From: Emma

To: <rant@heartless-bitches.com>

Subject: RANT: Nice guys finish last

 

(Not technically a "Dear Auntie Dote", dear readers,  but we just had to give this "rant" The Treatment.)

 

Right, got to get this off my chest before I walk out in the street and commit a murder of some description.

 

We know how you feel. Early and often.

I am dating a guy that I have been with since May last year. At the beginning of the relationship, things were great. The sex was fantastic, the time together was fun, I didn’t even mind that he was a lot older than me. Most of my friends didn’t approve, but I didn’t care because for once I was happy. Now my claim to fame among my friends is that I am fantastic at picking up mentally unstable men. My first proper boyfriend turned out to be a stalker and rapist;

 

Do you mean, literally? That's certainly nothing to blame yourself about.

the second, a mummy’s boy with serious abandonment issues and trust me, those are the pick of the bunch.

 

There are some doozies out there. If there's a Heartless Bitch out there who doesn't have a keychain full of shrunken heads and the eyeball-rolling, bad-boyfriend stories to go with them, I'd be surprised.

I finally thought I had found a normal one, a man that wanted the same things I did, casual relationship, a bit of fun, nothing too serious.

 

We feel your sense of relief.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when he said that he wanted to move with me when I went away to university last September (for reference, my university is 180 miles away from my home). At first I was thrilled with the idea. Leading up to me leaving, he became more and more demanding, although still annoyingly charming and  kind.

 

Uh...oh.

We spent every Saturday together and most Sundays, because of us both working and me with school. I moved to uni on September, and really enjoyed it. Met hundreds of new people, started to assert myself in only the way you can when you move away from home. He visited me the first weekend I was up there and it was hell. Without directly doing anything, he managed to monopolise all of my time, so much so that a weekend turned into 5 days. He finally went back down to where we live and I went back to my meagre student existence.

 

What the hell does HE do? Sounds like he is sponging off of the excitement of what's happening in your life. GIANT RED FLAG.

 

Within a week or two, he had moved up to where I was, and somehow (don’t ask me how) he ended up LIVING with me.

 

Now, this is where your story goes awry. Damn skippy, I'm going to ask YOU how. My sympathy for any negative consequences you may have suffered ends HERE. If you can't say "NO," you are on your own.

Now, I don’t know about anywhere else in the world, but freshman accommodation in England is atrocious. Barely enough room for one person let alone two.

 

You are fucking up your first year at university with a needless distraction. Hence causing future problems for yourself, because I  can tell this is going to affect your studies. (Are you even doing any studies?) We all goof up in the early stages of taking on grown-up life roles but please, SNAP OUT OF IT. You have an OPPORTUNITY a lot of people would be glad to have (higher education). If you fuck it  up, you'll have no one but yourself to blame. This isn't even CLOSE to being his fault, and you know it.

 

He has no job, therefore no money.

 

If you put him out on his own, your problems would be solved,  wouldn't they? If he can't handle independence, he's a terrible role model for YOU. And sadly, yes, YOU are in desperate need of good role models.

Sponging off my tiny student loan, and using all my things.

 

Bye bye! Ciao! Good bye and good luck! All these would work. You have every motive and every right. Now TAKE FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY and  turn off the faucet of self-pity. I hear the drip, drip, drip of student- on- a-budget weepies. Be happy you have that student loan, now DON'T waste it! You see the eye of that needle? Well, you have to jump through it. THINK. How the hell are you going to do it? Stop acting the victim and TAKE CONTROL. I promise you, the sensation is quite pleasurable.

At first I liked it, being together all the time, but I stopped going out with my student friends, spending all my time indoors with him.

 

Yeah, I too found Sex 101 to be my most fascinating course as a freshman. I could stay in bed for hours, missing classes and meals.  The difference is, I eventually went to class, and took a few other subjects; I graduated, he didn't. You can just decide now what you want for the rest of your life. Do you want to be a leech with no life (like him) or do you want to be educated and self-reliant? Believe me, there is more sex after freshman year. This guy is not your mentor.

 

Now I must stress that this was not through choice, but through necessity. He had somehow managed to guilt me, through doing nothing at all, into staying with him all the time, and not doing anything else.

 

We're not buying this line of crap. Why did you write to us? Did you imagine in your wildest dreams we'd offer sympathy? Have you not READ this website? *sigh*

 

The most basic principle of HBI is:  TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. You're not. You describe the scenario in such a way that this is perfectly obvious to us, so therefore it must be obvious to you.  You just refuse to own up to it. You are hoping against hope that life is EASY and that you can somehow EVADE responsibility and remain a woman-child forever. You can't. You won't. It's just a matter of time until life shoves some cold realities in your face anyway. So save yourself some pain and get your own act together, first.

 

We can't imagine what kind of "guilt" you could possibly feel about NOT wanting to support a grown man-child who wants to leech off of you--what a pathetic low-life he must be. Now, think about what that makes YOU. Not his savior, that's for sure.

Eventually, just before Christmas last year, he got a job with an agency, working for different companies depending on where the work was. I even managed to get a job,  cleaning part-time. But... alas it was not to last. After a long rant to two of my best friends, I decided to confront him about it. So I did just that, and told him that if things didn’t change, i.e. him moving out and getting a decent job, that we were over and he had to leave completely. He promised me faithfully that he would move out and sort himself out.

 

Now, almost a month on, things are exactly as they were before, except I am at the end of my tether now more than ever before! I have given him an ultimatum either he moves out by the end of February, or he can move back down to where we’re from and the

relationship is over.

 

Too much bargaining. His time is up. Call your friends over to help you move his stuff out, change the locks, and then take your pals out to the pub in thanks. He doesn't rank any further negotiations or warnings. An HB doesn't make threats, she ACTS.

 

Despite my efforts to end the relationship regardless, he seems hell bent on us being together forever, something that couldn’t be further from what I want.

 

You have nothing to lose. Kick him out today. Is that what you wanted us to say? Well, there you go.

Problem is, he’s so NICE that he makes it impossible for a girl to do anything.

 

Well, here's where you need a Bitchslap upside the HEAD. Don't be so damn pathetic! Nice doesn't pay back your student loan! NICE, as a matter of fact, would mean CONTRIBUTING materially to the relationship, not oozing with charm when he wants to get laid. WISE UP. If you don't want the relationship, what the hell does it matter if he's NICE?! Do what YOU want, or don't ask for our sympathy.

 

I'm picturing you two as parasitic conjoined twins. You refuse to undergo surgical separation, yet can't stop complaining about how he's sucking the life out of you! Wah, fucking wah.

He promises the stars. Yet gives nothing but dirty dishes and headaches.

 

That's poetry. Write it down on a piece of paper, wrap that paper around a tiny rock, and stick that rock in your shoe where it will annoy the hell out of you until you're ready to DO something about it.

He means well, although in practice, his ‘kindness’ is more like suffocation.

 

Naturally, this loser is trying to control your every move--you are his bread and butter! You are his security blanket! His life plan! He sees himself as a small business owner, skillfully managing your collective assets, the biggest one of which is YOU. Your fake love/guilt is his meal-ticket. It's a renewable resource he can live off of FOREVER. This guy is a selfish piece of shit, in case that isn't clear to you yet.

Doing all the dishes all the time,

 

Wait, you just said he leaves dirty dishes. (Whatever.)

cleaning up after me, moving things, leaving things is not my idea of a boyfriend.

 

A glorified housekeeper, Will Dust For Sex, Room & Board? This guy is a loser.

I am an eighteen year- old university student  I am meant to be messy, and scattered.

 

Um...well, you are NOT meant to have a gigolo cleaning up after you.

I am also meant to be single, out every night and putting more alcohol into my system than my liver can willingly take, but instead, I am stuck indoors, playing house with a guy I’m not even sure I like. Perfect existence.

 

(Oh brother.) Your resentment is childlike, but whatever your reasons, dump the loser!

Oh and one more thing, I am going so intensely mad, that I have started fooling around with an old flame, whom I don’t even like that much through sheer desperation.

 

Well, good luck with THAT. Take control over your life, why don't you? We kind of picture you drowning in a sea of alcohol and dumb boyfriends and refusing to take responsibility for your life. But there's always a chance you could surprise us.

Emma, Heartless Bitch

 

Don't count on it. Having a fling because you are just too spineless to break up with your current boyfriend leaves a sour taste in our mouths.

 

Or, I believe the word is "tart."

 

-A.D.