Bye..Bye...Bye.. (not really) a la N SYNC .. The Case of the EX-GF...
SOMEHOW I'VE BECOME OBSESSED WITH MY BOYFRIEND'S EX-GIRLFRIEND
Last week I spent the entire weekend with Croatia.. Friday night I met up with his high school nerdy friend from back home in Westwood village and he introduced me to him as his "girlfriend", if you know me well, I am known for my animate facial expression and my jaw literally dropped in front of him and his friend haha.. he laughed at me and I was still in a pure state of shock.. wow I got the label!! YIPPEEE!! Finally the guessing games are over, the constant questions and discussion with my girlfriends can be ceased!! No more back and forth about whether im important enough to be in his life or not!! no moreee hair pulling or lying awake at night thinking of ways to make him want to be serious with me.. it all happened in the randomest of time in front of his nerdy professor friend from UPENN who dressed worse than Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air and who was shyer than Dumbo in Snow White..
His friend could be another blog post in itself..but he was such a sweetie shy guy that I had to do this for him... He needs attention ladies.. I mean he is such a gentle soul, I dedicate this paragraph to my friend "Clarence". His REAL name is Vedran, he is 30 yrs old, and is a post doc at UPENN, he did his undergrad at Berkeley, and his PhD at MIT, this kid is truly a genius, he probably might be a better mathematician than Croatia. He was so shy to shake my hand and strike up a conversation with me.. it was like pulling teeth with a mute kid. I conjured up questions and tried to keep him engaged, Croatia did warn me that it was going to be difficult to make this guy become a social butterfly because he knew I had such a forceful personality, I was going to just scare this guy away with just my energy and my dynamic bubble-liness. Croatia knew this guy because they were on the same math olympic team and he was also Clarence's tutor. Clarence, lo and behold, is your typical momma's boy. He is very close to her, so close that when he goes back to Croatia, he uses his mom's cellphone to receive calls from his friend because he doesnt have a working international cell phone, he even goes too far and uses his mom's email address account to email his friends.. WOW talk about PARENTAL CONTROL HERE!!! What attracted me even more to Croatia was that he was trying to coach/mentor Clarence to change his personality.. to become social and enjoy his last few months in the States..Clarence got another post doc gig in Zurich Switzerland and will be moving there in the summer. Croatia persuaded Clarence to do something out of the ordinary at UPENN, maybe join an underwear run, go on a bar crawl, or flirt with some girls at the Wharton School, all suggestion Clarence politely turned down. He instead wanted to focus on his classical piano training that he has been doing for 18 years and wanted to focus on his math research.. It was admirable of Croatia to try and help his friend out and continue to be his mentor, instead of a math mentor, more of a life mentor.. kind of like that old show on MTV called MADE lol.. Croatia was this nerdy guys MADE coach.. he made sheldon on Big Bang Theory look like Charlie Sheen. Yes Clarence was that bad but it was great to meet one of Croatia's friend and finally have the title of Girlfriend... moving on to the real topic of this post..
(Vedran aka Clarence) YO WASSUP CLARENCE!!!!
Croatia's EX GF.... the one who shall not be named...
Am I the only one who shamefully admits to irrationally, yet meticulously examining every single photo, deconstructing tans, pore size and frown lines, or criticizing outfits? Haven't we all repeatedly gone through the ex-girlfriend's profile and photos desperate to find some spelling or grammatical error as proof that they're stupid? It's foolish, petty, and completely pointless-- these ex-girlfriends have absolutely nothing to do with my life, yet they consume my free time (my work time too) like an evil voyeuristic addiction.
I knew how his ex gf looked like.. during my pre-cyber stalking screening of Croatia.. (I mean I met this guy on Tinder so I had to make sure he was legit.. Theres not a lot of guys named Tonci at UCLA.. so it was fuckin easy to find his Facebook profile and all other google related items.) I clicked here and there.. and it took me 2 minutes to find his EX GF because he still had a public video of her uploaded on his page. I clicked and found NORA.. The infamous 7-year old ex gf..
Here's the deal.. every time I hang out with Croatia.. he brings her up..(and i secretly know in my mind, what she looks like because of the cyber stalking..feels kinda weird) not lovingly, but just as an anecdote, i mean he was his first gf, he made many memories with her, and they were together for 7 fucking years. She took his Vcard so he does feel this slight.. (not fuckin slight but a vast amount) of ATTACHMENT to this rachet ho. (excuse my french). It first started out when Croatia wanted to show me his childhood pictures of his math competition days in high school and his dorky buzzcut with his awkward lanky skinny body friends. Then he moved on to his undergrad graduation and how in Croatia everyone has to write a thesis and defend it (similar to a phd defending quals exams), his mom made food for his math major friends and then .. I asked him.. so where are the berkeley picture, because I knew in the back of my mind, there was bound to be some pictures of N.. So he asked if I was sure to see the pictures and I said yah... with a boast of confidence because I wanted him to know I was self assured that the pix of his ex would not threatened me or make me feel vulnerable in any way (Well duh its because I fucking know what she looks like, so I was just concerned on how to act surprised when I saw her picture for the "first time: haha). So .. he opened them up and then she popped up, you could see a metamorphosis of his puberty.. he looked dorky and nerdy ...then as the pictures progressed, he grew into his looks and became a man.. and she looked the same.. they went to the opera, they went to a basketball game, they went to yosemite, bike riding, countless birthdays, parties at Berkeley, lots of dinners together, he shared these 7 fucking years together.. and it made me realized... He is fuckin fresh off the breakup 6 months ago..and I began to reexamine my role in his life.. even though I am his GF.. am I the rebound GF.. is he still hung up on this bitch who caused him miserable amount of grief, pain, stress, tears? I am now writing this blog to express my concerns.. and my future. I don't want to end up rejected.. and on the chopping board because he is in the midst of reconfiguring his life without N..
But it took our conversation at dinner, we had at midnight, that he cooked for me.. which was wonderful BTW, to bring it back into full detail.. of their final stages of dating.
I'm going to list it because I think better in lists.
Things started to go downhill with N in 2012 when he graduated his PhD program. I think her hormone imbalance was playing a huge role in her mood shifts and her bipolar behavior. First lets dissect her psychology and her family background that played a huge role in her view and psyche of what a healthy relationship is.
1) From a single parent household - single mother raised 2 sisters (1 older and 1 younger), both sisters are byproducts of two different men.. the mom did not keep in touch with all three fathers.. so she grew up with "daddy issues". Sounds like a Maury episode right??
Mom also was a school teacher and did not make ends meet.. thus... when N was in school and acquiring student loan debt from undergrad and then grad program at Oregon, she was diggin a hole into $80k of student loan debt in 2012..
2) Student Debt - Financial Issues played a major role in the demise of the relationship. Croatia was living on a $1,500 PhD Stipend + N got fired from her job because she was really sensitive (imagine you're on your RAG for the whole fucking year), so when her boss accused her or offered her constructive criticism she took it to heart and reacted in a way that made her feel threatened, so she quit. She could never keep a job long enough because of her mood swings.. she withheld this info from Croatia for a year.. and he was supporting her and paying rent for the both of them from his $1,500 salary.. MAN.. talk about tough times. She got away with it because she told him she was still working, but she was saving to apply to PhD programs.
3) She changed her mind a mile a minute. She didn't know which PhD program she wanted to go to. He needed to get a job but waited until she made up her mind about which program she wanted to go to. She ended up getting into a psychology program at UCRiverside, so Croatia did everything in his power to find a teaching gig in Socal so he would be near her. He contacted all his professors, advisors, friends, colleagues to hook him up with a position, he interviewed at USC and UCLA (bleck), but UCLA ended up giving him a better offer. He was relieved that he could be near her.. since Riverside was an hours drive.. well things took a turn for the worse because bat shit crazy N got KICKED OUT of her phD program. Who the fuck gets kicked out of Riverside?? so he supported her and she moved in with him in his Westwood Apt....again.. the story of supporting her broke ass.. Can we just cue on TLC No Scrubs?? That is the soundtrack of his life.
4) Marriage...so when Croatia got his PhD they decided to celebrate with some Croatian friends of his who were living in Berkeley. His friends were a married couple so they asked N about what she would do because he got the offer at UCLA and how they would do the long distance.. well she went batshit cray at the dinner and put on a melodramatic show about how Croatia did not want to commit to her and how she scarified a lot to be with him. She listed reasons why she put off applying to phd programs so she can support his endeavors of moving to Socal.. and Croatia got so pissed off she would air his dirty laundry in front of his friends on the day of his fucking graduation.. to add fuel to the fire.. his friends joined in the brigade with and interrogated him about his commitment issues and why he didn't want to marry the GF of 6 years.. he said it was the worst dinner of his fuckin existence
So I asked.. "would you have married her if you guys stayed longer together??" Then he responded "if things went back to normal to the good ol' days then yes I would have married her but things were just bad.. really bad..."
Im happy he was honest and open with me about the last few months/years of his relationship with someone who he loved dearly, whom he shared most of his 20's with.. who shaped his worldview and his life and outlook on many important topics. But I still think I did only get his half of the story and she could have a different take on it. Normally guys wouldnt dare touch a sore subject that hurt them a lot and share it with their new flame. So I thank Croatia for being honest and open with me an sharing this information which he didnt want to think about or revive.
These are some thoughts that I have compiled over the years:
1. I hate ex-girlfriends. All of them. I mean, seriously detest, abhor, despise, want to stuff a plastic bag over their head while they're sleeping, hate them. The simple reason is jealousy. I hate them because I am jealous of them. I am jealous that this boy that I've decided to love used to belong to this other girl. And even though it probably occurred in a different era (one in which, he was a less attractive pimply-faced adolescent), I can't help but feel a sense of envy that she had him before me, and he had feelings for her. Feelings that were supposed to be exclusively for me.
I also hate them because I'm afraid I may like them if I ever get to know them.
Human behavior expert and life coach Patrick Wanis said in a radiointerview:
"Women are always in competition with their own sex. They might make some catty remarks until they get to know her and then they might not say anything catty anymore... The initial response of making a catty remark comes from being jealous and all insecurity comes from jealousy. Women are always checking out other women, more than men do."
2. Ex-girflriends make me doubt myself. If she's pretty, I obsess to no end why they broke up, if I'm pretty enough, if he even knows what I actually look like, if I will always have to wake up 30 minutes before him to put on my makeup so he wont think some random homeless girl broke into his house and snuck into bed with him, etc. If she's very pretty, I pray to God that she's an idiot, because at least I'll have more brains. Beautiful women serve as the foundation for my insecurities. They may also be the reason why 7 million American women suffer from eating disorders. On the other hand, if she's not pretty, then I go crazy wondering if he only dates ugly girls, and if I am one of them. Also I assume that she must have an extraordinary personality, so is mine good enough? Probably not. In addition to feeling insecure, I am also baffled, desperate to solve this mystery of why this great guy would be with someone who doesn't seem as great.
3. My imagination is my worst enemy. My insecurities are cultivated by my own delusions-- delusions that will never be disproved or proven because I will never know this girl. So everything I imagine her to be is true, just like "The Secret" says. If I think she's a super model Mensa scholar, then she is! Damn the Law of Attractions! The only defense to our fatalist imaginations is to try to find people who know these ex-girlfriends and nonchalantly get dirt on them.
