Dan

I never thought that when I asked Sarah to go out with me that she would say yes. Sarah hung out with all the popular people at our school and I never imagined that she would think that I was worthy enough for her. In the beginning of the relationship I wanted to prove to Sarah just how much I liked her; also, I wanted her to see that dating me would not be a waste of her time. On our first date, we went to dinner. When the bill came and I glanced toward the check, she instantly said, “Oh, thanks Dan,” making me feel obligated to pay for her half as well. I thought that maybe that’s how the popular teens did it on dates; either that, or she was planning to pay on Date #2.

After dating for a little over a month, Sarah still had not paid for a single thing. At that point, I didn’t know how to confront her with my concerns. I didn’t want to give her any reason to break up with me. So I continued to pay for dinners, movies, desserts, concerts, and gifts that she said she wanted. After all, I felt like Sarah could, at any minute, break up with me for not being cute enough or athletic enough.

I did everything I could to make our relationship work. When Sarah would complain about something that I or someone else did, I made a mental note to make sure I never repeated it. Sarah would often make fun of me in front of her friends, making them laugh at everyday things that I would do. She would never defend me when any of the popular kids called me a nerd or made fun of me; instead, she would laugh along with them, asking out loud what she saw in me. I would go home from school every day feeling inadequate.

Finally, when I felt like I had had enough of her humiliating me, I conjured up the nerve to break up with her. She told me that if I broke up with her she would tell everyone at school that I was gay and, therefore, no other girls would ever want to date me. She said she would also spread lies about me to make me an even bigger social outcast than I already was. Knowing that anything Sarah did could ruin my reputation for the next few years, I apologized for almost breaking up with her, and we stayed together until it was time to go to college. We both got into my first choice school, UC Berkeley, but two days before I was going to let them know that I would go there, Sarah told me that if we went to Berkeley , she would break up with me and spread all the lies that she had threatened to spread at our high school. At that point, I knew that I had to get out of the relationship, and using the opportunity that she gave me, I gave up on my dream to go to Berkeley and instead went out of state, as far away from Sarah as possible.

I still haven’t dated anyone since Sarah. She had seemed so wonderful before we dated, I don’t trust myself to be able to recognize whether or not another girl could become as abusive as Sarah was. I’m twenty-two, and there’s still a lot of healing to go.