Ex-boyfriend

[pianosinger]

Some things about this guy that might be helpful...

When we started dating (we were in college), he made a point of being open and telling me about all his previous girlfriends (he'd had three).

He kept a picture in his room, of his very first girlfriend he'd had in high school...like he was still in love with her in a way. He showed it to me once, and said he thought she was a very pretty girl, and very sweet and kind, and how he regretted that things couldn't have been different. A little weird...I mean, I can respect a guy for telling me about his previous girlfriends, but to show me a picture? and keep it in his room? Did he look at it every night before he went to bed?...idk. And he'd had two other girlfriends between this girl and me.

He was a very morally-opinionated person. Like, he believed that kissing was next to sex, and so he would not kiss a girl unless she was his wife. I was fine with this, personally, I certainly did not expect him to start kissing me after only a couple weeks of dating...he could have just kept silent about the whole thing and it would have been perfectly agreeable...but the way he felt the need to explain it all to me, to make sure we had that understanding...

The way he broke up with me...we went for a walk, and during that walk he told me that another girl he knew had asked him to a girls' choice dance. He told me that he thought he should accept, but he was letting me know about it. I figured at that point that if he was thinking about dating another girl, that it was time for me to let him go.

But, we still remained friends and actually continued to see each other a lot. We always had a lot to talk about with each other. I think he thought of me as a sister in a way...someone whom he had taken in, and-- even though I wasn't his girlfriend anymore-- he still felt a responsibility to take care of me and help me to move on. I could've done without the looking-after, but I still liked him as a friend. I just felt so...comfortable around him.

His mother had given birth at home to all her children, and he wanted his future wife to do the same.

He knew how to sew clothing, and how to bake bread. He had some interesting tastes in food...One of our first "dates," he took me to his apartment and made me a sandwich with dark rye bread, anise, and cumin (I think there was one other ingredient I can't recall). It was...interesting. This was a ritual which he said he put all of his girlfriends through...

He had made himself a chain-mail headdress (took him years to put together). He had to talk to me at length about how he had made the headdress, what was the best "method," where he had acquired all his material...

He was always taking 17-18 credits a semester. Not only required classes, but several that he just wanted to take because they interested him...like dancing, sign language, History of Christianity...stuff like that.

He made a point of "making his rounds" every so often to visit his friends-- particularly girls.

He overanalyzed everything. Had to talk everything out at length.

We shared the same birthday, but I did not know this. He was purposely secretive about when his birthday was, and I didn't think much of it; but on my birthday (which was after we broke up), he finally revealed to me that it was his birthday, too. He seemed to take great pleasure in the surprise, and how he went about telling me was to play the "Birthday" song by the Beetles, which he had to search high and low for as he did not have his own personal copy.

He talked about how he felt a moral obligation to get married someday, but that in many ways he wished he could just remain a bachelor forever.