This morning I started to think about the changes I have gone through in life and how, in some ways, I have become a better person, while in others I have a lot of work to do. Then I started thinking about the events that led me to make changes or changed how I saw things. That reminded me of the whole situation surrounding Heather and I came to a realization. If I look at the bad relationships I have had, and I mean the truly bad ones, I was supposedly the guy who was the first “nice guy” for each one of those ladies. When you look at their history before me they were always in abusive relationships.

This kind of hit home for me because, while I was never like the guys I am thinking of, I was a real ass for a long time. I am not at all proud of what I was or what I did, and I also realize I will never be able to undo what I did. On the other hand I realize that I probably got in to some of those relationships to try to make up for what I was. In the case of Heather, for example, I absolutely felt like I deserved what I got. I remember thinking that when we were together. Looking back it was absolutely insane, but it was how I felt at the time.

If I look at the pattern of these relationships I realize I was trying to “help” these women. In some cases I was helping them out of abusive relationships. In others I was trying to help them get back on their feet. In some cases I was just hoping to help these women realize they deserved better. But when you get right down to it, I don’t think I really helped any of them.

I won’t go in to specifics for most of the relationships out of respect for the women involved, but I will try to explain it using Heather as an example since neither she, nor our relationship, are worthy of my respect.

First, when we met she had nothing. I mean that literally. She had just returned to Texas after getting away from not one, but two, total losers. The love triangle she left consisted of the father of one of her children who beat her so badly when she was pregnant that the baby was born with serious disabilities, and the “gentleman” who introduced her to crack, pimped out at least two women after they got addicted, and either planned on turning her out. Heck, for all I know she was turned out by the guy.

So when she came back she had nothing. She had left almost everything she had behind. And her only option when she got here was to live with her ex-husband and his wife. Now, keep in mind, the reason he took her in was because he was still in love with her. Hell, he chose the subdivision they lived in because it had the “Heather’ in the name. (Not sure how his new wife felt about that). Not that he wasn’t an abusive ass too. Yes, he beat her as well.

Needless to say she had lousy self image. She didn’t think she was worthy of a decent guy. (OK, put aside for the moment our relationship and the fact it seems to confirm that, in fact, she wasn’t worthy of a decent guy, even if I am not a decent guy, as some would argue.)

So here we have a woman who has nothing, was used to being abused and who thought she only deserved assholes. So, naturally, I was in full Captain Save-a-ho mode and tried to remedy all of those things. And what, exactly, was the end result? I lost so much weight people assumed I was ill, I was hit on more than one occasion, I was almost arrested for having the gall to try to stop her from hitting me AGAIN and I was out several thousand dollars.

And what did she end up with? She went back to the guy who beat her when she was pregnant (with the assistance of the ex who also beat her). He did it again and she ended up in the hospital. She also ended up with nothing as she ended up having to abandon most of what I had given her to get away from him. I’d say we can safely say from this story that I failed in all three of my goals to make her life better.

So what is the lesson here? I could say that when you get right down to it people can only help themselves, and that is true for the most part, but there’s another lesson. To a certain degree you can tell a lot about someone by the people they chose to get serious with before. (Yes, I realize this also makes me undateable.) If someone has always been in shitty relationships, that is probably what they are going to be used to. And if you don’t give them what they are used to you will be lucky if they just dump you. It seems like they try to turn the relationship you have in to what they have always had.

I am not saying that you can’t give people a chance if they have made mistakes in the past. But I will say that, if there’s a pattern, you can probably expect that there’s a reason for it.

OK, so last night I told part one of this story. If you haven’t read it yet, please do so. Otherwise you will not get exactly what happened. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you.

OK, now that you are up to speed, when we left last night I was sitting at a small table in The Hard Rock mad that I was not getting to see The White Stripes, mad that I had been unfairly accused of “checking out” other women and, at the same time, worried we were going to break up over this shit. Granted, in retrospect, I should have dumped her long before this event, but that is not what I was thinking at the time. I was “in love” and I didn’t want to lose her.

Eventually Heather came out and she was still pissed. Of course leaving meant I had come outside to continue to check out other women, and I was probably going to actually take the opportunity I was being given to actually hook up with another woman. Obviously I left so she wouldn’t be able to stop me in my nefarious plans. Now, of course, that ignored the reality that the woman I was supposedly after was still in the club I had left. But logic was not going to get in Heather’s way when she was mad.

As soon as she got to me she starts tearing in to me again. Keep in mind I was, at this point, sitting completely alone drinking a beer and waiting for her. And she is making a massive scene, which is actually kind of hard to do in Vegas. She is somehow starting to make me feel guilty as if I had done something wrong. The more she says the more I feel like absolute shit. And she kept this up as I lead her to a cab. She kept it up as we ride back to The Venetian. She keeps it up in the elevator on the way back to the room. She keeps it up as I get ready for bed. Then she went too far.

She told me she was going to just go down to one of the bars, find some guy and fuck him.

Yes, even I have my limits, and this was it. I let her know that if she went out that door I would have the concierge come pick up her luggage and she could see if the guy would pay for her ticket home because I would cancel the one I bought. And at that moment I was absolutely ready to leave her in Vegas.

That pretty much shut her up. I say pretty much because she was still wanted to go to a bar. But she said she wanted me to take her to one so she could dance, blow off some steam and get over all this. I thought about it and decided I would go with her, but I admit it was mostly because she was going to make me miserable until I said yes. So I got dressed and we went back downstairs and asked the concierge to suggest a bar. He got us a cab and he and the driver picked a spot for us on the same street as The Hilton.

The selected bar was one with some kind of beach theme. It was absolutely packed and, of course, full of women. But I was very careful this time. I never took my gaze off of Heather except when I had to go to the bathroom or the bar. In fact, as soon as they started talking about a wet t-shirt contest I intentionally made sure I had to go to the bathroom and then snagged a spot at the bar in a place where I absolutely could not see the stage. Heather did try to accuse me of watching the show but as soon as she realized that was impossible she backed down. Drama averted.

Over the course of the evening a guy who wanted to Heather used a rather sly move where he tried to help teach me to dance so he’d have an excuse to dance with her, but I didn’t let that phase me. I just went with it and had fun. Then I totally lay back as Heather danced with some other girls (making sure not to actually watch them dance together) and started talking to a couple of guys I met at the bar.

Let me explain something. One of the 2 guys was military and was in Vegas for work. The other was his boyfriend. Yes, this was a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” situation, but these were some pretty cool guys. We actually had a lot of fun because I knew I didn’t have to worry about Heather getting mad or either of them doing anything that would make it seem like the three of us was checking out the girls. It was an ideal situation under the circumstances.

Eventually the dance part of the bar shut down and we headed upstairs to a separate bar that stayed open later. We ended up at a table with mostly people we hadn’t even been talking to except these 2 guys. And then one of the girls decided she and her man should have a 3-way with Heather. And she made it quite clear she was serious. In fact, she told me Heather would be leaving with them. She kept it up to a point where I finally decided staying quiet was not the way to go.

This time it was my turn for a scene, but I didn’t say anything to Heather or the girl. Instead I turned to her boyfriend and advised him his slut was writing checks his ass couldn’t cash, and he’d better put his bitch on a leash. Yes, those were the exact words I used. Surprisingly, that settled things pretty quick because he grabbed her arm and led her out. She was not exactly happy that he didn’t stick up for her. But he also realized that, at that moment, I was deadly serious. I really hate making a scene in public, but I’d had a very long night and was not in the mood to be pushed anymore.

As the bar shut down around 6 the only people left at the table were me, Heather and my new gay friends. We all decided we needed a couple of hours sleep and would then go grab some breakfast back at The Venetian. They were staying at The Hilton, which was within walking distance, so we headed over there. They had 2 beds and were only using one. (The second bed was so the military guy would have cover from the other military guys that were there for whatever they were doing.)

This is when things got weird.

Let me cut to the chase. Heather and I started making out, and they started making out. We got naked; they got naked. I went down on Heather; one of them went down on the other one. Then they decided to watch us. It seems they found me going down on Heather fascinating. I think she both enjoyed being watched and had been enjoying watching them as well. So we went at it for about an hour with the two guys periodically stopping what they were doing to watch us. Although I was a little drunk I don’t believe they ever actually had sex, although they did get the lube out so I could be wrong. I got the feeling they were too embarrassed to go that far in front of us. It could have happened while I was busy going down on Heather and I wouldn’t have noticed.

This is about as close as I have ever gotten to swinging, and I’ve often wondered if what we did qualified as group sex. Regardless, it was definitely on the list of strangest nights of sex I have ever had. And the fact that the next morning we all woke up and went to breakfast like nothing had happened still makes me laugh a little. I’m kind of surprised Heather never used that night in one of her attempts to make me feel like shit. Hell, she used everything else. Maybe she thought it reflected badly on her. I’ll never know.

I do know I never heard from either of those guys again even though we did exchange numbers. Should I feel used?

This time I am writing a story by request of a friend at The Outlaw Safehouse. It’s been a long time since I wrote this kind of story, so bear with me if I’m a bit rusty.

Back when Heather and I lived together I decided I needed a vacation. (I hadn’t been anywhere since my divorce and really needed out of Dallas. Of course I haven’t been out of Dallas in a while now and need to get out of town but I digress.) I decided I wanted to see who was playing in Vegas because I love Vegas and if there was someone worth seeing I would definitely want to go. And, as luck would have it, The White Stripes were playing The Joint at The Hard Rock. That made up my mind for me and I booked the reservations.

Heather and I flew out to Vegas for a nice 4-day weekend. I got us a suite at The Venetian, which I love, by the way. In all honesty, we were having a pretty good time. I bought a new camcorder and we got some fun video (not that kind you pervert). Of course Heather wanted to do something more Vegas and we had been offered some Riverdance tickets (Lord of the Dance or whatever) so we went.

Riverdance is not exactly my kind of show. I will grant you that they are talented, but I have never been a huge fan of dance in general, despite being able to appreciate the skill involved. Add in what is essentially a very weak plot and I am not going to be thrilled with the show. But Heather was enjoying it so I was happy. That is until she asked me to sneak some video of the show. I actually had no problem doing that because I didn’t care that much if they asked me to stop. I got about 10 minutes of video before they said to stop.

Unfortunately the brief part I got featured, for the most part, the two female leads.

For the record these were cute women. But I was not ogling them or anything like that. At the time I was totally in love with Heather and I had absolutely no desire to be with any other woman. But when Heather saw what was on the video she was pissed. Obviously the fact that the video was mostly the two female leads meant I wanted to fuck them. And, of course, this was something I was actually going to try and would probably achieve. I mean, I am just that cute and charming, right? (Note: to the sarcasm impaired, that is sarcasm)

So Heather went ballistic.

It wasn’t just that I had the audacity to film the women who happened to be on the stage at the time, one of them was the “bad guy” in the story. That must mean what I secretly wanted was slutty evil women. Anyone who knows me knows this is exactly what I chase. (Note, this is sarcasm again. You really should start picking up on that.) So I was getting absolutely lambasted for filming something she asked me to film, and for apparently scheming to have some sort of 3-way with a pair of dancers. Now, in the time following Heather this might have actually been something I would have contemplated, but at the time, no way.

Needless to say the rest of the night didn’t go well. In fact she didn’t exactly start being nice to me again until after we had done some shopping the following day. (Yes, I am stupid.) But she did kind of get over it. And the trip started going OK again until the next night, when we had tickets for the White Stripes show.

If you have ever been to a show at The Joint you know 2 things. First, it is an absolutely awesome place for a show. It is pretty small and you can get real close to the stage pretty easily. The second is that the women who go there often dress very provocatively. Now, I have been to a lot of shows at a lot of venues, so I feel very safe in saying this is to an extreme far beyond the normal slutting up some women do for a concert. Maybe it’s the combination of the concert and Vegas, but if you want to see hot women looking their best, The Joint is a great place to go.

But I was still VERY aware of what had happened the last night. If being at a show where 2 hot women happened to be dancing got me in trouble I was pretty sure being in what is essentially a club full of equally hot women, looting their best, any of whom I could have actually talked to if I so desired was bad news. I literally spent the whole time waiting to get in, and then in the club waiting for the opening act, staring at my feet.

But Heather was very insecure, despite the fact she was extremely attractive, young and absolutely my type physically. So the more she saw these women the madder she got, even though absolutely nothing was happening. Honestly I was scared to go to the bar to grab a beer for fear that a woman might actually be somewhere between where I was and the bar. So I sat on the floor, by the wall, looking at my Doc Martens, waiting for the eruption.

I didn’t have to wait long.

As I sat there trying to stay out of the way someone tripped over my foot. And, just my luck, it was a very trashy looking woman in all leather, including fringe. I can honestly say that this woman’s look was so tacky that I didn’t see if she was attractive. What I saw was stupid looking fringe. Of course what Heather saw was me “checking out” this woman as I glanced up to see who had just kicked my boot.

At that, it was on.

Heather started to absolutely go nuts. “How could you disrespect me like that? How could you want such a slutty woman? Is that what you want, a whore?” I was torn between being mad, being embarrassed and being scared of losing her, and I literally had done nothing wrong. After about 5 minutes I said I couldn’t deal with this, got up and left the club. Needless to say I never got to see The White Stripes.

But the night was not yet over…

I hesitated writing this post. Honestly I have been avoiding writing anything serious for a long time. Granted that has been easy since I had taken a serious dating hiatus, hence I had less sources of new material. But I still have old stories I could have trotted out that I never told. I just didn’t feel like hearing any grief from people who used to know me or thought they knew me. But the time has come. This is a story that deserves to be told.

See, I have gradually ventured back in to the dating world. I even have one story I am fighting letting out, but I have reason to believe that the person who it’s about would read it and really have her feelings hurt, and I don’t want that. (But it IS a good story and, damnit, has some excellent advice for the ladies built in.) I’m fairly sure she told people about this blog and if any of her friends read about why I’m not going out with her anymore she’d really be embarrassed. That one is going to take some time and distance so she’ll have plausible deniability.

This one, however…

See, I met someone online again. I know, I know, I should know better. But I meet absolutely nobody at work and as that makes up 55-60 of my waking hours each week my opportunities to meet people are limited. I never go out when I have my son, so that leaves about 4 days a month, most of which I spend trying to recover from the other 27.

So we met online and spent some time chatting. I decided pretty quickly there wasn’t a great match. This is a woman with basically no sense of humor. Obviously if you read this blog and/or Scary Personals, you understand that I joke around a lot. So someone who has no sense of humor is not a good match for me. But I let it slide because some people just don’t catch humor in chats, and she’s been through a lot this year, so I cut her some slack. Besides she was a little less humorless on the phone.

Then the drama started.

Let me explain I am not being picky about drama here. Her family has been through a lot and that is not at all the drama that I am talking about. You cannot help health problems at all. And, if you happen to have a couple of shitty distant relatives, this is not your fault. But there are things you can help. Among those are being constantly involved with your exes.

You all know how I feel about exes. An ex is an ex for a reason. Bu we are not talking about exes as friends. We are talking about hooking up with exes. Repeatedly. Yes, in a matter of less than 2 weeks a woman who wanted to go out with me unburdened herself about her escapades with exes.

Three times.

First there was the “recent med school grad” that she went out with and, after they had a fight, she basically dumped on the side of the road. Apparently that didn’t go over too well with him, or her mother for that matter. But, hey, it’s OK because he was an abusive controlling asshole, according to her. (Begging the question, why was she was back with him, but I digress.)

Then there was the guy (working in the oil industry) who she went out with that shaved her. Yes, you read that right, he shaved her. A woman who was vying for my attention was, at the exact same time, getting naked in a tub with another guy who she let shave her. Of course that wasn’t even the weird part of the story. You see, in the period after the shaving, while they were naked and making out, he let her know he was engaged. But he recovered nicely when she got upset. He proposed to her, with a ring. Granted, it was the ring he had bought for the other woman he was “engaged” to, but still a valiant effort. Of course she told me how irate the whole thing made her. This became evident when, the following night, she tried to chat with him online, which is, of course, the logical thing to do when you never want to talk to someone again.

Guess who was actually logged in to the IM she thought was her, well, what do I call him? Whatever he is, it wasn’t him. It was his fiancé. And she didn’t much care for this woman trying to chat up her man. Of course the woman I was chatting with didn’t back down and they had an electronic cat fight where the whole shaving, make-out, confession, and proposal tale came out. I actually wish I had that transcript.

But, no, we’re not done. A couple of days later she’s in a bad mood again. Did I mention she seems to be in bad moods pretty regularly? Yeah, she does. But this time she had a reason to be in a bad mood. It seems she was late. I assume everyone understands what I mean by late. But she was not worried that med-school boy or oil field guy had knocked her up. You see, she had seen both of them far too recently to possibly be the father even if they did hook up. No, the suspected father in this case was a lawyer she had gone out with and went to Oklahoma to visit. And, according to her, when she told him he supposedly said it was “not his problem”. Which, to me anyway, indicates he’s not much of a lawyer.

Of course the normal response of a woman who suspects she might be pregnant would be to get a pregnancy test to get an answer, but that would be too simple. Instead she didn’t do anything and, apparently, finally had her period, so she’s not knocked up.

For those who are wondering, it was about this time (post “I might be pregnant but I’m not getting a test” but pre “Whew, I’m not pregnant”) that I came to the conclusion this was not someone I would consider anything real with. Seriously, if you manage to have that much drama in less than two weeks I am not going to consider you a candidate for a serious relationship. Even with my very colorful past I have limits.

So this one is out of contention.

Next?