I met my last boyfriend because of tumblr. Not the one I have now, the one before him. I met him because tumblr used to let you do that little “search” thing where you could plug in your address and see who was “tumblr-ing” around you, and he was the closest result so I clicked “follow” on his little self-portrait and that was that.
That isn’t how things spun into motion or whatever, but it was the first step. The proverbial loading of the gun, or whatever else you want to call it.
And when I met him in person, I was dating/seeing/sleeping with/whatever-ing someone anyway, so I wasn’t REALLY paying attention to the stuff he (my ex) was posting anyway, unless it was really funny or it happened to go up at the exact moment that I was looking at tumblr at work or whatever. It was AFTER I met him and developed one of the more ridiculous schoolgirl crushes I’ve ever held in my lifetime, that I went digging through his internet archives.
SPECIAL NOTE TO EVERYONE: This is a bad idea. Do not go digging. You will want to dig, and you’ll probably ignore this and dig anyhow, but I want you to know that that is a stupid idea and will only make you weird and insecure and kind of squirrelly.
Okay. Anyway. So I go digging because I’m an idiot, but I’m also the sort of person who, when she is interested in ANYTHING, takes it upon herself to learn every little detail imaginable about whatever that thing is. Or person, in this case. So I guess it wasn’t out of character for me to inhale the contents of his tumblr (and other tumblr) (and other, other tumblr) in like, an hour. But I learned some things. One was that he had a crush on me, which lead to some idiot grinning and office chair spinning and fist pumping and so on. The other was that he was probably still in love with his ex girlfriend. Which had kind of the opposite effect.
So I became like, obsessed with this girl. I had to know everything I could about her in order to know WHAT IT WAS that had him so hung up. I had to know what possible little characteristics were in her that were also in me that maybe my dumb little insecure ass could play up. I inhaled all the gut-wrenching sad posts he made where he referenced their time together or places they went or everyday things they did and found HER tumblr and twitter and whatever and tried my guts out to figure out what the fuck it was that got her under his skin.
And I could not stop myself from like, being weirdly obsessed with their old relationship because I knew too much about it and…I was afraid that he didn’t love/need me as much as he had loved/needed her.
And that is a shitty place to be in for a chunk of a relationship. Or at all. Ever. But to spend so much time being weird about your new boyfriend’s ex because you are too fucking insecure to own the fact that he’s with YOU now and NOT her and the two of you broads are different fucking people, is sad. And it just kind of sets the stage for some weird fucking times and maybe some strong words and maybe some harsh words.
My new boyfriend was with his last girlfriend for five years. I can’t imagine trying to come off something like that and then trying to date again. Or have feelings again. Or pretend like you’re over shit or that whoever you’re dating is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than whoever you dated.
But. I am nowhere near as big of a head case about this boyfriend’s ex as I was about the last one because THERE IS NO FUCKING WRITTEN OUT RECORD OF IT ON THE INTERNET. And believe me, I looked, because that’s what I do. And I’ll be damned if I’m not fucking consistent in this regard.
But there’s nothing there. There are some pictures. There are some references in stories (Because during the course of five years, homegirl was gonna work her way into some shit, right?). But there is no big recorded outpouring of emotion. I asked about their breakup and he gave me the rundown and it ended with the simple fact that they just grew apart and their differences, coupled with living together and then living together abroad were kind of a death knell.
This has gotten rambly and it comes across like I blame my ex for my insecurities regarding his ex, and that’s not the point I was trying to make.
The point is that I made a distinct point to try and poke a fucking bear with a pointy stick. I made an effort to seek out information that would fuck up my brain because I was insecure about…everything. I succeeded with my ex and I tried with my new boyfriend, but failed because the figurative bear was already dead or rotted or whichever term would best complete that awful metaphor.
I am 28 years old and I have been basically trying to sabotage my romantic relationships from day one. I am 28 years old and you’d think I’d fucking know better or something, right?
Who the fuck cares who someone I’m dating dated before me?
(I do.) (I shouldn’t.) (It shouldn’t matter but it sort of does.) (But at the same time, it shouldn’t because, damn, they’re with ME now. And I’m awesome.)
And I think that’s the moral of this whole little late night thought-vomit: I’m awesome. I’m a fantastic fucking girlfriend, and I try my guts out and care more than I let on and do nice things for the sake of doing nice things because I think they’ll make someone else happy. Whoever I’m dating is dating ME for ME, not because of some shit with their exes. And if he IS dating me because of some ex-related bullshit, then I have zero time for his stupid ass.
The other moral is to stop self-sabotaging, via the internet. This should be one of those “duh” things, but I drink a lot.
Every time you write here it makes me wish you never stopped writing on your blog :)
But yeah – dating internet people is weird because of all the access… but just think – somewhere out there someone is searching YOUR exboyfriends internet history and becoming obsessed with YOU!
oh how I hope that’s true! ;)
It can totally be weird. But can also be awesome in that you already know so much.
I mostly try to block out anything written before she and I started dating. :)
This is brilliant and very relatable (sadly)