I have been a first girlfriend. I want to be a last girlfriend. Also, I want more butternut squash risotto.

"No matter how cool you think she is, some guy somewhere is sick of her shit."
-graffiti seen outside a bar, Sacramento CA.

Through my adventures in dating, I've "trained" many a man in the ways of wooing a woman. Or in some cases, I've tried my best but to no avail. I can't count the number of times I've had to tell a guy that watching him play Call Of Duty for four hours does not count as a date only to receive a blank stare in return. 

I've sent them back out in the world, and some of them have gone on to be wonderful boyfriends/husbands/cell mates. So where is my return on investment, so to speak? For all these years of dating what do I have to show for it? Besides having this blog and wonderfully supportive readers. You people rock and I would never minimize your positive impact on my life. However, I would still appreciate a functional relationship.  

I am really not trying to come across as Bitter Betty, the scowling sister of Downer Debbie. I just get this way when I encounter certain exes. A wound I thought was healed  gets torn back open and my emotions are reduced to jagged edges and spurting blood. It's sad to admit, but it happens. I'd like to think I'm mature and can leave the past in the past but that's not always the case.

Like last weekend when I saw my ex-boyfriend T at a restaurant. I looked cute and felt that I could take on the world that night, but a glimpse of his profile and that crooked smile left me breathless. The hostess sat them in another section of the restaurant but I could still see him through a row of potted plants. I saw her too. The little brunette in the plaid hat. I saw the way she smiled up at him when he took her coat. I saw him hold her hand under the table and the attentive way he listened as she spoke. It was flawless, any girl would've felt proud to be on that date. Of course it made me nauseous and I ordered another glass of wine.  Where was this when we were together? I pouted into my risotto. Then I got angry as I realized that he NEVER took me to the kind of place that served butternut squash risotto when we were together. Not even once! I'm pissed. I look back over to their booth, shooting daggers with my eyes. Now he and Miss Plaid Hat are feeding each other rosemary focaccia bread drizzled with olive oil. Perfect. Check please.  

That night at home, my rage-and-pinot noir fog lifted I began to think about why seeing T with that girl bothered me so much. It wasn't the fact that he was dating; I was dating other guys too. It was the way he was dating. In the 15 minutes of spying on him and Plaid Hat I saw more affection, more flirtation and more rosemary focaccia bread than I got in our entire relationship. There are several explainations for this, I reasoned with myself. He's older now than when we dated, so maybe he's more mature. Or maybe he's just so enamored by the little brunette in the plaid hat that he can't imagine treating her any differently.

Or maybe it's simply a case of the new catch-all excuse: He just wasn't that into me. I can deal with that, bruised ego aside. When it comes to T, we just weren't right for each other. He got sick of my shit, so to speak. Everyone is someone's ex, so I decided not to judge them too harshly.

A small, hopeful part of me still likes to think that maybe he's being so good to her because I taught him something in our time together. If I can't be a last girlfriend, hopefully I've left some good in his heart to pass onto his next girlfriend. And if that's the case, Plaid Hat owes me a thank-you card.   

Sometimes it is me, but not this time. It's you.

Of all the dating cliches, the nice guy myth is one that irks me most.

No, I don't mean that they don't exist. I don't believe that. Saying nice guys don't exist is a tired-ass complaint of women who have been on too many bad dates and/or made too many bad decisions. Sorry, ladies but you're just on a bad guy streak. Or, maybe you have some other dysfunctional dating pattern you need to examine. That's not what irks me today.

Today, it's the old adage that "nice guys finish last" or that girls always dump the nice guy. Why do we think this? Why do so many guys have themselves convinced that they're nice guys who were blind sided by a break up for no good reason? Are women really only attracted to assholes and leave the good guys in the gutter?
I disagree with that. I have 3 reasons why supposedly "good guys" get dumped.

THE FENCESITTER:

The first reason is that he's not that nice, but isn't that mean. He's so here-then-gone, I call him Fencesitter. He's just average but has been rewarded for his adequacy so often he doesn't feel the need to exert any effort. He doesn’t necessarily do things like kick puppies but he might eat the last marshmallow without offering it to you first. This a very serious offence in my mind, because marshmallows are little puffs of sticky perfection coated in powdered happiness. If he takes the last bit of sugary gladness without asking me first, we are fighting. This is not negotiable! Moving on…

Fencesitter is like the C-student in dating school. Average. Middle of the pack. He probably could be an A student but just doesn’t put out the extra effort. When he and his girl break up, for any reason, his friends will tell him that it must be her fault. She’s evil and crazy for breaking up with him. How could she leave someone who’s “such a nice guy”? Well I ask, how the hell would they know? These chatty friends and relatives weren’t in the relationship. They weren’t subjected to a marshmallowless existence. However, Fencesitter has heard this tired “you’re so nice” line enough times to think his behavior is grand. He can keep doing as he’s doing. Reinforcing his behavior validates him, and before you know it he looks in the mirror and sees prince charming on a white horse. All we see is a jackass in a white Honda who makes you pay for dinner on your own birthday.

ONE NOTE:

The next reason girls don't stay with otherwise nice guys is because maybe that's all he has to offer. Let’s call him One Note because that’s all he plays. He’s not interesting; he’s not witty or exciting. The niceness is all he’s known for. And while that accounts for a lot, it doesn’t lend itself to fun dates or stimulating conversation. Come on guys, bring something to the table! I for one need someone to challenge me, make me want to know more, experience more and do more with life. Of course, he should be pleasant while we do these things, but he better bring me more than one note when I plan on delivering a face-melting guitar riff, so to speak.

One Note guy can be easily identified by his inability to ask follow-up questions to things you say and general discomfort when you stray from his chosen topic. For example:



One Note: I really like potatoes. They are a vital part of the ecosystem in farming communities around the world.


You: Oh yeah, me too. I used to visit my grandpa’s potato farm in Jamaica when I was a kid. Have you ever traveled to the islands?


One Note: *cough and uncomfortable silence*.


See? Not mean, and not lazy, just…blank. If you have nothing to offer, I don’t have anything to give. Check please.

DOUGH BOY:

The last guy isn’t that nice. OK, maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Maybe you don’t know him well enough to decide yet. You just need to blow him off and fast. His niceness hasn't really registered on your radar but that's not something you want to tell him so you throw out some platitude such as, “you’re nice and all, but I just don’t see this working out”. Let’s call this guy Dough Boy. I’ve made pie from scratch before, and that dough shit is tricky to handle. You’ve got to be gentle. You've got to work it just enough or else it's useless. With guys, that caution oftentimes translates into telling him how nice he is, even if you have absolutely nothing to back up that statement. If we're being honest with ourselves, doesn't it seem like we're mostly doing this for OUR benefit, not theirs? We want to make sure we come off like an angel, even while dumping him. That's not fair to anyone involved. Ladies, he’s not made of uncooked pie crust. You don’t have to baby him. Don’t just run around, throwing empty compliments. It makes you look shallow and insincere. Be respectful and polite, but not dishonest.

A food-as-love analogy. Plus diarrhea. You're welcome!

I don't know why I can't stop thinking about him, we've been broken up over two years. Its not like I think about him every day. But the days I do let my mind wander back to thoughts of him are random, unpredictable and hard to stop. Much like diarrhea. The really sick thing is I know we're better apart than we were together, I know we were incompatible, and it's time to move along. However, I haven't found anything that compares to what we had. Sad but true.

Even though we were all wrong for each other, and ended in the most anticlimactic way possible, I still pine for what I had. Not necessarily in a "he's the one that got away" sense but...OK, food analogy time: Let's say I had a piece of cake. Cake was pretty good, based on what I'd experienced so far. I spent a long time enjoying the cake, getting to know its intricacies and then one day the cake was gone. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it at first. I missed the cake but had a feeling something wasn't right with this particular cake. Then someone explains, that wasn't real cake. You had imitation, cheap cake masquerading as real cake. Sorry about that! I promise, one day you'll have REAL cake and you'll know it's the real thing and it will last forever. It will be bottomless cake and it will taste like cake's supposed to and not give you diabetes and you'll know why no other cake will do!

I'm still sitting at the table, holding my fork, waiting and ready for the real cake...