This isn’t Chad, it’s a stock photo (props to cottonbro studio) but the vibe is right, if you know what I mean.
My high school sweetheart, Chad, and I had a tumultuous relationship. It, for better or worse, laid a foundation for what I believed love and relationships should look and feel like. It took me years to see the pattern of men I was attracted to — men who reflected Chad’s core personality traits back at me: extroverted, cocky, charming, selfish.
Chad and I first started dating, on-and-off, in grade eight (that might be the most ridiculous sentence I’ve ever written). We “found” each other again (hahaha I’m dying) in grade eleven. The first year or so of dating was, honestly, pretty fucking great. Love him or hate him, Chad was magnetic. People were drawn to him, and when he gave you his undivided attention, you felt pretty special. I felt pretty special.
He was popular, and I started going to all the parties the popular group was throwing — a group I’d been existing adjacent to, but not really part of, prior to this. When Chad was in a room, he was the centre of attention. It felt thrilling to be chosen by him, and I loved going to these parties with him because nobody was looking at me. Add a little bit of liquid courage and I could choose to blend into the crowd or let a little bit of myself out. The more alcohol, the more of “myself” I let out. By that I mean I was unfiltered, chaotic, and loosely tethered to reality. Oh, and really fucking emotional. (She was super fun. Said no one ever.)
I was not yet into romance novels; had I been, I would have seen the Bully Romance trope coming a mile away. Chad had demons. His life, up to that point, had included pain and grief no one should experience before the age of eighteen. Though he could be very charming, he could also be mean, violent, cruel, and extremely self-centred.
He was, however, very different when he was with me. Sweet. Affectionate. Playful. He would look at me like I was his whole world.
Unlike Bully Romances (unless it’s also a dark romance, which, on paper, I’m not against — just saying), the lines between the two versions of him began to blur. He stopped wanting to bring me to the parties he went to. I might ask him if he wanted to hang out on Saturday night and he’d say he’d have to see if anything good was happening first.
“So I’m just here to hang out with if there’s nothing better happening?” I’d ask.
“Well, I don’t want to make plans with you and then upset you by cancelling if there’s a party or something I want to go to instead. I’m just trying to be nice.”
“I’m just supposed to wait around in case you end up being free?”
“Were you really going to do something anyway?”
And so it went.
About a year and a half into our relationship, Chad asked for some space. There were a lot of things going on in his life (true), and he needed some time alone to process and figure things out on his own (probably would have been a good idea, though he never would have done that).
I, if nothing else, am an understanding girlfriend.
“Of course,” I said. “Take a month or so, and then I’ll reach out. I get it.”
Chad started to change his mind. But I pushed. This will be good. Take your time. I’ll be here when you’re ready.
“I said I would probably be ready sooner.”
A quick note to future boyfriends: if you want to break up with me, choose your words carefully, because I will take them literally. If you want space, I’ll give you space — and then come back. If it’s not me, it’s you, I’ll help you work on yourself. If you care about me but can’t see how we could work, I’ll show you that we can.
I didn’t realize until very recently that I had simply misunderstood Chad.
I was watching a movie where a character tells his girlfriend he needs some space. The girlfriend then goes to her friends saying, “He broke up with me!” and begins grieving the end of the relationship. I actually started to say, out loud, “But he didn’t break up with her, he just… oh.”
That’s when I figured it out. Almost thirty years later, that my high school boyfriend broke up with me (for the love of God, Abby).
Of course, not realizing your boyfriend broke up with you can complicate things. When I learned, just days into Chad having “space,” that he’d kissed another girl, I was devastated. Livid. Confused. I confronted them both — individually — at their part-time jobs (not my best moment).
She was kind, actually. Noting that it did happen quickly, but that we’d broken up.
“We didn’t break up, he just needs some space!” I yelled at her.
When I confronted Chad, he was much more evasive. He tried to deny it happened. Then he turned it around on me, saying how inappropriate it was for me to show up at his work.
Things get tricky here. At no point does Chad emphasize that we broke up. I don’t think his vague words were intentionally vague — I think it’s just hard to break up with someone, and no one wants to say, “I don’t want to date you anymore” (though, with me, it’s probably best you suck it up and just say it).
But when he needed to pick a side — when he needed to lean into his decision — he didn’t. And thus began the next two years of a borderline verbally abusive, definitely manipulative relationship.
The “best” example of what our relationship became was the night we had sex for the first time.
Before the “space,” we hadn’t slept together. I had never slept with anyone before, and until that point Chad hadn’t pushed. But after we moved past the kiss-and-space situation, we started hanging out again. We weren’t “official,” just hanging out.
This is when Chad started to push.
He really wanted to be my first because “you always remember your first.” It didn’t seem to concern him that he was quoting the movie Fear, where a girl’s seemingly sweet boyfriend becomes violently possessive and stalks her. It also didn’t seem to concern him that I wasn’t his first.
“It’s different for girls,” he argued.
One night, making out on the couch in the basement of his dad’s house, he pushed again.
“You know, if we have sex, I’ll probably be ready for us to be official sooner.”
“Really?” I asked, hopefully.
“Yeah… should I go grab a condom?”
“Okay,” I nodded.
The act itself was fine. Chad checked in to make sure I was okay. It was probably quick, but it was a good amount of time for someone who had never had penetrative sex before.
When it was done, I cried a little. Not from pain, but from all the emotions I was feeling. Chad was sweet, and we cuddled, and it was nice.
We got dressed and sat together on the couch.
“Does that mean we’re back together now?” I asked, smiling.
“I said I would probably be ready sooner,” he responded, as if explaining something to a toddler.
The thing I also didn’t put together until many, many years later is that with Chad I was never really waiting for attention or clarity; I was learning how to be convenient.