I see Brian everywhere: this person�s eyes remind me of him, that person body type, someone�s shaved head. I just have Brian on the brain. So, I decided today to tell how we met or �The Story of Us� as WifeMotherMe puts it. So here you go.
In October of 2003, I moved in with a girl who was, at the time, a good friend. Some background on that: we were both big girls or as they say �BBW�s� and met at a pool party about a year and half before. Because this social scene is fairly small, we often seemed to meet the same guys. Now, for me, this was annoying but not that big of a deal. I always figured that if it didn�t work out between me and a guy, there was just nothing I could do about it and if that guy ended up liking one of my friends, then so be it. It�s not my place to get between them and any emotions I have about it are mine and for me to deal with. If it was going to work out with that guy and one of my friends, I needed to be happy for them and accept what was meant to be. Now my friend, we�ll call her DogLover (not to disparage dog lovers, it�s great to love dogs and animals of all kinds, but she is a dog lover so that fits well) had a different philosophy (as did several other friends, but we aren�t talking about them right now). She was an only child and could be rather possessive at times. In some ways, she reminded me of a two year old. �I played with that today so it�s mine and even though I don�t want to play with it anymore, you can�t touch it.� In fact, the phrase she used was �I pissed on him� such as a cat marking it�s territory. So if she had dated a guy or talked to a guy or any of that, he was off limits to anyone else. Since we met many of the same guys, this was quite challenging and on occasion, I would be talking to a guy and develop a friendship with them before knowing that she had dated him. At that point, if I was friends with them I wasn�t going to back down, because I didn�t see the point. She considered this disrespect, but to me, that�s not what it was about. It was about being emotionally healthy enough to be friends with a guy that a friend had dated. Is anyone following me here? Also, important to note, DogLover did not want to have a roommate. She owned a nice house and could afford to live there by herself. But she had just taken a job that required her to travel every Monday through Thursday. She had 2 dogs and 2 cats and needed someone to watch over her home and her pets while she was gone, so she figured that getting a roommate was the best thing to do. So, I moved in, paid $350 in rent for 2 bedrooms and my own bathroom and use of the rest of the house. My part of the house could shut off from the rest of the house for privacy. Also, I had the whole house to myself half of the week. It seemed like a good deal.
Okay, so when I moved in with her, she had been casually dating this guy named Brian. He would come to the house to pick her up for a date, and if she wasn�t ready, he and I would chit chat while she finished. Every single time he came over, I was dressed like crap. Usually I was wearing sweats or whatever I was going to wear for bed that night. If I�m lucky, my shirt was clean. No makeup, my hair up in a ponytail on the top of my head. I looked like you would after getting ready for bed. But it didn�t matter because I wasn�t the one going on a date. So I was totally okay with how I looked. DogLover and I did not get off to the best start as roommates. We had very different communication styles. I preferred to talk about the things that bothered me. She preferred to stew over all the little things that shouldn�t have been a big deal, and then they would blow up to huge proportions to the point where she was mad at me. So this caused problems right from the start. Also, the fact that she didn�t really want a roommate was a problem. And then to top it off, I began talking to someone that she had dated a few times, but I didn�t know about it until after we became friends. I let her know what happened and that we were just friends and that my intention was to explore the friendship. She considered that disrespectful and that I was putting my friendship with the guy ahead of our friendship. That really wasn�t what happened and if I had known she had dated him before we became friends, he and I wouldn�t have become friends. So all of this was going on in the first month or so of living together.
So, one night, DogLover is out of town. She and I were fighting when she left town over this whole issue of me being friends with someone she had dated. One night, I�m sitting in the living room, wearing my sweats and t-shirt. At about 10:30 there�s a knock on the door. I go answer it, it�s Brian. He worked near by and I figured he�d just come by to see DogLover on his way home from work. I invited him in and then explained that DogLover wasn�t home. He said that he knew, that they were just talking on line and had gotten in a fight. And I said, �How funny, we�re fighting too.� So we started talking about DogLover and her different ways of dealing with life and the world. It was good to have someone to talk to about it, especially someone who understood her too. He mentioned that he had been feeling frustrated with things for a while but was trying to give her a chance, but that even before their fight tonight, he�d been planning on breaking it off with her. Now, Brian and DogLover had never been exclusive, they were just casually dating. Apparently, the fight that night started because Brian had mentioned that he was going to stop by on his way home and DogLover said that she wasn�t there. Well, Brian, being the joker that he is, said �That�s okay, I�ll just go by and see Janet� Well, he could not have picked a worse phrase considering how possessive she was. So that pissed her off and that�s how their fight started. For Brian, it was the final straw. No guy wants to be possessed like that. So then he took the joke and made it reality.
Towards the end of our conversation, he then mentioned that he liked me better and would rather pursue something with me. He felt that we had a connection and he found me attractive. Honestly, I was not shocked by this because I could kind of tell how he felt by how he would treat me when he came over. Well, honestly, I wasn�t attracted to him. It�s not that he isn�t attractive, I just wasn�t attracted to him physically, but I did really enjoy the conversations that we�d had and I really enjoyed his company. He is truly just one of those nice people that gets along with everyone and we had a lot in common. I told him that I was flattered and enjoyed talking to him but that DogLover was my friend and roommate and I just couldn�t do that to her. He wrote down his phone number and left saying that if I ever needed a friend or someone to talk to that I should give him a call. I thanked him and that was it. Life went on.
I continued to live with DogLover for another year and a few months. During this time, our friendship continued to erode until there was almost nothing left. And the end of the friendship had almost nothing to do with Brian or any other guy. In August of 2001, while she was out of town, I came home at 10 PM one evening. I let the dogs in and put their food out. Now I have to say, I love animals, but she really loves these dogs. One of them, she�d had for 12 years. He was a very lovable dog. But to her, these dogs were children. They slept in the bed and spent more time indoors than outdoors. I was okay with that. Okay, so my routine as soon as I got home would be to let the dogs in and feed them. Later, she had a kennel built in the backyard for them, and my routine was to let them out of the kennel but leave them in the backyard for about � hour so they could run around, then let them in and feed them. So on this particular night, I let the dogs in and the Lab Luci immediately went to eat. The little Jack Russell, Woody, didn�t go to his food. Sometimes he could be really finicky so I didn�t think too much of it. I then went into my room to change and Woody followed me in there. He was laying on my floor as I changed. I thought he was acting kind of strange but he could be moody so I let it go. A few minutes later, he was still laying on the floor and I moved in to pet him and ask him what was up. Up until this point, the way he and I were situated, I had only seen the right side of his face. It wasn�t until I went to pet him that I saw the left side. The left side of his face was covered in blood. So I immediately jumped up, made sure he was okay, to the best of my abilities. I changed my clothes, called DogLover to let her know that Woody was hurt and we were going to the hospital. I grabbed him and out we went. It was about 10:30 when we got to the animal hospital. What had happened is that Woody (who likes to get out) had chewed a hole in the fence and stuck his head in it. He�d gotten stuck and then the dog next door attacked him. I waited at the animal hospital until 2:30 when they took him into surgery. I would have stayed home the next day with him (he had to be picked up at the animal hospital by 7 AM, they are only an emergency facility open at night) but I had a super important all day business meeting the next day, so DogLover arranged for her mom to pick him up and keep him at her house for the next few days. He had over 40 puncture wounds from the bites, as well as lacerations from trying to get his head back out of the fence. He was really in bad shape. I felt horrible, but there was nothing else I could have done. I loved that dog and felt so bad. I felt guilty but when I looked back, I did everything I could, I couldn�t have known he was hurt and come home earlier, there�s just no way to know that. And as soon as I noticed, I took him right to the hospital and stayed with him until I knew he was going to be alright. Luckily, he�s such a feisty guy that he recovered fairly quickly (He passed away last January due to Liver Cancer. He was a great dog and so much fun. I hope he�s chasing rabbits in doggie heaven).
Okay, so that happened in August. In November of 2001, the house was being painted. I came home one night and couldn�t find the trash can so I called DogLover and let her know that I thought the trash can was stolen. She said not to worry about it and she�d call the city when she got home. Okay, no big deal. Now at this time, it was dark in the morning when I would leave for work, and dark at night when I would get home. I would come home from work and the first thing I would do is to let the dogs out of their kennel so they could run around. I was only outside long enough to put them in the kennel in the morning and to take them out at night. I wasn�t spending a lot of time in the backyard. In fact, I wasn�t spending any time in the backyard. So, DogLover comes home on Thursday night as usual. She goes in the backyard and notices the trash can in the back yard off to the side. She came inside and then started yelling at me. When she said she found the trash can in the back yard, I just thought it was funny, but apparently it pissed her off. She couldn�t believe I never noticed it. I explained that I only went in the yard to take the dogs out in the morning and bring them in at night, and that it was dark when I did that. I mentioned that all I wanted to do when I got home was relax and change into comfortable clothes, but that�s not the first thing I would do� I said the first thing I always did was let the dogs in. Well, the whole thing grew into how unobservant I am and that if I can�t notice the trash can in the dark backyard sitting on the side of the yard then I must not notice important things about the dogs and that maybe I don�t care about them and don�t take good care of them. And then from there, she went into how it took me so long to notice that Woody had been hurt and how he almost died and what a bad caretaker I am. OMG. I couldn�t believe that she brought this up 3 months later. And I told her that. I said I couldn�t believe that she had been harboring this for 3 months and never brought it up. I couldn�t believe that she never understood what had happened and I walked her through it, where he was standing in comparison to me at every step that night and how I never saw the left side of his face. I then said �Can you understand how this happened?� and then she answered �I will never understand and I will never forgive you.� Wow. I mean, the dog ended up okay, it wasn�t my fault that it happened. I didn�t stick his head in the fence and attack him. I did the best I could that night as soon as I realized what had happened. I stayed half the night at the hospital with him, worried over him for days. Wow. I mean, animals are important, but I felt really insulted. Basically, she picked a dog over me. And then she harbored those feelings for months before bringing them up. That was pretty much the end of our friendship and after a few months of not really talking to each other or interacting, she asked me to move out.
Very soon after moving out, I thought about Brian again. I still had his number but would never consider calling him while we lived together. So I gave him a call. He called me back several days later and after a brief reminder of who I was (it had been almost a year and half), he was very excited to hear from me and asked when he could take me out. We made plans for the following Saturday.
So he picked me up and we went to dinner. Had a great time. I really enjoyed his company, the conversation and the overall way he treated me. He definitely treated me with respect and was very nice. I still wasn�t sure I was attracted to him. Well, let me clarify, on an intellectual and emotional level, I definitely was. On a physical level, I wasn�t. But I was willing to get to know him to see what could happen. As we were leaving the restaurant, he got an emergency phone call and had to end the date. Before I could even get back to my room, he had already called and left me a message telling me what a great time he had and how he is looking forward to seeing me as soon as he can. How sweet is that?
Well, this date occurred during a very crazy time in my life and my life continued to get crazier in the next few months. Brian also had some crazy times and although we both left each other messages, we never seemed to connect. I had so many other things on my mind that I just wasn�t in a place to pursue a relationship with him, and he figured I wasn�t interested and stopped calling. Over the course of the next year, I was dealing with my manic marriage, then not dating, then preparing for surgery, then I had a new boyfriend for a few months, broke up with him right after my surgery, then made a choice not to date for a while. It was May before I decided I was ready to begin dating again. During that year, I had thought of Brian often and wondered how he was doing. But I never called him. I started dating again and went through several bad dates and losers. After that, I was re-evaluating the whole thing and thought of Brian again. I decided to give him a call. He called me back right away and we went on a date the next day. After dating sporadically (because of his job) for several months, we decided to make it official and become a couple. When I started dating him again in July, I still wasn�t sure that I was physically attracted to him, but the more time I spent with him, the more I got to know him, the more I saw the way he treated me and how he cared for me, I fell in love and began to find myself incredibly attracted to him.
I often regret not taking him up on his original offer to go on a date with him. At the time, it was the right decision, because I couldn�t betray my friendship with DogLover. Because that friendship ended up falling apart, I question my loyalty to her, as she did not show any loyalty to me in the long run. But then I also think, maybe I just wasn�t ready, as a person, for the person of Brian, and it worked out when I was ready. I don�t really know. And never will because you can�t go back.
Brian is, without a doubt, the sweetest guy I have ever dated. It�s not what he says to me, but what he does. And he loved me when I was at my heaviest, he loves me now. It�s not about the body to him, but the mind and personality. I never worry that he�s going to pull some kind of disappearing act and stop returning my calls. He�s just not that kind of person. He has integrity and treats me with respect. And I think that the fact that we keep finding each other, that means something. I have to believe it does, because I love this man.
