Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Ah yes, I did live...and learn. But friends began to worry as I grieved that last one. It took me quite some time to figure out what I was grieving. (Hint: It was not about him. More on that later, dear readers. We are going somewhere with this!)

The people who loved me didn’t see this ending as much of a loss, but I was heartbroken. In an effort to push me beyond my sniffling, they began to gently suggest possible set-ups. I wasn't particularly interested in being set-up. What interested me was proving to my peeps that I was okay. So I agreed to the first arranged date.

He was an artist from New York City. Recently dumped by the girlfriend for whom he had moved to California, the only obvious thing we had in common was being on the rebound. I had an okay time. I guess. When he tried to kiss me at the end of the night, I balked. Too fast. I think I whined about having a cold or something. I agreed to a second date reluctantly just to prove something to myself...or maybe to my friends. Whatever. In subsequent meetings I found his intelligence quite stimulating. Add to that a remarkable artistic talent and the pleasant scent of his cigars (go ahead...call me crazy but I like the soft aroma of a good cigar) and I shoved my reservations to the back burner and decided to go along for a ride. What the hell. It was better than what I'd just come out of and provided a bit of distraction from the constant sorting in which I was still engaged.

We did a long distance thing between his city (where he was renting a room in someone’s house) and my town, 200 miles away, where I owned my own home. It was workin' for me. I still had my own little life among my peeps, a private place to lick my wounds and a date for each weekend. Then one day he announced that he wanted to make a go of trying to find work in my town. I expressed my reservations but after several months of dating we were having a pretty good time. It kind of made sense to give it a whirl...on a trial basis. We discussed the conditions upon which it would work for me and with a handshake over dinner one evening it was decided. He would move in.

In our agreement we had discussed what he would be expected to contribute to the household. He suggested that as he had no visible income yet, he would trade his paintings (Note from above: he was very talented) in lieu of rent. I loved his work and figured it was a pretty good deal.

Always the generous soul, I wanted him to feel at home. He made himself comfortable in ways that had me gritting my teeth and repeating a new mantra: "All relationships require compromise," as he built a shabby work table outside the kitchen window and then got busy painting a huge dove above the bed in my bedroom. I’m talking huge here, with a wingspan the width of the bed and 5 feet high. H.U.G.E.)

"Errrr...exactly what is this going to be?" I asked as I witnessed the work-in-progress.

"It's a depiction of the Holy Spirit," he said as he audibly sucked in a few powerful puffs from his fat cigar and eyed his masterpiece.

"Oh," I said. My brow furrowed into a silent expression of concern. Did he really think this was the path to make good on his intention to "disabuse" me of my Buddhist leanings?

A valuable lesson about the limits of my generosity was taking shape - and it was beginning to look like a whopper of a learning experience. Artistic quirks aside, I was working my ass off and he was proving to be an expensive experiment.

A few short months after sleeping together under the giant dove, I asked him to leave. As he was moving his paintings out, we partook in a heated exchange. “I’m an artist! I would never barter my art work!” he exclaimed as he yanked his pieces from the walls, adding, “These would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars!”

"But we had an agreement!" I countered.

Yeah. Right.

During the truck loading process, his parting shot landed like a bomb in my world: "You know, I could take half of your house. I've already spoken with an attorney. He told me my claim would hold up because you told me 'to make myself at home.' " My heart dropped into the soles of my bare feet. I started to tremble. I couldn't find the words to express the rage that was welling up once I clawed my way out of the shock of this announcement.

As I watched him carry the last canvas out, I could only allow myself to mutter, "Fucking asshole!" to the back of this parasite who had lived several months for free and threatened to stake claim to my home. He stopped without turning around and then loaded the painting in his friend's truck, slammed the door and drove off.

I expected my final words would be the nail in the coffin for any future contact - which suited me just fine. But no. Several months later he called in an attempt to reconcile. I suspect he had difficulty finding any other woman in the universe who would allow him and his Holy Spirit to live rent-free. A peacemaker to the very core, I politely agreed to meet him in a public place for coffee.

It was fine. I made it quite clear that I didn't want to continue any further contact and he seemed to understand.

But what I really wanted to do when I heard his voice over the phone was yell, “Bite me!” It's just not my style.

Oh how I wish it was.

Next.

photo courtesy CreativeCommons ©The Birks