Category Archives: Matt

2001, fourth boyfriend, perpetually dramatic

The Worst Thing Matt Ever Said

“You’re kind of a fixer-upper.”

I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. Please keep in mind that a guy who, at the time, was choosing to date me said this. To my face.

I should have dumped him right then. It was really a fairly accurate portrayal of the relationship. We would fight, he would sigh like a martyr, and he would make the conclusion that it was all my fault, obviously, but he was just going to have to put up with me because I was, you know, three years younger and obviously incapable of rational thought. “You’re kind of a fixer-upper,” was uttered at the end of one such fight.

But, instead of dumping him, I think I just stood there and looked pained. He back-pedaled a little. Not much. He tried to explain that he meant I was a “work in progress.” That didn’t sound much better to me.

I think the thing, probably, that hurt so much about this was that he’d just thrown one of my deepest insecurities right up in my face. I feared that I would always be this second-rate, mediocre person, in need of a whole lot of help and maybe never able to meet my potential.

I heard, “I might love you someday, but right now, you’re not good enough for me.” I heard, “You are a piece of crap that people only put up with because they can’t find anyone better.” I heard, “I am getting out of this relationship as soon as I do find someone better. But since I’m banging you, I guess I’ll stick around a while.”

The shit of it is that I believed him. Sure, I was mad, but I believed him about the supposed fact that I was a “fixer-upper.” I honestly had come to the conclusion that I wasn’t good enough for anyone, even the asshat standing in front of me, comparing me to a crappy house.

It took years to get over that. Not just the worst thing Matt ever said, not just the relationship, but the feeling that I was never good enough, and that everyone who loved me really only did it because they could get something from me for a little while, and then they would move on when they found someone better.

So I think that makes Matt the winner. Prize of Worst Thing Anyone Ever Said To Me goes to the esteemed Matt. I’m sure he’s honored.

Musical Legacies

All the boys I’ve loved before have left their marks on me—sometimes in the form of emotional scarring, sometimes in the form of broken belt loops (but that’s a story for another day), and quite often in the form of a musical legacy.

Shane, romantic that he was, sent me a mix tape.

I realize I’m dating myself here, but mix tapes used to be the absolute height of dating demonstrations of love. There was a lot of planning that had to go into the appropriate mix tape. You had to make it something that showed yourself, something that the person you were wooing would be impressed by, and something that got across your feelings about that person. I, personally, was not great at mix tapes. I would generally just start willy nilly picking stuff and when I ran out of room on the tape, I was done.

But Shane’s tape was a work of art. He picked a huge variety of music, from instrumental soundtracks to The Moody Blues. In the liner, he wrote commentary on each song in his fancy handwriting. He put “It’s All About Soul” by Billy Joel on the tape and, in the liner notes, told me that it was the song that made him think of me. I wasn’t sure what to think at first—Billy Joel is a little notorious for back-handed compliments. In the end, though, it became one of my favorite songs… still is, actually. I bought Billy Joel’s greatest hits in large part because my Internet boyfriend from high school put him on a mix tape for me once.

Luke made his own contributions. He was actually in a “band” in high school. But, from what I gather, the “band” mostly just messed around and screamed unintelligible lyrics from time to time before dissolving into fits of mirth.

But, he learned “Crash” by the Dave Matthews Band, and played it and sang it for me. This was a big deal. Luke did not sing for anybody, except to entertain small children and to scream unintelligible lyrics from time to time. He waited until it was just him and me and his guitar, and it was one of the sweetest things he ever did for me. I can’t really tolerate much Dave Matthews Band, but “Crash” is still one of my favorite songs, like, ever.

Matt was a strange one. He was into Irish metal. You read that right. I never could quite get into it, despite the concerts he dragged me—uh, invited me to. He did, however, leave me with a lasting love for The Corrs, who don’t sing Irish metal, but are Irish at least.

My favorite song by The Corrs? “I Never Really Loved You Anyway.” I think Matt may have gotten the short end of the stick on his musical legacy.

The Hanger-On

My most recent ex-boyfriend, Matt, still had the power to piss me off two months after our last conversation. Sometimes I caught his weblog. Well, ok, honestly, I stalked his weblog and jumped on every new post, scouring its contents for the mere mention of my name. Hey, not proud of that.

One particular entry had to do with the fact that he thought it was stupid that there was a picture in the campus newspaper of a lesbian making a soy-based latte for her partner.  He just got so angry every time someone outside of the norm got any attention, and that made me angry.  One of the things I loved about college was the mixture of people.

Anyway, I never commented on his weblog because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he could still annoy the piss out of me after all that time, but sometimes I just wanted to tell him, “If the whole world was just like you, as you seem to want it, we’d all be unhappy, self-righteous bigots.”

I don’t think that would have earned me a whole lot of points in the Not-a-Bitter-Ex Department.

The Power of Love on the Internet

I met two of my four exes online. I know; I’m totally a child of the Internet age. I have no idea what it’s like to only meet guys at school or church or (ugh) in bars. Of course, the Internet is kind of one giant bar, and you never know exactly what you’re walking into.

I wasn’t actively looking for a boyfriend when I met Shane online. I met him in a role-playing chat room. For those unfamiliar with role-playing chat rooms, they’re just like regular chat rooms except everyone is playing a character… so, kind of, they’re still just like regular chat rooms, except you make no pretense about pretending to be someone you’re not.

This particular role-playing chat room was a Star Wars themed one, I think. It pains me to say that, because I want to convince you (and myself) that I was eventually able to shed the weirdness of middle school and blend with normal society. But I didn’t really tell anyone about the Star Wars role-playing chat room, so I was half-way there anyway.

My character was a gorgeous, red-haired, kick-ass smuggler with a great ass and a bad attitude—basically, everything I wanted to be and wasn’t. His character was a suave, good-looking adventurer—and I will admit that he actually did turn out to be suave and good-looking, especially for a 15-year-old.

Admittedly, it didn’t take much to impress me with boys at fifteen. Joe had been fond of writing crappy love poems in rhyming (kind of) iambic pentameter, so I was actually pretty impressed with any human male who could string words together without trying to rhyme “love” and “gave,” and “mine” and “kind.” Shane was considerably more talented than that.

Our characters actually fell in love before we did. Yep, my character and his character were kind of an Internet item, at least in our little Star Wars-ified corner of it. He read my crappy fan fiction and I read his less crappy actual fiction, and a bond formed.

Internet dating before match.com. That’s how it happened.

Now, Matt I actually did meet on match.com. Well, kind of. I had a profile up there, he stalked me, but he hadn’t paid for premium service, so he had to find out my IM name in some other creative, stalkery manner instead of contacting me through the website. Stalking as a demonstration of love: it actually usually works. At least if you’re me.

The Opening Lines

Joe, 1995, age 14:

“I can tell you like me.”

To an incredibly stupid 14-year-old like I was, who’d had a crush on the beautiful blonde Adonis all summer long and had been expecting it to be nothing more than unrequited love, “I can tell you like me,” was akin to a proposal of marriage. I was his.

Shane, 1996, age 15:

“Did you seriously just say ‘kiss me, you fool’? Because I can. Unless you were kidding. Were you kidding? Do you really want me to kiss you?”

I was actually kidding. “Kiss me, you fool,” was a line from a commercial my siblings and I thought was extremely hilarious and I just assumed that Shane would have seen the commercial, too, and also found it hilarious. But then after he got all flustered and couldn’t tell if I was serious or not, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d been kidding. So we kissed.

Luke, 1998, age 17:

“Does this mean what I think it means?”

Luke and I had been flirting all summer. Well, he’d been flirting and I’d been being stupidly oblivious to the whole thing. Mostly. Actually, truth be told, I’d sort of been leading him on. I thought he was cute and funny and I enjoyed spending time with him, but I never really meant to take it further than that.

But, as we stood in my parents’ foyer and I realized I’d been hugging him a little too long and resting my head on his shoulder, my “holy shit” moment came. In the span of 3 seconds or so, I convinced myself that I did want this relationship to be more than a friendship, and so I affirmed Luke’s suspicions that this meant we were now something more.

Matt, 2001, age 20:

“I usually don’t do this on the first date, but I feel like we have such a connection.”

You’d think by the time I reached the age of maturity (20, of course), I would have recognized the line. Luckily for me, he wasn’t just trying to get in my pants and he actually meant it, in his emotionally turgid sort of way.

As you’ll note, the theme in all these encounters seems to be, “Ramona is stupid.” It’s not a flattering picture. Every time I’d just begun to get myself under control after months or years of a roller-coaster long-term relationship, a new opening line would pop up and I’d go right back to Stupid Land.

I know lots of people who take good, long, healthy breaks between relationships. I know teenagers who have never been on a date in their lives. They are perfectly normal. I was not. At age 20, I hadn’t been single for more than a few months since I was 13.