I finished school in September, and immediately got to work. I took the first job I was offered, because I hadn’t worked in any capacity for about a year and I was dying to earn some money again! The job wasn’t great, but it had me traveling out to Centreville, so I started spending more time with my friend Janna.
I used to work with her husband, and we have a lot of mutual friends. Although I had been invited to events at their house before, I never really felt like more than an auxiliary friend, and rarely accepted. She invited me to her Christmas party that year, and I knew many of our friends were going to be there, so I agreed to go by myself. When I walked into their house, freshly bleached blonde hair and wearing a T-shirt with a Fairisle pattern of dinosaurs (because what’s better together than Jesus and dinosaurs right?) I attracted a lot of attention. Through hugs and high fives from a dozen friends, I saw him. There was a guy at this party I didn’t recognize. He had the most magnificent beard, and a great belly laugh. I couldn’t take my eyes off him the whole night.
It took me a while to realize that he hadn’t taken his eyes off me, either. We did this dance around our friends for most of the party, making eye contact, and laughing together at other people’s jokes, before we even talked to each other. Janna came over when she saw us close to each other and said “oh my God! I haven’t introduced you to my brother John.” I don’t even know Janna had a brother, but I was so happy to meet him. And once the introduction was made, we were stuck like glue for the rest of the party. We quickly found we both deeply enjoyed making each other laugh while observing the rest of the guests, smoking cigarettes together, and grabbing beers for each other. As far as party compatibility was concerned, we had SO much in common.
Towards the end of the party, realizing that we had too much to drink, Janna invited both of us to stay the night. We agreed to stay on the pull-out couch together, giggling about it while Janna eyed us and told us to “keep it down”. He and I sat up for a while and talked, and watched TV. He was a perfect gentleman with me, he just wanted to cuddle and it was really sweet. I gave John my number the next morning, and went home with a huge smile on my face. I didn’t really know anything about him, but I knew he was really fun and I was really looking forward to spending more time with them.
Within a week he asked me out, and we had our first date. Another effortless meeting, sharing a meal and some laughs. Soon after, I was invited to his house, and met his roommates and friends. A few weeks in, we double dated with his roommates and went to this winery. We both got a little wine drunk, and we’re texting each other from across the table hearts and kissy emoji instead of engaging with his friends. We went outside to share a cigarette and he told me he loved me. I loved him too. I still didn’t really know anything about John. I just really enjoyed his company.
So we continued to spend more time together, and got to know each other. What I learned was that: he was really good at his job, and it was very techy and complicated and even though he tried explaining it to me, I never really understood what he did. He had been in a long-term relationship before me, with a girl who really broke his heart. And his sister thought that she wasn’t out of his brain yet. Back then, that wasn’t a red flag to me, it was a challenge. I did everything in my power to be different than her, or at least what I understood her to be. She was a spin instructor who was a little uptight and hardly ever cut loose. So I quit going to the gym as much, and I was one of the boys with him and his friends. We had a lot of fun together, and we were falling in love without really defining what a relationship looked like to each of us.
I would go to his house every other Friday after work and we would party with his friends, and have great sex and spend the night, sometimes spending an entire weekend together. On the alternating weekends he would come to me. And we got to know each other‘s families and friends. My friends loved him. I think sometimes they were more excited to see him then me. He was always so affectionate and sweet when we were around our friends, and I really liked that about him because he knew how to keep a healthy balance of engaging with other people, and paying attention to me. He was never clingy or jealous, and he was so charming and got along with everyone.
But sometimes he was cold. Sometimes he felt like an emotional zombie, and that charismatic, affectionate man from the night before was someone different laying in my bed. I didn’t understand why he was so different the next day. Still, I felt like I was just learning about him. There was so much I didn’t know. And so much I had left to discover.
About eight months into our relationship, I found out I was pregnant. His sister had been experiencing a lot of trouble getting pregnant, and that was the first thing I thought about when I realized I was having his baby. It felt so selfish and wrong that we had only been dating for eight months and could have a baby, and she and her husband have been married for years and couldn’t. I was terrified to have a conversation with her. It never once crossed my mind that we weren’t going to have a future together, so my only fear in talking to him was centered around his sister. Despite the wishy-washy nature of my emotional security, I felt like we had a really good relationship. I felt like we were adults, we had even talked about moving in together, and that our relationship was solid.
Still, it took me a while to tell him. But one day I got really sad about hiding this from everyone we loved. Plus, all of our social events involved alcohol, and somebody was going to catch on that I wasn’t drinking. So I called him, overcome with emotion, but deep down I was confident that he would tell me everything was gonna be OK.
His response seemed so foreign to me, and came sharp and fast and nearly knocked me off my feet. “Absolutely not, we have to take care of it.” I was beside myself. As a progressive feminist, I am and always have been pro-choice. My choice was to keep the baby, but my heart was broken when I learned that his choice was not. Ironically, this came from first conservative guy I had ever dated. I was sure, because of his faith and political beliefs, that abortion was not even on the table. It never even crossed my mind that he would say any differently. I was shocked, he had knocked the wind out of me. My heart was broken, and I didn’t know if I could ever forgive him after that.
I made arrangements with Planned Parenthood and I made him go with me. As we approached the building, John saw firsthand what anti-abortion activists did to women were already in distress. He fended them off of me, in complete shock of how they attacked me. And honestly, I think he was afraid they were going to physically harm me. He was disoriented and sweating a little bit as we checked in at the lobby, and he sat and took my hand and stared at the floor.
We sat silently for what felt like hours. If we had been anywhere else, he and I would’ve been scrolling our phones or making little observational jokes about the other people, or telling each other stories about something. But we sat silently. There was nothing to say. I got called back and the operation took about 30 minutes. And it was rough. At the end, I walked out with my chin held high, because I couldn’t be ashamed of what I did. I didn’t want it, but I also didn’t want him to resent me for making a decision we couldn’t agree upon. I didn’t know how I felt about him anymore, but I was grateful that he was there for me. We drove home in silence, he dropped me off and didn’t come in. I cried myself to sleep that night, disappointed and alone.
Our relationship after that somehow continued on without a stumble, as though that day never happened. We were drinking enough, so it was easy to forget, I guess. One morning I was up before him and wandered downstairs to his kitchen to find something to eat. His roommate was in the kitchen. As I opened the fridge he laughed “there’s only beer in there.” I was like, “God it’s Sunday... y’all still have a lot of beer to finish today!” Then, his roommate casually mentioned to me that John would be drinking that beer on the way to work. I furrowed my eyebrows at him, and said “Uh... like in the car?” And he said “oh yeah. He drinks a beer on the way to work, he keeps a cooler of beer at work, and he drinks a beer on the way home.”
Suddenly it became very clear to me why he was so different at night than he was the next morning. He was an alcoholic. Its fucked up, but the thought crossed my mind that maybe if I had told him that I was pregnant when he was drunk, he would’ve been that same charismatic, loving, affectionate boyfriend that I had fallen in love with. But I don’t regret telling him when he was sober. He let me see his true self and made me realize that I made the right decision, even though it was one of the hardest decisions of my life. The absolute hardest was ending things with him.
While I was in college I babysat for my friend Melissa. I loved her boys, and I would spend more time with them than I did with her! They were the first kids that ever made me want to have kids. So even after college when I was working again, I would still watch them anytime. She and her husband were going away for a weekend, and asked me to stay with the boys, and housesit too. I asked if John could stay with us; we had a house, two boys, and four dogs to take care of, and I could use the help. I thought this would be a good opportunity to see if there was a future with John.
So I invited him to play house, and, surprisingly, he happily agreed. I thought that was a good sign, and I was excited about the prospect of us revisiting the idea of having a family. As much as I was heartbroken over our decision to terminate my pregnancy, I still yearned to feel a sense of belonging in our relationship again. So we spent all weekend together at Melissa‘s.
It went really well. He was great with the kids, and the dogs, and the house! We laughed and got along really well, and he was really affectionate and sweet to me, despite the fact that there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in our systems the whole weekend. I thought this was an incredible turning point for us and made me really hopeful about the future with him.
At the end of the weekend, I mentioned to him “hey, we make a pretty great team. Thanks for hanging with me this weekend.” His response again came sharp, and fast, and knocked me off my feet. “Don’t get any ideas Katie, I’m not ready for any of that.”
Even writing this, I had to sit in silence for a while before I could continue the story. He really broke me. I just couldn’t understand why he would agree to do that if he felt that way, and how he could be so cold to me. I knew that it was over and even though I loved him I had to end it. We just weren’t meant for each other. And he needed somebody that didn’t want anything from him. And I wanted the world.
He wished me well and we ended everything on a somewhat amicable note, but it was sad for everyone involved. My friends called him “Fun John”, like “Fun Bobby” on Friends. My family thought we would get married, and I think maybe his family did too. I tried to continue to hang out with Janna, but every event she invited me to, John was there. I vividly remember how horrified and confused everyone was when he and I were pal’ing around at his niece’s birthday bbq a few months after our breakup.
It never got any easier to be around him especially once we started dating other people, so eventually I just stop spending time with that group of friends altogether. He and I have kept in touch sporadically, as friends. He has no idea how much I still deeply care about him, and it’s probably for the best. His new girlfriend seems aloof and uninterested in much. And he seems to really like that about her. Last i heard they were either married or talking about it. So, good luck with that John.
