Sleeping with a Crackhead

Hi everyone. I hope your weekend is off to a great start. Ok, we are at the end of the romantic saga. Find out how it ends. And please if you read it all let me know what you think.

After Shawna got out of San Diego Job Corps, she went to San Jose Job Corps to finish up her studies there in an advanced program. I used to send her care packages while she was there. I would Fed-Ex her a big old box with some of the things she liked best like Twizzlers and Saltine crackers and other assorted goodies. Sometimes I would send her money as well. She didn’t ask for these things, I just wanted to be nice. I appreciated her friendship to me. She had listened to me go on and on about Jaime, and then talk about whatever would be romantic interest would pop up in my life, whether it be Rachel, Lisa, Tammy or even the art teacher Liz. She was there for me when I needed a friend. When I needed to love and be safe. She made me feel important, she made me feel appreciated and needed. Yes, I was in love with her, but I also genuinely loved her. When Shawna got out of San Jose Job Corps, she moved into the same building that I lived in. So, we each had our own not so deluxe apartment in the sky. She had moved on from Tim at this point. And to be honest, she is the one who messed that up. I will always have Tim’s side because although Shawna was my dear friend, she was a messed-up girlfriend. After Tim she made some real bad choices when it came to men. I always knew Tim was great, he was a special dude, but his greatness came even more to light compared to the assholes she would later date.

This isn’t the first guy but let’s start with Robert, the crackhead. Robert the crackhead lived down the hall from me. I never knew who he was until Shawna moved in and she met him. She slept with Robert and of course gave me the gossip. Well, although he wasn’t a boyfriend to her, they did hook up from time to time. I wasn’t too happy about the last guy she was with who definitely showed some red flags because he was a lady’s man and I didn’t like that he was asking her to do his laundry for him especially when they weren’t even serious. This guy Robert though was something else. As it turns out Robert the crackhead had a live-in girlfriend, but Shawna didn’t really care. She had no interest in him as a boyfriend, he was more like a friend with benefits. Shawna had a history of using speed and liked to drink. I would not say she was alcoholic at all, but she did get toasty once in a while. Shawna told me that one night she and Robert and his girlfriend smoked crack together all night. There was also some business about having a threesome with the girlfriend. So yes, the term Robert the crackhead is not derisive it is a fact. I did not like hearing about her doing crack all night. This had me scared to be honest. I did not want to see her life go downhill but with all these poor choices in men and the crack thing I was downright afraid her life would spiral. It seemed to already be on the decline. She told me about a time when her and Robert hung out and he bought her a 5$ pizza and a $1.29 40 ouncer. You have to take into consideration that just about a month earlier I had taken her out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and just to give you perspective this was late 1996 now and the dinner before tip cost $94 between the two of us. He said to her “I bet, you’re not used to being wined and dined like this are you?” Oh, I about shit myself when I heard this. “Was he serious when he said this?” I asked, hoping he was being ironic or something. No, he wasn’t.

He was dead serious. He really thought he was rolling out the red carpet with the $5 pizza and the 40 ouncer. You can’t imagine how much of a dumbass I felt like after hearing about this. I was taking her out to 100$ dinners, sending her care packages, sleeping with one girl at a time when I could, treating her like an absolute gentleman and this guy, this guy, is the one who is having sex with her? I just couldn’t fathom that this is how the Universe works. I am an incredible idiot I thought to myself. This guy is doing none of the right things, he’s smoking crack, having threesomes, being a cheap ass, and he is getting rewarded, meanwhile here I am suffering on the daily because I simultaneously am being repressed and loving a woman.

This would rock my world. Sometimes you get a revelation in your life that just makes you completely jaded, and this was one of those times. You can do all the right things, you can be classy, giving, loving, considerate and honest and some other guy is the one that is going to get the girl. Yet again, that feeling of, it should be me, I deserve that, and he doesn’t, penetrated my mind. Life did not seem fair at this point. What the fuck was I doing with my life? Things with Shawna and I would soon get strained. The truth is that I was just in too much pain. How much can one take? How can you be so close to someone you love and just be repressed and watch on the sidelines? I couldn’t take it anymore. I should be the one she wants; I should be sexy to her. But I wasn’t. She loved her bad boys. We started fighting more and more. She continued to make bad choices with her life. I remember having a talk with her and telling her that she deserved happiness. She deserved to have a boyfriend and not be one of many women that a guy sleeps with. She deserved love. You know what she told me? She said, “Do I?” That was it. There was the answer to all my questions. Why did she put herself through bad boyfriends? Why did she smoke crack? Why was she content being a side dish? Because shefelt like she deserved it. You won’t accept good things in your life until you feel like you deserve them. This was the epiphany I needed. She would always choose a bad boy because she felt bad about herself. I felt powerless. Her life would take her wherever it would take her, and I dreaded it was going to be down an awful road. I was powerless over her life and I knew it. I was not equipped to change anybody. The writing was on the wall. It was time to give up.

Some months later in 1997 I moved to another part of San Diego. I got a better job. Shawna and I had worked together for about six months and I decided it was time for me to move on. This new job paid more. It was 40 hours a week at 6$ an hour and the extra five hours a week would go far with me. It wasn’t really about moving up financially, I needed to move on. I am not going to watch a woman I love ruin her life with crackheads and threesomes and guys that slept with many women. I was not going to love a woman who didn’t want to be loved. She didn’t want a healthy relationship because she felt like she didn’t deserve one. That is not what I wanted. It was very painful to watch her life take these turns, so I had to go. Quickly the amount of contact we had with each other dissipated. And when I was ready to cut the cord and try to heal, I moved again and did not tell her. I just walked away from the situation. For my own well-being I needed to. So, there it is. Shawna and I were over. There was no movie moment where we realize we were meant to be with each other and give each other a big kiss. There was no great proclamation of love on my behalf. All my deepest moments of love and pain were kept to myself. Now they are on paper. How she really felt about me I will never know. I always wished that she had known, not to change anything about what happened but just to give her that peace of mind.

Requited Love

In part 6 of The Shawna years I discover what I was truly seeking from Shawna. In this one I recall one of the truly fulfilling moments of our friendship. I realize what had triggered me from part 3 The I Love You Conundrum. When it comes to true love who comes first? Read on and find out what happens next.

It is now the middle of 1996 and I am out of Job corps living in downtown San Diego on my own. For the first time in my life I am living independently. Making ends meet by working 35 hours a week and 6 dollars an hour. I couldn’t afford much so I was living in a residential hotel in a room so small it would make a prisoner complain. But it was all mine. Even though I had to go down the hall to take a shower, in a private room of course, I was proud to be on my own.

Shawna and Tim were still together and both at Job Corps. We still kept in touch and one day she decided to come over with Tim to visit me. Tim and I got along great so there was no tension between us. I think that when Shawna told Tim that I was the reason they got back together it smoothed our relationship. She let him know in no uncertain terms that he would have been done for if I hadn’t talked her back into getting back with him. Tim was great to her. I liked him for her so being that I loved her and wanted the best for her it was only right that I think of her and not myself and let her know she was making a mistake. Once Tim knew I was not some asshole male friend waiting for his opportunity to swoop on in like a vulture he knew he could trust me. He was old enough to know that a lot of guys who are just friends will take the first chance they get to denigrate the current boyfriend so that they can have a shot at a girl. But that is not me. I believe that love does the right thing and love is not supposed to be selfish. Sometimes Shawna and I would go out to a movie on our own and Tim was like “Did you enjoy the movie?” And he was totally cool, he never gave me any kind of crap nor did I give him any. Having Tim as her boyfriend allowed me to be happy for Shawna which in and of itself had a lot of value to me so I will always like Tim for that.

Tim and Shawna come over to my not so deluxe apartment in the sky and Shawna had been drinking a little bit. She wasn’t drunk by any means but she was feeling it a little bit. So here we are some 13 months after we had met, some 7 months after I first told her I loved her and with Tim right there she tells me”I love you,Marc.” Nice timing, Shawna, real nice. I said nothing. This was really awkward for me. Tim is right there, what will he think? So of course having said nothing Shawna repeats herself “Did you hear that Marc? I love you.” Sometimes I just think the Universe is out to fuck me, and this was one of those times. I sheepishly told her ” I love you too.”

That moment meant a lot to me. I had secretly been stewing for 7 months about her not telling me she loved me after I told her. All of those feelings I had about not being valued the same as others had come to the surface. I wondered why Rachel got an I love you and I didn’t. I had thought about an old fried Natalie who knew me for years and had never hugged me and then met my friend and within 20 minutes when they said goodbye she hugged him. These kind of things make me feel like I am some sort of an asshole. These things make me feel undervalued. Instances like these make me feel like women. although the like me, they enjoy being my friend don’t have a real connection to me. Natalie is the reason I was triggered by Shawna’s missing I love you from months ago. These things anger me. But anger is just hurt covered up with several blankets. Her I love you although awkward and poorly timed was what I needed. I needed to know I meant something to her.

The Robins of My Soul

You ever get so head over heels in love that you just have to write a poem about it? One with trees and birds in it? Yeah, you have. But mine had the whole fucking forest. Welcome to part 5 of The Shawna Years. Enjoy.

While at Job Corps Shawna and I took a class together called Office Skills. I took it because it was a way for me to go into Accounting. You had to learn things like 10key, typing and filing and some computer skills before you could go on to the Accounting class. Shawna did not have an interest in accounting but did take the Office skills class with me. Every hour there was a break so she and I would spend a lot of our breaks together. Her boyfriend Tim was taking a carpentry class which was not very far off from our office skills building. Occasionally they would see each other on breaks but typically they would see each other at meals and when the day was over for a few hours between 7 and 9:30 when we were outside.

At this time in my life I fashioned myself to be a poet. I would write poems about love, about sobriety, poems of hope, poems of triumph but mostly about heartache and pain. That was something I knew a shitload about. One day I decided to write a poem. It was a love poem called The Robins of My Soul. I almost cringe at that title because typically I don’t use flowery language. I don’t talk about nature and cute rabbits and birds and things like that. I tend to communicate more directly. But one night while Tim was hanging out with Shawna, it just poured out of me. I wrote a grandiose flowery emotional love poem complete with singing birds and swaying trees and cute little rabbits. It was of course about my true and deepest feeling about Shawna. I decided to let her hear it. I read it to her on the pretense of this is just a poem I wrote.

When I read it to her she said “Don’t tell Tim.” Aww, shit. She’s on to me. Just like when I told her I loved her that one day, I didn’t want her to know it was a romantic love I wanted her to read it as a friend type love but she reacted differently. I wanted her to just think this was just a romantic poem, not one about how I feel for her. She had me dead to rights. I thought quickly. How do I get myself out of this? “Why not?” I said, playing stupid. Being that I am often naive when I try to play things off by acting naïve it usually works. It’s a great diversionary tactic. She said” He’ll get jealous.” “Of what” I said. Like I have said before I don’t like to resort to dishonesty, I knew what the hell she meant but I had to protect myself, I couldn’t confess it was about her. Well, that threw her off and she said something like he would be jealous that he didn’t write it and he would want it for himself. I guess there was no way in hell that at that point in time she was going to say she thought it was about her. And there was no way I was going to let her know it was. It was too complicated. There was no way I was ever going to get down to the jist of it which was, I love you, and I am in love with you but I can’t trust you as a girlfriend, you cheat on your boyfriends. And to be completely honest, she had the power to just crush me. I refused to be vulnerable with her.

Had we dated I would have bought her gifts, gone anywhere she wanted to go, absolutely given her anything she wanted. All that stuff about not spending money on my girlfriends, that would have been out the window with her. I was just bluffing, I was just trying to keep her close and keep her distant at the same time. I was trying to love and trying to not get hurt. I had love with a safety net and you can’t have an everlasting love like that, to reach the highest level you have to be vulnerable.

The I Love You Conundrum

Welcome back everybody! This is part 3 of The Shawna Years. By this time my emotions were really starting to get involved. However, my confusion when it comes to social norms and the dynamics of male-female friendships really comes into play. My actions are often dictated by my logic but the rest of society often reacts to a different set of guidelines. I hope you are ready. Things are about to get interesting. Enjoy!

By July of 1995 just two months after meeting Shawna, she had firmly imprinted on me. We were still side by side with each other, eating most of our meals together, hanging out off campus and undeniably best friends at this point. We had never dated each other and crossed that bridge. I briefly dated Lisa again, right at the time Shawna had stopped dating Tim #1. Whenever there was a brief window where we both seemed to be available it closed quickly. Soon, Shawna was dating Tim #2 who happens to be my favorite of all of her boyfriends. The three of us got along great.

Being the best friends that we were we started talking about our dating lives. I would tell her about Lisa but confided that it really wasn’t going anywhere. I was kind of over her at this time. My heart was just not in it. She would tell me all about Tim and then some. As it turns out she cheated on Tim, a lot. First there was Shane, then Adam, and then back to Shane. He was the constant and I believe I was the only one who knew about their affair. A line had been crossed, I knew so much about my best friend that it made her undatable. I would end up making myself undateable as well.

A few more months passed by and Shawna was still with Tim and I had begun dating Tammy. Tammy was cute and goofy and let’s be honest, was big breasted and ditzy. I liked her but in my heart I knew she was safe. I knew I would never fall head over heels in love with her. I was not ready for that. I didn’t want it. Besides, I was head over heels in love with Shawna. I was just unwilling to cross that bridge, she was a cheater. I knew I wouldn’t have a chance with her. You just can’t change another person. We don’t have that kind of power. I feel grateful I knew that at such a young age. It is a lesson lost on many a young person. Despite all this I really spoiled Shawna. I was very kind and patient with her. When she would act up I was calm and collected and forgiving. I took her out to the movies, I took her out for cheesecake, it became our thing, some couples have sex together, we had cheesecake. To have cheesecake with another woman or go to the movies with another woman became akin to cheating in her mind. This had become her driveway rule although we were friends, and not an actual couple. Not that I had a lot of money because I didn’t, but I spent what I could on her. It was how I could show her my love, without saying it. My mom used to show me love by buying little things for me and letting me know she was thinking of me when she was out. You can say my mom showed me how to love.

After I realized I was in love with a cheater and I wouldn’t stand a chance with her I began to make sure she did not see me as any kind of a future boyfriend. I set out to make myself look like an asshole of a boyfriend. Good old self-sabotage. I told her I didn’t spend money on my girlfriends, I don’t spoil them. I told her I spent money on her because she is my friend but girlfriends get a different treatment. I loved Shawna and in my mind I just had to make sure I didn’t break her heart so to make sure she never got any ideas about me as a romantic possibility I had to make it seem like she had it better as my friend. Why on Earth would she want to change this situation? I spoil her both with my gentle behavior with her and also by buying her things and taking her out, she gets to sleep with whomever she wants and gets to talk to me about it without any anger or judgement. I made being her friend a perfect scenario. I loved her so much that the last thing I wanted to do was to have to reject her and have to explain to her “You cheat on your boyfriends.”

After Tammy came along a girl named Rachel entered the picture. Tammy left me for a really nerdy guy who wrote her some kind of big love letter after he learned about me so I was a goner. Rachel was in fact a brief romantic interest of mine. All this time Shawna is still with Tim. Tim is growing on me and I really like him for Shawna. Shawna and Rachel got along well, unlike Tammy or Lisa and they started hanging out a lot. Things never really went anywhere with Rachel and I didn’t really care, my heart was always with Shawna. After about a week of friendship I hear Rachel say “love you.” to Shawna. Shawna said it back to her. Now I have to admit I got jealous. I had been Shawna’s right hand for months now and Shawna had never told me she loved me. But a thought came into my mind, they are friends and apparently friends can tell each other they love each other so I will tell Shawna I love her.

One day Shawna and I are together at break time from one of our classes and I decided it was time. I didn’t waste much time. I stood in front of her and just said it “I love you.” “Marc” she said. That was it. And she had a tone in her voice that sounded surprised. Boy, this didn’t go as planned. I wanted her to take it the same way she took it when Rachel said she loved her. I didn’t get the same reaction. No, I love you back. I was very upset. I have known her 6 months, ate countless meals with her, got her back with Tim #2 after she broke up with him, listened to all of her secrets and kept them confidential, all that I meant to her and she doesn’t love me. I thought this was bullshit. Apparently a male friend saying I love you to a female friend is not received as well as a female friend saying it to each other. I think there are some driveway rules in play here for women that I just have no clue about. Apparently, there are other connotations. I deserved that I love you back, more than Rachel, more than anybody. This made me question my value to her as a friend. Does she enjoy my company but have no emotional attachment to me whatsoever? Am I the guy that women like but can’t make a connection with on any level? This was not a pain that I would get over easily. This one hit me really hard.

A Split-Second Decision

I feel like I should post this one now after the last post. This is the second post about Shawna. It may be better if you get the whole 7 part story in order. Jaime was a girlfriend that I mourned hard over. It hit and hurt me deeply. But Shawna was a love, where the loss lingered with me for a long time. I couldn’t get over her. Too many what if’s to process. Too much questioning of myself. So here it is part 2 of my great romantic debacle, A Split-Second Decision. Let me know what you think.

This one takes place a little while after I had returned from seeing Jaime. As I knew would happen Jaime and I were intimate on the weekend I went to see her. Having rethought the whole idea about seeing other people I had decided that we should be exclusive. It was not right for me to be physically involved with more than 1 woman at a time. It hurt everybody involved. When I got back to Job Corps I explained to Shawna how Jaime and I were now exclusive. I felt really good about my prior decision to hold off starting anything with Shawna. That would have just killed our friendship right then and there. Did Chester tell Shawna about our conversation? I will never know. Shawna and I never discussed it. Since I had never kissed Shawna or even told her of any interest in her then as far as I knew I was exonerated of any wrong-doing.

Another week had passed by and Shawna did not let on at all that she may have been upset about me getting together with Jaime. Nothing had changed between the two of us, and there was never any discussion about us being anything other than friends. We still hung out all the time. We still ate all of our meals together and we were still growing closer everyday. She was nothing but supportive of me. Because the relationship with Jaime was so tumultuous, I really valued having someone to talk about Jaime with. Very quickly my relationship with Shawna became very important to me.

One day when I was in my dorm the phone rang in the hallway. It was right around dinner time and Shawna would come and get me and on occasion she would yell for me and I would come down and go to dinner with her. I answered the phone and it was Jaime. We talked for a little bit and I heard the familiar voice of Shawna yell from downstairs. “MAAAARC” she yelled. At that second I had a decision to make. I could continue my conversation with Jaime or run downstairs to Shawna to be with her. What would I do?

I had never really given it any consideration before, who would I choose in an instant? I had loved Jaime for about 14 months at this point and knew Shawna for just about 5 weeks. Jaime deserved my loyalty, no question about it. So why would this have even crossed my mind? Sometimes you don’t know where your heart really lies until you get tested and this was one of those times. I choose to go to Shawna, which surprised me immensely. I had no idea how strongly I felt about her, up until that moment.

I told Jaime immediately that I had to go and why. And of course she was not very pleased about it. I had no explanation for choosing her. What can one really say? All I said was I have to go, Shawna wants me. I knew it was wrong the second I said it. I went downstairs to see Shawna and we went our way to the dining hall. I walked on like nothing had happened. At that moment I knew my heart had changed, I knew that Shawna was the one. The problem is, Shawna didn’t know. I did not tell her what happened. I was not comfortable letting on just how strongly my connection was with her. She had no idea I choose her over Jaime, all she knew was that she called and I came running. Shortly after Jaime and I broke up. She kissed somebody else. After all that crap we went through seeing other people and then finally becoming exclusive again. All of those struggles and I finally give her what she wanted all along,to be exclusive again and she messes around. I was devastated and I was pissed. But I should have seen it coming. I mean, emotionally speaking you could say I cheated on her. To choose Shawna over her like I did in that moment, that was not right of me. I should not have hurt her like that. I had a split-second decision to make and I made one.

What About Shawna?

Shawna was a very prominent friend of mine in the mid nineties. So prominent that I actually have a whole chapter dedicated to my relationship with her. There are seven entries in this chapter, aptly named The Shawna Years. I think those with autism will be able to relate to how I handled the various situations that came up in this story. My honesty and instincts to be forthright should ring as familiar. My unassuming nature and naivete should resonate with those on the spectrum. It is fun to look back at this entry and see how I responded to things and just wonder, what if someone else were in my shoes? Things would have unfolded so differently. But alas, I know that in the end things worked out exactly as they were meant to be.

In the year 1995 I was 23 years old and had absolutely no career perspectives in front of me and I made the decision to go to Job Corps. I signed up in October of 1994 and I had a girlfriend but since most of my prior relationships fizzled out shortly I figured by the time I was due to leave in January that relationship would be over. I was dead wrong. Although I lived in the bay area in Northern California they sent me to Imperial beach, California because it was there that they had an Accounting program I could get into. So I went to Job Corps although Jaime and I were still very much attached to one another but I thought it was best to go so I could do something about my future. Not only did I leave her behind but I made the foolish decision that we should see other people. This decision would turn out to be very painful. It was at Job Corps, San Diego Job Corps as it was called because of its proximity to that city, that I met Shawna, who would turn out to be the great love of my twenties.

But alas, love is often complicated and this most certainly was. In early May my good friend Chester introduced me to Shawna. At Job corps you live on campus so in effect it becomes a college like atmosphere although people are learning trades or getting their GED. The campus atmosphere and social life that I never experienced through college I would experience at Job Corps. The three of us had breakfast together at the cafeteria and instantly Shawna and I hit it off. There was no tension, it was an easy friendship and soon we were just inseparable. We always ate together and hung out after classes and what I liked about her was that I always felt appreciated around her, I always felt important to her. There was no gamesmanship, no hard to get, no guessing as to where I stood and I appreciated that. At the time I was not dating anybody on campus but I still kept in touch with Jaime. Although she and I were not exclusive there was still a very deep connection to her. I was by no means over her. Occasionally we would still see each other with me flying to see her or her doing the same.

Before Shawna got to Job Corps I had dated a girl named Lisa and that lasted about 5 weeks. One of the issues was that I was really pining over Jaime and I couldn’t really give Lisa the sole focus she deserved because my heart was elsewhere. And, as I have a tendency to be honest, she knew completely about Jaime, so this was not going to work. About 3 weeks into my friendship with Shawna the possibility of us dating came to the forefront. I remember talking about girls on campus and I said that it was hard for me to find somebody to date because all of the girls that liked me were ugly. Lisa was not ugly but at the time I had no legitimate prospects as I was nowhere near being attracted to any of the girls who had taken a liking to me. Shawna was very offended and said “Excuse me.” Apparently I struck a nerve. I had to clarify, “What I mean, is that the girls who like me romantically are ugly.”

Later on Chester who was there for this conversation talked about it. I mentioned that Shawna had gotten really offended and explained to him that I had assumed Shawna was not romantically interested in me. It is 100% natural for me to assume a girl is not interested in me. It is my default setting if you were. Chester said in a voice that indicated he knew something said “You assumed.” I then turned the subject to Jaime and explained to him that I was going to see her on the weekend which was a few days away at this point. He then asked me “What about Shawna? Do you like her?” This was complicated. Yes would be the short answer. I told him that I did like her but I didn’t want to start anything with her when I knew I was going to see Jaime on the weekend especially knowing that I would sleep with her. I had learned my lesson from dating Lisa and I didn’t want to put myself or Jaime or Shawna through such complications.

When I look back at that conversation I wonder how other guys would have handled it. For me, I had no instinct to be anything but honest about the situation. My fallback position is to come from a place of honesty. Nobody is 100% honest, I am not claiming that. However, I don’t choose dishonesty in every single instance where being honest is uncomfortable or inconvenient. Being dishonest is not something I take lightly or abuse, although it seems to make life easier for some people. Sometimes doing the right thing gets the wrong results and I can live with that. I wasn’t going to hide what was going on with Jaime and the thought of starting something with Shawna, not telling Jaime, sleeping with her and then coming back to Job Corps and making up some bullshit about nothing happened, well, that is just not in my reality. The fact that some guys would have done that didn’t even enter my brain until much, much later. So, as I said I would I went to see Jaime and I slept with her that weekend.

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Patterns

This one was a fun one to write. It shows my humor and also gives some insight into my thought process. This story shows how my autism was an asset for me. My ability to recognize patterns turned out to be very beneficial for me. Good humor and good life lessons can be found in this story!

I was doing a lot of thinking about the importance of recognizing patterns in life. What I’m going to do is give you a quick IQ test of sorts and see if you can recognize the pattern. OK? Here we go. What number comes next in the sequence? 4,9,16,25, 36? Ready for a new one? Which of the following does not belong? Police officer, fireman, supermarket clerk, cafeteria lady, lawyer? And finally, which of the following does not belong? Wife, meat, dog, egg, blowjob? You’re dying to know right? Well, I’ll get to it. But first a little story.

My mother died nearly seven years ago and as you can imagine it was a very difficult time, not just for me but also for my wife as well. For when a loved one suffers their partners suffer with them. My mom’s death was not a quick sudden one. As a matter of fact, ten years before my mom died she told me she had six months to live. We were blessed to have that extended time with her. And she made the most of her last 10 years. She traveled a lot and made sure to do the really important things in life and that is spend time with your friends and loved ones. My wife and I had a lot of time to discuss how to handle my mother’s impending death. She gave me great advice and warned me that I needed to mend my wounds with her, to make my peace. And I did. I learned that I can not run from the situation or I would suffer for it, so I showed up for her time and time again. Another important thing I learned is how the loss of a loved one affects relationships.

One of the biggest causes of a divorce is the loss of a loved one. When couples lose a child it can be devastating and the pain is so great the couples often divorce over it, when one of them loses a parent the same result often happens. You have to be prepared for the emotional damage that this can cause. You have to know that you will be hurt, that you will react in anger, that you will take it out on your spouse. You have to know the ensuing pattern.

I won’t provide a lot of details about her death right now becasue that will be addressed in a later chapter but I want to talk about how this pattern affected my wife and I. Sometime shortly after my mom passed my wife and I got into a pretty heated fight. Honestly, I can’t remember what it was about, because the issue was probably insignificant, the fight was about pain. We were both in a lot of pain, we both loved her and we were both grieving. So it was inevitable, we were going to blow up. It got so bad, we came very close to breaking up. Several years later we are still together, because we remembered a conversation we had about what to expect. We talked about how death tears apart relationships. In the back of our minds when the going got tough and we almost walked away from each other we recognized we were in the grips of a pattern more powerful than us. We had made a decision before her death not to make any drastic decisions within 6 months of her death. So, we put off breaking up.

I am so grateful that we were able to make the wise decision. We are still together today and we would have missed out on our own beautiful wedding, on a lovely trip to Italy, on many Christmases together and hundreds of lovely Sunday conversations over a cup of coffee had we not recognized the pattern of devastation that comes with the loss of a loved one.

Okay, so you’ve been waiting for the answers to the test. The first answer to the test is 49. 2 squared is 4,3 squared is 9, 4 squared is 16, 5 squared is 25, 6 squared is 36 so the next number would be 49. The next answer is lawyer. The rest of the people wear name badges. And finally, the last answer is blowjob. You can beat your wife, you can beat your meat, you can beat your dog, you can beat an egg, but nothing beats a blowjob.

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The Worst Song To Serenade Somebody with

I’ve been gone from this site for over a year. Over the last year I have re-branded myself you might say. In the past my focus was on recovery from alcoholism. Now, I am expanding and showing even more of myself. I am not only an alcoholic but also am on the Autism spectrum. Last year I wrote a book of memoirs about what it was like to go through life not knowing I was on the Autism spectrum. Relationships were a mighty struggle for me. The focus of this blog will be giving you excerpts from my book. Ready? Here we go with the first entry.

The year was 1993 and it was late September in Newark, California, a neighboring city to Fremont where I was living at the time. My birthday falls on the 14th and this one takes place during a pizza date that my friend Natalie invited me on to celebrate my birthday. A lot of memories with women back in my twenties remind me of my ineptitude at dating. I just had it in my mind that I sucked when it came to women so when you operate with that frame of mind things will only be difficult. Now that I am happily married I am at peace because eventually I got to the place I wanted to be. But the road there was full of struggles and the point of struggles is to learn something about them. That is the point of rehashing my past, to see what I have learned from it.

So I had just turned twenty-two and my friend Natalie and I had turned a corner in our friendship. There was a sexual tension building between us that was palpable. We had knownn each other for years through other people. First she was good friends with Jean’s younger sister then she ended up becoming good friends with Jean. So over the years I spent a lot of time with her because of my friendship with Jean. For awhile I had the impression that Jean was into her so I never thought of her as somebody to pursue. As time went on nothing happened between them and eventually it got to the point where it was now fair to show an interest in her. Natalie and I started talking on the phone and getting to know each other better this way. Getting into the talking stage with women was always fun and I always enjoyed getting to know them but it always seemed to be a dead end street. Once we got talking we just stayed talking. We would talk about everything under the sun except we would never talk about how we felt about each other. So it’s a bittersweet subject for me. One day Natalie took action and asked me out to celebrate my birthday. We would go play pool and then have some pizza.

My walk over to the pool hall which was right next to the pizza place was about forty-five minutes. On my way there I was trying to figure out what her intentions were for me. I read it that she was into me and read it as a date so I was excited. A forty-five minute walk to a date is actually a pretty good thing because it gives you a lot of time to figure out how you feel about a woman. I liked her and I was most definitely interested in her at this point. I wonder if a lot of guys come up with game plans when they go out with a woman. If I am the one asking a woman on a date I have a plan as far as the activities go, what to do and what time to meet up but I never have a when will I make a move plan. I just always felt like that should come natural. I always figured when the time was right it would just happen. There would be a moment and we would both know it and then nature would take its course. I value genuineness and planning how and when to make a move does not seem genuine, it is too contrived for my taste.

We met up at the pool hall and played for awhile. At this place you rent a table for the hour and then play as many games as you want within that hour and when the time is up it’s up. We played an hour and all seemed to be going pretty well. I was really enjoying spending time with her alone. I prefer a lot of alone time when I am dating a woman. I do much better in one on one scenarios and get a greater sense of fulfillment from them than I do in group settings. I feel like I get lost in the shuffle in group settings and don’t connect very well individually. I get caught up as somebody’s listener but I am not really given the space to do much talking. This is how it has always been for me. After we played pool we walked across the parking lot just a bit and went to the pizza place.

At the pizza place we sat down and we were sitting right across from one another. All of a sudden with the pizza in between us guess what? She makes her move. With no musical accompaniment she decides to sing Whitney Houston, and not just any Whitney Houston song but the biggest love song of her career, I Will Always Love You. I got serenaded acapella to this song. For some reason all I can remember is her singing the big hook and IIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love youuuuuu, uuuu, and IIIIIII will always love youuuu. Yes that part. This was the big moment. The moment I had been waiting for. She is across the table and I am looking into her big brown beautiful eyes just completely taken in by this moment. This is it! This is the point in the romantic movie where the guy and girl finally come closer and they give each other a big kiss. Okay, I’m ready, ah fuck there’s a pizza in the way! And she’s all the way on the other side of the table! God damn it! I got cockblocked by a pizza. Who gets cockblocked by a pizza? So I just sat there and waited for her to finish the song. And when she did I just said “that was nice.” What the hell? I completely and utterly just froze. The big moment came and went and that was that.

When we were done eating pizza we went outside in the parking lot to say goodbye. I was feeling so awkward because I felt like that big moment had just passed me by. I was so uncomfortable that I just sped my way through the goodbyes and thanked her. I was demoralized. From that point on it was all downhill. We stayed friends but I just knew in my head that if it wasn’t going to happen then it just wasn’t going to happen. I gave up all hope that she and I would ever be a couple. I began to look for reasons why she would make a horrible girlfriend. And you know what? I found them. So by the time she actually brought up the conversation about whether or not I could see us as a couple which was some five months later I had already given up. I was done.

She asked me if I could see us being together and I just said “it wouldn’t work out” and I think I just got nervous about the whole conversation so I said something really messed up and desperate. I said that I could see us having sex but not being together as a couple. I wish I would have kept that to myself. To make matters worse a few months after that she called to see how I was doing and she asked me if I was dating anybody. I said yes and explained that I had a new girlfriend. This confused her and she said “I thought you didn’t want a girlfriend.” Without thinking and just responding honestly and factually I said ” I never said that. I never said I didn’t want a girlfriend.” She said “Oh,just, me!” I said “yes” and she cried and said she had to go. God, I felt shitty. That went south really quick and I did not want to hurt her or intentionally be mean like that. I used to really like this girl. The feelings were far more than just sexual. She never knew that for a moment in time I wanted her but it just never happened. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been cockblocked by a pizza. That’s what I thought.

By the way I ended up looking up the lyrics to I will always love you recently and it’s just a crappy way to try and win somebody over. If you look closely at the lyrics it’s a damn break up song. It says we both know I’m not what you need. I don’t remember her singing that part of the song to me. Four years later a more appropriate song came out by Sixpence none the richer called kiss me. I think people should use that one as a make a move song.

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