The worst boyfriend in the world was, for a good long while, an alcoholic. Not the oh, I tied one on with the fellas and said a lot of stupid shit variety. We're talking the serious and scary, need-a-glass-of-vodka-first-thing-in-the-morning-or-I-will-throw-up-from-withdrawal kind. Strangely enough, it wasn't the alcoholism that made him a shitty boyfriend (though it didn't help), it just happened to exacerbate all the qualities that did.
Such as: sloppy sneakiness!
For example, during year one of co-habitation, he called me at work around 3 p.m. on a Friday to tell me that something terribly urgent was calling him out of town. It was a semi-plausible reason, in fact, involving complicated real estate transactions on a previous residence out of town.
Him: "Yeah... I just have to go right now."
Me: "But why now? And if you wait three more hours, I'll be off work and I can go with you."
Him: "Um... well, I have to get there before dark so I can meet this guy about this other thing? So I can't wait till you are done, I really just need to go right now."
Me: "Um... okay? Call me later."
That evening when I got home and woke up my computer, the Port Authority bus schedule to the Foxwoods Casino was still up on the screen. Sigh. I called his cell phone.
Him: (Cheery and bright.) "Hi!"
Me: "Hi." (Long pause.) "Are you at Foxwoods?"
Him: (Longer pause.) "How did you know?"
Me: "You left the bus schedule up on the computer, Slick."
Him: "Were you spying on me?"
Me: "What? No! You left it up on my computer!
Him: "I can't believe you." (Hangs up.)
He lost his glasses and two thousand dollars that night and slept in the bus station. I had to drive five hours to retrieve him-with a stop-over at the emergency room for fluids. We were together another four years.
Evelyn Everlady is the pen name of a young woman residing in New York who, for obvious reasons, wishes to retain her anonymity. She is quite aware that dating this person doesn't exactly reflect well on her either.
Previously: Installment One.
What an amateur. Deny, deny, deny.
Or, don't be such a fucking dick.
Your selection of a lover who obviously had no Wampum Rewards Card calls your own judgment into serious question.
The casino episode in unforgivable - unless he was wearing a tux. Then it would be okay.
And if the tux is inside out it's actually a virtue.
Foxwoods? Are you telling us that you were dating the Craigslist Killer?
where's the upside here? was he great in bed or something?
All of us drunks are.
Drunks really are worse than stoners.
When stoners loose money, it's because they actually forgot where they put it. When drunks 'loose' money, there's no chance they'll ever get it back.
Same goes for their pants.
Are you single now? Because all I need is a little understanding and sympathy....
This guy was either a hedge fund manager or a musician. It's so hard to tell them apart.
If you really think there was no connection between his alcoholism and the manipulative/sketch traits described here, then more than one of you was (is?) in denial.
I did this once--leaving the website open in the computer thing. Only in my case there was no drinking, no gambling, just a bad lie about whether or not I'd fedexed a package. Fedexed a package!. Christ what an amateur.
Point: I will be reading this column for tips.
We are shitty boyfriends.From my understanding, alcoholics of this caliber have a pathological need to leave 'clues' as to their bad behavior i.e. the bus schedule.
And they are great in the sack, especially when the coke and Viagra kick-in.
Man, now I want to go to Foxwoods. What a donkey pond.
Addicts are generally pretty nice in bed. Cause, you know, they are compulsive. It's science.
Addicts say they're great in the sack because they can't remember otherwise. People fucking addicts say they're great in the sack because they can't justify the relationship otherwise, and no one can check up on the sex claims.
That is not the worst "boyfriend" in the world. That is a substance abuser. The author, however, is the biggest sucker in the world. Seriously? You went to pick him up? Do you have some kind of primitive instinct to mother truculent, hateful infants?