Betrayal, depression, and coping

I returned from MaGFest on Sunday and was looking forward to recovering from my adventures, getting some sleep, and enjoying a couple of days off. Circumstances intervened and, instead of rest, I got no sleep at all.

When Dan returned from work at the Science Center he brought Emily with him and said that Kristen had invited everyone to her bar up in Charles Village. They both wanted to go and for me to come with them. Now, keep in mind, Daniel has refused my attempts to get him to go to this bar at least half a dozen times. This includes the time I went up there for Kristen’s intervention to encourage her to get help. This time, however, he was eager to go.

“Well, it’s in the ghetto, but let’s do it!”
“Dude, it’s not the ghetto,” I retorted. “I’ve walked up there a bunch of times with no trouble.”
“Alright, but how are we going to get there?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t want to walk.
“It’s not that bad, dude. It takes about half an hour.”
“There’s no way it takes half an hour! It’s at least 45 minutes!” he went on.
“I can drive, guys!” Emily interjected.
“But aren’t you going to drink?”
“I won’t drink that much.”
“We should walk!”

The argument went on for a few minutes, but somehow we concluded that Emily would drive because Daniel was totally not ok with walking. Of course, at the bar, we all had a ton to drink anyway. Kristin was giving out drinks super cheap and secretly serving me free beers. Meanwhile, in classic Dan style, Dan was getting trashed off a single beer.

Emily and I talked and laughed about stuff, Dan tried to convince her to start playing Starcraft, and we all heard about Kristen’s plan to go to the Carribean with Esteban. Overall, it wasn’t a bad night, but then Dan started insisted on shots of tequila. I was annoyed at him, so I said “sure, go for it.” After one or two of those, he was basically laughing uncontrollably and slapping his fist on the bar while trying to make Starcraft puns.

Finally, we had to get ready to go, but none of us were in any shape to drive. Dan didn’t want to, but I insisted we walk home. Emily could come back to get her car in the morning. The walk wasn’t bad and we got home before long, so I set Emily up with some blankets on the couch and headed to bed. This is where things got hairy.

After I had read Reddit for a few minutes and laid down to bed, I started hearing noises coming from the other room. Could it be…? It was Daniel sleeping with my ex-girlfriend – the girl I still had feeling for – even after he had assured me many times that he was trying to do anything behind my back, just be a good friend. I freaked out; I still had feelings for Emily and had hoped we might get back together. We had broken up during a difficult time for her and I thought our relationship was making things harder, but I always regretted it. And after talking to Daniel about it a couple of times I was under the impression that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. Had he been manipulating me, maybe both of us, all along? I knew that he had always found her attractive, even before she and I started going on; had he hoped we would break up before it happened? If they were sleeping together tonight, hadn’t he been working on dating her for at least a month? Emily and I had only broken up in October, which wasn’t that long ago.

Upset and shaking, I checked the couch and sure enough, her blankets were just lying there by themselves. I decided to leave the apartment and get out of there. There was no way I would get any sleep while listening to the two of them. When I went outside, though, I found that the battery was still dead. I was trapped. Upset, angry, and confused, I called AAA, but they said we had already called them out the maximum number of times this year. It was past 2:30 and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Futilely, I tried starting the car a few more times, but it just wouldn’t kick over.

I got out into the cold and started walking around the neighborhood to clear my head. All I kept think was, “What a mindjob! How could he put me in this situation?” I knew they were both adults and could make their own decisions, but it just seemed so wrong. How had it happened? Just a couple weeks ago he had flown from work during his lunch break to meet some girl from Reddit that he was infatuated with.

Time wore on and finally I stopped at the 7-11 near the monument to get something small to drink and eat. When I returned home, things were quiet. I messed around on the net, wrote something in my blog, then finally tried to sleep again. But then, just as I lay down, they started making noises again next door. Not just talky noises, but make-out noises. I shot up out of bed and knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep, so I just spent the rest of the night on the computer while thoughts flew through my head.

All those times I had texted her saying, “I miss you. Wish you were here” (including at MaGFest), had I just been foolish? Didn’t Dan know I still had feelings for her? A week or two ago I had inquired why he was texting her so much and shot him dirty looks. I even told Kristen that I thought he might be trying to get with Emily, but I had wanted to be a good friend, not mess with their mutual friendship, and trust him, my roommate and best friend.

I knew as I sat in the dark, that he must have betrayed me. Daniel does nothing lightly, especially when it comes to women. He obsesses over them, drops everything to see them (even when he won’t hang out with me), and thinks about whoever he is crushing on constantly. He also loves to rationalize. If he’s eaten out two night in a row but wants Indian food on the third night, he’ll start prevaricating: “Ah, but I didn’t defrost the sausages, and I’m low on sauce, and I ate pizza last night and don’t feel like cooking spaghetti tonight.” Almost certainly, he didn’t the same with Emily: “They broke up such a long while ago, and Ryan didn’t really care about her, and Emily and I have more in common anyway, and I bet he’s slept with a bunch of other women since then.” Then, he probably told Emily all of this reasoning.

I couldn’t wait for morning to come. My stomach hurt, my head hurt, I was tired but couldn’t sleep. When Emily finally left, I was so relieved, but then I had to wait for Daniel to return from the long walk to her car so I could confront him. When he got back, he had a smile on his face and I could barely look him in the eye. “Dude, that’s messed up,” I said.

“What? With Emily? Oh man, I told her it was a bad idea…”

“I mean, the whole thing. How long has this been going on? You must have known I still had feelings for her?”

He denied it, apologized, insisted that both of them didn’t think I would care. He sort of described it as something they both just thought about and decided to try out.

“But I know you. You don’t just ‘let things happen.’ You planned this.”

The argument went on and it was evident I was really upset. I arranged for Erick to come down later and help jump my car then met Lauren L. I hadn’t seen her in ages and I told her I needed a hug. She was wonderful and hung out with me all day at UB, making me feel better. Then, later, we met up with Erick and Ally, fixed my car, and went to this diner nearthe Charles that looked like somethings out of a 1920’s Sci-Fi film. In the evening, we drove over to Scott’s for hang outs and I stayed the night. I was horribly upset but after a beer and an additional hug from Rebecca, I felt better and finally fell asleep.