Steph Not Stephanie

I’ve published a few fabulous guest posts in the past, and I recently managed to convince another friend to share their story. When I first heard this terrible tale, my second thought (after, ‘Who fucking does that?’) was, ‘This has to go on the blog.’ So here it is, my dear friend Penelope’s (what a fabulous alias!) very own Toronto dating nightmare.

I recently watched Sex and the City for the first time, and like most 20-something women who weren’t (un)fortunate enough to marry their high school boyfriend, I felt I could relate to a lot of the men the ladies dated on the show.

For example, I had/have my own Mr. Big (although we haven’t had a fairytale ending, nor do I really think we ever will): the one who constantly reappears just as I’m starting to find happiness with a new guy. He’s the most talented of the bunch, as he seems to have amazing radar that allows him to detect this.

I also felt like a lot of the situations were so unreal that they could never happen in real life until one day one of them did. Recently I dated a Berger. Yup, that’s right, the great guy who broke up with Carrie ON A POST-IT NOTE. And that’s exactly what my Berger did, granted he used two post-it notes (lucky me!).

Mutual friends set up my Berger and me, and we hit it off right away. He was my first younger boyfriend (by a year and a half), but he seemed more mature than many of the older guys I’ve dated, so I gave it a chance. We started spending a lot of time together; talking about the future and all the things we would do. We seemed to agree on so much, and we got along so well; I honestly thought that this one could be “the one.”

There were some things about my Berger that were less than perfect: he was an occasional smoker (meaning he was a smoker, but he would only admit it when I caught him smelling like an ashtray); he was incredibly stubborn; he became loud and obnoxious when he drank; and he seemed to be jealous of my friends. None of that mattered, though, because I thought I was in love. It seemed like we had been dating for years, but really we were only together for five or six months.

In October 2013, the mutual friends that set us up got married, and we were both in the wedding party. That night turned out to be a disaster for us, but I blamed it on stress and PMS and all the usual suspects. In reality it was a disaster because our true colors were shining bright that night. The day after we got home from the wedding my Berger broke up with me. I was devastated and confused – I didn’t think one night of disaster was a good reason to break up! My Berger was going to be out of the city on business for two weeks, and I was able to convince him to talk to me about the break up when he came back.

While he was gone, I wrote him letters and emails apologizing for the way I acted and promising to work harder on our relationship. I wanted him to know how much he meant to me, because in my delusional state I still thought that he was the perfect guy for me. Whatever I did worked because when he came over two weeks after breaking up with me, he apologized to me and told me that he was in love with me. He actually told me that he broke up with me because he thought I was going to break up with him. That makes sense, right? Nope, but apparently I’m oblivious to red flags in relationships.

Anyway, we had an incredible week together before I had the audacity to question him about when he actually got back from his work trip. It turns out he got back a week earlier than he said he did, but whatever. We were broken up at the time so I told myself I couldn’t get upset about it. Fast forward to the weekend. On Friday my Berger went out and did what all grown men do: he got so drunk that he passed out until Saturday afternoon. When he woke up and called me around 2pm, we decided that he would come over around 6pm to hang out. Well 6pm came and went, then so did 7pm. Around 7:30pm I got another phone call saying that he had gone back to sleep and just woke up and would come over. I told him no, and hung up. About an hour later I called back and explained to him why I was upset with his behavior, and told him that although I wouldn’t forgive what he did, I would forget about it and we could hang out on Sunday.

On Sunday my Berger was running late (again), but at least this time he had sent texts to let me know. I told him that I was going to run an errand, but that he should let himself in with the spare key that he was hanging onto. When I got back my Berger was nowhere to be found, but he had kindly left the two post-it notes that said it was a mistake to get back together and that I shouldn’t call him to discuss it. Are you fucking kidding me? What would I have said to him: “Hey, I got your post-it notes. Are you sure you don’t want to discuss why you’ve broken up with me again?” No thank you.

After I got over my initial disgust, I decided to keep the notes, just in case I’m ever tempted to actually call him. At least this makes a text message breakup look chivalrous in comparison.