It all started in 1988, when I met him.  He was my first everything.  My first held hand, my first kiss, my first sex.  For the next three years, we had a turbulent relationship.  Probably because we both expected different things from it.  He was expecting a purely sexual, non-emotional one.  I was expecting a normal relationship.  One that started with two people learning about each other and growing into a loving, caring relationship. I was the one to be disappointed.  Although, my love grew for him, he remained cold and distant.  I tried very hard (in retrospect, too hard) to appease him, but he was uninterested in anything but sex.

When I did go out with my other friends, we would occasionally see him.    He would either ignore me entirely, or be rude and stand-offish.   After two years of this practice, I learned that if we were in a public place and I saw him, all I would be allowed to do is a polite nod and smile to acknowledge him, and then I would have to move on.  I learned that I also was not to be introduced to anyone else in his life and was not to even suggest that it happen.

In the summer of 1990, a friend and I decided to go to a Caribbean festival in one of our city's parks.  While there, I saw him standing with friends in the beer garden.  As I had been trained to do, I smiled and nodded and walked on.  He waved and smiled "hi".  My friend and I went home almost immediately.  A week later, I phoned him to say "hi", but was very surprised when he immediately hung up on me.  I tried dialing again, but the phone was off the hook. 

I was getting dressed for an engagement party at the Dean of Fine Arts of the area's largest University.  It was to be one of those elite-type parties where people would stand around a swimming pool sucking back champagne and caviar.   The dress I had put on was flattering to my "far from perfect" body.   The whole time while I was getting ready, I was trying to figure out why he was so upset.  I determined to find out on my way to the party.  I called up another friend who lived in his apartment building, and she agreed to "buzz" me in through security.  He refused to open his apartment door saying that he "didn't like to be ignored in public" (in reference to my smile and nod in the park).  He finally let me into his apartment after I threatened to start screaming in the hallway.  I told him that I didn't understand, I thought that was what he wanted, a distant public acknowledgment, and then I cited other instances where he ignored me. He replied "well, that doesn't matter ... but I think I should tell you that I had never broken up with [name removed to protect the innocent].    I've been sleeping with both of you for the last few months."  I was stunned.  He then looked me up and down and sneered "I know why you dressed like that, but don't expect to have sex with me!"  I started to cry, and explain to him I was on my way out to a party, but he would have none of it, and asked me to leave.  I went to the party, but was pre-occupied with the events earlier in the evening, not enjoying the ambiance of the tea-light candles floating on the pool, not enjoying the champagne or the caviar, not enjoying the opportunity to rub elbows with the city's uppercrust.

The next week, I went to another Caribbean festival with my friend.  While in a display room, one of the women there told us about a parade that was going to close the festival on the following weekend.   We took the flyers with us as we entered the auditorium where a show was going to start.  We sat on some bleachers along one wall.  I could see directly across from us, that he was working, selling rum punch to other patrons.  I refused to go and talk to him and instead enjoyed the conversation I was having with my friend.  The next thing we knew, he was walking towards us with two "complementary" glasses of  rum punch.  I introduced my friend to him. He was polite and quite charming.  I was so surprised.  When we were leaving, I decided to go to him to say goodbye and thank him for the punch.  He told me to stay right where I was. He wanted to introduce me to someone.   He pulled over one of his friends and introduced us.  I had finally met someone in his life.  Finally, after over two years.

On the day of the parade, my friend decided not to go, so I went by myself.  When I walked into the park where the parade was to end, I saw him sitting alone on a park bench.  There was no one else around us.  I went over to say "hi" and he (more or less) grunted at me.  I got the picture.  I went and sat about 50 feet away on the side of a stage, waiting for the parade to come.  I looked over my shoulder to see if he was still there, but he was gone.  I scanned the park and now saw him at least 500 feet away on a different bench.  Here we go again.  I thought I should go to a nearby store to run an errand instead of waiting alone in the park.   I still had lots of time before the parade was to arrive.  On my way back from the store, I saw him and some newly arrived friends standing along the road.   I approached him, and asked if he would mind if I watch the parade with him and his friends.  He said abruptly, "sure" and turned away from me to watch the approaching parade.    Unfortunately, his 6' frame blocked my 5'3" view of the parade.  I couldn't see anything, and he was in total "ignore mode".  Another of his friends arrived and ran across the street breaking between the others.  As he did this, he stepped hard on my ankle.   The guys decided to go get a beer and turned to re-enter the park, leaving me by myself to watch the parade fade away. 

I was despondent.  I limped back into the park.  The guys were initially walking towards me with beers in their hands, but turned to avoid me.   They did walk by fairly closely, and I was looking at him, but he refused to even look in my direction.  I stood alone, in the middle of the park, not knowing whether to be angry, or to cry, or to scream, or to run.  They were behind me. The stage was in front of me.  They had to walk by me to get a good look at the stage, and when they did, again there was no acknowledgment.  I had had it!  I marched into the crowd, and as he was "downing" the last of his beer, I tugged on his sleeve.  He looked down at me and said "What?"  I snipped sarcastically "I just wanted to thank you for not ignoring me in public" and stormed off through the crowd towards my car.    He followed quickly behind me and grabbed my arm hard enough to spin me around.  "What did you expect me to do? Hug you?" I looked at him in the eyes and slowly replied "Would that have been so bad" and left the park.    He did not talk to me again for another two months.

The relationship finally came to a climax in 1991. I had been battling for 3 years, trying to get him to know who I really was.   That I was loving and caring, that I was funny and intelligent, and that he was very important to me.  I knew he was uncomfortable with me, so I did my best to keep my distance. But it wasn't enough.   Unfortunately, at the time, I was very naive when it came to relationships, and he was manipulative.   I had the feeling that over the past three years, that he had multiple sexual partners.  This scared me has he never used "protection" when we were together and the one time I had started taking the pill he "freaked" out on me, not talking to me for months.   Of course, I stopped.  It was the only way I thought he would come back.

One evening, in early 1991,  I   invited him, my bestfriend and a male friend of hers over to my apartment for a night of Trivial Pursuit and pizza.  It was a lot of fun, but I found I was uncomfortable with my friend and him, as they had started flirting with each other.  My friend and her male companion left that evening, and he and I finished the evening with his usual request of sexual favours.  

On January 26, 1991, he invited me to his apartment.  After he seduced me and we had sex, we were lying in his bed.  He, surprisingly, jumped out of the bed and ran into the living room.  He came back a few minutes later, commanding me to leave his apartment.   I was shocked.  We had been lying in each others arms in silence.  What had I done?  Why was he forcing me to leave?  He left the bedroom to allow me time to get dressed.   I started to cry.  I had left my cardigan in the living room and went in to retrieve it.  He was standing facing the outside wall, stiff.  I put my boots and coat on, picked up my purse and reached for the door.  He was behind me. He reached forward and put his hand on the door, just above the doorknob, holding it shut, saying "Please don't be mad".  I told him that I wasn't mad, I was shocked and scared.  He let me go home.    I didn't know it at the time, but that was the last time we were to be together intimately.  The next night, I phoned him to find out what I had done.  He said "Nothing, I was just having a bad night.    Do you have a problem with that" and ended the conversation by hanging up the phone. 

A week later he called me back, asking that I arrange another Trivial Pursuit game between him, my bestfriend and myself.  I said okay, but that was a mistake on my part.  That night they both left my apartment at the same time and when outside exchanged phone numbers (at the minimum).  I was totally unaware of what was going on.  I was so trusting and so naive.

He called me one night in February, asking for a loan of money.  He had to have a large bill paid the next day and needed money as soon as possible.  I took the money from credit card and gave it to him.   He told me to write an IOU, and that he'd have the money paid back in a month.   I did write up the IOU, but he avoided me, and avoided signing the document.  I did not see him again until June of 1991 when I finally forced the issue, and made him sign it.   He moved away within a month, with my money.

Since February, I had been leaning on my bestfriend for emotional support, telling her everything.  Wondering what I had done wrong, wondering why he was avoiding me, wondering why he was treating me this way.  She seemed so uncomfortable talking about it.  I told her how much I loved him, how much I missed him, how it hurt that he wouldn't acknowledge me.  I told her how much I missed his and my Sunday nights together (as that was his preferred night to have sex).  I told her how much I missed her, because now that my Sunday nights were free, hers all of a sudden became busy.  Until this time, she and I had spent every evening (except Sunday) together.  I was so naive, I had no idea what was going to happen next, what I was going to find out.

In September, she and I drove to the beach.  We sat there as I drew hearts in the sand with his and my initials intertwined.  I cried and lamented over the loss of his attention, still wondering where I had gone wrong.  She sat in silence watching the water.  As we drove away from the beach, we passed his cottage, where we could see him hosting a party.  I sighed "I wish he would invite me to his parties, he never wanted me to meet any of his friends".   My friend replied "I bet if I went to the door, he'd let me in"  To which I said "I'm sure he would.  He'd let anyone in but me". As we drove home she asked what I would do if she were to meet up with him one day at a bar and they had a drink together.  I told her that if she were any other friend of mine, that I would have no problem with it, but because it was her, someone who flirted voraciously, I said that I couldn't trust her with him.  She was shocked that I thought like that.  I dropped her off at her home.  When I arrived home, she phoned me "I have something I have to tell you ... He and I have been seeing each other ..." ...

And that was it ... for the next 8 hours we were on the phone as she told the story of how they secretly met at his place and hers, how they went for drives, and ate pizza and talked for hours.  She wouldn't give me details as to what, specifically, they would talk about.  But what I did find out was that everything that I had wanted in a relationship with him, he gave to her.   Attention, appreciation, affection, compliments, conversation, and more.  He even bought her dinner, and offered her soft drinks instead of the water I always got.   She had been my replacement in every way.  Only she had the relationship with him, that I had worked so hard to achieve.

My heart was more than broken.   It was totally destroyed.   He had ripped it out of my chest, beat it to a bloody pulp and with a smile, and fed it to my bestfriend as they partied over my grave.  A piece of my soul was gone, and I would never get that back.   The only two people (apart from family) on this planet that I truly loved had worked together to kill me.  I wasn't to suffer a mortal death, but a spiritual and emotional death.  The man who was my soulmate treated me like an insignificant amoeba on the hind leg of an insignificant flea on the back of a leprous dead rat.

It took me a long time to start to get back on my legs.  My life was new, but lonely.  He faded into his new life, shutting the door on me.  My "bestfriend" had started to date a new man, so I hardly saw her anymore.    I pushed all the negativity of 1991 deep inside of me, burying it.  I put on a public happy face, even though I was dying inside.  I bought a house, and settled in with my two cats. 

In 1993, my father had a stroke and was hospitalized.  My mother, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer's, was staying at my house.  One evening, we went for a drive for some ice cream.  We drove through a nearby park, and as we were leaving, I caught a glimpse of him and his new girlfriend walking down a back lane.   I became incensed!  Here he was, going on with his life as if 1991 didn't happen.  He still hadn't paid back the money he owed.  I instantly decided that I was going to be strong, and I exercised the IOU.    With the help of a lawyer friend, and another brave friend who delivered the subpoena, I took him to court to get the money back.  I won.    But I have only seen $60 of the over $600 he owes me.   You see, he never kept a job long enough since 1991 for me to garnishee his wages.  And I still felt controlled by him, terrified that he would "go ballistic" on me if I even mentioned the subject.  I have never brought up the subject of the money since then.

When my father died in 1995, I sat down with my telephone book and phoned all of my friends to let them know.  I came to his name.   He was in a new apartment, and had given me his address and phone number as a show of good faith that he would pay me back the money.  I thought "What the heck, what can I lose".  I phoned him, to let him know about my Dad.  When he answered and realized it was me, the first thing out of his mouth was "look, I know why you're calling, you want your money back, and you will get it back when I can give it to you!".  I replied "Actually, I was calling to let you know that my Dad passed away last night, but thanks for caring".

We haven't had much contact since then. He called me once or twice, and tried to call him when my precious cat died, but the phone disconnected as it was answered (read: he hung up).  He eventually bought a computer, and got internet access.   He visited my web page and left a very nice message.  I replied to it, but there was no response back.   C'est la vie.

In the summer of 1998, he sent me an e-mail asking if I would get rid of the legal action against him over the money, because he needed the money to go to school to upgrade himself.  He promised that as soon as he got his student loan, that he would pay me back in full.  I thought, well, if I do, and he doesn't come through with his promise, then I'm out the money and he gets his way.  If I don't, then he won't be able to upgrade his skills, and that could affect his future.  I came up with an equitable solution.  He would give something valuable to a third party. I would clear up the legal stuff. He would get his loan. He would pay me back. The third party would return the valuable item to him.  Very reasonable. Very equitable.  When I approached him with the suggestion, he said thanks, but no thanks.  I was surprised that he didn't go for it as this would have been a way for him to finally be rid of me permanently.

In February of 1999, I had just arrived at my office when the phone rang.  It was him, and he was in my reception area. He had just been hired by my company and was training in the head office.  We met for 5 minutes.  He said that he just wanted to let me know he was there so that I wouldn't have a heart attack if I saw him in the hallways.  That night I sent him an email to thank him for the effort.  There was no response.

The only problem is that because I had buried all my emotions from the trauma of 1991, and because of him now being in "my territory", all of the emotions and memories from that terrible time came back to flood me.  I called my friend who was with him 1991, and found out that the two of them had been talking for a while over the net.   This brought back even more negative memories.  I felt like I was being betrayed again, even though she was happily married, and he was in a "committed" relationship.   My friend is working hard to help me through this.  She has spent hours and hours on the phone talking to me, trying to make both of us understand what happened in 1991, explaining how (with 20/20 hindsight) that it was all a big mistake.  We even spent 9 hours one night driving around the city talking it through.  She approached him asking if I could talk to him so that I could get closure and finally, after 8 years, get on with my life.  But he refused, thinking that I would affect the relationship he was currently in.  I was devastated again.  He still had control.  11 years after I met him, 8 years after it was over, and he was still in control.  And he is thinking that I am some sort of evil person who was going to reap vengeance on him.    Where the heck was that coming from?  I didn't want to hurt his new female friend, and my friend was working so hard to help me, that I didn't want to hurt her. I decided the only way I could get closure is to create this page "Emotional Baggage Depot" and make a full DIS-closure (sorry for the pun).   I'm hoping that   by making this page, I will be able to help other people get over the nastiness in their lives