Second Best
By: Funfetti
Mr. FF and I went to dinner this past weekend with one of his old friends from high school. I wouldn’t say the two are close. Skinny is a little distant and flaky (he forgot to come to our engagement party). So when he’s free, you sort of just have to take advantage and make sure you show. So we did. And he had some pretty interesting new life developments to share.
Like how he was in love with a 21-year old, married, and pregnant girl from another state. Sure, he met the girl when she was only 6 months pregnant and engaged. Her fiancé was in Iraq and Skinny met her through some iPhone app. (True story.) He never thought anything would happen with her, but then it did. We’ve heard this story before. She’s unhappy in her relationship, and would rather be with Skinny. A month before she is supposed to get married, she tells Skinny she is going to make a decision between her two men.
She gets married. To her baby’s father. Afterwards, she immediately texted Skinny to say she was depressed and unhappy.
Is this too frustrating yet?
It gets worse. Skinny bought her a house. A FREAKING HOUSE. For them to live in together, at some point. They stayed together in this house for a week. He had the most magical, amazing week of his life.
And she still married someone else.
Yet she still texts Skinny to say she loves him and she misses him.
Skinny, needless to say, is a freaking mess.
“I trust her implicitly.”
“She’s the only girl I can picture marrying.”
Skinny talked about this all night. Before he drank his sangria. After his shot of rum. After a fruity rum drink, and two entrees at the same restaurant. And later, at our house, sipping water. Dodging texts from the girl he loves, who is married to someone else and about to give birth any second. (Have I mentioned that enough?)
It’s difficult to watch someone go through this. Even if it’s someone you don’t know well. (I’ve only met Skinny a few times, and we don’t have very much in common.) But for the first time, I related to him. I’ve written about it here but I was in a similar situation. A girl fighting for a guy who was with someone else. A guy who would still tell me I was perfect for him even though he continued to date that other person. Who finally broke up with that girl, dated me, and still told me I was perfect for him but wasn’t able to completely give up the other girl.
What sick person would continue in a mess like this?
Hi. That would be me.
I can’t speak for Skinny. But there’s something about the chase that makes giving up that much harder. Turning off your cell phone, not answering texts, stopping yourself from dialing their number. It seems like the hardest thing in the world to do. Especially when you are feeling so much your heart might burst. It’s like this unattainable person picking you increases your value in this world.
There is a difference here. I was an 18-year old girl. This was the first guy I ever slept with. He was probably the most attractive guy who ever said he loved me (up until that point) and he said things to me that I could only dream about (and Nicholas Sparks wrote about).
Skinny is a successful business owner. He is in his late-20s. But I guess he might as well be an 18-year old girl. He was not brought up in a stable home. In fact, he practically raised himself (or as Mr. FF’s mom would say… he was raised by no one). He tends to take care of girls. His last girlfriend was also pretty young, couldn’t drive, and didn’t have a job but he stayed with her for a long time. Even though he knew she wasn’t “the one”. And now after she has moved out and relocated to Texas, the next girl he meets is all kind of wrong and he buys her a house because he thinks it will bring him out on top. (Sidenote: he still pays Texas girl’s cell phone bill and makes her doctor appointments.)
I guess another reason it’s so distressing to hear about this situation is because you can listen to a person’s problems and dispense all sorts of advice. And really, they won’t listen. They just won’t. I never did. It took me a long time to finally move on from my own venomous relationship. I can imagine it was hard for my friends to watch. Especially after they heard every single tiny detail and I just kept going back. (Often, I didn’t even tell them because I didn’t want to hear it anymore.) But then I learned. Or just realized I was worth more and maybe wanted a guy who ONLY wanted me. (A crazy concept, I know.) I also wanted to stop crying for more than five minutes.
I can only imagine how crazy/insane/fucked up I would have felt if there was marriage involved.
Ah marriage. As if Skinny’s situation wasn’t frustrating enough for all the obvious reasons, I felt a little annoyed when I realized just how blase some could be when it came to marriage. For Skinny’s “friend”, it was to secure health insurance for her unborn child. And for Skinny, it was just a hurdle, a problem, a challenge. That made me sad. Mr. FF and I are so close to our wedding… hearing all of that made me scared and just disappointed. Like what we were doing meant less because others could dismiss it. Even though I know that is not true for us. But still.
What do you really have with this person if they say they love you, they are unhappy, and yet they still take this vow with someone who is not you? Even if it is in a courthouse, and not in front of a large group of people. The truth: you have NOTHING.
No good can come out of this situation.
I’m sure everyone hears this a lot. Time. Time. Time. It’s a major factor in situations like this. Sometimes you just have to wait it out. You need time to realize the kind of happiness you deserve, and the kind of life you want to lead. And you’ll eventually get to the place where you can finally sit back and realize the best thing you could have done was throw in the towel and walk away.
