The Wrong Guy #3

My 2nd year in college I had a writing class with a boy I thought of as "Frat Guy". Frat Guy used to wait after class to chat with me and asked me out a couple of times. However, what with Thing 1 and Thing 2 already occupying my attention, as well as my general mistrust of all things Macho and Fraternity, I turned him down and forgot about it, other than to feel completely puzzled that someone like that (American footbally and back-slappy) was in any way interested in someone like me (gothy, glasses, geeky).

One day at work with my friend, Old McLiz, I pulled out some homework from that class, which included critiquing a short story written by Frat Guy. And because Salt Lake City apparently has eleven occupants total, of COURSE Old McLiz knew Frat Guy.

While I can't actually remember a 22-year-old conversation, I do remember Liz loudly bleating at me that afternoon about how could this ~possibly~ be the guy about whom I had complained? Did I know what an amazing person Frat Guy was?? Did I know he worked to support his MOM???!? That he was smart and popular and his senior class' president and football team captain and walked on WATER??!?!

No, I thought. None of those things had ever occurred to me as I listened to Frat Guy talk like he owned the world and it owed him some courtesy. But Old McLiz generally thought I was a little socially backwards and was always trying to improve my awareness of how the rest of the world functioned. And the idea that some freakishly popular person had asked me out (~and~ that such a request impressed Old McLiz so much) felt far more weighty to 19-year-old me than it ever should have.

So the next time he asked me out, I said Yes. And truth be known, I never got what made him so special to Liz or anybody else. He ~was~ funny and handsome and smart, but also pompous and unkind. But he REALLY seemed to like me, and, although I missed John - my ever-vanishing sometime-boyfriend - at first, at least, I couldn't help feeling important that someone so socially gifted thought I was a good match for him.

Colossal mistake.

Frat Guy, it turns out, was building the circumstances that would end up getting him sent to federal prison for drug dealing (cocaine, pot + drugs he stole from the hospital at which he worked as an orderly).

He was also on the verge of a major psychotic break. Dating him, I learned, meant exposing myself to danger. He wasn't physically abusive, but obsessive and scary. My stories about him are so crazy-sounding. And it was always so bewildering. For example:

• While we were dating I gave him a key to my apartment. Soon after, I found a bright blue woman's hair scrunchy tangled in my bedsheets with long blond hairs hanging out of it. (My hair was purple at the time). My favorite memory of this was screeching at him "what did she think of your flowered sheets, asshole??" And while that ~should~ have been the end of him in my life, it wasn't (although I did get my key back).

Despite this, he remained obsessive. I know it doesn't make sense, given that we hadn't even been dating that long before he cheated on me IN my apartment, but...I don't know. It's confusing to me (always) that he both cheated on me and had such a crazy time when I broke up with him:

• While we were still dating he HAD to know where I was. Always. So much so that he would wait for me after class or work and call me numerous times. At 19 I thought that was sweet. After we broke up, I thought it was scary, but not yet dangerous. However, he always seemed to know exactly where to find me.
• After finally breaking up, he followed me on dates with other guys. I found this out after one such night - he climbed my fire escape (middle of winter/middle of the night) and started kicking in my windows and screaming "whore!" at me, telling me how he saw me at one place, and then another (2 different nights) and that I couldn't go anywhere without him knowing. So at 2AM I grabbed the phone and called...his mom (Lord, why WHY didn't I call the police?) and told her to get him some psychiatric help. He bolted only after I screeched at him (while I was still on the phone) "I'm on the phone with your MOM!"
• After that, I would see him occasionally outside my work or house, until I moved to a different town, 20 miles East of Salt Lake. Then, sometimes at work I'd look up and see him standing outside the doors at my job, so I changed jobs...
• Weeks after that, in a movie theater far from where I worked or lived, I realized about 1/2-way through the film that he was sitting right behind me. THAT was when I started checking the crowd everywhere I went. And the cars behind me while driving. And across the mall when I was at work. And sometimes, he would be there, just watching. And the phone would ring but nobody would answer (after this, I thought *69 was the greatest invention ever!)

Awful. And more terrifying in retrospect than it was at the time. Still one of the worst dating experiences I've had. And like I said, not the last - my mistakes and bad choices have been appalling and numerous. It ended only after he went away to prison for drugs the following spring. About which I feel amazingly lucky...

Given the number of stalking and rape victims I've advocated for over the years, I look at my blind choices with Dennis (that's him - scary, scary Frat Guy) and am blown away that I came off with only a few battle scars.