What was your dating life like in your twenties?

Awful.

But there needs to be some background regarding my dating before I was twenty…

My dating life started great in my teens when I began dating a young man who came from a great family background and treated himself, his family and friends, and me with respect.   I am grateful to have that experience from which to apply as a marker for the following dating experiences.  We broke up after a misunderstanding after he went away to college.  To this day, I reflect on him fondly.

I dated “The Marine” during the last half of my senior year.  We met when I went out with a friend of mine to San Francisco to go dancing at a club.   Yes, I had a fake ID.   No, I didn’t have it to drink, simply to get into a club to dance.  And, YES, I got caught and it was confiscated…a story for another time!  We dated randomly since he was stationed 5-6 hours away, which worked for me since I was busy in my last year of high school.  Anyway, the best thing I can say about dating The Marine is I was able to attend an anniversary Marine Ball which was fantastic.  Thank you for that invitation.  Unfortunately, my personal boundaries were not respected and I stopped dating him when I left home for college.

I began dating “Slick” whom I met in my English class during the summer quarter at Cal Poly.  We got along great and enjoyed our time together for about three weeks until one sunny afternoon when a group of us were sitting on the grass outside the building before class began.  A pretty girl on a bike rode up with her dog who greeted my guy with such familiarity I immediately suspected I was unknowingly The Other Woman.   He got booted to the curb that moment  The last time I saw him, it was about a year later and he was fitting me for ski boots at the local sporting goods store for the trip I was going on with my new boyfriend.  I respect Karma.

My roommate and I went to a frat party one night.  She ran off to hook up with one of the residents and I was dancing with a group of people in the front room.  I met “The Hawaiian” on the dance floor.  He was really a lot of fun, very happy, and treated me well.   We stopped seeing each other shortly after summer quarter ended, mostly because he wanted to smoke weed with his friends and I didn’t.  I found him on Facebook a few years back. He seems to be successful and happy which, in turn, makes me happy.

I met “The Weasel” in the dorm during summer quarter, but we had since moved out to our respective apartments.  He invited me out one day after seeing me on campus after class.  We dated happily for a couple years until I found out he was using drugs, lying to his parents about attending classes while still accepting tuition/room/board from them, and impregnating his brother’s girlfriend’s roommate.   Ironically, I found out when he asked to borrow $300 from me, but he had to have it THAT DAY.  When I asked what it was for, he said he needed to give the girl “money for groceries” and that his mom would put the money back in my account the next day to repay me.  Believe it or not, this wasn’t the worst thing to report about his activities.  I was heartbroken.  I truly believed that he would ask me to marry him and so did his family.  I kicked him to the curb, bleached my hair and vowed to remain single.

I was at a really low point in my emotional life when “The Weasel’s” well-intentioned neighbor asked me over for a beach barbeque.  She introduced me to “The Jerk” and he paid me quite a bit of attention.  I agreed to date him which I regret to this day.  For the next few years, he slowly eroded what was remaining of my self-esteem, ostracized me from my family, used alcohol and drugs consistently, cheated with many women and possibly men, impregnated a woman from his home town, and in a drunken rage he almost shot me.

I remained single and in therapy for quite some time after “The Jerk.”