissed and said I just needed to find a doctor I liked. Already distrustful of chiropractic in general and now thoroughly disgusted, I put my foot down and said V8'd just have to find a different way of tying me up. Sadly, he chose to do so on an occasion when I didn't want him to. I lay there telling him repeatedly I didn't want to be tied up; he laughed and ignored me and grabbed a scarf I'd knitted to tie around my left wrist. Knitting, of course, is highly stretchable; thusly the scarf was not tied as tightly as he believed. So, when V8 set to work on my right wrist, I covertly wriggled free of the scarf. I bunched it up in my hand and flung it across the room. He heard the soft —plop— of it hitting the carpet, looked over his shoulder, realized what I had done, and burst out laughing. I laughed too, but not without also yelling at him for ignoring me. He never tried to tie me up again.
Of course, the sex problems didn't end there. V8, like many guys, expressed an interest in anal sex, which I at the time was repulsed by. I might have been more willing had he not been so damn arrogant about it.
"No," I said.
"Well, we'll see. One night when you're really relaxed, I'll just slip it in." Idiot.
"Try it and I'll hit you over the head with a cast iron skillet within ten seconds."
He didn't bring it up again.
Now, though I hate to drag this viscerally gross tangent out any further, I should explain how V8 got his name. Yup, it's relevant to ass play.
I once was at V8's apartment, rooting through the pantry for a snack. I spied some empty V8 bottles on the pantry floor and inquired if they were intended for recycling.
"Uh, no," he said.
"?"
"Well, they're for ass play."
"—"
"I mean, when I'm alone. That's what they're for."
"!"
Yup. He liked to stick the neck ends of the glass V8 bottles up his ass. 
Apart from being just plain gross, this was also just plain stupid. If you want to stick something up your ass, spend a small amount of money on a real toy made for the purpose, not a glass bottle that could break and rip apart the delicate, sensitive tissues of your nether regions. It's a bit unlikely that the bottle would break, but there's no sense in risking it. I mean, we've all heard stories of people winding up in the emergency room for surgical removal of items they've "sat" on, which must be painful, never mind if it's fucking glass shards. Not wanting this to happen to me, I vehemently resisted V8's overtures regarding ass play. He clearly had no idea what he was doing.
Now. I did not ask for details regarding V8's private ass play, but he provided them.
"I pretend that I'm giving you some hot sex—" —here I failed to suppress an inappropriate (albeit totally deserved) snort of derisive laughter, which he ignored— "—and I put an old sock on my cock and rub against that basketball—" —here I was extremely relieved that I had never touched the mysterious basketball on the floor of the unathletic V8's room— "—and, well, stick the bottles up—"
"—Oh."
I began wondering if V8 were really straight. I mean, yes, he was with me, but if he could masturbate successfully while alone and with something phallic up his ass, yet he couldn't stay hard longer than five minutes when he was actually with me . . . well . . .
Needless to say, the sex never did improve. By November (about two and a half months in), I realized that the relationship was a mistake, and it was really showing. As if the bad sex weren't enough, V8 had revealed himself as a moocher with a penchant for various pseudo sciences. I recalled the chiropractor incident and tried to write it off as a legitimate interest in my health, but secretly I knew it was rubbish. V8 also visited an acupuncturist, which I really couldn't accept as a real science; not to mention I wondered how it was that V8, who had no money, could afford to go. As I said, V8 mooched off of me something terrible; this was due to his lack of cash. His lack of cash was partly due to the crappy part time job as a telephone interviewer and partly due to his staggering $150,000 in debt. Yes, six digits. I didn't learn about this up front, obviously, or else I never would have dated him. I learned about the debt by gleaning clues over the course of a couple of months, such as how he never answered his phone since he was trying to avoid his creditors. I couldn't begin to fathom how he got so deep into debt; he certainly didn't have anything to show for it. If I spent $150,000, I'd have a house full of nice furniture with a fancy new car in the garage. V8, however, lived in a small apartment in a shady area of town with hardly any real furniture in it; what he did have was hand-me-downs from older relatives. He also had nothing decorative in the place save his ball gag. I realized that he was the quintessential spendthrift: He spent money on stupid, small, gimmicky items for his apartment ("as seen on TV" type things) but never took me out to eat or even had much food around his apartment. Instead, we always ate at my house, or he expected me to cook for him. Yes, expected. He would provide me with ingredients and describe what he wanted so he could have it at his place. Obviously, that didn't happen more than about twice before I yelled at him, after which I didn't invite him to my place as much and didn't bother cooking at his place.
Sometime in October, I recalled how he'd said he wanted to start a business but never did elaborate. It had been a couple of months, and his talk (as usual) never led to any action. He was unhealthily obsessed with all things business and corporate. He even treated dealing with me like a business transaction. He'd call me and say he wanted to "touch base" with me. I refused to respond when he left those messages on the machine. I said that not only was that an idiotic cliché, but I also wasn't a business transaction; I was flesh and blood and most emphatically not business, and oh by the way did I mention that I hated business? He tried to cover his ass (tee hee, by the way) by saying that a lot of terminology in both romance and business was interchangeable. I didn't bite.
While his aggravating business terminology ceased, his corporate obsession continued. He had way too many papers. Everywhere. At one point, his papers started accumulating at my house. I predictably became annoyed and attempted to sweep them into a giant pile and get them the hell off my desk, and he yelled at me, with a truly frightening look:
"Why'd you just do that?!"
"Get this shit out of my personal space before I get extremely personal with bits of your space," I informed him. I seriously considered dumping him just for that, and I still don't know why I didn't.
Now in mid-December, V8 and I went to see The Nutcracker. Some six weeks earlier, I had offered to take him. He agreed, I asked my dad too, he also agreed, and I purchased the tickets. The morning of the show, V8 and I were at my house, getting ready to leave, when my dad came downstairs in his pajamas. He began cooking breakfast and making coffee, showing no sign of wanting to get ready and leave.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Come on, we're going to be late."
"I'm not going," my dad said.
"What? Yes you are; you said yes when I asked you six weeks ago, and I bought the tickets already."
"I'm not going. I have things to do."
"Like what?"
"Things around the house."
"Like what?"
He shrugged me off. Seeing it was fruitless, I turned to V8 and shrugged. He got on his cel phone and called a few friends; in the end we went to see the ballet with his second cousin.
Upon returning home, I said nothing to my dad. V8 tried to intervene and told my dad that I was pretty upset.
"Butt out," my dad said.
". . . Thank you," V8 said.
V8 relayed this incident to me later. I shrugged, figuring V8 had gotten what he deserved, although I did appreciate the support. But I never invited my dad anywhere again and never will, nor do I tell him about guys I date anymore; instead I either don't mention them at all or introduce them as just friends. I doubt he'll meet a boyfriend of mine again unless we're engaged. I don't blame V8 for that; that was all my dad's fault. Nevertheless, it figured that an epic loser like V8 would be the one to trigger such an incident.
Now at the end of the fall semester, I had finals approaching. I semi-consciously used finals as an excuse to begin avoiding V8, although I did take advantage of the opportunity to get a ride home from him after an evening exam. He was supposed to pick me up on the north side of the famous UT tower, where I would be sitting by the turtle pond.
Now, for those of you not familiar with the UT campus, the tower looks like this:
At night, it's floodlit and looks like this:
Even if you've never seen the UT tower, it's easy to spot from miles away. I used to watch it from the bus on the way to campus. The bus would be speeding (by which I mean crawling, since it was inevitably rush hour) down 183 and take the perilous exit onto Mopac, curving around high above the treetops, and from the window I would watch the tower come into view, gleaming white in the morning sun. In person, the tower is no less impressive, bearing the inscription "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" on its south side, which affords a spectacular view of the capitol building. I have never once walked past that tower without looking admiringly up at it. It is indeed a sight to behold and impossible to miss.
Guess where I'm going with this.
I sat on a small piling by the turtle pond in the shadows of the tower and waited for V8 for twenty minutes. I anxiously looked up at every passing vehicle or person. I got out my phone and called and called and called him, but he didn't answer. Finally, I gave up, walked up to the Drag, and took the number one bus back to the North Lamar Transit Center, which was plenty creepy since it was after dark. The number one bus is always pretty skeazy, but at night it's something else. That night was no exception, and while it was devoid of its usual populace of loud homeless men, women wrapped in trash bags talking to themselves, and drunks, I still got my fill of crazy when a guy with a NASCAR obsession and teeth surgically altered teeth to look like fangs insisted on trying to hit on me, ignoring both my reluctance and my aversion to his stench of cigarettes. Luckily (relatively speaking), V8 called me while I was still on the bus. He had been waiting on Speedway, which looks like this:
I have no idea how he managed to end up two blocks away, not to mention in a pedestrian-only zone. We had discussed, in detail, where we would be meeting several times in the two or three days leading up to this incident. I had given him street signs and specifically mentioned the phrases "turtle pond" and "right next to the UT tower." There is only one of each. Clearly, he just didn't listen any of the several times I told him exactly where to pick me up.
Also, I found out why he hadn't been answering his phone: He'd been making calls to other people, allegedly about business, though I doubt he got anything accomplished. The fact that he was on the phone was nearly as annoying as him not waiting for me in the right place. I'd think that if you were waiting for someone to show up and they were late, you'd have the sense to leave your phone on but stay off it so they could call you, or, better still, you could call them. I was quite upset about this but again let it go. For the time being, that is. In retrospect, that incident stood out as one of the dumbest things he did.
Nearing the end of December, and without school as a distraction, I spent a bit more time with V8 and noticed his multiple flaws more than ever. Since the incident at the tower, I had learned a lot at once. He liked anime, and I didn't. He didn't really drink enough—not that alcohol is any measure of a man, but he couldn't handle his liquor at all and had absolutely no taste in alcohol anyway. He didn't really like animals—He wasn't cruel to them; he just didn't really like them and said so, which was not smart, considering that I'm an animal lover and have had pets all my life. He claimed that the reason he had no pets was because he might have to travel for business and wouldn't be able to stay at home and take care of them, never mind that he didn't have a real job.
"Besides," he said, "I only like animals that don't fart."
"You're a fine one to talk!" I observed, adding that all animals do that.
Continuing with the animals tangent, he told me a story of once how he was supposed to be taking care of some woman's cat, who shat on the carpet. Rather than cleaning it up, he just marked the spot by placing an empty bottle on the floor by it and left. I gave him an icy glare, and he shut up.
V8 also didn't even like plants, not really.
"If you don't want pets, why don't you at least have a plant around your place to liven it up a bit?" I asked.
"They're too much trouble to take care of," he said.
"What the fuck? All you have to do is water them," I said. He later got a Boston fern—which, naturally, I paid for—which probably died fairly quickly.
Similar to Stalker, V8 also sometimes criticized my clothing, specifically, my wintertime nightgown. For whatever reason he hated it and didn't want me to wear it. I don't know why not; it's soft, a pretty color, and presentable and yet subtly sexy at the same time with its v-neck and slit sides. He, however, didn't see any of that, and he criticized me endlessly, ultimately leading to a blow up in which I screamed that it was my nightgown, I decided the way I dressed, and if he didn't like my nightgown, he could take it and shove it, because damned if I let anyone tell me how to dress; either I got to wear my own nightgown or I'd wear it by myself at my house. The criticisms ended there. Well, kind of—I noticed that V8 always had to have something about me to pick on. It wasn't just the nightgown; he was always finding miniscule flaws, most of which weren't even flaws, like the time he said I had sand on my eyebrows (where would I have gotten sand?). I found these criticisms especially ironic coming from a guy with sometimes questionable hygiene. I remember once he was staying at my house and didn't want to brush his teeth before bed, but I insisted, and he laid a guilt trip on me along the lines of "Oh, fine, I'll brush my teeth so I don't breathe bad breath on you all night long." That, predictably, was the last time he stayed over at my house.
Now, between four and five months into our relationship, the new year approached. The relationship was utterly rotten, but despite my efforts at discussing how it was clearly not working out, he wouldn't talk about it. He was like a dog clinging to my leg that I couldn't shake off. I didn't know quite how to go about ending it, mostly I suppose because I didn't quite know how I'd gotten into it in the first place. Inspiration came quickly, though, and in the strangest way imaginable.
Ironically, the Nemesis acted as the straw that broke camel's back. I had told V8 about my Nemesis and how we hated each other and attempted to destroy each other on a regular basis. V8, always one to jump to the logical conclusion, informed me that the Nemesis must have had a crush on me. I rolled my eyes and said nothing.
A few days later, I was on the phone to a friend from high school named Aron. Aron knew all about what kind of person the Nemesis was since he had also had his run ins with the Nemesis, and indeed he had had front row tickets to my most famous battle with the Nemesis. Inevitably, I told Aron about V8's moronic view of the story.
"I told [V8] about [the Nemesis]," I said. "I made it perfectly clear that we loathed each other, and he had the appalling nerve to suggest that he liked me. Ew!"
"Oh, yeah; he liked you; he had a huge crush on you; the whole school knew except you," Aron sarcastically intoned. "He and [his best friend] both liked you. They fought over you a couple of times. That time I fixed that security camera and when it came on they appeared on it beating up some freshman, that was actually about you. Oh, and that time [the Nemesis' best friend] was masturbating in class, he was thinking about you." I laughed.
" . . . Y'know," I added, "that's intensely disturbing. I think I'll tell [V8] that." I hung up, called V8, and told him the story minus the masturbation part since it was less believable. Regrettably, the phone connection died before I could reach the "just kidding (duh)" part, and by the time we'd reestablished contact, I'd forgotten about it. A few days later, on New Year's Eve, I mentioned it to V8 in passing while making some contemptuous remark about the Nemesis.
"Aw, but he liked you!" V8 said. I blinked.
"What?" I sputtered incredulously for a moment as V8 looked at me, confused.
"But—you said—"
"That was a joke!"
I called Aron later that night.
"Well, I told [V8] the whole thing minus the masturbation part since it was less believable . . . and he fucking believed me."
"What!"
"Yeah. I mean I told him over the phone, but before I could get to the 'Just kidding' part, the connection died, and by the time we'd reestablished contact, I'd completely forgotten about it. Then, the other day, I made some passing contemptuous remark about [the Nemesis], and [V8] went, 'Aw, but he liked you!' He was completely serious. I said, 'Ew gross why did you say that what could possibly have made you think that Jesus God did I not already make it clear that we couldn't stand each other?' And he was like, 'But . . . you told me . . . Aron said . . . ' And I said, 'Oh. That was a joke . . . duh.' Oh, God, this relationship is so fucked."
"Uh . . . " Aron said, laughing, "I think you need to lose that one, Lauren."
"Yeah," I agreed. So. I was definitely dumping him. It would be over, and I could enjoy the rest of the winter break without an annoying moocher clinging onto me, and I could start my final semester of my senior year at UT a free girl.
Actually ditching V8 proved much more complex. He was impossible to get rid of. I thought I'd had trouble bringing it up before when all I was saying was "this isn't working"; he went to quite ludicrous lengths to avoid me breaking up with him. Almost the entire month of January passed without me seeing him more than two or three times of brief duration, and unfortunately, I couldn't blame him since he did have an excuse to be busy; he was moving. Actually, he was being forced to move. V8, as much of a moocher as ever, appealed to various local charity organizations for assistance, but after a couple of weeks, they resisted further help, which resulted an eviction notice . . . or, as V8 put it, "they're not renewing my lease." I quirked an eyebrow but said nothing. When he moved into his new place in February, I gathered up the things I'd left at his old place and took them back to my house. He hinted once or twice that I should bring them back because he had settled in, but I just shrugged. Besides, I noticed he wasn't really settled in at all—he still had boxes and bags of papers everywhere, and the bathroom and utility room were nearly inaccessible, blocked by still more useless junk. 'Note to self,' I thought, 'the next guy has to be neater.' I've always had an "out with the old, in with the new" philosophy, and hoarding junk just annoys the hell out of me.
Right around the same time V8 was moving into his new apartment, I decided it would be nice to head to my hometown of Houston for a day trip. V8 of course wanted to tag along, and I felt guilty and decided to go along with it. (Note: I have since learned to ignore such guilt.) We ate lunch at my favorite restaurant (I paid, naturally), and which he naturally ruined by saying he'd like to have a business lunch there sometime. Appalled at the idea of dragging corporate sleaze balls into the small restaurant, I panicked and momentarily forgot the remote odds of him ever succeeding in getting a real job that would involve business lunches. I quickly dissuaded him, saying that the restaurant should not be contaminated with such things. I suppose I also secretly didn't want to worry about running into him there after I dumped him.
Then I wanted to visit the Battleship Texas in La Porte. And that was when I finally snapped.
V8 was supposed to be giving me directions as we sought the Texas. I hadn't been there in many years, so he was navigating. He of course totally botched it with his unceasing stream of verbal diarrhea. I had, over the previous months, noticed V8's tendency to ramble and not listen. I definitely ramble at times myself, but at least my stories typically have a point, and I am capable of shutting up. V8 proved hideously inept on both counts, and instead of saying "Take exit 30-B," he rambled on about the scenery and his opinions of it and the weather and other ships and his nonexistent business and things that had nothing to do with the directions and should have waited or preferably not been said at all. I repeatedly told him to knock it off and concentrate; he tried to blame his babbling on his dyslexia, though he never did explain the connection. Whatever. Needless to say, one of his blathering sessions led to another, and he didn't give me the direction he was supposed to, causing me to miss the exit. I got turned around eventually, which was nigh impossible due to his incessant chatter, and sure enough, I missed the next exit because he did it all over again. I lost my temper and really roared at him the way I never have at anyone before or since.
"WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! JESUS CHRIST, WHY CAN YOU NOT EVEN READ THE GODDAM DIRECTIONS WITHOUT TURNING IT INTO A GODDAM DISSERTATION! FUCKING ALL YOU HAD TO SAY WAS 'TAKE THIS EXIT;' I DIDN'T ASK FOR ALL THE LOCAL FUCKING LANDMARKS AND YOUR OPINIONS OF THEM!"
"But—"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR THIRTY GODDAM SECONDS, WILL YOU! I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOUR GODDAM DIRECTIONS!"
"But—"
"DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID? JESUS, YOU NEVER FUCKING LISTEN TO ME! IF YOU DON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT FUCKING NOW , YOU CAN GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE CAR RIGHT NOW AND WALK ALL THE WAY BACK TO AUSTIN!"
He shut up. Seeing as how we were hurtling down the Pasadena freeway at the time, I probably would have shut up, too.
And that's why you don't bottle things up.
It took an hour and a half to finally arrive at the Texas. Thanks to V8's rambling and resultant crappy navigation, there were only forty-five minutes left until they closed for the day. We went on a high-speed tour of the ship, which I enjoyed despite my sour mood, lousy company, and sense of feeling rushed.
We returned to Austin, V8 and I said good night relatively amicably, and I thought, "Oh, yeah, right, you loser."
I did not talk to V8 for a few days after that. At some point, one of us called the other, but we did not speak long, at least, not before he made an excuse to hang up just as I started to say something about breaking up (again). A week or so later, I went over to his new apartment to try to bring up the subject again. He had told me to meet him at seven, so I arrived on the dot and let myself in. He wasn't home from his new job yet. I looked around the new place, which was a lot nicer; it was more homey and cheery than his old apartment. I wondered if things between us would have gone any differently if he had lived in a nicer place and had a real job, but I doubted it. Sooner or later, all his loser characteristics and impotence would have shown through. I sat down and waited for V8, determined to be single by the next day. After twenty minutes, I remembered that I had homework and couldn't wait around all night. I gave up and got ready to leave. Just as I was about to open the door, V8 came through it.
"Oh, you're here," he said. Duh.
"Yes. But I don't have time now."
"But—"
"You knew I was coming over. You should have been on time or called me."
"But—"
"I have to go home and do homework. We'll talk another time." I left.
A few days later, I called V8 and told him to come over to my house; I didn't explain why. Logically, he must have known what was coming; I don't know why he didn't make yet another excuse to avoid me. Then again, considering the other dumb things he'd done, perhaps he didn't see it coming.
"Come on upstairs," I said.
We sat down on the floor of my computer room. I took a deep breath and began.
"You know things aren't working out." He nodded, and began,
"Well, we can work on it—"
"No," I said forcefully. He'd tried that tactic before. I refused to work on it; I wanted to end it. I said as much. "I really don't think it will work out."
"Well—"
"No," I cut him off again, recalling the lengthy speeches he'd made in the car on our ill-fated trip to the Texas that led to this. "I don't want to be with you."
"Well . . . why?"
I gave him an "Are you shitting me?" look and awkwardly stated,
" . . . Well . . . there is school. I spend a lot of time at school and work. Remember, the other day I had homework to do but was at your place instead, and you never showed up."
"Well, you could bring it with you. Or, after you graduate—"
"No!"
"Well, then . . . why?"
"Um . . . " I sighed. This was why I didn't ask guys why they didn't want to be with me. "You, um . . . do sometimes . . . act like a moocher."
"I have that new job now, I could—"
"No! Why do you not listen?"
"I guess it's fear of being alone." Inwardly rolling my eyes, I said,
"You'll get used to it. You were alone before you met me."
"Yes, but—"
"You'll meet someone else." 'Someone else more willing to put up with your crap,' I thought.
"Is there anything else?"
"Uh . . . I can't really think of anything," I lied.
V8 was extremely reluctant to leave; I virtually had to push him out the door.
He sent me a couple of friendly emails every few weeks after that, which I responded to minimally or not at all before eventually closing the account without telling him. I'm not sure what eventually became of him. Secretly I'd rather like to think he faced serious legal trouble because of his debt, but I doubt he did. He was quite boastful of avoiding lawyers and the like. Needless to say, that was a huge reason I dumped him. To this day, I'm not sure whether it were that, his impotence, his rambling, his mooching, or his general idiocy that caused me to snap and dump him. I can say, though, that he was easily the worst guy I dated—well, not counting Stalker.
I obviously learned many lessons from V8. I nowadays place more stock in first impressions; my first impression of V8 was indeed vaguely negative; I remember telling Aron "he seems like he might be a weird guy" before I'd ever even spoken to him. Was I ever right! Also, I will no longer date guys not from the South if they're not willing to learn about it; I won't date a non-Southerner if he insists on believing in stereotypes and insulting my heritage with blanket generalizations.
I also will not date barely-employed guys or moochers. I won't date bad drivers or guys who can't navigate in the car (although those seem somewhat synonymous), guys who are in debt, or guys who don't like animals or even plants. I also shy away from guys who can't shut the fuck up, especially about other women. I cut people off occasionally, but at least my stories typically have a point, and I can definitely shut up when need be. I also expect the guys I date these guys to have at least an inkling of good taste and know how to do something with it. Plus, I expect to go out occasionally: It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but a relationship cannot consist entirely of hanging out at one another's houses. Along the lines of having fun, I have also determined that I want a guy to be able to drink at least a little. Alcohol is no measure of a man, but on the other hand, one White Russian nearly wasted V8. I don't want a guy who drinks a lot, but I do want someone who at least drinks enough that he has some semblance of a tolerance level.
Also, I won't date guys without a good sense of humor—Ah, yes, the all-important sense of humor. Not just a sense of humor, but a wit at least as sharp as my own so that I'm not constantly rolling my eyes at him.
Obviously, though, the single worst thing that happened with V8 was me flying off the handle en route to the Texas. With the single exception of the time I screamed obscenities at the SPCA in Houston over an incident involving a dead kitten they were supposed to rescue, I have never in my life lost my temper like that. The fact that the only incident that was worse involved a case of animal cruelty should tell you something. I am fairly peevish, yes, but it takes a lot to make me lose my temper.
All in all, V8, more than any other guy except the Stalker, is why I am so picky today. I will no longer date a guy unless he possesses the qualities I described in the preceding four paragraphs.
And, yes, the sex has to be good.