The weirdness olympics
I have dated more than my share of crazies. I've been with creepy and I've been with just plain weird. I am not very "normal" myself. I mean, I have been told by psychiatrists that there essentially is no "normal". I suppose that is true. Everyone has some kind of neurosis or depression or hangup. When I say that I have dated a lot of "crazy" men, I mean that they have mental problems that impair them from functioning normally. I dated a guy named Jacob, an agoraphobic nineteen year old who dressed in a smoking jacket and drank water out of martini glasses when I was ten. Yeah, ten. I dated a guy who was an ultra possessive, suicidal sexual deviant. I dated another guy whose complete hatred of women put him on a mission to ruin every girl's life that he came across. They had mental health issues that were very tangible to me.
There are two guys that stand out from the rest. I have been wondering over the last few months who takes the title of the weirdest guy I've ever dated and I have it down to two: both men with serious issues but couldn't be more different.
Candidate number one was Edward, the first guy I ever lived with. From the beginning I knew he had some off kilter ideas and that he was incredibly frugal. Those were things that I could work with and did for the first few months. Then his flaws started to come to light. First came the other women; that coincided with his becoming more secretive. He would work all day and immediately hop on the computer as soon as he walked through the door either writing email manifestos to strange women or chatting until all hours with any one of the various internet women obsessed with him. I know what you're thinking. None of this is that weird. I'm getting there. So then came the other women. The more the merrier. He suffered from erectile disfunction (Later I found out that it was due to a terminal illness.) and yet he would involve himself with any woman he could get. Oddly enough, all of them were highly sexual. They were also all misfits of some sort, suffering with extreme issues and mental illness. He was deprived as a young man of female affection and made up for it collecting every woman that would have him. I lived with these women cohabiting him but I wasn't happy about it. He collected quite the harem at one point. It was really something the hold he had over these women. He would invite them over under the guise of a date and chat with other women the entire time. All the while he emphasized how he wanted us all to get along and yet he was always pitting us against one another. There was one perfectly lovely woman who according to him thought I was a shallow status symbol (He was more than double my age.) Of course he told me all the nasty things about her and I hated her because of this unfair assessment. When I finally met her, I found her kind, caring and really nice with a dark sense of humor and sharp cynicism. It was his obsessive need to have as many women as he possibly could even though he did not have the time or attention to give them that did not sit well with me. If you have two girlfriends and you don't have the energy to give time to both of them, don't pick up a third and fourth girlfriend.
His personal hygiene became a very big issue. He would take epically long baths and would barely towel dry himself afterward because he liked to air dry. That is fine and makes sense. It took him over an hour until he was dry to his satisfaction. This became problematic whenever we were invited out with people. He would wait until the last minute to bathe and not leave until he was sufficiently dry. He did not care if we were late. He had to have things his way. He liked to open all the doors to the apartment to help him dry, exposing his fat naked body to anyone who walked by.
This is a bit nasty and I can't believe I endured it for as long as I did. Despite the fact that I paid the water bill, he was obsessed with conserving water. I'm not talking about not running the water the entire time you brush your teeth or taking shorter showers. He literally wanted me to save my shower water so he could bathe in it afterward. If I didn't shower or save the water from my shower, he wouldn't bathe. Once he complained to me that he had to run his own bath water because I hadn't saved any for him. I told him that that's what people do. They use fresh water to bathe. He also used the water for other things like washing dishes and cars. He was so proud of himself for using all the water while I was repulsed. I don't want dirty bath water dishes.
That frugality spilled over into all areas of his life. He would troll the streets looking for ancient broken computers which he dismantled for parts all too ancient to be of use. Edward had many large rubbermaid containers filled with junk that he never cleaned up. When I would touch them he would become desperate to find something in the containers: the containers he let clutter the living room that he never ever looked in. He would hoard clothes, at one point having nearly one hundred crummy t-shirts. Restaurants or take out food did not factor into his life unless it was on someone else's dollar. He would go to the 99 cent store to look for food and pour as many condiments into a can of beans for dinner. Needless to say, I did the cooking.
He maintains that he has always been left by women and is always the victim of feminine cattiness. It is not true. He's gotten some nice women who were very good for him and he's shat all over them until the point where he has driven them away for good. Some of them, he really genuinely loved as much as he is able but he never recognized this love. He tested it by all the sleeping around and lack of attention. He hardly ever complimented the women he was with. He maintained that he only said nice things to other people and never to their face. That is not how relationships work if you want to keep them. We should say nice things to the people that are good to us to let them know they're appreciated.
Next, there was Jimbo. I met Jimbo on Halloween. He was a UC Berkeley law student seven years my senior. He was intelligent enough with a bizarre sense of humor. I never heard him laugh at all except for at his own jokes which were usually nonsense. He occasionally would break into a jig he called "the panda dance" for a couple of seconds and then act as if nothing happened.
His finances were a mystery to me and he certainly never talked about them. He appeared to have an endless supply of money which he mostly wasted. He constantly ate at restaurants but never with me. In fact, he never took me to dinner in our whole more than five months together. The only time we went out for drinks was the night we met. I can understand not wanting to get drinks out because the mark up on alcohol is so high. It's tempting to buy your own booze and drink at home. But Jimbo went out for drinks a bit just by himself. He wore fine Armani shirts and had other very expensive things. He had a dvd collection of well over four hundred movies. Most of them were cheesy horror, chick flick and Michael Bay type flicks. While he was proud of his collection, I was astounded by how many shitty movies were in one library. He saw every movie that came out but instead of renting he went to the nearest store and bought all the movies he wanted to see. Once he watched them, he would return to the store and sell the ones he did not like so much back for much less than what he paid. I suggested netflix or getting a rental account but he was having none of it.
I think he may have been a compulsive liar. I never caught him in a lie or anything but his stories about his life and family were very far fetched. His family was the quintessential stereotypical Italian American family. They were well to do and his brother in law had strong mafia ties. Jimbo also had a checkered past with drugs. At one point, he said he was one of the major coke dealers in Orange County with his best friend who was identical to Brad Pitt. Sounds like total bs, right? If you met this guy it would be even clearer. He was aloof to the point where he barely interacted with anyone let alone a powerful drug dealer.
Because he had been so heavily into drugs, he claimed that sexual pleasure was secondary to the high of coke or heroin. He was asexual to the point of it causing a serious rift between us. He was not in the least bit interested in having sex except when he was excessively drunk. He had very naive notions of sexuality. He liked sitting next to me and stroking my hand lovingly. He nuzzled. He did all the PG rated things couples do when they are preteens in lieu of having sex. He was a grown man of thirty and he had at some point had sex with two other girls. I don't understand how that happened.
Once he showed up on one of my best friend's doorstep and offered him some bad drugs. He said a lot of cryptic things to Jeff and even argued that cats had no bones in their tales. Confused, Jeff just nodded his head until Jimbo wandered off. When I found out about this impromptu visit, I asked how Jimbo was able to get into Jeff's back yard which was behind a tall fence and a locked gate. He replied, "I have my ways." What did he want us to think? That a helicopter dropped him into the yard. That was very indicative of Jimbo. There was an unglamorous truth that he masked with lies and intrigue. Another time, I introduced him to CT, my best friend. He proceeded to be insulting to her and we left. I did not see him for another two weeks and then he called. The call started with him telling me how much he missed me and wanted to see me and ended with him using his mafia ties to rub out CT. "If she gets in my way, I will get rid of her. You know I can do that don't you?" He said, his voice as threatening as a child's. That was the last time we talked.
Edward is currently dealing with his terminal illness. It's okay. We still communicate and I don't hold any grudges against him but he really did do a number on me. Last I checked, Jimbo was still dating really young girls with issues and is in the movie biz.
So there it is. Those are my boyfriends who when I tell anyone about them, people can't believe why I had anything to do with them. The answer is simply low self esteem. I am so insecure about my looks and worth that I have taken up with some guys that I shouldn't have. Some were not too nice. Some were beneath me. Others were good people which is why I haven't talked about them. For every Edward and Jimbo I learned a lot. I learned that their problems are not because of me. Their problems are their issues and not mine. I'm not the most normal girlfriend either. I'm sure some guy is blogging about my crazy antics somewhere. That's fine. Life is a work in progress. The important thing is that I'm done with them and I sincerely hope they get some help.
So who is the weirder one?