Just when I thought my dating life was going along fine…well, maybe not fine, I’ve ended up dating a lot of losers over the past year, so not fine. But dating was going along okay.  I’m getting back out there, spreading my wings, meeting new people.  Just when I was getting back out there, meeting new people, I got an email from OkCupid.  It was one of those automated emails that happens when someone rates your profile above mediocre.

I opened the email, and knew immediately that I should not open the link to OkCupid.  The picture of the Ok Rater did not download, but I could tell by the username that I knew who it was.  The email said, “Someone chose you!  He’s totally into you! Go send him a message. You got this email because he rated you 4 or 5 stars.”

But the picture didn’t download, and I’m curious like that, so I clicked the link.

Stupid, stupid me.

It was STBex.

There he was smiling at my from his online dating profile…and I started to cry.  I’ve known that he was dating for a long time, but I didn’t have to see it.  Seeing his picture made me sick to my stomache.

I’m not exactly sure where the tears came from.  I don’t want him back.  I don’t.  In fact, I think it’s the opposite.  You see, he keeps doing this kind of thing.  He keeps popping up at inopportune times, saying or doing things, nice things, but I know they’re not really nice and they don’t mean anything.  In fact, the things he says, the things he does aren’t really nice at all.  In fact, they’re cruel.  They’re meant to string me along and they’re his disgusting attempts to try to maintain some form of fucked up control or attachment to me.

I hate him for it.

He doesn’t want me back and I know it, so why the hell can’t he just leave me alone?

How dare he rate me 4 out of 5 stars!  He’s not allowed to say or do anything to me anymore, because all of it, all of it, is a pack of lies.  It’s just the suave, Latino bullshit he uses to try to get what he wants.  It’s just the shit he says to make a woman believe she’s special so he can fuck her over and be on his merry way.

Who the fuck does he think he is?  Every chance he gets he tries to pretend he’s a nice guy when, really, he’s anything but that.  He’s a cruel, sadistic bastard, and I want him to leave me alone.  He wanted the divorce; now he needs to stay the fuck away from me.

LEAVE ME ALONE YOU FUCKED IN THE HEAD PRICK!

He does not get to fuck with my mind anymore.  He doesn’t.  I’m pissed that I’m even having this reaction, but I think I’m really crying because I’m angry.  That’s what it is.  I’m angry, and I’m trying hard to hold it in.

But why?  Because it’s more lady-like to cry?

Fuck that.  I deserve to be angry.

I’ve mocked my therapist for prescribing this crazy dating thing many times, but it’s only because of the work I’ve been doing with him that I’m able to recognize my anger right now at all.  We’ve been working on this thing I do, where I cry when I’m really angry.  And, that’s what this is.  If I was in a session right now, my therapist would make me hit something.  He says the crying is repressing the rage, and that it’s better to get to the real emotion than to repress it.

That’s what this is. It’s rage.

I could go curl up in my bed and cry because STBex is dating again, and he obviously wanted to make sure I knew it.  But I won’t.  That’s not what I’m going to do.  I’m going to go beat something.  That’s what will release the rage, and that, not my tears, is what he deserves.

Photo here.