The words marched from my mouth as Terrence jerked his truck from the curb. I closed my eyes and listened as he gunned it to the stop sign at the end of my block. I was standing inside my building at barely a minute past 9 p.
I was supposed to be with Terrence at his apartment, enjoying the dinner he made for the two of us. It was our first date, and the first time, after seven years of dating in Manhattan, that a guy had offered to cook for me. It was also the first time a guy kicked me out of his apartment for refusing to give him a blow job.
A woman in her 30s should be cool with giving head. Before him, the guys I attracted had two things in common: They were emotionally unavailable and already in committed relationships with drugs and alcohol. It turned out that Anthony was a booty-call-loving coke-head, whose nose had seen the back of every toilet of every bar in Manhattan.
Eventually, I demanded he lose my number. On several occasions, he drove to my apartment and passed out in his car before making it inside. On one night, after he managed to make it upstairs, reeking of alcohol, I gently told him I thought he needed help. Kevin became furious, and the only way I could eject him from my apartment was to pretend to call the police. Over the years, I admittedly had ample opportunities to examine the dysfunctional relationship choices I repeatedly made.
I meant it. At that moment I evicted myself from the hope-filled fantasy worlds I built up around these men and dropped back into reality. I was no longer willing to make concessions for anyone who blatantly took me for granted. Instead of straining to figure out how to prove to a guy I was worth his time, I would decide whether or not he was worth mine.
