Perfect Guy Douche

Some men know how to be the perfect guy. And they'll be the perfect guy, up until the moment they get tired of keeping up the act. This is one of the most evil kinds of douche bag -- because they could be the wonderful man they've studied and learned how to emulate. They just don't feel like it.

I dated that douche.

Douche sent me a message on a dating site. After we got the basics out of the way, he invited me to an amusement park, and we had an outstanding, amazing, mind-bendingly good first date.

He was fun -- we ran from roller coaster to roller coaster, laughing the whole time. He effortlessly won me a giant stuffed animal. Best of all, he made me feel adorable. By the end of that hot July night, my stomach hurt from laughing, I was sweaty but I didn't care, and we linked arms in a sweet, comfortable way as he walked me to my car. We made plans to meet back up the very next morning. I went home, swooned over his sweet goodnight texts and barely slept a wink.

Our second date (in which we went to the zoo, lunch, mini golf, and made out in a park) kicked off a marathon of picnics, gifts, flowers sent to office, dinners, hikes, movies and mini-vacations. We seemed to be breathlessly in love. He sent me a relationship request on Facebook and set a photo of us as his profile pic. Within a month we'd met each other's families and were talking about marriage. In fact, we were so happy about being madly in love that we tended to congratulate ourselves over and over again. Whenever we encountered a lull in the conversation, we'd resume talking about how happy and in love we were.

I'd dated enough douches to be suspicious, so I tried to temper my excitement with a little bit of caution. I knew well enough not to bring up the topic of marriage myself -- I didn't want to be that crazy girl. But Douche gazed hard into my eyes, kissed me deeply, and told me that our marriage was "a foregone conclusion." He talked about our future kids, he said we might move to a new city together, and he told me that his niece wanted to be our flower girl. I was ecstatic. Every damn day, I was ecstatic. For about three months.

He seemed to be ecstatic, too, as he bought picture frames that said "LOVE" and decorated his apartment with photos of us kissing. He was smart, successful, and he loved me! He was perfect. 

But the thing about dating a douche is that is goes bad gradually, so you don't realize it's happening. Or, you find ways to rationalize it. When I first started seeing Douche, he wanted to see and talk to me all the time. But during our fourth and fifth months together, he allowed me into his life only in carefully scheduled windows. We talked every day at 5pm (even though I'd have to cut our call short because I was still working). He'd visit me on specific weeknights from precisely 9pm-10pm, no longer. He'd "give me" (his words) one day per weekend. He'd inform me that we could see a movie, at 7:40, and I'd be thrilled--even if I didn't really feel like seeing a movie.

He was (as he made sure every knew) a big military guy, so I figured that he was just very regimented. I figured that was the same personality trait that made him good at his job, so I decided to get used to it. 

Just like I got used to how he turned out to be a complete asshole to strangers -- getting into road rage fights and screaming obscenities at people through their open car windows. He was, I rationed, never mean to me. I also got used to how he tended to get sick and go home every time we were supposed to spend a night together, even the night I booked a nice hotel room. 

Right around November, when I was starting to feel like I barely had a boyfriend any more, he let me know that he could no longer "keep up the pace" of being in a relationship. He started taking online classes and needed to make time for them. I should have let him go, but he told me that he still loved me very much. In fact, he got angry with me when I suggested that he didn't. How dare I insinuate that he didn't love me enough, when he'd already told me that we were going to be married? Why was I so demanding? I started to feel hurt and anxious around him, but I figured that he must still love me when he started planning our Valentine's Day in Puerto Rico. I tried to be a better, easier girlfriend. I tried to back off a little, even though I became desperate for some reassurance. 

But even when he gave back the key to my apartment, because he "felt weird" having it, he insisted that he loved me and would "never let me go." So as Christmas loomed, I (still starstruck from our blissful summer together) started to fantasize that he might actually propose to me. My co-workers, who had met him and seen the lavish bouquets on my desk, started telling me that this was my year. Douche told me he ordered a special gift for me and suggested that we wake up together on Christmas morning. We drove out of town to see his niece's Christmas pageant, and my heart swelled with love for Douche and his family. I couldn't wait to be a part of it. 

But instead, he sent me an email on December 23 to break up with me.

He sent me an email.

It said:

Neither of us see the person we started dating 5 months ago.  To be honest, I take responsibility for a lot of it.  I feel like I am not going to be able to give you the attention that you want or deserve.  Especially now that I am back in school, I really just have no time.  I think you are a great person and I have no bad feelings toward you at all.  In fact, I want to thank you for one of the most fun and memorable summers I have ever had.  Maybe it's just a matter of really bad timing.  I had high expectations for us when we started dating also.  Unfortunately I am just in a situation where I have put my schooling and career in front of everything else. I am headed to my parents' place in the morning.  I'll be back in the city later in the week.  I would really appreciate the chance to come pick up my tools.  Just let me know what is good for you. 

sincerely,

Douche

I was Christmas shopping at the mall with my dad when I got the email. I was standing in a Brookstone store. The world started to spin. What was happening?! I wanted to vomit. I thought I might faint. Instead, my dad put me in the car and I sobbed the whole rainy way home.

When I got home, I called Douche, hoping I had somehow misunderstood. He answered in a shitty tone of voice that I barely recognized: "Yes?" I choked out, "You don't don't get to break up with me via email."

And he hung up on me.

Instead of waking up with Douche on Christmas morning, like I'd planned to, I stayed at my parents' and wept. After New Years, he emailed me again asking me for the tools he'd left at my house. I told him he could get them from my dad -- honestly believing that he would -- but he wrote a scathing reply about how immature that was and that he didn't want his tools that badly. Funny how my brave military guy was too scared to face my dad. (Now I have my own drill and socket set, and they've been pretty handy!)

I replied with a final plea: that he not talk to his next girlfriend about marriage if he didn't mean it. He wrote back:

That is what people in happy relationships talk about.  Things are going well and those types of conversations happen.  You dream about what a life would be like together.  I find it hard to believe that you never had a conversation like that with anyone before. 

And that's when I realized just how heartless my perfect guy really was. 

I'd like to say I realized how lucky I was. Thank goodness I didn't move to another city with him, or marry him, or have his children,  only to find out that he could so easily abandon me. Unfortunately, it took a little while and a lot of support to get through it.

 You fucking douche. 

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