6/22/2011

Time to Hit the Bricks

Story Sent in by Emily:

Jake was a guy I met over the Internet, and we dated briefly. He and I had some good times together, but he had a violent temper that he uncloaked for me not too long after we began to date.

Our first two dates went well, the first one being at a restaurant for dinner, the second being at a cafe for brunch and then a movie and then a friend's house for dinner, drinks, and ping pong. Jake muttered whenever something happened not to his liking, which occurred, from what I gathered, often. He also told me that he had to go on walks by himself whenever he became mad, and that happened three times over our first two dates. I thought to myself that as long as he dealt with it peacefully and without hurting himself or others, then that was all right. He never told me what made him mad, so I didn't know if it was myself who set him off or not.

On our third date, he took me to an ice cream shop, and planned thereafter to take me to a museum. When we walked into the ice cream shop, he told me, "Get whatever you want. It's on me."

I thanked him and picked out a two-scoop sundae, in a cup. He gave me a dirty look, then ordered a sundae for himself. I picked a place for us to sit down. He followed me to the table, put his sundae down, and said, "I'll be back. I'm going to go for a walk."

"Everything okay?" I asked him.

"No," he replied, and left the ice cream parlor.

After a half-hour, his ice cream had melted, and he hadn't returned. I called him up and he answered, his voice tense and trembling. "My ice cream has melted? Fine. I'll be right back."

He arrived a few minutes later and flopped down across from me. He picked up his ice cream cup and dropped it, ice cream-side down, onto the table.

"This is liquid, now," he said, "I can't eat it. Can you explain how you expected me to eat it?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they could have re-freezed it for you."

"Maybe they could have re-freezed it for me?" he repeated, "Wait here just a minute."

He left the store and I watched through the window as he walked across the street to a bank and punched its brick facade about ten times. He then returned to the ice cream store, walked over to me, and said, "I have to go. My hand just started bleeding for no reason."

"Okay," I said. He left, and after that incident, I ignored his calls and emails. In retrospect, yes, I should have seen the signs of an anger problem earlier, but I was young, and I consider myself lucky to have had the sense to end things when I did.

11 comments:

  1. I have a feeling the consensus will be that he's crazy, but the sad truth is some guys genuinely believe they can keep a woman interested in them by being brooding, sulky, and generally unstable.

    The even sadder truth is it works a fair amount of the time.

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  2. I dunno, man. Sulking about ice cream = about as unattractive as it gets.

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  3. "Jake"? Seriously? Come on, Jared, we ALL know his real name was Edward Cullen.

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  4. 'he had to go on walks by himself'

    What more did OP want, a giant flashing neon sign saying 'I AM EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE' ?

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  5. I'm trying to picture how dates with this guy would have ever involved "good times."

    Her: So how was your day...
    Him: *Broody* Mumble, mumble *gets up and goes for a half-hour walk before returning*

    Repeat as needed during the date.

    Yikes! And crazy, even before the wall-punching.

    Or, perhaps, he was a werewolf?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I feel bad for all the women not as smart and confident (because yes, it takes a certain amount of self-esteem not to immediately think YOU'RE the reason he's mad) as the OP who stayed with him far after the red warning flags had been torn down in a blind rage. :(

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  7. "he had a violent temper that he uncloaked for me not too long after we began to date."

    A cloak for his anger? Fancy.

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  8. I had a Slurpee once and I was only about half-done when I left it in the car to go buy some new gadgety crap at Best Buy. When I got back out, the dang thing had melted!!!

    So I took it to 7-11 and asked them to "re-freeze" it for me and they happily did*.




    *after I punched a bag of Funyuns to show just how seriously pissed off I was...

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  9. This somehow reminds me of the bugs bunny cartoon with the short man who goes around mumbling and cursing and talking to himself lol

    ReplyDelete

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