The "Jake" Men

My then boyfriend, who shall mostly remain nameless, (other than the fact that I use his last name as a pen name for author and poet purposes) and I had decided to go on a spontaneous road trip to Atlantic City. For now, we'll just call him "Jake." We had only been dating about two weeks, but were inseparable. I barely left his apartment and was finally feeling as though I was adult-ish. For all of my life I had lived with either one of my parents or both until that point and currently I still am in that situation. I say that with as much chagrin as I can possibly gather into my being.

I had just turned 30 and he was 37. I figured he was as good as I was going to get. Despite the fact that he had a first name that was at this point, famous for turning my life into a veritable hell storm, (aside from my cat) I took a chance.

We were standing in the September ocean waters of whatever beach we were at and the waves were softly lapping at our waists. His arms were protectively around me and he said, "I love you Erin."

And what else is a woman going to say, other than, "I love you TOO!" with the light of a thousand candles flickering in her eyes.

That was my first mistake. I don't believe I've ever said an "I love you" that quickly in my life. But he wasn't done. He followed up with, "but I don't think I'm going to tell the last girl I was seeing that you're my girlfriend, because I still want to leave that door open."

I did my best to become steel. And casually said, "That's fine. I don't think I'm going to tell the last Jake I was seeing that you're my boyfriend either, so I still have that door open too." To date, there have been about five or six men named Jake that have sauntered into my life and destroyed me.

Being the special kind of a-hole that he was, he naturally said, "I don't know how I feel about that." To which I had simply shrugged while breaking the embrace and walking away. That sort of set the tone for the rest of that mini-vacation, but I still attempted to make the best of it. I can say this, in all sincerity that the food in Atlantic City was phenomenal. My company I was keeping myself in was decidedly not so on the phenomenal side of things.

I stayed with him battling it out for a year and three months, six months of that were long distance (Oregon to West Virginia). For the most part, he broke up with me, which was probably the kindest gift he ever bestowed upon me. And although we had more downs than ups in the short time in perdition that we were together I can say that without a doubt I learned a lot from that relationship. I learned exactly what I was made of and what I wanted in a man. A bible thumper, I have never been and will never be, but I trust in God completely. And I know that He has my best interests at heart. Life cannot be what we always want it to be, there would be no learning on our parts, if that was the case. We must continue to learn about the world, the people who make up that globe, and most importantly ourselves. Thankfully, there have been no other "Jake" men in my life, and my heart has now found its final resting place within a man named Michael.