#39 THE HOT SCANDINAVIAN LIT PROFESSOR: HOW WE MET AND WHY HE DROPPED ME LIKE A HOT POTATO
#39 THE HOT SCANDINAVIAN LIT PROFESSOR: HOW WE MET AND WHY HE DROPPED ME LIKE A HOT POTATO
A man who swooped in like a rom-com and exited in the middle of the night
This post is long so you may have to open it to read it outside your inbox; you can alternatively listen to the episode in the app, which I like to do at 1.5-2x speed.
Either this is a long-awaited story or people have long-forgotten that I’ve alluded to this “episode” in the “Why We Met” saga in no fewer than three posts (but I honestly thought it had been more): #23, #33, and #37 in case you want some context.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Luke, the professor who later became my friend – and was a sort of inadvertent one-night stand – let all the grad students he’d taught know about a newish literary conference that had emerged on the scene in Georgia (It had been going for about five years and was hosted by Brewton-Parker and another university) and encouraged us all to apply because it was good for our CVs and good practise if we ever continued in academia. It was only my second conference and I was super nervous, with my first hosted by my own uni which made it easier since the rooms were filled mostly with people I knew in the department.
I think Luke drove Darcy, Brittany, and me to the conference. I’d told Luke in a previous email that Dr B had cancelled class (Dr B and Dr J were also attending the conference and I’d been a grad assistant to Dr J at some point the year before – discussed in this post) and Luke was like, “who do you think talked Dr B into cancelling class?”
Despite another email alluding to the amazing party we’d have in the hotel with JD and Coke, I anxiously thought that my paper wasn’t ready enough to present so was furiously re-writing, editing, and retyping bits instead of partying the night before, which was very unlike me – or maybe it was exactly like me.
Darcy and Luke thought Brittany and I were total party poppers for going down the “get our papers together” sort of route. I’m sure I’d have loved to be getting smashed into oblivion instead. Darcy, who was a year ahead of us in the programme, was presenting a brilliant paper on The Wizard of Oz arguing it was something along the lines of an “American fairytale” and Brittany took her Equiano paper which was one of her best; although she usually discussed concepts around the “new woman” which had something to do with typewriters and bicycles and her work always far surpassed mine.
I felt that if I could “charismatically” (hopefully) talk through my paper entitled, “Transitioning into the Nineteenth Century in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford,” then I’d do brilliantly (a longer version of this paper became a chapter in my Master’s thesis), and the idea was probably adapted from one Brittany was working on but with other texts (one chapter of her thesis included a discussion of Dracula). But in academic circles you are supposed to read out your paper which is often more than a little dry – I guess because you want to capture the nuance of your well-poured-over wording (LOLs).
How conferences work in academia in the US
How attending a conference works is that the hosting institution (or the head faculty member of the conference) sends out a “call for papers,” also outlining the fees for the conference. In this case, you had to become a member of the association and pay the fees. Sometimes, you can claim those expenses back in the department where you study – the fees and the hotel and such. To respond to the “call for papers,” you submit the title of your work and an abstract (a sort of summary of what you’re arguing) and hope to be accepted. Some conferences are more competitive but this one was small and they most likely accepted almost all of the applicants if they had room on the panels.
“Panels” are the sort of semi-logical categories they divide each conference member into so that when you attend a “panel” the academic discussions you hear sort of make sense in context with each other – and other texts that you study in the same era. For example, all the Victorianists would be grouped together; all the post-modernists would be put in another panel; the Medievalists in another; linguists; and so forth.
Sometimes the categories had to be broadened if everyone attending didn’t all fit in neat boxes as you had to have roughly the same number of presenters on each “panel” during each time period. For bigger conferences, presenters would present concurrently in different rooms, but generally, you’d get the “tentative” schedule in advance and decide which panels you wanted to attend (besides the mandatory attendance of your own). Sometimes conferences just lasted a day, others a couple of days, and so forth.
Conferences usually had guest speakers who also enticed people to come who had interesting discussions. This conference had the director of the Flannery O’Connor-Andalusia Foundation speaking about O’Connor’s literary career and the foundation’s resources. If I remember correctly, they host a paid writing retreat there in Milledgeville, Georgia.
During my short eight years in academia teaching undergrads, I think I attended and presented at three conferences in Georgia and one in Chicago, Illinois, which was plenty. I could teach in front of a room of students and not feel nervous, but give me fifty-plus academics and I felt like they’d think all of my ideas were stupid, I was an idiot, and I didn’t belong in graduate school.
Attending the conference
The conference took place on Friday, 12 March 2010 and only lasted a day – the whole 9 to 5 sitch with a big lunch break (thank goodness).
My panel which was the “second session” and entitled “Nineteenth-century female writers” ran from 10.25 am to 11.20 am (very specific I know but I wrote down these details somehow) and I think it consisted of three people, including Dr J, one of my undergrad professors – again, discussed in this post. Brittany was in a panel called “Eighteenth and nineteenth-century Anglo-American Literature” as she was talking about “Olaudah Equiano and Divine Authority.”
Reading the panel lineup years later, I’m struck by the fact that Dr B and Dr J had very interesting paper titles with Dr B talking about “place, class, and gender demarcations” in The Great Gatsby and Dr J discussing “the gothic mode” in Spofford’s “The Moonstone Mass.” I’m sure I enjoyed hearing the presentations along with my flirting.
Meeting Dr Scandi Lit Prof
There was an earlier panel from 9.20 am, which is most likely how I saw the Hot Scandinavian Lit Professor, who I’ll call Henry (as I did in previous posts), who was actually presenting after lunch on Medieval Lit in a panel called “language and linguistics” with a paper entitled, “From aglaeca to aghlich: The Evolving Aesthetic of Medieval English Monstrosity in Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” during the 2 pm to 2.40 pm panel (which leads me to believe they only gave you fifteen minutes to read out your paper).
I think I locked on to the hottest, tallest person in the room. I remember his ice-blue eyes and easy smile. He had a fit body. He was dressed in the usual sort of academic fare of a suit or some trousers with a blazer. I’m sure I spent time smiling and flirting with him across the room whilst (pretending) to listen to presentations (or hopefully actually listening). Then, I must have presented my paper and bored the audience.
I don’t recall how it happened but at lunch, I sat across from him at a table and the woman who came with him – I’ll call her Autumn. My uni had at least eight representatives in attendance and Dr Henry and Dr August represented different universities so they must have been friends from their grad programme but had professor jobs at different places.
She also had a doctorate and seemed smitten with him and they were longtime friends, but oh no that didn’t stop me from chatting away and flirting mercilessly with him and he flirted back so I figured they were not together because I was very brazen. No idea what we talked about or if I sounded like a total idiot to these two PhD-having academics. I’m sure since she was in love with him, I sounded like the biggest idiot to her. I found out he was about eight years older than me and seemed so mature, sexy, and hot – and then he had the whole professor thing going for him too.
I remember Darcy, Luke, and Brittany all being like, “Whoa, is he with that girl he came with because err…” and I was like “Um, I don’t think so...”
At one point during one of the panels, I went to the vending machine to get a Coke and he followed me out there. I remember bending down and he commented on my knickers which he could now see peeking over the waistband of my trousers. I don’t even remember if we passionately made out in the vending machine room or not but maybe we did. Or I would’ve been open to it.
I hung on to every word during his presentation. Thankfully, I had read both Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (or extracts at least) and had some clue what was going on but not the whole Mediaeval language thing. I’d have had zero clue about that.
How we arranged to meet again
We swapped numbers and email addresses and arranged for him to come and stay with me during Spring Break. By Googling Spring Break dates at my university for 2010 and finding some random syllabus, I discovered that Spring Break that year ran from 15 March to 19 March 2010, conveniently only a few days after the conference (as the conference was on the 12th).
In my previous post on Dorian, I said…
Twenty days after we met, Dorian and I went to a party together. By which point I’d already had time to semi-forget about him and date the very handsome, tall Scandinavian Lit Professor I met (and full-on unashamedly flirted with) at a literary conference who came to visit me in Valdosta during fall break and then everything blew up in a cloud of drama. More on this later, of course.
Um, so that must have been Spring Break, not Fall Break because we were full on in March then and Fall was long gone and is usually around Thanksgiving.
Dorian officially asked me out in May 2010, about two months after we’d met. Not long after our first meeting, he had seen me at the Bleu Pub with Henry (the Scandi Lit Prof) and had told me he had liked me but thought that it was cool I was seeing someone else and that he’d wanted to be my friend.
It took me a while to sleep with him at first because he was on the smaller side – well, smaller than ATC and HSS who I was still sleeping with at the time and smaller than Henry who I’d just slept with in between meeting him.
And now back to this present story.
I’m not sure if we had phone calls because I wasn’t much of a texter back then because I had a flip phone and still preferred phone calls (my cousin Pam would’ve preferred this version of me because I now barely answer phone calls without a pre-text warning and she loves them) but we definitely sent some emails to each other as I still have them filed away under his name in my Gmail.
His email signature said: “Why stand, ye, aghast to see me colorless? Surely all men pale among the dead.” ~ Saxo Gammaticus, Gesta Danorum (which Wikipedia says is “a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th-century author Saxo Grammaticus” – my beautiful friend Jayde works for Wikipedia so shoutout!). With the tilde, which isn’t used like a hyphen to denote author. SMH!
And this is the reason, I call him “Scandi Lit Prof” because of the email signature. His PhD was actually in Medieval Lit or some such. I’d later learn (after Captain Thor) to avoid all men who were too into Scandi or Medieval Lit or anything of the sort (more on Captain Thor in due time).
Funnily, the pictures he sent to me of himself (not nudes, just regular photos) had been sent to him by the girl, Autumn, whom he attended the conference alongside. There were pictures of him and Autumn together yet he claimed they never dated and he wasn’t into her. She was really cute, so I did wonder. (And rightly so…more in another post…)
On 16 March (my Grammy’s birthday), I replied to his photos: “I like all your pictures! Now I can't decide if I like the longer hair better or not. In the recent picture with you sitting down, you look dashing. ;) Hope you're having a good day, handsome.”
He replied: “Ha ha. I'll grow it out for you. Then you can decide which you like better. I like yours long... very elegant and alluring... can't wait to run my hands through it ;)”
I said: “Is it sad that my heart skipped a beat on your last line? Perhaps I spend too much time allowing written words to influence me!”
Why it always blew up for me…
Seven days later it had all blown up and it was totally (mostly) my fault. But a little his because he was a little “crazy” himself.
But looking back I think, why was he interested in someone so young? He was 30 and I was 22 (Taylor Swift, anyone?). Men always left the impression they were intrigued by me at first and then they’d discover I didn’t have that sheen – like married professor who thought I was some free, uninhibited “cool girl” until he got to know me and realised I was neurotic, obsessive, and insecure. It IS totally unappealing and I do see why they ran but it left me feeling as if there was something wrong with me. (I guess there was – I needed to heal.)
After years of dating, I found HSS too much in how he was so needy and I was replicating that pattern before any new person had gotten to know me. I was the opposite of playing it cool, of being secure – textbook anxious meets avoidant attachment in equal measure.
When I talked to my therapist about this pattern, how I chased the wrong people and how with those I slept with who were just friends and treated me well, I was less anxious and more of the “cool girl” but then some people I just became more “needy” and “too much.” But it was also a discussion of how I let many people mistreat me in relationships and how I knew I ought to be treated better but didn’t seem to demand it. (It ended up being a discussion about how Michael has healed my heart after all of these disasters – and how I should be kinder to my past self.)
A couple of years later, I dated a handsome, blonde Jewish doctor when I was around 24 and he was 36, it was the same sort of thing — I was too odd and intense and he broke off our relationship until I came back to ask for a FWB situation because he was good in bed and I wasn’t seeing anyone else at the time — plus I got free birth control prescriptions (even though he was a urologist for men) without having to pay to see another doctor. I think I hoped he’d change his mind about me once he saw me more often and I’d show up to his door in lingerie with a coat on and he’d wear his scrubs at my request…
Back to Scandi Lit Prof, I saw Dr. Henry as the key to my fantasies at the time. A man who could read to me in bed. Say the right lines. Plus, be a tiger in the bedroom. The scratch he put in my wooden headboard was a permanent reminder of him (I was pretty annoyed about it at the time but I never did sand it out.) Let me divulge the details.
His flirty text messages
These were the one-sided exchanges I had with him. I said in previous posts how I kept records of some text messages, clearly taking the time painstakingly to re-type what people said and when, but never my side of what was written (for some odd reason). I have no idea why I went to the trouble of writing down people’s text messages – that part of past me’s reasoning is long lost in the depths of my memory. These messages were in between ones from Dorian, HSS, and ATC as well – along with a few other friends and the odd crush.
13 March 2010, the day after the conference
4.02 PM Ugghh...mornin'.. holy shit ... it's 4 pm
4.04 PM No joke. Call u after my shower?
4.05 PM Sounds good? The call or the shower?
14 March 2010, ATC interlude
Random exchange by ATC, so I guess I was playing games with him and then trying to move on/get over it.
ATC: 3.07 AM: My bad for thinking you wanted to cuddle anyway. I don't know what I was thinking.
ATC: 3.20 AM: Oh and another thing. I don't want you msg or texting me about how you want to hang out or fuck you or anything like that anymore. If you're gonna be like this.
I’d been obsessed with ATC at the time and he was sometimes available for booty calls but since we never talked or communicated effectively (as I discussed in our posts, some men I never got to know as people and vice versa), I was always frustrated by our exchanges so I set out mostly to be aloof and make him jealous as evinced by this exchange we had in which I can only guess I tried to approach sex with him with an air of unemotional detachment by refusing or rejecting cuddles and post-coital intimacy which understandably for a feeling human made him upset. We may not have had sex again after this but I don’t remember.
Of the people I’d slept with around this time, HSS knew how to hit the spot because we knew each other’s bodies but he came with too many needy and emotional strings.
Then, in my head, in swoops Dr. Henry. He was tall, handsome, educated, well-read, a published author. All the things I thought were the qualities I wanted in a partner (besides the author part). He seemed too good to be true but in being swept up in the fantasy of it, I didn’t ask if we were compatible. I ignored the red flags. And he picked up on mine.
I was damaged, insecure, and emotionally semi-unavailable with strings connected to things in my past. I always had a person or two (or three) on the back burner in case whatever I was doing (or whomever) didn’t work out. That is especially no way to date in the healthy adult world.
But as mentioned, I was 22 to his 30. At 30, your brain is fully developed (according to Piaget’s theories of course) and you know what you want more or less. 30-year-old me was very different from the 22-year-old me, naturally. I had a long road ahead to healing and figuring life out.
I simultaneously wanted a long-term boyfriend and to play the field and have fun. I was lost and confused but so excited at this new prospect.
Further text exchanges, 14 March 2010, “Do you bruise easily?”
Back to Scandi Lit Prof, Henry on 14 March:
2.22 PM Mornin. Tho I’m still half asleep
2.24 PM Me too. I looked at more of ur pics
2.26 PM Halloween
2.31 PM Ha! You got further and further out of the frame! the progression was awesome!
2.35 PM No. But I can unclog it with a coat hanger... dirty job
I must have asked practically every man I knew to unclog our uni house’s bathtub drain. I mean that was a quality Brittany HATED about me was that I just didn’t learn to do things myself and outsourced it to men who wanted to help…or were wrangled into it…
2.36 PM That's NOT what she said!
2.38 PM So u dated the guy with the long hair for like 4 yrs?
2.40 PM The training wheels come off next week.
2.44 PM I understand.
2.46 PM God bless those first loves...
3.04 PM What is ur cell provider?
3.20 PM Verizon. Call u in 10 min?
Back then your cellphone provider determined how expensive it was to call numbers in and out of network.
3.23 PM You prefer reading to my conversation?! You have no idea how attractive that is...
3.27 PM HAAAA HAA! too true!
3.50 PM That's what I was about to say if we get any sappier, a Hallmark Original movie will break out!
6.37 PM Random [Henry] Fact: I am a big fan of Godzilla.
6.55 PM I mean Godzilla everything: the 1954 original and all the cheesy others.
6.58 PM Do I detect a raised eyebrow?
7.04 PM All grown men did start out as little boys, u know...
7.17 PM That's true. How's the homework coming?
7.19 PM What are u reading?
7.24 PM Yeah... too bad all us handsome distractions are watching Godzilla movies.
7.31 PM Oh. I'll keep you entertained...and out of breath.
7.47 PM It's a promise alright... I am a Scorpio, after all.
7.59 PM I'm sure we won't meet with many hurdles we can't overcome... do you bruise easily?
Do I bruise easily? What was he planning to do? Well, I know what he did to my headboard – may the gorged-out wood rest in peace. I think my uni and grad school bed now lives with my ex-husband as we used it for a guest bed for years (assuming he hasn’t chucked it out).
8.05 PM That's just the thing... when the moon is up and the wolf howls who can say what will happen?
8.10 PM Like what?
8.21 PM Then play on, fair maiden... the sting of the scorpion matters little so long as his tail is safely furled.
8.36 PM Keep your guard up, Maiden. In the end, your iron lances and stone walls will avail you nothing... The moon will rise – and the wolf will be at feast.
Was he mad or was I desperate or both? Why did I fall for this cringey shite? He clearly thought he was some sort of knight.
8.42 PM No quotes. Just a little info on what happens sometimes when the wolf is loose. He doesn't come every nite, tho.
8.47 PM Just a metaphor. I've a gentle touch and a slow hand, but I also have sharp teeth and a ravenous appetite ... it just depends on the mood, u know?
8.50 PM Thus, I will leave u breathless
8.53 PM U are beautiful, Elaine. I bet u look good blushing.
15 March 2010, The Coke Machines
1.36 AM I fell asleep
1.50 AM I'm reading medieval and Icelandic poetry
1.59 AM I was high earlier...made reading difficult
2.02 AM Ha! Tell me more!
2.06 AM Were u checkin' out my ass when I'd walk by?
2.08 AM I checked u out a lot!
2.11 AM Cause I wanted you. I wanted to slip that coat off and take off that pink top, too...
Good to know what I was wearing!
2.13 AM Keep going...
2.16 AM What note?
2.18 AM Ha! I knew it! I could see it behind ur eyes! I wanted to kiss u by the Coke machines, too... but I still had a cold.
Oh, so we didn’t passionately make out by the soda machine.
2.21 AM I knew u wanted me before ur panel... u did a double take when u saw me and then stared more than once.
2.24 AM Surely I was obvious, too? [The girl he came with] was giving me plenty of shit
2.25 AM I suspect it'll be worth it...
2.36 AM Taking shit for flirting...I suspect we'll have the last laugh!
2.39 AM What would u do with me if u had me now?
2.41 AM How would u fuck me?
2.43 AM Oh, I'll be doing u, darlin’…soon!
2.54 AM I'm about 250 miles north of u, baby…believe me – I wish I was there, too
2.58 AM 4 more days baby then u can unwrap me like a present and play with me all nite long
3.00 AM Will u regret all this sexy talk in the morning?
3.03 AM I'm gonna do a lot of things to you when I get you alone...
3.06 AM What?
3.08 AM Yeah. U said that.
3.11 AM Don't worry, Elaine. I'm very picky, too. I don't think ur easy... but I do know you've picked me.
Was my “purity culture” Bible Belt background showing? Rolls eyes. He was number seven on my list.
3.16 AM That is very romantic... And ATL isn't too far
3.18 AM U are a mess! What are you drinking?
3.27 AM No, baby. I'll come down there before week's end.
3.28 AM Thursday
3.30 AM I do like you a lot
3.32 AM Because u are smart and sexy and sophisticated. I like ur dark hair and eyes.
3.36 AM So are you, baby.
3.40 AM No. I'm sober.
3.55 AM Good night, Elaine.
I think this was the night I was drinking Kentucky Gentleman and Coke Zero with Dorian and Jimmy (read about it here). And I realised even though I was flirting with another man who was coming to see me, I kissed both Jimmy and Dorian that night. What was I like? No, really! SMH!
Jimmy messaged at 9.52 AM: “Good mornin’, there, Old Kentuck....how u feelin'?”
16 March 2010, “Sometimes the stars align and all is right with the world”
9.05 AM Mornin'. God-speed on that midterm.
9.08 AM You'll make it. Good luck!
9.18 AM Not yet. Not @ office yet.
1.25 PM Should I apply to present at Wiregrass lit conference in the fall?
2.15 PM I’m tutoring... dumbasses! [His university] listserv sent Wiregrass cfp [that means call for papers]
2.19 PM U can do it! ALL HAIL ELAINE!!
4.30 PM 30 minutes...ur in the home-stretch! U can do it!
4.43 PM You'll see the real thing soon enough, girl.
Does that mean he sent a dick pic?
4.46 PM 48 hrs
4.47 PM I'm staying until...?
4.50 PM Well...you’ve got to work starting Monday...I don't want to be an imposition on u or Brit
4.54 PM We'll figure it out when the time comes, cutie.
5.01 PM Sometimes our ship simply comes in...
5.25 PM ...meaning that sometimes the stars align and all is right with the world...
5.28 PM You will.
5.29 PM Ha! No challenge...just a hunch
5.35 PM Very
5.35 PM Teaching
5.38 PM 47 and a half hours...
5.40 PM I'm blushing
5.43 PM I'm just a little boy at heart...still believe in magic and all that rot
5.45 PM Ha! Glad for the boy part!
5.54 PM Woman... I'm coming for you. And when I get to you...
9.27 PM "Crypt of the Shitty Movie" leaves a little to be desired!
9.42 PM Ha! No, babydoll, I'm not offended. I was just so engrossed in the vampire goodness!
OMG my desperation is coming in! Trying too hard to impress him already.
9.52 PM Elaine...I am tempted to drive down there tonight
9.53 PM Desire...
9.59 PM I doubt you'll disappoint... And if a body was all I wanted, I wouldn't drive to Valdosta. I like your mind, too.
10.07 PM Belief is what makes life worth it... that's what makes the magic work
10.14 PM We don't have to do anything you don't want to, Elaine. Don't give too much of yourself away if you don't want...
10.19 PM You impress me more and more all the time, Elaine. I am very fond of you.
10.34 PM Why?
10.36 PM I like you, too.
10.41 PM Smart, sexy, wise, funny, weird, loving, gorgeous, etc...brown-eyed, brown-haired...
My ex (HSS) texted to tell me: “Too bad I was going to give you a quick last orgasm and then leave.” HSS had been my only official boyfriend up to this point (at 22) and others had been experimental findings. I was maybe hoping Dr. Henry would develop into more after the disappointments that had been DJ, the married professor, the firefighter, Dr Luke (who had not ever been an option because he wasn’t single), and Air Traffic Controller. I was getting carried away with the fantasy and the idea of it all.
17 March 2010, “You like Girl Scout cookies?”
9.53 AM Ha! I did sleep well. You?
10.41 AM I'm soooo looking forward to starting my break by seeing you...
1.57 PM One more class to go before SPRING BREAK!!
Then a text from my ex (HSS) asking if I want to see him before I see Henry. Um, no.
5.06 PM Ha! Now you've raised the stakes! I hope I'm worth it!
5.19 PM You like Girl Scout cookies?
5.24 PM What is your favorite?
5.27 PM Tag-alongs
Those are peanut butter and chocolate-covered Girl Scout Cookies. And Girl Scout Cookies are the best. Once I offered to buy some GSCs from
for her daughter’s troop but she just sent them to England (very generously and kindly) and it cost her over $80 to ship them alone without the cost of the multiple boxes of Samoas. Such a kind gesture I’ll never forget. Go read her Substack here!5.30 PM I just passed a stand of girls standing in the rain selling cookies. Got you some Samoas.
9.48 PM The old man's going to bed early tonight. He's got a big day of driving ahead of him tomorrow.
9.51 PM I'm gonna read for a while...if not cute distractions decide to call.
9.53 PM Holy, shit, Elaine. Don't go to so much trouble.
9.56 PM Well, I can't argue with a win-win scenario. I'm pretty messy, too.
10.01 PM I'm flagging out fast darlin' ... meet me in the land of dreams and we'll wander the night together.
I must have spent about ten years cleaning my room again like the Patrick Bateman scenario but before I ever actually had the misfortune to meet PB the next year. Then, I went to some party from one of the Theatre department boys that I occasionally made out with.
9.55 AM Good mornin'
10.31 AM Me too. We should take it easy tonight if you like, dinner, a walk, etc.
10.34 AM I just got out of shower… about to pack. Anything special I should bring?
10.43 AM Umm… any special clothes, maybe? I guess it's pretty balmy down there, right?
10.46 PM Ok. I'll see you soon.
1.18 PM Would u like me to read to u one night? I'll bring something extra if u like.
1.23 PM Ha ha! See what I meant yesterday? Some things are greater than the miles that stand between them...
2.34 PM 20 percent of the way there...
4.34 PM Should I stop and get some wine for dinner?
Then Dorian texted me asking if we should get together again that week. HSS texted to ask where I’d be so he didn’t run into me and that he still had a pair of my American Eagle jeans (LOLs do you remember AE?). I got a text from my friends saying they were at the Bleu Pub, which was for Darcy’s birthday. This is where I took Henry to meet my friends, which included Darcy, Kristy, Cole, Brittany, Daniel, Alex, and a few others, including Dorian who had made friends with some of my friends so was invited (maybe awkwardly?). But I think I was trying too hard.
Going to the Bleu Pub with him and his weapon
We had a lovely night at the Bleu Pub but I remember that he had a concealed carry weapon on him. Something high-calibre and I remember putting my arm around him and being shocked it was there – and nervous. I hadn’t been around weapons before and it was a full two years before I dated any military men and a bit before I met Bramwell (the red-haired sex god) who took me to a shooting range. I freaked out a little and he didn’t understand my reaction, thinking it was a must for “protection” and that it was all good. I’m sure he was a Republican and had very “traditional” Southern values, which is rare in academia. Red flag one.
Why bother with underwear?
Later that night, I remember undressing him (i.e. removing his jeans) to discover he wasn’t wearing underwear. He said something along the lines of you can get a girl to take off your pants but they’re often too nervous to remove your underwear so he liked to cut to the chase. If you were taking off his pants, you’d see his dick – as impressive as it was… I’m sure that was shocking to many women even if they were contemplating fucking him.
I have to give him that; he was good in bed if not a little aggressive and “full on.” He reached out and scratched his nails down my wooden headboard in a sort of howling-at-the-moon wolf-type situation and I remember being brought out of the moment and being pissed off that my nice bed (that had been a present from my mama) now had a long bloody scratch down it. And forever remained that scratch, for the remaining six years I had with that bed, a constant reminder of Henry, if only in a glimmer. Red flag two.
Going to the Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area
The next day I took him to Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area which is in Valdosta, Georgia and is a 3,000-acre swamp. They have built a long wooden walkway over the swamp and you can climb up the lookout tower to the top and behold the vastness of it and see any wildlife you can spot, such as gators and herons. It’s full of pine trees draped with Spanish moss and lily pads for what seemed like miles with dragonflies skimming the surface of the water. It’s a wild and isolated place.
At some point, I learned that he was a published author and obsessed with snakes. He’d published a series of “quick and easy” guides on keeping snakes, frogs, and tadpoles and I think he’d once been bitten by one and told me what you had to do in the event of an accident. He’d also been on some podcasts about it.
Meet the parents and Starbucks
I took him to meet my mum, baby sister, and stepfather and he gave Hannah a signed copy of his book on frogs (how sweet). They all thought he was a gentleman at the time. He had that Southern charm. But years later, my mother has zero recollection of him at all.
Then, I think that night I took him to my favourite hangout spot, Starbucks, and a big circle of my friends came too and we chatted for a few hours. We went back to my house and watched a rift track Cole (Kristy’s husband) had downloaded to watch in conjunction with Twilight and it parodied the film and was hilarious. But instead of a romantic film just the two of us, I’d invited Kristy, Cole, Brittany, Darcy, and goodness knows who else.
I can’t recall now if he stayed for two nights or three. It felt like being in a Rom-Com. This handsome, tall, good in bed, man who actually spent time reading Dracula to me in bed (swoon) post-coital, knew about literature, had his PhD, and was a great conversationalist was there with me and all my friends. My perfect scenario for happiness. It was that kind of teenage beech puppy infatuation I hadn’t had in a while. But my neurotic brain wouldn’t shut off.
He’d driven five hours to see me. Put up with me and all my friends. Was sweet and affectionate. Was complimentary. What could I possibly do to make it go wrong?
For years I wouldn’t learn how to just “be.” I couldn’t just sit back and think “if he likes me for who I am, great” and be myself and relaxed and fun. It’s something I wish I could impart on every young person: be you. Do you like who you are around that person? Can you be yourself? Can you relax? To be fair, all of that had nothing to do with him per se.
How my big mouth and neurotic brain got me into trouble
After we’d had unprotected sex for the third or so time, I blurted something about being worried he had an STD because I was in a weird (but good) phase where I got tested regularly and asked my partners to get tested too. Instead of thinking, “Oh she’s semi-responsible with her sex life,” he took such offence that he gathered his belongings, shoved them hastily into his duffel bag, and left in the middle of the night.
I don’t remember what words were exchanged, but do recall going to Darcy’s apartment in the middle of the night crying because Brittany was sleeping.
I was devastated and blamed myself for fucking up so badly.
A week later, I received a text saying that he didn’t see it working because I was not “Christian” enough. I’d never pretended I was Christian, so that was confusing. And our flirty pre-trip text exchange had hardly been considered “chaste.”
Brittany said she saw the red flags and I was better off, but it didn’t feel like it at the time and Darcy equally gave me words of comfort.
Another lesson learned in humiliation (like the Kiss Boys situation) and desperation (like the red-haired sex god situation, which didn’t happen until 2011 and this was 2010).
People who care versus those who don’t
The fact is I slept with several men in the past who didn’t have feelings for me in any meaningful way. The ones who did, mostly those with whom I maintained friendships, and cared about me as a human, are the ones who “scarred” me less in later reflection. Not that I could’ve put it into words at those times.
Don’t get me wrong, I always had a high sex drive and enjoyed sex just like the next guy (or gal) and I often tried to approach sex in a more “masculine” way without too many pesky emotions tied into it. But if the sex was good or I saw something I liked in someone, I often became a little obsessive and I’m sure it was more the idea of the person than the person themselves. I don’t regret for a minute my past as it has moulded me into who I am. And at least I get the odd amusing yarn to spin from it.
Even though young people in their late teens and early twenties never learn the lessons imparted by older, “wiser” people, if I’d had someone say to me something like “unless he is banging down your door to see you, he’s not into you.” Cut ties and run. Easier said than done as is the case with my “hot-crazy scale” saga with RHSG and many others who I became obsessed with or fascinated by.
I promised a “cool girl” with no-strings-attached-fun-sex and then I caught feelings. Cue the “crazy girl.” I say this tongue in cheek because I think that there are few legit “crazy” women out there, only men who turn them that way by stringing them along and keeping them at arm’s length. Men who say all the right things, keep them just on the end of the hook, and when they’ve shown interest again it sends the girl into a confusion-thought-spiral; however, there are also nice, honest men out there who don’t give false promises and sometimes that can be just as saddening.
Do they pass the vibe check? You won’t be everyone’s cup of tea
It’s a hard pill to swallow that people can treat you without care or as disposable because we know ourselves, we see our value, and our friends and family see it, but that stranger you dated briefly doesn’t know you so how can they truly judge? They can’t. They are picking up on snippets of information about your life (your words, actions, mannerisms) and those impressions set off reactions based on their life (childhood, people who do similar things, triggers, whatever) and sometimes those things don’t gel. Not everyone has to like you or see your value and in the dating world even if it feels personal, it’s not. You’d never try and make a potential friend or colleague like you if they just don’t like your vibe. You may shrug and move on and be like “That’s their problem,” but we don’t do that in the dating world. We question what is wrong with us instead.
Dr Henry was number seven on my “guys I slept with” list (but 42 on the people I kissed list, which I think is somewhat out of order and he doesn’t deserve any associations with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). After my professor friend, Luke, and the Air Traffic Controller who took a while to get over but before the whole dating disaster that was Dorian, the Stella Adler Academy actor, which further fucked me up in the dating arena, I should’ve just borrowed that memory zapper from MIB.
Next up, the ending with Dr Henry and how I tried (desperately, too desperately) to explain myself and win him back.
Don’t forget to check out the other thirty-eight posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place – and the odd “present day snippet” of what I’m up to lately.
Have you ever been super excited about someone only for your desperation to drive them away?
Have a read of some of my previous posts if you’re new:
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