FUCKING MARK is such a poisonous turd that it’s taken me almost a week to muster up the courage to write this post. I’ve been so mortified that I caved and started talking to him again, and so ashamed to tell people that I was truly considering keeping it a secret that I would take with me to the grave. But part of this project is learning to be honest with myself about the choices I make in my love life and if nothing else, I’d like for it to be documented so that I can never, ever forget. So here it goes…
The day I got laid-off, Drew told me to come meet him on set where he was shooting (which was only a few blocks away from our office). I was a wreck. And the worst part was that FUCKING MARK was working on set with Drew that day. It was the first time I had seen him since Halloween, and I wasn’t in any mood or state of mind to deal with him and his shenanigans. So I did what was easiest for me: I pretended he was invisible.
When I left, I started to feel bad. I thought that ignoring him might have been a little harsh/childish. So I texted him: “I’m sorry that I couldn’t look at you. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just couldn’t. Not today.”
To which he responded with: “Thanks for texting, I was going to text you but you beat me to it. I heard the bad news and I’m really sorry. I wish I could talk to you. It was hard not to walk up to you and give you a hug.”
And so it began again. He called me later that night to see how I was doing. We spent 3 hours on the phone catching up, as it had been almost 3 months since we had last spoken. And when I hung up I thought Maybe this friend thing could really work. But I wasn’t sold on it. I kept him at a distance and didn’t re-friend him on Facebook. We were friends for about 2 weeks, when the fighting started again. It was pretty much the same story, different words. It exhausted me. And finally I said to him that I don’t think this friend thing will work. That I was sorry, it was nothing personal, and that we just can’t be in each other’s lives. He was furious.
The next day he begged me to talk to him. Tried to convince me why we should be friends. I wouldn’t budge. I was done. He told me that he would apologize to me if I would apologize to him. I told him that that’s not how apologies work; you don’t apologize because you expect to get something in return, you apologize because you truly want to atone for what you have done. This enraged him, and he started spewing such venom my way that I didn’t know what to do. He went so far as to tell me that I need to watch my mouth, everyone knows its a problem, and everyone talks about it. I asked him who “everyone” was. He told me he couldn’t tell me. I told him that I thought that was an appalling thing to do to someone—to make them paranoid that all of their friends are talking about them behind their back and then not expand upon it. Then he told me that I am “a horrible person and I deserved all the bad things that happened” to me this year. He also called me a “scumbag” an “asshole” and told me to go fuck myself.
I was completely and totally horrified, defeated, mortified, angry, and unbearably sad. I’ve never had anyone in my life say such violently awful things to me. I’m trying not to let his words affect me or let him make me doubt who I am or how I live my life. I’m trying to believe that whatever he said to me comes from a dark place inside of him and probably has more to do with his own emotional unrest than with anything I’ve ever said or done to him.
At least I know that it’s done for good now. Forever. I will never forgive him, I will never speak to him, and I will never, ever allow him to hurt me again. It’s too bad that I couldn’t learn my lesson about what kind of person he is until something like this happened. At least I can know that I went out taking the high road. I don’t regret anything I said to him, and unlike him, I know I can feel good about myself when I go to sleep at night.
I hope he learns the hard way that Karma’s a bitch.
