I must preface this story by saying the person in this story, though he made a crappy choice back then, is a great friend to many, and I hold no grudges or hard feelings; I wish him well. It is a hell of a story though, and I wan’t to tell it.
The year was 2017, and I had just finished the worst academic year of my life. The only thing that was going well (or so I thought), was my relationship with a guy I’d known since high school. We had only started dating around November of 2016, however, years after our high school days together in 2012.
It started with a simple birthday wish, and then we chatted more and more until we were full-fledged dating— well, from a long distance, that is. The funny thing is, I wasn’t “supposed” to even date him in the first place— not according to the “non-negotiables” I set for myself literally days before we’d started talking.
What were my non-negotiables, you ask? Here they go:
- Has to believe in God.
- Can’t be a smoker.
- Not a military man. (I’m a military brat, I don’t want that lifestyle again)
It’s funny how things happen, though, because he violated all three of those non-negotiables. I gave him a pass, though, because we had history! I knew him already!
Because he was in the military, our relationship was long distance. As a military brat, I was used to long distances between myself and those I cared about, so it wasn’t something that concerned me. But then the red flags set in.
Red Flag #1: The Flinch
There was one time in March (pay attention to that detail, it’s very important) when he had come to visit me in Texas. I remember we were in the car headed to my dad’s house, and I reached for his phone (which was on one of those phone car mounts) to either change the song, or put my address into his maps app, it was so long ago I forgot which it was. All I know is at the sight of my reaching for his phone, he flinched like he was going to grab the phone before me, but then quickly caught himself.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I took the phone.
“Yeah, I thought you were gonna drop it,” he explained.
Weird… I thought. How could you think I was gonna drop something that wasn’t even in my hands yet? I shook it off.
At this point in the year I was having the worst time of my life in college, very depressed, and clinging to whatever happy moments I could. Red flag be damned.
Red Flag #2: The Cold Shoulder
Since he had met my parents, I also made it a point to meet one of his. The same weekend he met mine, I drove down to our hometown in central Texas to visit his family. It was a short visit, just a few hours, because I still had school the upcoming week. When it was time for me to leave, I was sad, as any girlfriend would be if they weren’t going to see their boyfriend again for who knows how long. Him though? Nope.
He couldn’t care less.
At least, that’s the vibe he gave. I remember standing in the driveway, lingering next to my car because I didn’t wanna go. He stood there, glued to his phone, texting God knows who like it was important— more important than taking three seconds to say good-bye to his girlfriend. He looked up and said good-bye like it was no big deal, and I drove away trying to convince myself that what had just happened wasn’t what actually happened.
Red Flag #3: The Slip-Up
This one is short, but very important. There was one conversation we’d had, where he said the words “when we saw each other in May,” and I remember being confused because we hadn’t seen each other in May. We saw each other in March. I figured because March and May both start with the letter “M,” it was an honest mistake. It was a mistake, alright, but for other reasons.
Red Flag #4: The Attitude
June 5th, 2017. A date seared into my mind because of how emotionally turbulent it was for me. I had accidentally managed to start a war in my friend’s Facebook comments, and of course I wanted to tell him about it. I had said something on one of my friend’s posts that was completely misinterpreted, which prompted her family members to begin attacking me. When I told him about it, though, he acted like I was not only a nuisance, but like I was somehow at fault for the situation. I couldn’t believe it.
“I’m your boyfriend,” he said, followed by something along the lines of “I’m gonna keep it real with you.”
Had he not already been taking forever to text me back all day, I might have taken that a little better. I did not. I ended up solving the problem between my friend’s family and I on my own because, like I said, it was really all a misunderstanding. It would’ve been nice to have had emotional support while I was being attacked on the internet, though.
Red Flag #4: The Instagram Notification
Fast-forward a month, and I was now at my aunt’s house in Georgia paying her a visit. I was bored one day, and decided that I was going to make an Instagram account again. It’s no secret that I have a love-hate relationship with social media.
Anyway, I made an account, and sent him a follow request. How cute, right? The first person I followed would be my boyfriend. I cringe at the annoying twinkle in my eye as I recount this tale.
“I sent you a follow request on instagram!” I texted him.
He then said something stupid like “I don’t really check my notifications for instagram like that when I’m not on the app.”
And I remember thinking… My text message WAS your notification. The heck? I literally JUST told you.
I wasn’t in a rush to get re-integrated onto Instagram, though, so I…you guessed it, shook it off.
Here’s where it all blew up.
He was headed to a military ball in Vegas, a five hour drive from where he had been stationed. As he was getting on the road, we agreed that he’d let me know when he made it.
That never happened.
I remember waking the next morning, perplexed to not have any new messages from him.
“Did you make it okay?” I texted.
He read it, and didn’t reply.
Back then, Apple had a glitch in their messages app. If you read a message from your notification menu, it would briefly send a “Read” receipt, and then go back to saying “Delivered” once you swiped out of your notifications.
I remember seeing the read receipt go from “Read” to “Delivered” in real time, thinking “how weird?”
When it became apparent that I wouldn’t be getting a text back, something in me flipped. I immediately went to Instagram and began my search. You see, back then, anytime you pressed a letter in the search bar, a list of profiles that began with that letter would show up in the search options. Since my boyfriend was the only person I’d requested to follow, my search recommendations were only showing me profiles that he followed.
I went through every. Profile. For every. Letter.
If her profile was public, I looked at the profile, assessed whether or not she posted thirst traps. If she posted thirst traps, I clicked on the photo, saw whether or not he was in her likes or comments, and then moved on. If she didn’t post thirst traps, I simply went to her most recent photo to see if he’d liked it. If he had, I went through to see how often he was liking her photos. Was it every photo? Or just a like here and there?
And then I found her.
I was in such a zone that by the time I got to the letter “A” on the second row of my keyboard, I missed a photo that was in the first 9 photos you could see on her profile. When I clicked on her profile at first, I went straight to the first photo. He liked it. I exited the photo to do a scan of her profile and what would you know? There in plain sight was a photo of them both. I clicked on it.
She had a heart in her captions, and a friend or two in the comments talking about how cute they were. The date that the photo was posted? Take a guess.
June 5th.
Suddenly everything made sense. I was such a bother that day because he was busy cheating on me.
I needed confirmation, however, so I slid in her DM’s. Mind you, I still hadn’t completely set up my Instagram profile. I had no profile picture, and no bio.
To the best of my memory, the conversation went something like this:
“I know this is weird, but are you and **** dating?” I messaged her.
“Yes, who are you?” she responded fairly quickly.
“For how long? I’m his girlfriend, we started dating in November.”
“Since May. I’m sorry, but do you have any proof?”
Since May, huh? Remember Red Flag #3? Yeah. That checks out.
I proceeded to send her a selfie of us, and a screenshot of our messages the night before. In that screenshot in particular, he’d told me he loved me.
“He told me he was going to a military ball and that he’d let me know when he made it,” I told her, explaining the context of the screenshot.
What she said next was the final blow.
“I’m here with him right now.”
That was all I needed. She apologized, explained that she had no idea, and I told her it wasn’t her fault.
I took a screenshot of our DM’s and a screenshot of her instagram page, and I sent it to him.
“I just want to know why?” I asked him. I was (am) a very understanding person. I went out of my way to make sure he felt like he could talk to me about anything. Of all the red flags I noticed, I never mentioned a single one out of fear of seeming argumentative. So all I wanted to know was why? Why not just break up with me first? Wanna know his answer?
“I wanted to give you the respect of doing it (breaking up with me) in person.”
Followed by the typical “you deserve better than me” spiel.
How ironic. Wanting to respect me…lead to disrespecting me. Oh well!
We didn’t speak for a little while after that, but I was still his friend afterward. I know that sounds crazy, but the last thing I wanted was for someone to beat themself up over something I had forgiven them for. (And no, by forgive I don’t mean I took him back.) Besides, we were friends before we dated, and we honestly shouldn’t have dated at all, in hindsight.
Like I explained at the very beginning, I have no hard feelings for this person, and I wish him well! It’s just a hell of a story, and even though I’ve moved on, I’m learning that the effects of that experience (and others after that) stick with me to this day.
But we’ll talk about that later.
