Seedra’s Story: Respect

When we first started dating he’d said he was divorced. I know what some guys’ idea of divorce was (well, I’m thinking of moving out but haven’t done any paperwork) so I checked out his divorce records online. Through court records I learned that his ex had hired a private detective to follow him and later he was ordered to pay for those services. I was suspicious of his one female friend and later learned that her ex proclaimed that she had cheated on him (with a person who was in the same profession as the guy I was dating) and subpoenaed the other ex and the private detective during the female friend’s divorce proceedings. But even then I was dumb enough to fall for the “we’re just friends” routine. Periodically through our dating he would just flat-out not show up, and not call until the next day. His excuses were lame: “met with my accountant”, “met with my lawyer”, always at odd times of the evening. I’m supposed to be a smart, educated, career-minded woman, but no. Finally he’d blown me off one to many times and this time he didn’t even call. He eventually texted me, but it sounded like a cross between a breakup message and an attempt to keep me as an option: “Dear , blah blah, respect you very much, blah.”. Seriously, above all this, if you’ve gone out with someone for over a year and the only thing you have left is to whip out the Respect Card???? You know, as I’m typing this, it sounds so obvious where this was headed, but I ignored the signs. We got along so well together. The conversations were great, the sex was great, but still I was willing to overlook the obvious.