My father openly called him a sh!thead. My mother didn’t use that kind of language, but she made it more than clear that she agreed with my father’s assessment of my Dearly Beloved Boyfriend, that junior year at the university.
Ooohhhboy, did they loathe the guy!
And y’know, from the vantage point of decades, I can see they were right.
Real right. He was a dyed-in-the-wool jerk.
It took him to teach me that, not my parents.
LOL! I dated him for…what? two and a half years, as an undergraduate. That’s how long it took for me to figure out that…well…yeah: he was a jerk.
How’d I find out?
Well… One afternoon we were laying in the sack, after a lively frolic. Talkin’, as old loving couples will do. The subject of his best buddy’s wife came up.
Buddy and Wife were a couple who had been married for…what? maybe three years? Whatever: they weren’t kids. He had a full-time job. She was a loyal spouse and all…
By this time, Wife was advanced in pregnancy. Like…six or eight months along.
As we loafed in the sack, Dear Boyfriend was going on about how brilliant his buddy was for picking up a chippie, whom he was merrily diddling on the side. You understand: Buddy was a married man. One whose wife was about to produce his first child for him.
Yeah.
I don’t remember whether I made some judgmental comment about this state of affairs. Probably not…probably more like asked some naive question. WhatEVER: in the course of conversation, Dear Boyfriend remarked that it was really a good thing that his pal had gone out and picked up a floozy, since the wife was so advanced in pregnancy, she couldn’t entertain him. “A man,” said he, “has gotta have it!”
Uhm. Yeah.
Evidently my parents had somethin’ in their assessment of his character: they believed him to be a scoundrel.
When he said that, I thought, “My parents are right! This guy is a TOTAL lout!”
Within a couple of days, I gave him the heave-ho. And I’ll tellya: his heart was broken!
Oh, the drama! Oh, the tears! …And oh! f**k you, pal! Out he went.
My friends were abhorred. (Of course, they didn’t know about the uber-pregnant wife.) My parents were delighted. Dear Boyfriend was shattered. I was disgusted.
Whew!! Close one!
I was lucky that I didn’t marry him…because I fully intended to.
Not until he explicitly TOLD me what my life was gonna be like if I married him did I realize what a raving jerk he was. This, despite my parents having told me so, time after time after time.
Talk about love going blind at the garden gate...or, in my case, going deaf. I simply refused to hear what they said. Not until he spoke for himself (the idiot!) did his unadulterated jerkitude register with me. To this day, I can’t believe I was lucky enough that the guy let his mouth babble on — while we were laying in our own coital bed!! — so as to reveal what a gutter rat he was. And to reveal that my parents were right about him….
LOL! I suppose the moral of the story is if you’re a jerk, learn to keep your mouth shut. Or maybe…I dunno…pay attention to what your parents say about the current Love of Your Life.
😀
Went to call the Ruby-doo this afternoon