Date #33 (Part III): Beyond the 3-Month Facade

January 2024

A week after our New Year's conversation, he called me, and like we agreed… he updated me on a few things that had happened with him. It was a decent conversation, but he asked if he could change his mind about something. After saying I didn’t need to take him to the Immersive Gamebox anymore, he actually changed his mind and wanted to go after all. I told him I didn’t mind taking him…but after I received my Christmas gift. He said he still plans to give it to me, but because I gave him his gift a week before Christmas, he will give me mine a week before my birthday – February 8, (as if that makes any sense but sure go off sis). Didn’t he say he was late getting to me on NYE because he was getting my gift? We’ll come back to that. 

So we talk a few times a week over the next few weeks until it eventually became an everyday thing… again. He asked me one day if I wanted to go to Philly with him to drop something off to a friend, and after that we could get some cheesesteaks from this place he’s always raved about. Knowing my love for cheesesteaks, he knew this would get me. So of course I’m like let’s go! 

Now, on the first date, we talked about bad qualities we had. I told him that one of mine was that there was always a small struggle going on with me. Whether it was the fruit that I bought two days ago had become moldy, or that I ran out of ketchup for my breakfast one morning, there was always one little thing in my daily life that just threw my day out of whack. It was bad enough to the point where another guy I was dating (#22) had called me one morning and joked, “what’s the struggle for today?” 

But the more Ivory and I dated, he started having these inconvenient moments in his life as well, but on a much bigger scale. I joked once that my mishaps were rubbing off on him, to which he pointed out that my inconveniences were small while his were always big. I’m talking: sendings thousands of dollars to different family members, engine blowing and no longer having a car, and getting in trouble with the military type inconveniences. Oh yea did I mention he was in the military? I know in a previous post I did mention that military men are one type I just can’t date and I beat myself up everyday not running after finding out this fact.

Now this Philly situation, although not on as big of a scale as the previously mentioned, this was one where I had got dragged into it as well and should have been a bit of a wake up call. The morning we were supposed to leave, he already had the rental car reserved, so I met him at his place so we could leave from there. I get there, and he told me they didn’t have any cars available. How was he able to reserve something that isn’t available? He said he had to go up to Baltimore airport (BWI) to see if they have any rentals available. He said he could take an uber while I wait at his place, but I said that was pointless and wastes time and money. He lived in Laurel, so it was only 20 minutes from his place, but driving to Baltimore, I was now 45 minutes away from mine. We get there, and after talking to one rental car service, he comes up to me asking if he could use my card, and that he has the cash to give me. I forgot why they couldn’t take his card, but because he was going to give me the cash right there, I didn’t mind. We walk up to the counter, I hand the guy my card, and he told me they only accept credit cards. Mine was in my other wallet, so we were out of luck there. Ivory told me all the other rental places at BWI had no other cars available. We go back to my car, and spend the next 10 minutes calling around to different rental places. We finally find one. He gives all his information, pays the deposit, and we head back down to Laurel to pick it up. He walks in, and not even a minute later walks back out. What now? They didn’t accept his… I’m not sure if it was his license or government ID but whatever the hell he showed them, they didn’t accept it, and apparently this has never been an issue for him before.

I got to his place at 10 that morning, and it was now almost 2 in the afternoon. Cheesesteaks were on the itinerary for 12pm so I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I was now fighting a hunger headache. Neither of us spoke the obvious: Philly wasn’t happening. I drove him back to his apartment (after also taking him to the bank), and although he kept asking if I wanted him to get me something to eat, I declined, because all I really wanted was to lay down. This was the day he didn't let me in his room because it was messy, so I knew I couldn’t lay at his place. I also didn’t want to go inside because in our last conversation, I told him I didn’t want to go to each other's houses anymore anyway. At this point, I was physically sick the rest of the day. I could barely hold down the food I picked up when I got back home, and just went to sleep early. He went to Philly the next day, getting a rental with no problems. I stayed behind, but not like he asked me anyway. This was for the better, I was going to decline the invitation even if there was one.

January - February 2024

We’re coming up on three months of us dealing with each other, and yall know this is the point where masks start to slip. I started to see him in a new light. A liar, a gaslighter, and domineering. Over the course of us knowing each other, every time I would try to recall something, he would always say, “No, I didn’t say that” or “No, what you said was…” or his favorite: “You’re remembering it wrong”. It got to the point where I genuinely thought I was going crazy. I knew I had bad memory, but how could I mess up simple facts? And how could you especially tell me what I said?

We were on facetime one night. I saw him wearing his glasses that he broke a few months back and hadn’t been wearing. “Oh you’re wearing your glasses!” I pointed out. “Yes,” he replied. “You got them fixed,” more of a statement than a question. 

“No.” 

“Oh you didn’t get them fixed?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you got them fixed?”

“No.”

“Yes or no, which one is it?”

“Yes.”

“Ok seriously, did you get them fixed or not?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! When did you get them fixed?”

“This weekend.”

He then goes on this rant about how people should stop saying they deserve things, and let other people tell them what they deserve. I stopped listening when I saw the arm of his glasses were missing. I zoned out and focused on that for the rest of his rant, because I was trying to make sure I wasn’t tripping. When he was done with his TedTalk, I said “I just want to know why you lied about your glasses,” completely disregarding what it was he was talking about. He paused, then gave a light chuckle and said he was going to keep the “yes/no thing going and then just settled on yes”. I didn’t push, but I did think to myself ‘I then asked you when you got them fixed and you said this weekend, so you told a lie on top of another lie. At that point, you could’ve even said you didn’t get them fixed.’

I let it go, until another night, he walked in from meeting a friend. I asked if he smoked because the smell hit me like a truck. He said he hadn’t, and that he just met them at the car, grabbed what he needed, and dipped. “They must’ve been hitting it hard,” he said as he smelled his shirt. Later that night, when we finally kissed I pushed him back, “you did smoke!” “Yeah, I did,” he said without a beat. At a later point in the conversation he even said he was sitting in the car for a bit, even though at the beginning he said he dabbed them up at the car then left. Why even lie about smoking when on an earlier date I told him I didn’t mind smokers?

I kept this in the back of my mind, until I caught him in a third lie. We woke up one morning, and his phone wasn’t turning on (this man was always having phone issues), so I had to get him an uber home. We didn’t talk the rest of that day, nor that weekend. I assumed his phone still wasn’t turning on, until I saw he was watching my story. This man was watching my story but hadn’t paid me back for the uber? I gave it until a few days had gone by, and he still hadn’t hit my phone. So I kindly requested the $32 on cash app for the Uber. 30 minutes later he called me, asking how my weekend was, saying his phone was off the whole weekend and that he had to take it to T-Mobile that morning before work which actually made him late. “I still owe you for the uber, how much was it?” I told him it was in the request. “Oh you requested it? I didn’t even see.” Lying ass. He just so conveniently remembered to call me after I requested the money? But I will say he gave me more since he had me waiting. light applause. We got off the phone, and maybe the crazy in me started coming out, but I quickly started typing on my work computer “what time does t-mobile open?” almost all of them opened at 10am, very few opened at 9… Ivory called me at 8:40. So how were you at T-Mobile this morning getting your phone fixed before the time it opened?

I was over the lies, so here I am a fourth time, trying to end things with him. I called him later that night, and started with the most recent lie. “When we talked this morning, you said…” and I continued with lie #1. “We didn’t talk this morning, we talked yesterday,” he corrected… or tried to. I never questioned my sanity with this man more than I did in this very moment. I was ready to hang up and block him right then and there. “Ivory, you called me this morning,” I said with all the calmness I could muster, “and you said you took your phone to T-Mobile this morning.” “How would I have done that when I took the phone yesterday?” So did he take the phone yesterday or this morning when he called me? And what is the point of more lies? We went back and forth for a bit until he checked his call logs. “Wow, my days are blending together.” I bet they are. I paused, still waiting for him to address the T-Mobile lie.

 “It helps to know people,” he used as his excuse as to how he was able to get his phone fixed earlier than the time they opened. Right. “What about you watching my story this entire weekend when you said your phone was off the whole time?” I questioned. He vehemently stood on the fact that he did not watch my story at all. “How would I have watched your story if my phone was off?” He asked. 

“I don’t know but I know I saw your name clearly.” 

“Well I don’t know how.” 

“So instagram is just magically putting your name in my story views?” I said with as much sarcasm as I could give. 

“I guess so,” he accepted, until he so happened to remember that his friend was using his account to “spy on her cheating boyfriend”. Convenient. 

I then brought up the glasses lie, and the smoking lie, to which he again went on one of his rants about “they were jokes. Why would I lie when you could clearly see the glasses were broken? Or could clearly tell I was smoking? It’s no point in lying about it because they're small.” He went on and on and I just let him talk in circles until he got to the end saying “...so yes, I guess you could call them white lies but I don't even count them because it’s small and pointless.” Unfortunately for him, I do count them. White lies are worse than big lies in my book, because if you can lie about something small, you’re going to lie about something big. I didn’t even care to argue back because I was set on ending things anyway.

“So what about my gift? You said it took you longer than expected to get it.” I tried to keep my emotions at bay. He said his favorite line: “That’s not what I said. I said it took me longer than expected to order your gift. Which the lady messed up, I’m actually not even going to use her anymore.” He started drifting off topic per usual. “How long does it take to order something?” I countered. “I feel like you think I’m ordering this off amazon or something. No, I’m ordering it from back home (Ivory Coast). But I have to get something else now because she messed up.” 

“Well if the lady messed up, what was it supposed to be then?” Still not even believing there was a gift to begin with. 

“I remember you said you liked little trinkets, so it was supposed to be waist beads–” he continued rattling off other items I didn’t really understand. Basically small items from his country. Not to sound ungrateful, but this would’ve been a terrible gift, because I don’t like little “trinkets”. What he’s referring to are souvenirs from when someone visits a place. It wouldn’t have had any value to me since he wasn’t visiting and bringing something back. 

“Ok well all in all I don’t think we should communicate at all. I don’t want to have to question everything you say from this point on.” He didn’t try to argue. He understood – as he seemed to have done every other time – and we parted ways.

Or so I thought…

Check out the final part of Date #33 Continued: Closure or Question Mark?