Last night’s post had a second part that changed subject pretty abruptly. That’s because I had an epiphany mid-write—about what I’ve become, and the men who’ve been involved in it.
How much training did I have to go through to become this version of me?
I haven’t always been a huge slut. That really came after Brian 2. That was a response. A coping mechanism. A learned behavior.
Right after Brian 2, I had a boyfriend—Otter, as I called him. He was an alcoholic librarian and former USC frat boy, which probably tells you everything you need to know. He wasn’t a very sexual guy. He drank too much for things to work reliably—whiskey dick is real—and he never initiated sex. Ever. And it freaked me out.
Every fight we had was about not having sex. We eventually broke up over it.
Looking back, that says something important about me: I was so trained into believing that sex was love that it was the only way I knew how to connect to people. If sex stopped, I felt abandoned.
That realization stopped me in my tracks.
Had realizations here. See is why I write this. It’s to help me sort through the thoughts and find insight into what the fuck I’m doing with my life.
The first three men I slept with after Brian 2 were {D}, Otter, and {S}. In that order. I was deeply in love with all three of them. Or at least, I experienced something I believed was love.
With Otter, there was a reason it lasted. We had an incredible time together. We could talk for hours about everything—from literature to professional wrestling. We went to concerts constantly. Every Sunday we spent all day at a bar watching football. Most Saturdays we hung out were with professors who went Cal and Stanford who tolerated us cheering for USC and watched football all day. We had the time of our lives.
He was great—except for the falling-down-drunk part. And the time his pants fell down on the grand staircase at the Smith Center. That was… memorable.
Here’s the part I don’t like admitting.
When I became homeless, Otter wouldn’t let me stay with him. Not even one night. I slept in my car. {S} knew too and never even offered me a couch. {D} didn’t know—but I think he would have let me stay if I’d told him. Or maybe not. No one really seemed to care.
That’s something I have to sit with.
Why were those first three the ones I stayed caught on for years? Hell Otter and his twin brother comes to Christmas sometimes still. Why haven’t I connected with anyone like that since?
Was it a delayed trauma bond from Brian 2? Something I unconsciously placed on them? Some sense of safety or grounding after everything I’d just been through that made me cling harder and longer than made sense?
And why were all of them alcoholics?
{S} wasn’t technically he was a recovering heroin addict—he was just constantly stoned—but he’s an outlier. The only other man I’ve connected with since was {E}, the alcoholic Turkish architect with a motorcycle and a neck tattoo. I’ve always referred to him as either {D} 2.0 or Turkish {D}.
Funny thing: he recently got back in touch. He’d broken up with his girlfriend again. He told me he wasn’t interested in a relationship with me, but that we have “so much fun together” and should spend time together.
Translation: he wanted to fuck me and nothing else.
I told him to fuck off.
So why do I keep gravitating toward alcoholic men who ignore me and treat me like shit?
That’s the common thread. Every single one of them gave negative fucks about me. They disappeared. They left. Some of them did it repeatedly. None of them showed up when it mattered.
And I stayed. I managed their chaos. I took care of their fall-down-drunk bullshit.
What did I think I was gaining? What did my brain think it was getting out of this?
Hell, even LawyerBoy is an alcoholic who insults me when he’s drunk. He hasn’t done that since we broke up, so credit where it’s due—but I still need to remember what I’m dealing with. Of all of them, he’s the least alcoholic. He can stop drinking. The rest of them never could.
I get it. I grew up with alcoholics. It’s familiar. Apparently, I seek it out.
I don’t know. I need to seriously rethink my taste in men. It’s not taste as much as it seems to be pathology. I need to work on this.
It’s something I need to actively work on if I don’t want to keep repeating it.
By the way—{D} isn’t even the worst alcoholic of the group. Otter, God help me. That man didn’t bother getting a driver’s license because he knew he’d never be sober enough to drive.
That is, apparently, true dedication to your craft.
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