Monsters Don't Hide Underneath Beds

It’s crazy growing up, watching movies and truly believing in the idea of ‘the one’. That someone out there in the world was made just for you. That meeting this person will bring you complete happiness, bring you to your true potential. It’s what I used to believe in, straight out of high school, young and dumb like the rest of them. I was head over heels for older guys. In and out of short lived relationships, foolishly believing that one of these mistakes was supposed to mean something. That I would find the one.

At 17, I thought I did. He was tall, 6’4, kind eyes, broad shoulders, incredibly smart... an asshole. I will refer to him as 6’4 (or asshole, depending on how much wine I drink). He was mean to everyone but me and I thought for some reason that it made me special, that I was to remain an untouched target in his life. Sadly, that’s not how assholes (or low key sociopaths work). They separate you from your family, shower you in ‘love’ and make you believe that there’s nothing better for you out there. Yeah, you may become a target of his asshole-ness from time to time, but he ‘loves’ you. He may disrespect you and your family, but he ‘loves’ you. It isn’t as cold and calculated as a psychopath, but there’s still a method to the madness. A method to the isolation, suffocation, and deluding. For future advice, they also unravel much quicker. But, these are just little flaws in dealing with imperfect subjects, but all in all, I thought he’s gotta be the one.

Before I knew it I was 22 years old, showered in the ideas of marriage and children (also with a very unsupportive family). The perfect recipe of signs that this was it. That this is the love you read about, that’s fought for, worth it all in the end. Classic Romeo and Juliet. I used to think I was so special when I would brag about my relationship. I was with him for six years and sadly I still didn’t know shit. You would think after being with someone for six years, you would know them. How could someone hide who they truly are for six years, or did my rose colored shades fit me too well?

Don’t get me wrong, there were signs, plenty, from the beginning. But the hard lover in me just held on and ignored them. That’s the thing about assholes, they push and push to try to find their limit. Push and then butter you up. That’s what he used to do. Argue with me till he was blue in the face and when I would retreat (when I submitted to his liking) he showered me in sweet words and kisses. That’s when the monster really came, when I stopped submitting. When I wasn’t the ‘perfect’ girlfriend that would bend to his every will. As Gillian Flynn would say, ‘the cool girl’. The more independent I became and vocal, the more he tried to take it from me. The harder he tried to break me with his words and with his ‘love’. And that’s the thing with assholes (low grade sociopaths), they’re irrational, very easy to crack. Things don’t go their way and they send you 20 messages in the middle of the night cussing you out, leaving voicemails and calling you a billion times. Showing up at your job, trying to hit on your sister. Telling everyone fabricated stories of why you broke up, making him the hero, the victim, bragging to you about the women he’s slept with. If I could of warned my 17-year-old self, I would have pulled her in the opposite direction.

I’ve only been single for seven months and this single life is so different and new to me. I haven't been single since I was 17 and my entire look on love is shattered. I’m always defensive, ready to push someone out of my life after a minor slip up. I’m bitter for sure, completely unimpressed by any grand notion by a man. The idea of love turns my stomach; I only can associate it with limitations, regret, not real. Sadly, this series of stories won’t be my journey to find real love or the one, for both do not exist for me. But, will be a series of lessons learned, a journey of a 23-year-old woman who still has many flaws to fix herself. An inside of the single life of a 23-year-old woman, going to school and working, still living with her extremely religious parents. A 23 year old woman whose rose colored glasses are off and broken, Love completely dead on arrival.