Comments on: It Ain’t Me, Babe

By: Ivy

Ivy — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:25:45 +0000

I’m sorry to say I’ve had a similar experience. Senior year of collge, he was my private music teacher and had been for a year, ad he had also known me since 17 or younger, since I had been attending that school for lessons since the age of seven.
He also just dropped me with silence, although when I asked him, he said he was just busy.
It broke my heart. I didn’t think it could be broken; before that I had been a blaze of confidence. I had lived the life of a prodigy, with all the sheltering that entires.
I ended up turning to opiates (I had never used drugs in my entire life before this, never even smoked a cigarette..etc.) I was no match for the streets, being one of the most sheltered people to try and play the game of manipulation.
I ended up becoming a hustler (call girl) a methadone user, and a grad student. I am still in touch with him. I know it’s bad. He still makes sexual comments. I write him long letters, but I doubt he understands how pain has a memory you can’t stop.

Say somebody hits you. You will wonder for years what you did to initiate that punch. Or if you hit them back, you will wonder if you should regret hitting them back. Or if you didn’t, you will think about your passivity and whether it was stupid. We are meant to remember pain so that we don’t do the same things twice.

I really thought he loved me. i treaded so carefully. Yes, I was bold, but I was also so calculated and hesitant, until I was positive, absolutely positive about things, and still I allowed for doubts that I was wrong, in my most confident moments. Yet I have never had a hunch that deep that didn’t turn out to be true in my life. My hunches have been astronomically deep.Unless he never loved me. Unless this hunch was my one wrong turn.

He had a fiance. Now they are married. They are both cold and icy and manipulative, like cult figures. But I am complicated and unique and ambiverted. When men f-ck me for money, they think I am incredibly genuine. So genuine. Am I? I dont know. I am always genuine in the moment. People also think there is an innocence about me. But for four years, he imbued a sorrow so deep in me I could do nothing about it. I lost so many friends because of the depth of this sorrow. It has finally been going away this year. Then, suddenly he contacts me, as if he knew i was feeling better. I don’t understand.

Sorry to go on.

What is your thoughts, author of Chelsea Hotel?

By: K

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:17:18 +0000

Coach Varley! Soccer coach from hell. Holy hell, I hadn’t thought about that drunk, pervy old windbag in years! That guy was an asshole of the highest order, though. Blatantly stared at my tits all semester and then gave me a “C” in the class because I didn’t have enough “field time” (this was after I was hospitalized for an asthma attack and had a doctor’s note showing that I couldn’t do any “strenous” activity for the next few months). Hmph.

But, yes — I agree with all of you. Thank God I only wasted a short amount of time (a year is short-ish, right?) on the prick and moved on.

By: doug

doug — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:19:50 +0000

Thank Christ, I thought you were going to say it was Martin Varley! By the way, I love the fact that you’re the type of girl who would use “truculent” and “unsavory”, but also manage to type “shittily” without even blinking. Well played and thank God that didn’t work out!

By: moonbeammcqueen

moonbeammcqueen — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:07:29 +0000

What a story! I dated a college professor for a while, and yours sounds eerily similar– I’m so glad you got out of that situation. This part really got to me:

“You’re not the kind of girl that a man wants to date. You never will be. You’re the kind of girl that a man wants to marry. And that’s never going to be me.”

The thing about this sentiment is that although it was true, it was probably just a line, like all of his others. Flattery and rejection all at once, which is just more manipulation. He was honest, but maybe not intentionally so.

So happy that you got a new and better guy!

By: Dragon Horse

Dragon Horse — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:51:22 +0000

Uhm…I think you need to learn the art of “forgetting” the details.

We all have bad relationships, that is how most people learn not to have them again. Stupid or mentally ill people will do the same thing over again hoping for different results with another person (who is almost the same as the last or in a similar situation).

I have dated some crazy females…CRAZY. Most of us learn from personal experience with these type of things, not from someone telling us “not to touch the hot stove”.

BTW, the guy sounds like a grade A prick, I’m sure he still is, as people don’t change much after a certain age.

By: anon - k

anon - k — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:23:05 +0000

wow, im not even sure how i stumbled upon this article but it really struck a chord with me. i’d like to think i’m the marrying type and not the dating type as well. i’m still a little too young to know though…