A Hiatus from Husband Hunting III
Jezebel
‼️‼️Disclaimer: I wrote this as I felt it, and all the details aren’t in perfect order. The feelings and interactions are real, but the timeline is not exact.‼️‼️
Not to get preachy, but I started rereading Proverbs the last few weeks. The book deeply triggers me and makes me reflect, but not for the reasons you may think. Of course, the underlying message is simple: don’t be a useless slob and apply wisdom to live a quality life. Ok great. So why does it bother me? The visceral discomfort I have with the book stems from a different source. A man. A man I will call Grandpa*.
“Complex. That’s somebody that has complex.” Mumsy would say this often about people that projected their insecurities, frustrations, and “-isms” about themselves onto everyone else. I learned about complexes firsthand when encountering Grandpa. I concede that “Grandpa” is a strange name to give a young man, but I can’t take credit for that. His other names include “Grumpy Guy”, “Mean Guy”, and “Basic Features” (this is not an insult to him, but rather how he described me in front of his friends), but I think Grandpa suits him best as he was abrasive to say the least.
A Sunday morning in 2018 is when I first encountered him. His face was new to me, but well-known to the congregation. He handled the Bible well, speaking with poise and conviction in front of a crowded auditorium of onlookers. I appreciated his words and told him such after his talk. I was twenty, and he was twenty-eight. The initial conversation wasn’t particularly striking, but he did linger a while. It wasn’t until we met once more at a mutual’s going-away party that he asked for my number. I didn’t think much of it.
He would text often. We would talk over the phone, too. Sometimes for hours at a time. There were a variety of topics on the table, but our most notable discussions were those about men and women. Grandpa had hard-set ideas of how women should behave based on his upbringing, in my opinion. He was raised by his grandparents and had a strained relationship with his mother due to no fault of his own. I won’t detail his mother wounds here as that would be a betrayal of the confidence he once bestowed on me. Although I don’t like him as a person, I won’t wash his linens outdoors.
His opinions started out small. “I don’t like when women do their eyebrows this way. They look permanently surprised.” In general, I thoroughly dislike men in women’s business, but I didn’t want to make rash assumptions about his character. After further social media exchanges, he pressed more. “Your Instagram is public. That kinda gives off the idea that you want people to notice you. You should probably go private.” The crazy thing is that I saw reason with him and made my account private. Why I allowed a man that wasn’t my man to have such a weighty opinion still perplexes me. (Male approval and validation must have crack in it. That is my only explanation.) I still remain private till today, but now for my own reasons.
Additionally, Grandpa spoke ill of a few ex love interests⸺ of which there were ten in total (yes 1 and 0), I might add. (Sidenote: I concede that dating 10 people in the course of one’s twenties isn’t the most far-fetched notion. It is a time for internal upheaval and discovery. However, coming from me and Grandpa’s shared conservative background, ten is quite the number, rounded and bold. A red flag whips about in the distance.) I listened closely to him as he relayed his side, how this one was crazy, or how he made mistakes when dealing with that one, etc. But I knew that all of those women couldn’t be “crazy”, and he acknowledged that he wasn’t mature in each situation. In my eyes, these women were all just side-characters throughout his life that made him look and feel good. Not real people. He could switch them out freely if they became “defective” in some way without truly having to grow from the experience. How else does someone go through dating that many people in that span of time?
He expressed his interest in me. I tried to be direct but kind. I wasn’t attracted to him both for the physical and the mental, but I never felt the need to say that. I didn’t want to be shallow or mean. I told him I didn’t see him that way, but we still maintained a friendship and talked often, which I felt was the wisest thing to do. Looking back, I should have created more space to not cause any confusion. Since I failed to establish these boundaries, he kept asking me out.
With each “no”, he would press me more in regular conversation. He asked what I wanted in a partner. While I never said my future lover must be a prince or oil tycoon, I did say that I would like for him to be able to provide. Grandpa agreed, but told me that some of my expectations were unrealistic because people go through different obstacles. I kept in mind that he had an eight year head start in this marathon of life. He made some mistakes, but he also had time to correct his course, and he wasn’t doing badly working as an EMT and living with his grandmother. He once asked how much money I would make from my summer internship. I shouldn’t have dignified that question with a response, but I trusted him. He followed up with, “Does a man have to make a certain amount of money for you? $XX,XXX should be enough, right?” It was a strange exchange. No reasonable person sits down to calculate a specific number their future mate must earn for them to be content. I feel he felt some inadequacy, which was never my intention. Conversations like these made me uncomfortable, especially when our viewpoints differed.
At times, I was able to nuance through the things he said, even when they were off putting. I could understand it because I listened to his past and pains, and I extended support when he experienced a loss in his family. But he didn’t extend that same grace to me, even after sharing some of my grief with him. So his words and actions were cutting. “What even are your spiritual goals?” “That’s not good enough. You’re not doing enough. You’re spiritually weak.” “You should be more like your friend, Grace*. Everyone really likes her.” On one such occasion sometime in 2019, we had a disagreement. It may have been about our viewpoints on divorce, submission, or something else. I genuinely can’t remember as we had several misalignments. He later sent an excerpt of Proverbs 5: 3-6, which reads:
3 For the lips of a wayward woman drip like a honeycomb, And her mouth is smoother than oil.
4 But in the end she is as bitter as wormwood And as sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet descend into death. Her steps lead straight to the Grave.
6 She gives no thought to the path of life. Her course wanders, but she does not know where.
According to Gramps, I was the Jezebel seeking to corrupt and destroy and thwart the paths of good men. Admittedly so, during this time, I had still had more growing up to do mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I am a work in progress even now. However, Grandpa had made himself the judge of what morality looks like, and that never sat right with me either. Even if I were to disagree with someone, I would never fix myself to condemn them using the Bible because I am a deeply flawed individual as well. This interaction, among many others I can’t find the time to relate to you, left a bitter taste in my mouth. Like how I imagine wormwood to be. Is this the “good Christian man”? Is this what I should expect in any future partner?
Grandpa learned about my feelings for Honeywell in the spring of 2019. He invited me to a bonfire somewhere outside Atlanta. He picked me up and we went. Honeywell came sometime after, an unexpected but welcomed surprise. (Sidenote: This is when I learned just how small my world was in Atlanta. Everyone knows each other and rarely are there any original experiences.) We excitedly recognized each other and went off to the side to talk. I sincerely cannot recollect how long Honey and I spoke. Although we didn’t ignore everyone the entire evening and eventually rejoined the group, in hindsight, this may not have been in the best taste. The rest of the evening went over smoothly, or so I thought. A day or so following the bonfire, Grandpa remarked about the night, saying Honeywell could’ve hit me over the head with a stick and drug me into a cave and I would’ve been fine with it.
“What is it about him?” Grandpa would ask. Trying to draw me out. I didn’t bite because I didn’t feel the need to make a comparison. He saw I was still holding out that hope, and he looked to crush it. “Many girls like him, you know.” He proceeded to send me pictures of two women that were interested in Honeywell. Both were beautiful from what I can remember. This was Grandpa’s not-so-passive way of saying “Bitch, who do you think you are? Get in line. These are the caliber of women you’re up against.” It was then that I realized the true nature of the man I was dealing with. A villain. Calculated and strong-willed. What able-bodied, employed man takes the time to hunt down, screenshot, and send pictures of women that don’t even like him to terrorize another young woman that doesn’t like him either? It was sick. I don’t remember how I reacted, I only knew I was disgusted.
I gave up on Honeywell by winter of 2019. 2020 felt unreal, and I had minimal contact with Grandpa and most Atlanta people as I had moved. Valuable time had been wasted chasing and fretting, and the voice in my mind got a bit louder as COVID marriages boomed.
“It’s time to settle down. Look at everyone else.”
In late 2021, Honeywell’s wedding bells rang, too. Thankfully, this news was broken to me by someone that cares for me before less savory characters could do so. One October day, Grandpa gleefully texted me out the blue,
“Hey, did you hear about Honeywell? He’s getting married next weekend.”
Till this day, I still wonder what exactly I was meant to do with that information. There was no inconsequential banter leading up to it; he just wanted to drop it and get my reaction. Though I hadn’t spoken to him in months, he couldn’t help himself but to jab again. Something he got off on. An insatiable urge. Almost like a kink.
Although I have neither the certifications nor the language to diagnose or make judgements, I sincerely believe Grandpa was my first brush with a narcissist. I know. I hate how unqualified people throw the n-word around, too. (All of the n-words.) But today, I will be that person. There were several hard-earned lessons during this era of my life. First off, a spiteful man is a dangerous one, and anyone bent on humbling you has inner issues of their own. It is also not my job to compartmentalize and minimize every shortcoming of those that consciously try to belittle me. I can’t psychoanalyze everyone else as I, too, am quite fucked up myself. Each one must carry his or her own load and do the personal work to heal. In other words, I learned to stop negotiating with terrorists and quit playing hostage in my own life. People like this need to be “starved” of time and energy. Time, energy, and vulnerability are so expensive, yet I gave mine away cheaply.
Grandpa’s efforts to humble me, both in our one-on-one interactions and group settings, played in my mind many months and years after the fact. The outcomes of these efforts varied widely from each other. On the one hand, I doubted myself more about my looks and my ability to attract a worthwhile mate. On the other, I learned I’m actually that girl. I am self-aware enough to know I’m not the baddest bitch to ever roam planet Earth, but I don’t have to be. I’m special in my own right. And my lover will treat me as such. I didn’t recognize that about myself during this period of my life, so I couldn’t grasp how a man could hate me and want to fuck me at the same time. Now that I am older, I see that this dynamic is much more common than we would like to admit.
Grandpa absolutely earned his place in my “A Hiatus from Husband Hunting” series as he taught me that as a woman, a man may very well be the weapon fashioned against you. Be fluid and open to love, but keep on the watch for men and people such as these.