Like any woman, I have my own dating horror stories – like the guy who coined the term “face five” or the Louisville town rapist (that is another story for another time) – but for the most part, I’ve just had your run-of-the-mill “we just didn’t click” situations. Even most of my long-term relationships were pretty good, save for my eight-year marriage to the narcissistic alcoholic conman I called a husband, so I suppose you could call me lucky in that regard. I’ve never had to block a single person I’ve dated because well, they were adults and just stopped contacting me after things ended.

And then I met Chad.

First of all, yes. That is his real name. It suits him, honestly; sorry to all the Chads out there, but this guy has tainted all of you. Anyway, like I said a few days ago, this guy and I were just never meant to date. I won’t get into it too deeply, but the relationship was basically him treating me like shit and expecting me to like it. He wanted a woman completely subservient and submissive, constantly reminding him of how much she needed and loved him, and yeah, that ain’t it, my dude. Why I allowed this relationship to last until January 15, 2023, is beyond me, but I’ve not once looked back and questioned my decision.

And then he decided to start texting me again, out of the blue, just a couple of days ago. From the very beginning, I knew what he was trying to do; I didn’t date this guy for two months and not pick up on his shitty tells. But for some stupid reason, I decided to play nice, convincing myself that maybe I didn’t want to completely burn bridges with anyone. So I told him about Tilly and showed him the very same picture that I posted several days ago, which then brings me to this conversation.

God, I should have blocked him then, just to save myself further bullshit, but alas, I thought maybe he’d lose interest and move on.

Narrator: He unsurprisingly did not.

He responded as you might assume:

I almost sent another message to him, just getting some final jabs in, but I figured there was no point. Nothing I could say would change his behavior, and even if it did, I’m not inviting that type of MRA energy into my life – and I don’t say MRA lightly, this is a guy who legit thought that he was persecuted because he was a white man, among other plentiful stereotypical attitudes. So I blocked him. The first phone number – of a person I actually know in real life – I have ever blocked, and it sent little happy tingles up and down my body when I did it. I may have to make a habit of it, honestly. Best serotonin boost I’ve gotten in a while.

Granted, I do have nurse residency graduation in October that I really want to go to; he might be there, but I’m not going to allow that to dictate my life. I have two wonderful, supportive women that I will be attending with, and they’ve already said they have my back. He’s not as likely to go, since he hasn’t had the best residency experience, but I still want that support system behind me if he does show his stupid face. I’m not a hateful, vindictive person, but this was a man who was trying to reduce me to whimper “I love you, Daddy” to him when he was drunk; I will be that hateful, vindictive person if he tries anything. Anything at all.

Maybe this is my villain era???