Lies, Lies and More Lies

Once Derik moved in, that's when we started to have some serious problems. I started to see what my friend Diamond had been talking about all those years ago when they were dating. I remember her telling me that anytime she had a problem and tried to bring it up to him, he would somehow turn it around and make her the bad guy in the situation. At the time, I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or just being overly sensitive, because I loved Derik! I considered him one of my best friends and he was charming, so I didn't see where she was coming from, but now that I was in the same situation with him, I did see it.

And boy, I hated it.

He would do something that I didn't like, or say something mean to me and I would try to confront him and every single time, I would end up apologizing for what I did wrong, even if I wasn't in the wrong! I still to this day have no idea how he pulled that off. He was very, very manipulative and good with his words.

When we would go out, he would talk to me crazy around his friends. He would call me "bitch" a lot, which didn't bother me when we were just friends. After all, in the club, everyone calls each other bitch and hoe; its just a term of endearment there, but when we started dating, I expected that to stop. It didn't and when I tried to talk to him about it, he made it seem like I was making a mountain out of a mole hill.

He did extremely insensitive things sometimes, like he just truly didn't give a crap how I felt at any given moment. I remember one time specifically, his son had come into town and was staying with us at my mom's. I loved Derik's son. He was such a sweet kid and I truly enjoyed being around him. When he would come to visit, I would hang out with him during the day while Derik was at work and take him to lunch and play with him. I can honestly say that I enjoyed his company and you know what? I loved him because I loved his dad and that's what you do when you are dating someone who has a kid. You accept that child because that child is an extension of the person you love.

Anyway, his son was in town and we wanted to take him out to eat somewhere. I wasn't feeling too hot this day and I hadn't taken a shower, my hair was greasy, I wasn't wearing make up and I looked like total crap, but I just figured we were going to go to McDonald's to let him play in the play place or something like that.  Then Derik suggests Hooters. I was shocked that he would even suggest that. I had just got done complaining about how ugly I felt and he suggests going somewhere where all the girls are beautiful and have full make-up on, with their perfect little bodies and big boobs and I was just like, really?! I actually started crying because I didn't want to go there that bad, which just made my eyes puff up and added to how crappy I looked, and he made me feel like a complete idiot and guess where we ended up eating? Hooters, where he proceeded to flirt with our waitress the whole time.

Also, remember when I said I loved this man's son simply because he was HIS family? Apparently the feeling wasn't mutual. When my grandfather died and my entire family came to visit for the funeral, he actually acted put out because we had to give up our room for a week and spent most of the week in our temporary room moping and not trying to interact with my family at all. Furthermore, he was offended that he couldn't attend my grandfather's funeral with me, because of the racism on that side of the family.

Okay, I understand that one a little bit. On my dad's side of the family, interracial dating just did not fly. I never have had a problem with it, but my dad's father grew up in a different time and although it was wrong, that's what he taught his children and that's what they taught their children. I don't agree, but there was absolutely no way that I was going to bring him to my racist grandfather's funeral. It would have been disrespectful and would have probably caused a big commotion and no one wants to deal with that at a funeral. I thought that he, being a grown man, would understand that it would cause more problems than it was worth, but no. He got mad at me and didn't really talk to me that entire week. It left a really bad taste in my family's mouth.

There were so many other bad things that I could go on and on about that was wrong with this relationship, but by far the worst thing was the lies. He lied to me about so many things that were just so unnecessary. I still don't know why. My best guess is that maybe he was insecure about himself, or didn't really ever know who he was, so he made things up to make himself sound better. He didn't have to do that though. I liked him before he told me all the lies. Or I guess I did. I'm not sure if I ever really knew who he was.

He told me that he played college football, but his mom said he hadn't played football since middle school. I even looked up the team roster for the year that he said he played as the star quarterback and his name isn't on the list.

One day after I realized he hadn't been going to work for  about a week, I asked him why he was home. He said that his company (a major telecommunications company, by the way) went on strike and that he was working from home. There was absolutely nothing on the news about this company striking. He just lost his job and was trying to cover it up.

He bought a car and when it got repossessed, he told me that it was seized by the police in an investigation against the car lot that sold it to him. He said the car lot sold him a stolen car.

I had gotten my licence by this point and when my car was totaled, I bought a car from a "buy here, pay here" lot. They sell cars to people with bad or no credit and typically charge out of this world interest rates. Anyway, after Derik's car was repossessed, he tried to get a car at the same lot I got mine at. When I went to make a payment one day, they told me that they wouldn't sell him a car because he hadn't made ONE payment on the last one he bought, which was the one that he said was seized in an investigation.

I also have to add that Diamond and I had really drifted apart during this time. I knew that she would not approve of me dating Derik, so I hid it from her. She had moved away, had a couple babies and we still kept in contact, but everytime she got me on the phone, I would only talk to her for a couple of minutes because I felt like I was hiding something from her. Derik finally convinced me to tell her and so I did. She was disappointed, not because she was hurt that I was dating her ex, but because she knew what kind of person he was and she didn't want me to go through the same things that she did. But we reconciled and she told me she would be there for me when I needed her, because I eventually would.

And of course, she was right.