Brace yourself. This is going to be a long one. This ex of mine contacted me the other night and I just want him to leave me alone. I need to write about this because I am angry and frustrated and even though I really don�t have any more feelings for him, I just want to be able to put this whole chapter of my life behind me. So here�s the story.
I need to start a little further back, in January of 2000. 2000 was without a doubt the worst year of dating for me. Everyone I got involved with that year was bad news. In January, I started dating this guy Fred. I was extremely attracted to him and enjoyed his company. After going out with him several times, I got a phone call from someone who was also dating him. She informed me that Fred not only had another girlfriend, a fiance and an ex-girlfriend who was pregnant with his child. It was right after this when I met Camille.
I had an ad up at Love@aol. One night I was on line and this guy instant messaged me. We talked on line for about 2 hours and then decided to talk on the phone. This was late January. We talked on the phone for about 2 hours. We had an amazing conversation. He lived in San Francisco, and I live near Los Angeles in Orange County. I do take occasional business trips up to the bay area, and it�s really not that far of a drive, so I�ve always been open to meeting people in that area. We totally hit it off and even ended up talking for another hour on line that night. We soon began talking every day for 2 to 3 hours. He seemed to do and say all the right things. The next day, when I got home from work, I had an e-greeting from him telling me how glad he was to meet me and talk to me and how he was looking forward to getting to know me better. I would come home from work and there would be messages on my answering machine just to say hi. He would say that he knew I wasn�t home but wanted to leave me a message so I would know he was thinking about me. Now I�m a very romantic person, and I believe that it�s the little things you do for another person that really matter and show you care. This guy was doing all the right things.
I was going to be up in the bay area for 2 weeks for business starting in early February. We made plans to meet. In fact, I flew up on a Saturday, 2 days early, so we could meet and spend the weekend together before I needed to start work on Monday. Originally the plan was for him to meet me at the airport. The day before I was going to arrive, he said that he had to work and couldn�t meet me at the airport but that I should call him as soon as I got checked in to my hotel. I got in about 4 on Saturday. I called him as soon as I got to my room and I reached his voice mail. I left him a message telling him how to reach me and that I was going to go grocery shopping (I was staying at a Residence Inn so I had a full kitchen) and would look forward to hearing from him. When I got back, no message. I waited a while and called him again around 9:00. He answered the phone but then hung up on me. He stopped answering his phone. Let me tell you, I was devastated. After two weeks of 2-3 hour daily phone conversations, I really did not expect this from him. I was totally floored, wondered what I had done, what went wrong� And I had this whole weekend in town with nothing to do. I was only there to see him. I didn�t have to be at work until Monday morning. I called a good friend and cried on the phone with her for a while. She recommended that I get out of the hotel the next day and go drive around, go to San Francisco and just try to see the sights and have a good time. So I took her advice but it was really hard. I pretty much cried the whole day and didn�t stay there long. I couldn�t really get out of the car and walk around because I looked like a wreck, red swollen eyes. Monday finally came and I immersed myself in work, trying to keep myself distracted so I didn�t feel anything. I confided in one of my co-workers there and she helped me stay busy at night, we went out to the movies together and dinner a few times. The second weekend I was there, I ended up driving to Sacramento to visit some family to help keep me busy. The second Monday I was there was Valentine�s day. This was a very hard day for me. But my co-worker helped me out there too and we went to the movies together that night. All in all, I got through my two weeks there. I had several long phone conversations and e-mail conversations with friends back home who were very supportive. One of my friends ended up picking me up at the airport when I returned home and we went out and got shit-faced together. I hurt for a while and wanted answers but figured that he wasn�t going to give me any.
Fast forward to the end of March. All of a sudden, one day I saw him on line for the first time since before the dreaded weekend. My heart jumped into my chest and I decided to say hi. We talked at length on the phone and he apologized, stated that his feelings for me were so intense that he just freaked out. I decided to forgive him and give him another chance. We decided to meet that weekend and I drove up to San Francisco. His mother had died the year before and his father was living with him. I met his father and then we drove down to Pacifica to spend the weekend. We had a wonderful weekend. The next week, on Wednesday, I was going back up to the bay area for a business trip. I would be there for two weeks. He asked me to spend the first weekend with him and go to Napa. I agreed. When I got up there, he seemed very distant. We talked on the phone a lot, but he said he was too tired to meet. He had a shoulder injury at work and was going to physical therapy almost nightly. Also, he lived in San Francisco, and I was up in the East Bay about an hour from the city. Supposedly, we were still going to Napa for the weekend, but he never made any solid plans with me. So I finally figured that wasn�t going to happen. We talked a few more times when I was up there, and again after I returned to Southern California. After about a month, I just stopped calling and trying to reach him. I realized that I was the only one making the phone calls and he just didn�t seem interested.
A few months go by and it�s now July. One day I go to check my e-mail and he has written me. Wants to know what happened, why I stopped calling. So like a fool, I call him and we talk. He has injured his knee at work and is about to have surgery. He wanted me to come visit him before the surgery, but I had other things going on and said that I couldn�t. I told him that I was going to be back up in the bay area in September for 2 weeks and we could get together then. So we talk on the phone and on line for the month of August. I come up in September and he calls me at my hotel. Says he wants to go to Napa for the weekend and he�ll call me on Thursday. Thursday comes, no call. Friday, no call. So I call him on Friday. He�s not home, left a message, never heard from him. I finish out my trip, and decide not to call him or talk to him again. This was September 2000.
Okay, so I go on with life, several years go by. I have my gastric bypass surgery in February of 2003. I am about 4 weeks into the recovery, on line late one Saturday night. Up pops a message from someone saying hi. I don�t recognize the screen name and go check out his profile. The picture looks awfully familiar. I ask him what his name is, he makes something up. I tell him he looks really familiar. He asks who I thought he was. I tell him. Then he says, what if it is. So, anyway, it was Camille. Supposedly he�d been trying to find me on line for several months. I had moved 3 times since we had last spoken, my phone number had changed 3 times, and I had gotten a new AOL account and all new screen names. I was not easy to find. Now he may have been searching for me, or he might have just stumbled on me by accident. Who knows. He was living in LA now, so he was fairly close. We talked on the phone at length. He wanted to come over. I told him no way, it was Midnight and it wasn�t going to happen. If he wanted to see me he could wait until the next day and take me out. He pestered me for some time, but I kept putting him off and he finally agreed to meet me the next day for lunch. Said that he had not tried to keep the relationship going because the distance was too hard and would I please give him another chance now that he was living close by. So, I agreed but told him we would have to take it slow. The next day, he called me in the morning and said that he had gotten called into work and could we meet for dinner instead. I agreed. He came out about 5 o�clock. We sat on the couch for a while talking. He wanted to move things into the bedroom. I refused. We didn�t end up going out to dinner, he said he wasn�t feeling well and I don�t really eat all the much anyway. We talked for a while. He said that since he was fairly new to town he�d like to go to San Diego for the weekend and see the sights. Did I want to go? I said sure. He left about 8 and we agreed we�d speak in the next few days. I never heard from him. I left him a message and he never called me back. Very familiar pattern. I sent him an e-mail that said �I don�t know why you bothered coming back into my life, just to ignore me.� Then I let it go.
So this guy has the nerve to contact me again, 6 months later. Well, of course he has the nerve. Every other time he�s pulled this shit, I�ve let him back in. So this time, he�s in for a shock. Because he�s not welcome back in my life. Even if Fido wasn�t around, I wouldn�t want him. He�s no more ready for a relationship than a newborn is ready to be potty trained. I know it�s just never going to happen, he�s a 39 year old teenager who will never grow up. I just hope I never have to worry about him popping up in my life again. Jerk.
