“Wait, is that why he hates me, because of you?”

“Yeah. Um, you actually have four people who hate you.”

“I beat out four different dudes?”

“Well, two really. The other two never actually had a chance, but they were all trying. One even swooped in again to console me for those three days that we had split up a few months ago.”

“I respect that move.”

“It didn’t work…”

“I’m glad”

I’m not exactly a ten. I have no delusions about that. Yet, there was a few months when I did, in fact, have several men chasing me. I was on a boy ban, though, and was determined that not one of them would be successful. None of them were.

I’d actually been seeing one of them for a little while and he was the cause of the boy ban.

He was thrilling.

With a reckless abandon that rivaled mine and a complete apathy toward commitment of any sort, I knew that he was bad for me. So, after a few weeks, I cut it off and declared myself on a boy ban. My only time out and about was to watch football with a group of girls at a bar we frequented, which oddly kept getting extended into an evening of hanging out.

One of those evenings, some old friends came in and as my group decided to go home, I stayed to catch up. My team had just won and we were discussing my impending audition and move to Bellingham to go back to school. I was in the kind of mood where the whole world is beautiful.

So, as a dog started rifling through my purse, I was nicer about it than I usually would be. As the owner of the dog apologized and offered me a drink, I decided that I was definitely up for hanging out with someone who seemed cool.

Several hours and several drinks later, I suspected that I might have just met my new best friend. When he suggested that we might want to leave before we both went broke on crappy whiskey and extended an invitation to hang out at his place, I accepted. There was nothing about him that was my type, so I thought nothing of it.

After a few more hours of sitting and talking over a bottle of champagne, I was bordering on being sure that I’d just met my new best friend. Then, I’m not sure who initiated it or how it started, but the clothing was off and the good judgment was gone as the frenzied reckless abandon of new passion took over.

In telling our story, which we both love to do, there’s no getting around the fact that we started out as a sketchy drunk hookup. Yet, there was something more in it that was and is hard to explain. When I woke up later that night still curled up in his limbs, I didn’t squirm away. Despite the surprise I felt at the fact that I’d let someone cuddle me for more than thirty seconds, I felt perfectly and happily content.

The next morning I woke up and realized what a bad idea it had been to go home with someone on a Sunday night, not to mention what a bad idea mixing whiskey and champagne had been. Not only could I not find my phone, I couldn’t even remember his name, and I was hung over as shit.

I decided that I must have dropped my phone at the bar and made a hasty exit.

Realizing what a REALLY bad decision I had just made, I decided that I should just call my phone, hope that he answers it, get my phone back, and start watching football somewhere else.

The bad news? My phone was dead and it was not left at the bar.

I went round and round in my head, trying to figure out the least awkward way to retrieve my phone. I mean, I could just go knock on his door but that would feel SO awkward. So, I hoped that he would bring it back to the bar and that I could retrieve it without running into him. A few days later when I did go look, my phone was, in fact, there… and so was he.

It turned out that my phone looked like an awfully good chew toy and that his dog had gotten a hold of it. Thanks to his dog, yet again, being our ice breaker we sat down to talk, again. While I had originally had no intention of repeating the other night, by the time he asked me if I wanted to get out of there, I said yes. I wanted to experience the parts that I had missed.

This time, when he leaned in to kiss me, I took note of every detail and the next morning when I got up for work, I made sure to take my phone and leave my number instead.

From then on, we spent almost every night together.

And that is how he earned the resentment of four men. Well, at least, that’s the beginning of the story.

_______________________

This post is a continuation of the story The Best Bad Decision I Ever Made, click the link to check out the first post.