an omitable chapter, because clearly abuse sucks

an omitable chapter in my life definitely has to be when i kinda dated a guy named donnell. i definitely could've gone totally without that ever happening. i gained nothing from it, and it pretty much brought the worst out of me. sucks, but it's true.

okay, okay...i'll go into detail (sheesh, don't have a cow).

let's rewind a bit back to january 2008. no, december 2007.

i returned from spain on december 19, 2007. it was awesome to be back home, driving my car and not working and just being awesome all the time. i missed spain because it was really pretty and cool, but it was nice to be back in the states.

i started talking to an infamous ex-boyfriend (brandon), who i'd been dealing with on and off at that point for about 3 years. in january 2008, i went to my homegirl's 21st birthday party and had a great time. minus the fact that this dude blew my entire life by calling and texting me the whole time.

prior to my drive to the party (i was in annapolis, party was in woodbridge, so it took a solid hour to get there), i told him "i will be at a party tonight, so i will hit you later when i'm free."

i guess that meant "please call me 10 times in 3 hours and send me 20+ text messages, then tell me it's because you were concerned."

c'mon dude. you were not concerned. you were keeping tabs and got in your feelings when i didn't respond.

but i digress.

a few weeks later, i stopped getting calls and texts altogether. fine by me, but with our history, i at least wanted to make sure everything was alright. we'd go through this every so often; all of a sudden he would stop calling/texting/e-mailing/facebooking/communi-cating/breathing and we'd fall off again.

this time was different. this time was because *insert longest drumroll ever here* he got someone pregnant and the baby was here.

*pause* what? are you kidding me?

yes. this guy got someone pregnant in april 2007.

rewind for me again. we went through an on/off stage from march through may 2007. who does that? lucky for me, we did not have sex during that time, or he may have had twins by two different pissed off women.

so i contact him via facebook--since he blatantly refused to answer any of my other attempts--and he smugly replies that i was only mad because i was on the outside looking in and some other royal bs. royal.

on the outside looking in, doesn't even make sense in that context. i think that's what irritated me the most. because clearly.
i got so mad that i left campus in search of his car. i knew he was at work (which just so happened to be up the street from my last class), but for some reason i just could not find that freaking car. and i guess it was to his benefit, because i was going to key the mess out of it. i had a swiss army knife and i was going to poke the tires. i had a brick and i was going to bust the windows. i was going to make that car look like it had been totalled.

but i just couldn't find it! imagine how much more pissed i was at that point.

i went to the bar and drank. i didn't really give myself an opportunity to cry because i didn't feel he was worth that kind of effort (strange, considering i almost killed his car).

2 weeks later, i'm back at the neighborhood bar (northside richmond, a restaurant called sandy's...i knew the owner) throwing a few back before class. when all of a sudden...

this guy walks in. he sits right next to me, and in typical ronetta "i don't know you so move. thanks, management" behavior, i turn all the way around in my seat, blocking him out of the conversation i was having with my friends (who are also my godsister's husband's family members--another post, another day).

he says, "excuse me, can i grab a napkin?" the napkins distance, for him, would've been reaching across me, so i moved a bit and went back to conversation.

then he gave me a 2-piece combo. "you're so pretty. you're not from around here, are you."

what can i say? i'm a leo...we like positive attention. so without blushing i said thank you and told him that i was from maryland but i went to vcu.

he said he went to morehouse for a few years but ended up coming back home when his dad got sick.

sorry to hear that.

he buys me a few drinks. blah blah blah. i love free stuff. i love stuff i don't have to pay for, so he was at least cool in my book.

we exchanged numbers and i went to class.

yes, i went to class. i guess this is where i should tell you that at that point, yeah, i was somewhat of a professional.

the next day passes, no call. fine by me, too much going on. but the second day, i get a call. he wants to chill.

i know where chilling leads, so i said no. and that it'd be better if he planned something for us to do because i'm busy.

ha. busy. i was kinda busy...i wasn't working but i was waiting for a response on an interview i had the week before. school kept me kinda busy. but not busy enough to not chill. i chilled all the time.

the next day i found out i got the job at the hotel. i started training that weekend and met another cool guy (no, he was actually cool. no sarcasm at all there, i promise) and we hung out a lot.

the cool guy invited me out for drinks (not donnell, because he's not a cool guy), and it just so happened to be one of my friends' birthdays, so we went to buffalo wild wings.

i still remember what i drank that night. 2 vodka & cranberrys, 2 whiskey sours, 4 top shelf long island iced teas, 4 shots of patron (i went shot for shot with someone).

needless to say, i was totally plastered when we left. my friend drove my car, and since i was supposed to be the DD, he had to drop other people off at home before taking me home, and another friend had to follow us so he'd have a ride home.

quite the night, right?

instead of me going to my own house (i lived with my godsister's husband's mother at the time), i call donnell to come pick me up from my house so i could go to his house. this entire time, i was also texting another friend in maryland to come down and chill for the weekend. that never happened. who does that.

that night, i puked all over his bathroom and then fell asleep all over his bed. he had to sleep on the couch.

and that was the first time donnell and i hung out. awesome, right?

the next morning, i woke up totally disoriented as to how i got there, but he was really friendly and asked if i was hungry. he made breakfast and we watched saturday morning cartoons. that's when we started to click a bit. weird, right?

right.

fast forward a few months. in this time period, i'd dealt with being stalked (by one of his exes), having to change my phone number (one i'd had for 3 years), almost having to call the police to come get me out of his house (yeah, he locked me inside and took my car and cell phone), and some very physical altercations.

in any order, i:
punched him in his stomach
slapped him across his face
punched/busted him in his chest
kicked him in his chest
punched him in his throat/neck
punched him in his arm
jacked him in his collar

you know, the funny (not haha, because it's clearly not that kind of funny) part about this, is that i look abusive. it's true, i will admit that. but here are the measurements:

i was 5'9", he was pushing 6'4".
i weighed about 170, he weighed about 225.
i had boobs, he had balls. i never hit him in his balls. that's just wrong.

he had this thing about him--he liked to be in complete control. physically, mentally, emotionally and even sexually. he never forced himself on me, and i think that's really because of his prison stint (any convict who has not committed a crime against a woman or child, would kill another person who committed this crime).

i'm not one who is easily controlled on any of those levels.

he had an attitude problem. he was way too aggressive. he was way too controlling. i have never been locked in someone else's house. ever. that is probably close to the worst feeling ever, especially when you are left with no communication method and no way out. i had to search high and low for the house phone, then charge it, in order to call him on my cell phone.

anytime something became physical, it was because of something he said to me (in an effort to control me) or something he did to me. he would grab me, and i would snatch my arm away, then punch him. it's really awful that he didn't learn from the first time i fought back.

there was never a time where i didn't fight back. i just stuck around because it was what i came to expect from him and i could deal with it.

but my breaking point was probably when he said he wanted to have children and expected for us to be together for a while. how can you even fix your mind to want to be with someone with whom you are constantly in physical altercations? considering the fact that he already had 3 daughters (and i would not want them to see their father's behavior towards me and feel like that's what they should expect from men, generally), while he did have arrangements with their mothers (mmhmm, plural) to take care of them, he was not totally on point with this.

so i slowly backed away. i stopped visiting as much. stopped answering phone calls. told my receptionist to stop patching his calls through and tell him i was in a meeting.

about a month later, i popped up at his house just to say hi and see how he was doing. we talked a bit and came to a common ground about not seeing each other. in my eyes, we were never in a relationship. in his eyes, we were close to being married. that completely shows anyone just how incompatible we were.

a few months later, however, he called me thinking we should start over.

my response: absolutely not. if i have to hit you for us to come to an agreement, it's never going to work.