I’m A Douche, and Here’s Why

I’m not saying I’m a douche because I think I’m the biggest tool ever. Just that I have acted as one before. And neither am I trying to fish for compliments or affirmation of the contrary. The reality is we all feel, and cause others to do so as well. Sometimes these are positive, joyous, intense emotions of elation and other times it’s a mixture of gut-wrenching, pain inducing, acidic bitterness. Polar hyperboles aside, its our complex emotions and interactions that make society what it is.

On that note, today has been an interesting day of reflection. For those of you unfamiliar with twitter they have something called trending topics, basically a listing of the most commonly tweeted words/subjects by all users. Today one such topic was “#thatswhyyourmyex”. Now, this isn’t really the proper forum to explain the syntactic formatting and purpose of a hash tag, I’ll leave that up to the pros. But let’s keep it simple and say that phrase was a vehicle for everyone to share the negative causations behind their romantic break ups.

Interestingly enough, the subject caught the fancy of one of my ex’s. And well, let’s just say she went to town on the chumps that have hurt her over the years.

Yours truly included.

I’ll let you guess which one was me. Never mind, I’ll just tell you. I’m BF #1. We were each others first significant other. And yea, if you read her blurb, that’s why I say I’m a douche.

Guy 1: first boyfriend. average guy. was nice to me. ended up breaking up with me on my bday i think, or close to my bday.. i got flowers, a CD and pretty much a goodbye. I cried at my locker for a week.

I distinctly recall convincing myself that I was breaking up with her because I felt like she needed to grow, apart from me and that it was a sacrifice for the both of us but for the best. Bologna Sandwich. I was in 11th grade. Fat chance I was that wise and insightful. Looking back I recognize that I was just young, dumb, and not ready for a serious, long term relationship.

Though, I hope you understand Cat and I are cool now. This was literally a decade ago, we’ve grown up and moved past our (primarily my) foolish shenanigans and are friends. But I think the biggest revelation to come out of reading her historical narrative is that many, if not most of us misinterpret and misrepresent love. And because we are imperfect, our understanding of love is imperfect, and our interactions end up having just as many painful implications as it does joyful.

Anyway, I want to wrap this up so let me close with this. I’ve had other relationships since Cat, and suffice to say they were also imperfect in their own ways. To those I have hurt, I sincerely apologize. To those that have hurt me, I’m learning to forgive and understand it may not have been intentional but just a result of our flaws and insecurities. And if there comes another woman who decides to try their luck by being with me (Lord have mercy on them), to the future Mrs. GT … allow me to say I can’t promise I won’t hurt you; but I will promise to try to love you less and less with my heart and more and more of God’s. And I expect the same from you. And I hope #thatswhyyourmynext