(Warning: LONG! 18,260 characters... Don't read it if you don't like reading... )
So some of you may have heard me mention an ex partner of mine of here before. I'd never show her real face or reveal her name online, but she passed away in October 31st, 2012. The reason I bring her up is because in early 2020, I found out some more news from her little sister. It got me start thinking about her again, even after I thought I could let her go. For several years I did let go of her memory. Which is why I've been mentioning here on here, every now and again. I'm thinking of her, once more.
This woman was probably, literally, the only woman on planet Earth who could love me, assuming she truly did. The closest woman I'd ever experience true love with. I mean, she proposed to me and all, after eleven months of being together.
There's probably a lot of missing details I'd need to say to make things clearer, but I'll keep it brief. I've only ever been with nine to ten women in my lifetime. Most of those were as dates, and eight of those ten were not even into me that much. Almost all of these exes were around my height or taller (cause I'm a short sh*t at 180). Most of them didn't really find me physically attractive at all BECAUSE I was the shortest f*cking dude around, where I lived. This is all to say, I've only had two serious women in my entire life; one of which lived in Indianapolis and never met face to face, but she called me "an 8.5 out of 10" (as insane as that was). That's why I say "nine to ten women." If you don't count long distance relationships, then only nine women, and only ONE of them not all the way across the country. That was "K." (I won't use her actual name online.)
Me and "K" had this flawless chemistry. Like, I could fully be myself around her and be comfortable. I was super under-employed at the time and living at home with my mom, and she totally understood my financial situation and didn't negatively judge me on it, like most women did. With "K," I could tell her anything and trust she'd be fine with it. I've never experienced this with another person in my entire life. Like, we just "fit" together.
What's funny is, I met her on a dating site. OKCupid, actually. I browsed for women who fit my physical "type" and saw her profile. I didn't write to her at first though, because although she said she was into a lot of things I was ("can hold long interesting conversations, into self improvement, very intelligent, creative, witty," etc), she said on her profile the core trait she (and literally all other straight women on the planet) was into, is "confidence." Which I lack. I'm not Mr. Hot Sh*t and I'm short and unattractive looking, as well. Also overweight. And for the record, "K" was 191 cm; that's 6'3 and a half, barefoot. In fact, because I found her online, she was every single thing I physically wanted in a woman: tall, ginger, fuller figured, very large bust (42J), close to my age (three to four years younger, at 22), etc.
So I found her profile and thought she was hot AF, and intelligent and articulate to boot. But she wanted confident men. And at 6'3.'5", I assumed tall men, as well. I didn't write to her. However, she saw I "visited" her profile, then clicked on mine and read it (my summary was a mini autobiography, basically) and was thoroughly impressed. She was an avid book lover and appreciated someone who could write and speak well. She made first contact with me in a message.
"Hey stranger. Next time, why don't you say hello if you're gonna lurk my profile."
She also responded to the things I said about myself in my profile. I was worried when she first wrote to me, but blunt about why I didn't make first contact.
"You wanted a tall confident guy and that ain't me. You're GORGEOUS, but alas, I'm not your type."
She responded. "Dude, that is so unfair! Just cause *I'm* tall doesn't mean I want to date Shaq! I don't care about height!"
To be fair, she never wrote anything on her profile that implied she did, but most women had a six foot minimum to even look at their profile, let alone date them. So while being an assumption, it was a fair one, on my behalf.
"And you don't know my type. Maybe my type is cute articulate black guys with broad shoulders who know how to hook a girl into knowing more about him."
I was thoroughly confused, at the time. She was coming onto me. This didn't compute...
We eventually would exchange long emails back and fourth for about a week or two. She then wanted to move on to phone calls and hear my voice, which we did. I hate the sound of my voice; it's higher pitched and effeminate and sounds really gay and lispy, like Mike Tyson or David Beckham. But I bit the bullet and called her, anyway. Our first phone call was literally all night long. We talked from 11pm to 8am on a Sunday morning. We talked about everything one could imagine and only barely scratched the surface. One topic organically shifted into another, so while we covered a lot, we didn't get into as much detail on one specific thing as we could have. But the point remains... I was falling for her. And as hard as it still is to believe, she was falling for me too! While I knew I had/have nothing going for me in the looks department, I was/am a good conversationalist (a skill I had to build and didn't come naturally). We soon became more than just online crushes.
After a month of talking, we made plans to eventually meet up. I got to see how tall she was in person, and she even joked about it, upon first seeing me.
"Dude, I thought you were going to be short! You're like almost eye-to-eye with me! That means kissing will be awkward, cause I won't have to bend down to do it!"
As stated, I was still living at home with my abusive mother at the time, since this was barely out of the housing crisis recession, and I was woefully underemployed. She had a middle class, but humble and hard-working background, and was a full-time bank teller who recently moved to the city from Annapolis, Maryland and had just started going to school in the evenings to be a registered nurse. She had her own tiny apartment in the residential part of downtown near 15th street, so I would mostly visit her there once a week and we'd hang out in the small space of free time each of us had between working. For a while, we only had about two hours a week where we could physically see each other, and every other time, would be daily texting or phone conversations.
Because she would either usually be wearing a black skirt or dress and white button-up for her job at work, or scrubs for school, she rarely got to dress in casual clothing. But whenever she did, I began to figure out that her favorite color is purple. (With the more reddish tone, violet, being a close second.)
She never once made me feel bad about being underemployed in security work (earning a paycheck, but not enough yet to move out) and respected how hard I worked. I had never met a woman up until then who was so kind about my financial or living situation.
Throughout our time together, the only thing we EVER fought about was her wanting me to "be more confident." I was and still do strongly dislike my physical appearance and upbringing, but she wanted me to like who I am because I "fully deserve" to be confident in myself. She equated how she would date guys who were "total pig-f*ckers" who used her as a rebound, treated her poorly, talked ill about her height or body, and didn't find her attractive because she was too big (and like me, "K" was insecure of her height, but in the inverse; she ideally wished to be 5'6"/167, which would make her "tall enough" once wearing proper heels). But she said she let her inner self shine through and said (I'm paraphrasing) that 'I would be her ideal man she's always wanted if not for the lack of confidence and self-hate.'
She said "I don't believe any of the things you say about yourself because I know it's all crap, but if anyone I knew said those same things about any friend of mine, I'd want to fight them."
I hated this argument that she needed me to be more confident, because to me, "be confident" meant "grow six inches taller, get a bigger dick, get abs, get a better looking face and stop being ugly, and become an Alpha Chad who thinks he's perfect." I didn't like the idea she wanted to change me from who I am or didn't accept me for who I was, especially when she knew from the beginning I wasn't an egotistical douchebag type and I didn't have the ideal body all women were looking for in guys. I could only equate "confidence" with "looking/being worthy of perfection" and resented she seemingly didn't find me to be good enough for her. But to her, it was an entirely different thing, that at the time, I couldn't accept. She felt that confidence wasn't a change of personality and had nothing to do with physical appearance, but rather "loving one's self and appreciating their positive traits and abilities." As someone who even today thinks he's a 0 in the looks department, this was a very hard to accept from someone who I had thought already loved me for me and didn't need me to be a Chad or an Alpha Male.
Despite this one setback, the relationship still flourished. Eventually, she proposed to me 10 months into the relationship. Didn't get down on one knee with a ring or anything. But she sat down in a chair, held my hands together with hers and asked if I could make her my future wife, and proposed with a literal fried onion ring. I said yes and ate the onion ring. She would soon seek a new place to live and I would be able to move in with her. (I know some people would say it's bad to marry first without living together, but it was what it was.)
One month before our one year anniversary, we had another fight over the phone about my lack of confidence being an issue for her and how I was too negative and mean towards myself. This must've been the 5th or 6th fight by now. We argued, but I had to go to work. I was I was still working a security desk job and normally worked weekends, 11pm to 7am. But because of some concert thing in the streets, I was asked to work a special shift on a Friday; 3pm to 11pm.
Even though I spent almost my entire shift thinking that maybe she was right and that if an amazing woman like her was asking me to make her my wife, that I must be worthy of love after all and most of all the other women I had talked to in my life, who treated me like crap, were wrong. In other words, after the entire 3 to 11 shift reflecting about everything, deep in my thoughts and mostly alone to think about them, I started to think she was right about me, and was going to talk to her and work on my inner demons, so I could make her and myself the happiest we could possibly be. I had made plans to get off work and buy a pizza to apologize, and show up at her place, which was a short bus or train ride away from my job, and we'd watch a movie together or something. However, we never got to do that.
The fat, piece of sh*t asshole who was supposed to relieve me of my duties ended up being super-late for work. And so, no one ever came to relieve me and let me leave my post. The rules are, someone has to be there at the front door 24/7. So I couldn't leave my post until he showed up. I was supposed to leave by 11 o'clock. At 11:20, I called headquarters to see what was taking so long for my relief to show up, and they couldn't give me much answers. All they said was that the new guy was 'on his way.' I texted K and told her I wasn't going to make it, as the trains and public transport would've stopped running for the night by the time I was able to leave, as they usually stop at 12:30am. So I was stuck there. 11pm turned to midnight. Midnight turned to 1am. And this new asshole showed up at 1:45am, pretty much 3 hours late, eventually.
When he got there, he shuffled on in and claimed he overslept, got delayed "in traffic" (at 11pm on a Saturday?), and got lost and couldn't find the place. I don't even remember if he actually apologized or not. He was a total f*ck-up. He wanted to start, but at this time of night, without owning a car, getting home or to K's place would be pretty difficult, so I told him - as professionally and unrudely as possible despite being extremely pissed - to go home. It could've even been the lack of an apology that made me tell him to just leave. He was confused. Headquarters called and asked if the guy showed up yet. I told him yes, but considering no public transportation would be running at 2am and I've already stayed for two extra hours, I'd just go ahead and do the double shift and stay until 7am. I had already texted "K" and told her I would likely not be able to meet her that night, given the circumstances, and hopefully, I could meet her at 8am, since I was still a lot closer to her place at work than I would be traveling from home. For all these reasons, headquarters couldn't argue with the logic there and told the guy to go home. This whole thing is important in the story.
The plan was for me and K to eat pizza, and then spend the night walking around downtown, which is actually pretty when there's no cars or other people around. I was going to tell her I had thought about her words and ask her to help me get over my demons and stick to a weight-loss plan, as I was going to become the bad-ass she thought I already was. But because that late-night rendezvous didn't happen, she had just decided to do some house cleaning and go to sleep instead. I texted her in the morning, but she didn't respond. I didn't want to show up to her place when she's sleeping (she was a heavy sleeper and nothing could wake her up), and 8am on a Saturday is pretty early, so I figured I'd just go home and we'd meet up later in the evening, before my 11pm work shift starts. Not to mention, I had just worked 16 hours in a row and was kinda tired, myself.
I got home at 8am and went to sleep. I woke up to my phone going crazy at around 1:50pm. It was K's sister. I was told her building went up in a huge blaze. She was in the hospital and they were unsure if she would make it. I got dressed and rushed to see her. She couldn't be revived, however. She was gone.
She lived in a tiny apartment unit in one of those converted warehouse buildings because it was affordable and within walking distance to downtown and her university. The whole building went up in a giant fire while I was at work. If I was a little closer, I probably could've hurt sirens going by or saw the smoke in the sky. But because it was still like, a mile or two away, I didn't even know what was going on, at the time. Three other civilians also died in this fire, along with two firefighters. The media only covered the firefighters who died, for the most part. The building collapsed and the walls crushed them, it appeared.
It happened at around 4:30-5am. I was told, after the whole thing was over, that K likely died in her sleep, or was suffocated by the smoke, and didn't die by direct fire or when the whole building went under, like the firefighters. Because she was only on the third floor, she was easier to find the body of.
I still feel like ALL of this could've been avoided, had it not been for that f*cking asshole who held me up at work. She likely wouldn't have even been home had it not been for him. Her life could've been saved! We would've been walking downtown when all this happened! A small part of me thought about suing him, not that I even remember his name.
I want to say how this was all so sudden, and how I couldn't believe K was taken from me. But the part I left out and didn't say is, I'm used to unfortunate circumstances and misery, my entire life. This girl was one of the only good things I can remember in my entire life. The only woman I can say for sure, deeply cared about me. Possibly even loved me. It would only be natural and expected for me, for the one good thing in my life, to be taken away from me. Like fate pissing on my head and laughing about it. In other words, she was literally too good to be true. And at some point, she would've had to have gone away. This has always been a thing. Though I'm unsure if this was the "best" way for our brief romance to come to an end. I mean, I don't think so, but then again, I'm not the Fates controlling human life, now am I?
As I said, I've only had a few exes in my life, and none of them besides one or two were any good. Eight out of ten I didn't even end on good terms. And one of them were halfway across the country. So one could argue the one good woman I ever had was the one who passed away. It's poetic, isn't it?
There's nowhere left for me to go, after this. K might not have even been a thing if she didn't write to me first, because statistically, her even being into me could have been seen as a fluke. I'm still short and still not the least bit attractive. I dislike all of that, even to this day, and it'd be a hard thing to let go with so much overwhelming evidence to it. Admittedly, I get jealous at tall men and attractive men who could easier have found their soulmates. I don't need a partner to move on in my life. But having never been loved by any family growing up, and not having too many genuine friends, I would've liked it.
Most people don't seem to have these same issues I have. Then again, most people don't get to meet their soulmates. I don't know if that makes me unlucky, or extremely unlucky. Eh... I still don't feel "lucky" for such a thing. I'm a walking case of both "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Was I really loved? And would it have been better to have been given hope, and have it taken away from me? Or to have never met anyone? Cause I feel like both simultaneously. Again, most people don't have to deal with these issues. They just find love instantly. (Well, not "instantly," but easy enough.)
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