#25 THE “I HATE ELAINE CLUB”: WHEN MY HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART AND THE STELLA ADLER ACADEMY ACTOR BECAME HOUSEMATES
#25 THE “I HATE ELAINE CLUB”: WHEN MY HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART AND THE STELLA ADLER ACADEMY ACTOR BECAME HOUSEMATES
Like a cornered cat, I struck out from the pain of rejection and the memory of my stupidity
I did a thing! I recorded my first (badly done) voiceover to a post. Although, I hope I’ll improve on that. Now, you can do what I do when listening to audiobooks and speed it up so the post feels shorter. Thank you to of The Sober Millenial who does (very good) recordings on her posts and I commented on one and asked, “Erm, how did you do these recordings?” And she kindly told me. Thanks! (I swear I’m going to make my posts shorter; I have some short ones coming up in a couple more posts.)
Prior to Halloween, we’d been at my house and Dorian hadn’t gone to his apartment for a couple of days and he had left his car there, so he asked if I’d drive him home or to the gas station or wherever he wanted to go (I can’t recall the exact circumstance). Me being lazy and seriously having a case of can’t be arsed during that crisp, sunny fall day, told him he could drive my car instead. Worst decision I ever made – besides dating him. He walked back to my house, panicked, as my car had been T-boned at an intersection which was his fault and he’d fully totalled it (which means it’s a write-off to the Brits).
Back in 1997, when I moved to Florida, my Uncle Tim had picked us up in what was then a new Toyota Camry. He’d kept pristine care of this car before upgrading to an Audi and passing this car on to my mother who passed it on to me (for a thousand dollars). My mum’s mechanic husband had fixed up the car for the cost of the parts. It wasn’t a new car but it ran well, looked clean and attractive (at least on the outside), and I expected to run it until it died. I didn’t expect it to be crashed by my boyfriend but, ultimately, it was my fault that I lent him the car.
As anyone who has lived in rural America knows, you can’t function without a car. There’s no public transport and in the hot South, things aren’t realistically walkable. Sure, I could still get to campus and to visit friends but grocery shopping, seeing my family, going to the movies, going to restaurants, having a “normal” life would be difficult.
Once, Dr. Elliott had brought his bike to campus so asked for a lift to the Toyota dealership to pick up his car that was being serviced. Like my room, I kept my car interior like a roving trash truck. When he walked after class with me back to my car off campus, I realised I had two options: scramble with a bin bag to remove the ever-mounting pile of half-crushed Red Bull cans from the footwell of the passenger seat or just tell him he could step on all the cans. I went with option two: poor Dr Elliott had to step on the cans, which I’m sure for his long limbs wasn’t the most comfortable experience.
Then, he had to dismantle his bike to fit in the boot of my car, but the trunk contained an art project of a papier mache Japanese shoe I’d created and painted in high school (I didn’t know where to put it in my house) and all kinds of extra junk so I had to rearrange so he could get his bike in. I’m sure by this point he was afraid to touch the car’s door handles for fear of catching some disease.
So, for months after the crash, I simply went without a car as a poor grad student, I couldn’t afford a new one. Dorian would sometimes let me borrow his car, which I suppose was kind of him — and which led to the situation where I’d taken Dorian to the Atlanta airport and stranded him there on his return when I had the date that night at Bramwell’s house (read here if you haven’t). But I didn’t strand him because of the date but because he’d rebooked his flight and never kept me abreast of when he’d actually arrive back in the first place and I was pissed off at his disregard for my time and feelings. Maybe a mega-biatch move on my part but our past selves don’t always make good choices.
I messaged Brittany the following after that exchange:
Get the latest: As Bramwell was dropping me home today (not long ago), Dorian was pulling out, so we took it slowly. Then, I got inside and ate your soup (thanks, it was great) and Dorian texted me asking me if I wanted to see a movie today.
And I said, "You've got to be kidding."
He said, "I'll take that as a no" and I replied, "With the way you spoke to me and the things you said, I never care to see you again" and he said, "Yeah, sorry for losing my temper."
And I said "You were just a way to pass the time? Really? You think I'd see you after that?" and he said, "Fair enough. Let me know when you need the car next" and I said, "I don't need it. Have a nice life" and he said, "Okay. Same to you."
What a fuckwit. What the hell is wrong with him, Brittany?
I loved the word “fuckwit” from Bridget Jones’ Diary. Also, I don’t recall what “we took it slowly” means. Slowly exiting the car? I’m also not sure how I arranged to give Dorian the keys to his car so he could get it from my house.
I kept asking if his father would actually pay me for my car and eventually, I emailed his father myself setting out in what I hoped were reasonable tones that as a grad student with student loans and no job after my assistantship ended, I had no means of getting a new car without cash and couldn’t afford car payments. I told him the Kelly Blue Book value of the car and asked for the midpoint between Good and Fair, which was $1,500.
Then, I asked my friend Patten, who was obsessed with all things cars, if he knew where I could buy a decent car for around $2,000. His friend Rodney was selling his old Mustang which was what led me to own a faded red Mustang – which will feature in the story about meeting my first husband. I’d known Patten from high school and he was one of the sweetest men I knew.
I finally had wheels again!
Dorian dates Olivia
Dorian eventually started dating this tall, thin girl who had never been to university (but I do think she later did get her degree) and maybe worked as a waitress at the time. I was jealous and mean about her to him. We’ll call her Olivia. I told him once when we ran into each other at the bars that I’d expected him to date someone prettier/better looking, which incidentally is what HSS had said to me about Dorian once. Olivia was pretty enough and by all accounts a lovely person (as we did have the odd friend or two in common). I had to see them together at parties which made me feel awkward and fat and ridiculous for dating him or thinking he was into me.
When Dorian and I finally broke things off, HSS invited me over to his house and we slept together. Then he held me as I cried because I knew I’d never get together with Dorian again, not after sleeping with my ex. I also cried because it had been the first time in so long that I’d been treated like I was attractive in bed and the sex had been good.
Funnily enough, before I moved on from the both of them, they’d both come over (not at the same time, obviously) for the odd hookup, so ironically I prob slept with Dorian more post-breakup than I ever did pre-breakup. (All before Olivia was on the scene, though, and my next string of men.)
I don’t know their side of the story but Dorian, HSS, and the friend from our high school, Clark-Kentish-nun guy all started living together in one house. Clark didn’t hate me but I felt like Dorian and HSS had an informal “I hate Elaine club” that made it great at parties as we had mutual friends and were always at the same birthday parties, gatherings, and bars together. It was like the awk Theo situation times one thousand.
With HSS, since I really did want to move on from that entanglement, I’d never been purposefully spiteful. With Dorian, I was a total bitch (even though I don’t like to call women bitches). My own jealousy and insecurity and ego bruise would not let me be kind to him, even though really he deserved kindness.
Our nasty exchange
I won’t share the whole conversation but I clearly saved this nasty Facebook exchange for posterity and whatever reason.
Funnily enough, I no longer email myself now that I’m with Michael because I don’t have to diarise sadnesses (there aren’t any to chronicle, for one – at least not those that derive from our relationship). And any funny stories I have of our day-to-day life, I share with my older sister and cousins on WhatsApp (and sometimes my father, mother, and Grammy). Plus, he won’t let me create shiny, happy pictures as he hates having his photo taken (those who know us will see that M mostly pulls weird faces in our pics together). Our life is just peaceful, a loving partnership, and I don’t have to post on Facebook or put up a front because my daily life is just happy – as cliche and trite as it sounds – and I feel so bloody thankful that this is now my life. I often feel that “pinch me” moment. How did I get so lucky? After all this past shit heap, how did I stumble upon the partner who lets my inner voice be calm? Who has healed my anxious attachment style and made it secure (as
describes in this post here). Michael doesn’t make me feel sad or feel less. He spends his days trying to make me laugh, making my life easier, working on our life goals together. But, as always, more on that later.From 7 January 2011, the following exchange happened on FB chat after Dorian told me he wanted us to be “cool” (i.e. amicable) since we’d often be attending the same social gatherings. (Remember, I even invited him to our Friendsgiving the previous November so he wouldn’t be alone.) But things had evidently soured in the intervening weeks.
Elaine: I don't care to acknowledge your existence. Nothing to worry about. You wanted me off your back, out of your hair, you got it.
Dorian: Look, we don't like each other. That’s fine. I just want us to be okay in social situations together.
NB: I edited Dorian’s portions to remove misspellings, etc.
E: I guess you aren't quite getting the picture. We'll be fine. I won't even notice you there.
D: You will, though; it’s unavoidable.
E: You spend your time outside anyway. I'm bringing someone. Please don't talk to me at [Heather’s] party.
Knowing me and my serial dating, I’m certain I was seeing someone but I don’t recall who it was. I also have no idea if I went to this party and how it went if I did go.
D: I don’t care if you are seeing someone. I just don’t want us not to be able to run in the same social circles.
E: Okay. Why are you even talking to me right now? What is it that you think IS NOT resolved? We are going to be in the same social circle until you find new friends. So, it'll be okay. What do you think I'll do? What are you trying to ensure will or will not happen?
D: I have never been in this situation before and it feels bad. I just want us to be cool.
E: Dorian, we won't ever be "cool." I didn't want things to be this ugly, but you started this. I wanted us to be friends, but as a "friend" you just brought me down and made me feel bad about myself. You didn't give a shit about me You don't give a shit that I have no car and no way to get a new one. And I'm done with a "friendship" that drags me down. I don't even know why I cared to get your "approval" to gain "cool" points from you. You're nothing to me. I already have friends.
D: That’s fine. We both have negative feelings for each other. I just want to resolve our conflict.
E: You sound like a broken record of ridiculousness. Don't you get how ridiculous you sound? What conflict? It isn't resolvable. You keep the friends that enjoy your company and I'll keep my original friends.
Past me’s words are dripping with pain and his are dripping with indifference. Did he even notice?
D: But they overlap.
E: Then get new friends.
D: I don’t want us to be enemies.
E: I've never had an enemy. Why do you care if we are enemies?
D: Valdosta is a small town.
E: And I'll be leaving in a few months.
D: Okay, fine. I just want us to be able to be at the same events and have it be cool.
E: Bloody hell.
D: What?
E: You are a broken fucking record. I already said that it would be okay. Why are you still talking?
D: Because it will not be okay. I know you.
E: Do you now? Okay, so what do you expect me to do? Cause a scene?
As far as I know, I’d never caused “a scene” in my life.
D: Yes.
E: Then don't come to the party.
D: Well either we meet and come to an understanding or go to war which I don't want to do.
E: You aren't worth waging a war. I honestly don't care what you do. I said I'd ignore you. What more do you want?
D: I feel the same way but we will see each other all the time. I want us to be cool.
E: I want to rip my hair out. I don't understand what you mean at all. If I ignore you, it doesn't matter if we are "cool" or not.
D: I can't deal with drama unless we are cool. That's what's going to happen.
E: I think it would be best if you find your own friends. These are my friends. Obviously, some of them like you. You can keep those friends. But it's rude of you to continue to infiltrate my friends, especially since you've royally screwed me over.
D: Let’s all just all be cool.
E: To you, Valdosta people aren't worth your time. No one lives up to your standard. So, just find other people.
D: Not true.
E: I befriended you early on. Tried to help you out. You didn't have to date me. You didn't have to be cruel. But you were. I cared for you. Did so much for you and you threw it in my face. You crashed my car and did nothing. I helped you out with rent and you didn't pay me back. I helped pay for your laptop and you didn't pay me back for that either.
I'll take it all as a learning experience. I'm open to being hurt again because experiencing happiness and love is far greater than heartache.
I was angry at myself for allowing myself to be used and discarded. But even still, despite all this past drama, I have never let any relationship harden my heart. I’d always rather see the good in people – but thankfully I became more aware of dating people who were a financial drain hole.
D: I will pay you back.
E: With your student loan?
D: I will get a job and with loans.
E: Good. I'm glad to hear it.
D: I will call you.
E: I don't want to talk. What more can you say?
D: We are talking now.
E: I don't want to speak to you. I'd rather not see you, but since you insist on attending social gatherings thrown by my friends, I have to.
D: We need to resolve our problems.
E: No, we don't. Don't you get it, Dorian? You need to get out of my social circle.
I did actually have other friends who didn’t hang out with him so it was, perhaps, cruel to suggest otherwise. But obviously hurt flowed from my words and my uncaring veneer.
D: I am in it regardless of you.
E: If I was sharing your friends, I wouldn't hang out with them. You are invited to stuff because you dated me.
D: Not true.
E: [Heather] just doesn't know we aren't friends. If she does, I'm sure she'd not bother inviting you again.
D: [Heather] hates you.
Michael says at this point, “He threw her under the bus. Didn’t he?”
She actually did hate me. Sadly, we used to be really close in undergrad and as grad school progressed, we just became frenemies but I was invited to her parties and I’m not sure why I even went except cool people were also invited to her parties and I did actually like her. She was the sly and subtle kind of bitchy, though. She also slept with HSS and tearfully confessed to me one day as we got ready to go to some party but I legit felt nothing and told her I already knew and really didn’t care.
E: How do you know?
D: Because I’m in your network of friends now. This is why we need to reconcile.
E: Well, it's not a very good network if we hate each other, is it? Why'd she bother inviting me if she hated me? Why does she visit me during my office hours?
D: To keep things cool. That’s what I want to do.
E: You are taxing.
D: So are you.
E: Look, I'm finished with this conversation.
D: So am I. I just want to come to a head.
E: Then, you aren't finished; if you want to continue, you aren't finished with it. I don't know what you want from me. I don't owe you anything. Do what you want.
Seriously, why didn’t I just log off and stay offline? Clearly, I didn’t want the convo to end either but goodness knows why not as it was all very pathetic.
D: I want us to have an understanding.
E: I'm going to be hanging out with someone whose company I enjoy; I won't even notice you. That's final. I don't make public scenes. You don't know me very well.
D: Look, I want to go to events you are at and still have a good time. That’s all.
E: You don't give a shit about how I feel. Just go to the pub with [another friend] or something. I can't believe I invited you to Thanksgiving because I cared that you'd be alone after you fucking broke up with me in the cruelest way possible. You were such a dick that you broke up with me before my first day of teaching. Your timing is impeccable. You couldn't hold on for a week until I'd settled in. You had to make it really hurt. I always took your feelings into consideration. You only take your own feelings. You want to have friends, so you are going to make sure you take mine because that is what you want to do with no regard to how I feel about it all.
D: You never gave me a reason to stay with you.
E: And, after Thanksgiving, you said you'd come back and stay the night and you never showed up because partying was way more important to you. I relied on you to take me to my step-sister's wedding and you never showed up. How selfish are you?
D: I hated being with you.
E: Then you shouldn't have been so cruel. Even now you are being cruel. I'd never say such horrible things to you.
D: I want us to be cool and forget the past.
I don’t think telling someone “I hated being with you” is the way to get them to be “cool” with you (lols). Rolls eyes.
E: You saw how I bent over backwards to help you. Spell checking. Feeding you. Rent. Everything and you repay me by asking for it to be "forgotten." Stay the fuck away from me.
D: I could say a lot of bad things about you but I want us to be cool.
E: Why are you so heartless? You don't care that I'm a person with feelings.
D: Not true.
E: So, you hated me. I think you are an awful person for stringing me along.
D: We just did not work.
E: No, we did not.
D: No one is bad.
E: You strung me along for six months. You fed me bullshit.
D: You gave me hell. It sucked.
E: The things you did to me weren't normal behaviour.
D: Hahahaha. Let’s make amends.
I was full of pain and hurt that someone could spend time with me and hate me so much. And societally women “couldn’t” be angry. They had to be sweetness and light. I was angry and I didn’t want to play nice.
It was as if the things HSS said when we broke up were true: that the next person who got to know me wouldn’t like me. Those people who knew the real me wouldn't like me or love me and even if I didn’t have anything as serious as marriage or children on the brain, I wanted love, that special person. I have always thought love was worth any pain. Why was love always so important to me when for other friends they were okay without it? Was I socially conditioned like so many women of my era on Disney movies and romcoms? Why didn’t I put all this effort into finishing my Master’s thesis? Was I just that big of an idiot? (Maybe!)
Don’t drink the poison – not everyone cares that they hurt you
That unpleasant exchange happened after I met Bramwell so there was bad blood between us and I had lingering feelings of being used and discarded, but most likely despite the fact we were a terrible match, everything that went wrong in Dorian’s life or all of his feelings were unrelated to me.
However, one important life lesson for all young people is that not everyone will care if they hurt you. Not everyone you care about will care for you back and you have to learn to move on and take what lessons you can from those painful experiences. Try to be smarter and savvier next time.
My therapist, Lorraine, says you don’t have even to forgive people for what they do (she’s all about women feeling their full spectrum of emotions including anger) but make sure you don’t give your power away to anyone in that allowing them to keep hurting you (of course Dorian has long been forgotten in my repertoire so the advice was about my ex-husband and not him) or for you to be impacted by their past behaviour or treatment gives them your power – when it belongs to you and they don’t even know or want it.
There was this couple who reached out to me who I’ll forever remember and be grateful to when I was mid-divorce. So many people when others are divorcing are afraid to reach out. Maybe they don’t know what to say but I’m glad this couple did. I had a number of people I knew via my ex-husband just ignore me and never speak to me again, which, naturally, is hurtful. This couple were friends of my ex but they gave me the best advice I’ve had yet and it’s carried me through (I wish my younger self had this advice):
“Don’t drink the poison and expect them to feel it.”
Basically, bitterness, hurt, resentment, anger, feelings of injustice, even holding onto happy memories when things are over, only hurt the recipient (i.e. you). My ex rode off into the figurative sunset, cut me out of his life without looking back, and what he did to me didn’t impact him any longer. He didn’t even care. The same with Dorian and others. They moved on and I was left to rebuild my life.
In the case of HSS, he told me one day I’d regret what I did to him. I did regret hurting him so he was right in a way but I never experienced the years of pain of our relationship’s end the way he did, which is sad for him. So, I guess that is my bad karma too. I hurt HSS (and maybe others), Dorian and my ex hurt me. Does everyone get their comeuppance? Who knows?
Why I always wanted to make the newbies feel welcome
At all the schools I attended and in life, in workplaces, in social gatherings, I’d always been the one sensitive to the “new people” as I’d been there often enough myself. I’d tried to infiltrate close-knit groups that never let you in, so I always wanted to rescue people and be their friend and give them a group in which to belong, even if temporarily.
I remember befriending a new guy in high school and letting him sit with my lunch group at lunch and in the mornings before school and then he branched off and found his own people, but I hoped I’d helped him transition those first few weeks. Sometimes that initial contact would help them for a few weeks or months and they’d branch out and sometimes they’d stick around. With Dorian, he stuck around and because of all of the painful emotions he evoked (shame, guilt, sadness, longing, bad body image, disgust), I was definitely not always the kindest.
When I spoke, I wanted to wound him in the way he’d wounded me but really that wasn’t in my nature. Often hurt people hurt others and they say nasty, cruel things – and that was me then. I didn’t have the release and peace of letting go and just moving forward.
Dorian exits the vicinity: Olivia and HSS
At some point, Dorian moved back to New York leaving Olivia behind. I didn’t know their day-to-day even if I ran into them all socially far too often, but then HSS and Olivia got together – and they are now married with a child. I guess the story had a happy ending after all.
I’m not sure what happened to Dorian exactly. He long-ago abandoned his FB full of all the old Valdosta memories. I ran across a new profile he’d created via that friend of his (who didn’t unfriend me as he must have forgotten who I was on his FB list or maybe he doesn’t use it). Dorian seems to be married now and, if FB can be trusted, works helping people with drug and alcohol addiction and is married to someone with a PhD. Hopefully, he found his happiness.
He’s one of those boyfriends I rarely try and look back on at all because of all the ways I think I was so stupid for being with him – for allowing him to take money from me when I didn’t have it to give, for dating someone who wasn’t into me, for all the ways he made me feel lesser – but it wasn’t all about me. He was battling his own demons and I was the unlucky person in the path. But as far as my ego and self-esteem went, dating someone not into me left a few lasting scars and hang-ups.
Recently, I was reading one of Marian Keyes’ early novels, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married – despite majoring in Lit and the literary world shunning “women’s fiction,” I love a good rom-com. Don’t get me started on how many brilliant authors include really dark themes in “chick lit” and deal with it beautifully (like Marian herself). Anyway, I was reading this book (as I hope to read all Keyes’ novels at some point and I’ve read almost all of hers now) and there was a character in there called Gus; he was a total sponge and it was the first time in a long time that a character made me cringe inside. I felt so emotionally repulsed and almost short of breath by this character because I think it reminded me of this time with Dorian and I was Lucy in the scenario and very stupid. Gus, I think, is supposed to be the charming rogue but I almost wanted to skip scenes with him in them. Bring on the Daniels of the world!
Ultimately, Dorian wasn’t a bad person; I mean who is all good or all bad? We are all complex and nuanced (I hope). And I was hardly Mother Teresa myself. He was an alcoholic manic-depressive with a dead mother and an absent (yet well-off) father who didn’t get his act together but what support did he have to do that? He was unhappy to be away from the “bright young things” of New York, his best friend, and stuck in the middle of nowhere with a group of people he didn’t like as much as what he’d left behind. I never really got to know him on a deep level, why he’d left New York, and why he’d even bothered to pursue me. Because boy did this whole experience F me up!
The financial drain that year also meant that I couldn’t afford to visit my family in England that Christmas. My finances were tight and I was left with no car. Hence why I found myself at Theo’s party nursing my ego.
On a side note, I think young people today are better at recognising things that don’t work and moving away from it. I’ve been proud of my baby sister (who turns twenty-one in January) who has walked away from people she’s dated (and even a fiance) who were toxic, mentally abusive, and not good for her. I’ll leave you with this image Brittany texted me last week.
I was so desperate to be loved and liked and whatever, that I didn’t realise my own self-worth, I didn’t walk away from situations that made me feel badly about myself. However, I do think that I learned with every progressive date I had. I didn’t stay stagnant, making the same mistakes over and over – but my heart did get bruised and bashed up along the way.
I read
’s book, Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD, and/or Depression, not because I have any of those disorders but because I’ve followed her career for years from Buzzfeed to YouTube to Writer to Therapist and beyond (even though she is a couple of years younger than me). But several points resonated with me. Why was I so hurt over this breakup and endings of every other unhealthy relationship I’ve been in? Well, because when people spend time with you and they are supposed to care and they don’t, then it feels painful because humans simply feel pain when they feel rejected. That could be a group of people you wanted to be part of or a romantic relationship or anything – we want to feel we belong somewhere – and nothing more when we have invested time and energy into relationships and suddenly they are cut off.Next up, the actual email I wrote to myself when Dorian first broke it off. If nothing else, post-breakup, I cried for the first time in a long time.
Don’t forget to check out the other twenty-four posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place.
What important life lessons have you learned from heartache?
Found the recording! You know what, it's somehow very intimate to listen to someone actually reading their own articles. It feels special! You should do it more often, even just a summary of the article, to let us know how you felt about writing it and what to expect ;)