Nobody To Blame But Me
In relationships we often want to see ourselves as the hero of the story and it didn’t work because of the other person’s actions. We at times have to take a deeply honest view of ourselves and see that we’re not completely free of blame and at times there are things we need to work on that we may not realize, and there are things that aren’t our fault that they happened to us but it is our responsibility to fix (something I learned from reading the works of Mark Manson).
Talking to a friend the question came up if I thought I was a good boyfriend/partner. I had to stop and think back through the years and back to my youth. Some of the things that shaped my relationships weren’t my fault like having a father who liked to tease and embarrass me in front of female friends to the point where we looked at each other like WTF after he taunted me and a girl that lived on my street that she was my girlfriend, or the time he teased writing a grammatically poor letter to a daughter of my mom’s coworker that was in my class (it was filled with spelling and grammar errors). He loved to get an emotional reaction from me to the point that he and my mom used to tell me every weekend that they found me in the trash until I would begin crying and they’d just laugh.
Years later as my 12th approached, my father left my mom, and she was so broken up by it she would cry often and was emotionally broken. After that I would speak to him on the phone about three minutes a day as I didn’t feel much like talking to him and tried to rush off the phone, and breakfast with him every Sunday. He told me one day I would understand but honestly, to this day I don’t understand and after my parents reunited, I’m not about to ask.
My childhood made it hard for me to show emotion on my face and very rarely demonstrate it, and the lack of seeing a relationship between my parents didn’t exactly teach me much about relationships either (although if you ask my parents, they’ll deny most of what happened especially the making me cry as a kid).
In my sophomore year of high school, a girl told my good friend Manny (AKA Negative Man) that she had a crush on me. In my group of friends, the girls were especially shocked one even stated: “well I guess he’s sort of cute” (not much of a confidence boost there either). One short day, I had a few hours before Water Polo practice and Negative Man asked me to go on a date with the girl because she was best friends with his girlfriend and well his hooking up depended on me going.
My god what a disaster, first I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to walk between her and the street, next conversation between us was below basic, aside from me being painfully shy, we had nothing in common. We went back to someone’s condo and the poor girl, and I were left alone on the couch to try to talk or build any kind of connection. At the end I received a fully critique of every mistake I made. I’m convinced that she actually hated me by the end.
The rest of my time in high school wasn’t much better, seemed like if anyone suspected I had feelings for them they were repulsed at the thought and some even 28 years later, still won’t talk to me thinking I have some sort of feelings towards them still.
If you read the Marine Birthday Ball Season post you already know the disaster of when I actually had a girlfriend and being turned down by her going to the prom. Months before meeting her though, I was at the University of Texas Business School for a summer program and at the end we were part of the Honors Colloquium, and we were around the top students from all across Texas. One girl took developed a crush on me and the girls in my program thought it was cute because they knew of my inexperience and thought it was cute, but the reality was once again my shyness kept me from being able to have a conversation.
After high school, I went years without dating part of it was working odd hours usually 6pm to midnight or later at a supermarket and not meeting anyone. I’d go to the movies alone and would hear a cute ticket taker ask incredulously if I was alone, naïve me thought she was teasing me and not realizing that a stranger had any possibility of being attracted to me. The same thing happened in the Marine Corps. Once while at the Basic Electronics Repair Course, we were marching across the street to the school, and I was second in the formation, so I had to be the road guard which meant I ran out and blocked traffic. There was a Domino’s delivery woman front of the line and she shouted she wasn’t moving until I smiled. Shyness kept me from smiling and every guy in the class told me after the moment had passed that I should have told her I’d smile if she gave me her number. I figured she was a wife of a Marine, so I didn’t dare push the issue, although at times I still wonder if 25 years later, she’s still waiting on me to smile and blocking traffic on 8th street.
Flash forward to New Year’s 1999, I’m assigned to the base MPs and I’m working the gate since I don’t have to fly home and worked so others could travel to see their families. One pretty girl kept driving through the gate, and she’d always try to get in my lane. She kept making little comments and after the 3rd time one of the other Marines working that day said I should tell her I’d smile if I got her number. Once again, I missed my chance, and she didn’t make it back around a fourth time.
The secret to me is not only am I shy I’m also at times oblivious but if I can talk to you and feel comfortable, I’ll become attracted and usually I’ve already established a friendship. Go back to my school years and most of my crushes where the few girls I could feel comfortable talking to. Often the girls would end up moving away so at times I thought there was something wrong with me. The ones that remained I’d develop a crush but if the girl found out about my feelings, they would decide that the friendship was too good to risk for a relationship which was probably their way of letting me down easy.
The times I did date early on, I was afraid of knocking them up. My first girlfriend the one that turned me down for the prom, she was younger and was trying to get me to have sex with her but I was terrified of getting her pregnant and losing out on my college opportunity when I was selected to attend the Naval Academy and years later, after my sister became a single mom, my mom would insist I was going to knock someone up which added another fear so I kept it in my pants, which with one girl who wanted me to sell my 67 Mustang to get a Mercedes came at me with she thought she was pregnant even though we hadn’t had sex yet.
Then there was one who things were great on the surface but deep down we had issues. She was the victim of abuse and had never had a guy treat her nicely. Despite my time in the military, she was convinced I was a bit of a wuss because I asked her how she felt and treated her well, but we stopped seeing each other, but we remained friends. I kind of lost it when she told me she was marrying some other guy when I stopped in to see her before I went to Camp Pendleton and was leaving on WestPac in January of 2000.
I met a woman who was a bit older, and we hit it off right away and we had some wild times at the Motel 6 in 29 Palms, and around San Diego where she lived. In the end things ended because she was married to a gay sailor (ask most Marines and they’ll claim it’s redundant to say), before we met, she was only with women, they were together to protect his military career in the days of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” My platoon was already looking for a reason to bust me, like the time I received my Good Conduct Medal, and immediately afterward they had me sign a Page 11 which is a way to document counseling and when they had enough to charge me, they could claim they had a whole history of problems that they documented. I couldn’t say anything because I knew at least one of the guys sharing my barracks room would go gossiping to the Platoon Sgt to add to the list of things I did so he could look better which would continue through out most of the deployment.
Not long after the MEU was getting a block leave for Christmas and New Year’s before we left for six months. I wasn’t planning on taking leave, but a Sgt needed someone to ride with him to Milwaukee. I knew a girl there that had a crush on me, but I was kind of intimidated by the age difference between us. I was 23 and she had just turned 18. She worked at Hooter’s as a hostess and had told her mom that she wished I could be there for Christmas. To her surprise, I was going to be there. The plan was I was to stay with her, and the Sgt would spend time with his family because of an issue with his younger sister and a neighbor. If he couldn’t work out a solution to the problem, I was going to be the back up plan. I had a wonderful time and all the doubts I had were erased in the time we spent together and had planned on getting married when I returned from being at sea, but the reality of meeting me and knowing I was leaving for six months would prove to be too much for her. Of all the breakups I ever experienced she was the most mature of all of them despite being the youngest woman I ever had a relationship with, but she was the most mature as her break up card that I received on 19FEB2000 that not knowing if I was dead or alive and where in the world was more than she could take.
The shock and frustration of all that started a wild streak. that began later that day when we landed in Darwin, Australia and continued for some time. Until after the girl I dated after the infamous Birthday Ball in 2000.
When I dated her, she had a lot of insecurity and me spending most of my time about 100 miles away on the base didn’t help matters, and my treatment of her wasn’t the best. I didn’t cheat but I didn’t address her concerns often because I didn’t see what she saw. Like there was a date I took her to a movie near my parents’ house and I’d stop to fill up the Mustang. According to her there would be girls in other cars that she claimed would be checking me out. If they did, I didn’t notice, nor would I have cared. She was also around 3 inches taller, that didn’t bother me since neither of us had any control over our heights, and we had fun. In the end my work interfered with the relationship when I’d be forced to be on call on the weekends. She took issue with it thinking I was lying because her previous boyfriend who was the same guy she broke off the invitation to the Ball for never had to work on the weekends. On those weekends she’d break up with me and go out with her brother and his friends. I figured she would go out guilt free so she could say she never cheated and possibly upgrade to someone else. By Labor Day 2001, the relationship felt like more work than fun, like we were always walking on eggshells. We broke up and my stress evaporated. I received a promotion the next day and then over the last few months of my time in the Marine Corps, she would message me. Like the time she told me she had a new boyfriend who was so much better than me. I responded by saying if he was so much better than me, she’d be having sex with him. Then I shut her down by stating I’m better in bed than he was and her reply “Real Mature Ray.” Which led to me retorting so you’re not denying it.
After that, she didn’t bother me for months. On my absolute last day in the Marine Corps, I had to go to 29 Palms to finish turning in my military ID and some other things. On the way back I stopped off at her place with a box of her stuff. I knocked on the door, her parents opened and let me in. They saw me with a box, of stuff and had a little grin on their face. They told me she was upstairs, and that they’d call her down. I told her I was returning some of her stuff, and she invited me to go up to collect anything I left behind. I politely declined saying I didn’t need anything, and the smiles turned to looks of shock as they thought I’d go upstairs, and we’d reconcile.
After that I took a break from dating and relationships with a few false starts and some disasters, I figured I’d start looking for someone to settle down with and build something meaningful but so far that still hasn’t happened.
In the end what happened to me wasn’t my fault, but it is my responsibility to work on myself and looking back on my ignorance, I should have looked for someone with some sense and a healthy relationship to be a mentor or someone who could give me useful advice. The last one, I didn’t do much good, she had some insecurities and too much time to think since I was 24-25 and she was 22-23. She had a couple of jobs during that time but outside of me, she didn’t have many friends either, and too much time to think and feed her insecurities, and I didn’t always treat her right, like when I went on leave to avoid a StratMobEX, on 01APR2000, I was at my parents house and the incident with the Navy spy plane landing in China kicked off, my Gunny called me while I was on leave and told me to not leave the area in case they had to recall me from leave, instead of spending he week with her, I stayed at my parents and only saw her the night I was going back to the base. I still have a lot more work to do but I’m trying and who knows maybe one day I’ll get things right, but until then there’s nobody to blame but me.
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