The Tale Of Crazy Boots & Hot Tub McGee

Soooo, Tiffany wanted to know my terrible get-together story, which was only slightly less terrible than her own. It turned into quite the odyssey, so I thought I'd make a post out of it!

I really, really didn't care for my guy AT ALL when I first met him.

I had two buds that lived together, and they decided to take a summer road trip to the Lower 48, so they asked me to pet/plant/house-sit. All good so far. But then suddenly this chick, whom I barely knew as a friend-of-a-friend that I sometimes saw in the Arts building between classes, suddenly upgraded me to Bestest Friend EVARZ to try and swing a spare free bed for the summer. I resisted, but she got one of the road-tripping buds to say yes in the ask-the-other-parent style of getting the answer you like, and in she went.

Cute as a button, but mad as a mittenful of monkeys

 

It was intense. She decided to promote me from her outermost to innermost circle of intimacy, and did that by telling me terrible, unforgettable things she claimed had happened to her. She had either a whole HOST of issues, or a bad case of psychological-malady hypochondria, because she told me hideous things I could only hope were lies -- for her sake. She loved talking about it, which seemed like a sign, and she LOOOOOVVVED sympathy. Big buckets of it. The more, the better.
 

But, there's other things to do, other people to hang out with -- things to talk about other than Miss Crazy Boots, and that was pretty rough on her. Things would escalate. She'd sigh, and mope around. If that didn't get the sympathy ball rollin', she'd go fetal upright on a chair or couch, refusing to watch/engage in whatever me and my friends were doing. That was usually nervously ignored, in which the rocking began. But that could hold her for only so long before she'd jump up, tear out the front door and INTO THE NIGHT -- in Anchorage, after dark, in a seedy neighborhood that boasts its own corner liquor store. Without shoes or a coat. Argh. Just remembering makes me cringe. Someone would have to retrieve her and assuage her neurosis, and quickly before she could take it to the point where our evening became a cautionary tale.

There wasn't really a hobo.
BUT THERE COULD HAVE BEEN

I know I haven't even mentioned a guy yet -- here's the guy. Crazy Boots had just been broken up with, and she was SO NOT over him. I half suspect that her escalations were a way to get him back into her life, even if it was just to pick her up and take her to the ER. He felt partially responsible for her emotional distress and therefore her crazy behavior, and so as soon as she called he'd come straight over, apologize to the rest of us and cart her off. I loathed the whole thing: Her repetitive self-centered antics, his feeding into it, his weakness perpetuating the situation...the fact that I had to share a bathroom with this hot mess. Finally one time when he came over, I told him that I was not at all impressed with how he was dealing with the situation. Apparently this flipped his "Wow, she's sooooo sensible, I love that," switch. Not what I meant, but hey.

Also, I had not dressed for a responsibility lecture...

That may have clouded the issue somewhat

He started coming over BEFORE she could flip out. Next time she did flip out, he took her to STAR, a program for abused women that keeps you for a greater period of time and does a full work-up of your mental/emotional situation. So she was gone, but he was still coming over. Turns out we had a mutual friend, and the three of us started hanging out more. Oh, Anchorage -- everybody knows everybody, it's crazy, right? LOLZ!  Cough cough.

He was sort of obliquely courting me, complete with a chaperone like in the Good Ol' Days. He took us out to eat at fancy places, and to windswept sightseeing spots...yeah, it was kind of apparent what was going on. I was still unimpressed, because I was seeing someone else; and who tries to make moves on someone who's already taken? Not someone I could ever like. But he was falling hard, and just went right ahead and did it anyway. He confessed to me later that he actually made his first and last (so far!) psychiatric appointment, just to get a second opinion on this crazy situation. Was he nuts for doing this? Apparently she said no.

Like a swain

Eventually he got into a long debate with me in the mutual friend's parent's hot tub (I know, I know) about the current fellow I was with. It was not going well, the lad had some problems -- and this is me saying it, not Mr. Hot Tub McGee. But I'm not into bailing on people because they need help, so I was still feeling positive and committed to my relationship. It was a bit of a one-way-street arrangement, though, which was presented to me that night in the hot tub, Debate Team style.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he won me with words. His emotional awareness, earnest yet easy manner, great vocabulary and intuitive communication skills got me all a-twitter. I swear it wasn't just the hot tub.

Okay, maybe the hot tub helped

There was a climactic scene the next day at the Ren Faire (spot-on, after all that wooing and swaining) with the Crazy Boots, becorseted bosom heaving, screaming at us about betrayal while fairgoers looked on with legs of mutton. It may have been mistaken for a show. Finally there was a long talk between my new guy and Boots, ending with a very literal demonstration of how he was walking away from the cycle, and wouldn't be running to the aid of her self-inflicted dramas anymore. By leaving her ass at the ass-end of the parking lot.

Then we went home so I could make The Call; my first time ever being the Break-Up-er  instead of the Break-Up-ee. He took it like he'd been expecting it, which threw me, and all the while my new flame of passion took a nap on the couch. Boys. Where do they GET this level of chillness?? It's baffling.

And that was the bizarre and terrible start of our relationship, which has turned out to be the best one I've ever been a part of. A relationship coming up on its 6th year anniversary, might I add, this June -- at the Ren Faire.