[writing] between friends

It’s Friday, gang. Let’s have some fun at my ex-boyfriends’ expense. Seriously, a comment to my last post gave me the idea for this one. When I wrote about the guy who had me give him a haircut on a date and never called me again, a reader expressed surprised in her comment. I thought to myself, Oh, friend. You don’t know the half of it.

Now, I know we all have bad-date stories and you can go over to Chelsea Handler if you really want raunchiness. (I like to think I have fewer books than her, but more class.) But I think you may get a laugh at a few of mine. Maybe not so much at the guys themselves, but at my lack of good judgment. And, really, these didn’t break my heart as much as they provide for comic relief now that I’ve been introduced to the concept of a healthy, functional relationship with a truly good guy.

All these dudes had one thing in common: they were good-looking. (This is not a basket in which you should put all your eggs, ladies.) (No pun intended.) One was good-looking and played guitar. One was good-looking and funny. One was good-looking and…well, I can’t remember what else he had going for him.

Of course, this is easy to write about now that I’m married to the Best-Looking Guy Ever and don’t have to worry about bad dates again. I love you, Chris!

Also, as a disclaimer, I want to say that I never actually considered any of these my “boyfriends”: I dated all of them longer than I should have (more than once), but I also had some legitimately nice boyfriends that I would never write about like this. A few of those relationships almost ended in marriage. (Dating tip: If you view marriage as the “end” of your relationship, you should probably find someone else.)

But, here are the guys who deserve to be written up, with one letter changed in first names for anonymity. All of these scenarios were The Last Time We Saw Each Other:

(in order of worst to most-worst):

1. Keremy: Keremy was the one who had me give him a haircut. We went to dinner at a cheesy Italian place, I paid (even though I worked at a coffee shop and he had a trust fund), and then we went back to my apartment. Somehow, it came up that I can cut a pretty good hair. (Except for one time with Chris, right before our wedding, but that was because we were on the front porch and there were mosquitoes.) Anyway, I cut his hair, it made him look better than he already did, we did things besides talking, because that wasn’t his strong suit, and then I never saw him again. I think he didn’t have the courage to tell me it was over and was counting on the bad dinner and haircut to give me the hint. It worked. We met at a bar anyway, on Cinco de Mayo, when we were both drunk, which just isn’t the best start. (Although I know it works out for some people, so don’t let me be the naysayer.)
2. Nichael: The last time I saw Nicheal was the night of his birthday. We lived 3 1/2 hours apart and he invited me to visit and celebrate with he and his buds at a sports bar. When I got there, I noticed his attention was divided between me and a girl of questionable status. Having just driven 3 1/2 hours thinking I was the Lucky Lady Guest of the birthday boy, I asked him what was up. I was relentless enough that he finally admitted he was torn between me and the girl of questionable status and that he wanted to see how the night went before he would know who he was leaving with. Since it was, in fact, a 3 1/2 hour drive home, I got back at like, 4 a.m.
3. Putz: I knew that Putz was bad news when we first met. I was a freshman in college and he was a grad student. He liked to play a vocabulary game that determined which one of us knew the most definitions. (He always won.) Back then I was the praying-kind, so I asked God one night to show me a sign about Putz, whether I should continue seeing him. THAT SAME NIGHT I went to his place and walked in on him in bed with another woman. That was The Sign I needed. I left and joined a church band. Unfortunately, however, this is not the end of the story. Years passed. We met up again when I was a flight attendant living in Boston and he lived in Seattle. He found out that I got almost-free first-class flights to Europe . We planned a trip together. We toured three countries. He was distant, but I thought it was because I’d crashed our rented Vespa into a sidewalk cafe in France. (People really should get a license for those things before they go driving them around.) Finally, I asked his buddy, who had met up with us in Spain, what was up.  It turned out Putz was just anxious because he had gotten a girl pregnant back in Seattle and he was going to marry her. He flew home coach.

So, I know it’s not just me. (I hope.) And I know it’s not just guys who are the jerks. There are not-nice girls out there, too. What’s your story? Who was the worst?