I Just Want to Whine About Boys

But these words have been trapped inside my head for long enough, and dispelling the pressure in small doses to people such as my mother is virtually ineffective, not to mention dangerous. I feel like I don't have anyone to talk about . . . most things, who isn't too biased, better off not knowing, or sick of hearing about astrology and about relationships that sometimes seem to exist only in my mind. You have been warned.

You see, I had my first real boyfriend this past winter/spring. We'll call him Sebastian, because he hates that name. I can see now that I did it mainly because I was that desperate for attention. I felt like I didn't have any real friends left. Anyway, I broke up and got back together with him twice for the same reasons. Literally, the only thing we ever had in common is that we like the same shower gel. We could never, ever agree on anything. Close to the third and final break-up, certain things about Sebastian suddenly made themselves very clear to me, and made me wonder how I had ever been stupid enough to stay with him. The revelations just kept coming in the ensuing weeks:

1) His views of females in general are kind of messed up. He guilt-tripped me out of getting to an eyebrow piercing while we were dating. For a while we thought I might have been pregnant. I actually considered keeping it, and we seriously discussed the possibility of a life together. This would have involved me moving from Mount Vernon, Iowa to Redmond, Washington with him. He would have preferred that I be a home-maker, but when I casually said, "What's the dog trainer's market like out there?", he said, in the most condescending voice imaginable, "You can still have a job of your own." There also were at least two instances of us discussing whether or not we should stay a couple, in which he either promised he would always be able to take care of me, or said I should find someone else who could take care of me. I always responded immediately "I'll take care of myself, thank you." But he is apparently incapable of seeing me as more than a little girl needing protection from men. An airheaded one. Now, I'll concede that I'm pretty indecisive on a lot of things. And I usually deserve it when I'm called a ditz. But I have strong opinions where I think they count, and that he can never take me seriously when I voice them is inexcusable. After a while, he refused to express affection in any way, wouldn't let me touch him, and any physical interaction could only happen if initiated and completely controlled by him. (i.e., if I Iet him tie me up. Never mind that he's rail-thin and I'm an average-sized American woman, making me at least as strong as him.)
2) He's an insufferable hypocrite. He has the gall to scold me for swearing, then utter a swear word himself a moment later, and say "no, I didn't" when I call him on it. I introduced him to an incredibly immature game called "Would you do him?" in which one person points out random people walking by and everyone says, based on that one walk-by, whether or not they would sleep with the person. He loved it, possibly a little too much. But the problem was that he kept using this to insinuate that I am bi-sexual (which I'm not), but got offended whenever I tried to turn the tables on him.
3) He insulted my singing. We'd just gotten done watching a movie and were going to meet my family for lunch. I was humming a song from said movie and he joined in, so I started singing out loud. Sebastian told me to shut up. I said "Why?" and he said "Because you can't sing!" This happened twice, actually, in about twenty minutes. Now I'd like to clarify here that I know I'm good. I shouldn't have let the opinion of someone who only listens to pop music affect me, but my self-esteem was already low enough that it stuck with me anyway. It was either this or the intimacy issue I described in Section One that was the last straw.
4) He's new money. He comes from a rather poor family, did very well in school and in his career. He already has what he thought was his dream job at Microsoft at the age of 26. This is commendable; he's already achieved what most people consider to be the American Dream. The end result, however, is a snob who wants everyone to know just how successful he's been at what he calls life. This manifests in the fancy, very new car complete with remote key start, and the myriad ways in which he indulges where he should take precaution and is overly cautious where he should indulge.
5) He seems to see his exes as possessions. He talked about them incessantly while we were together. It only annoyed me slightly, but that's really only an aside. Ever since I joined that group, I've wanted nothing to do with him as it is suddenly clear that he has nothing to say that interests me. Not that he gets that. He continues to call and IM me, and prattles on about the weather and food he's eaten recently.
6) My mother still likes him. She saw him as stable and thought he'd be a good provider for me. She doesn't approve of feminism and has always wanted to be a home-maker. Are we clear?
Well, I would have done more tonight than thoroughly decry my ex, but time makes fools of us all. Don't go to far though, because I've still got a lot to get off my chest.

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