Note: Please excuse the mess. Remodeling projects can be a bitch, especially when you have to upload your pictures one at a damn time. I joined Diaryland because I'm lazy, and now I have to do all this work. Had I known it would have been such a pain in my ass, I would have just bought my own domain. Now it's going to wait a year. But yeah, I'm getting a new layout and stuff, so if things look funky for a while, sorry.

Then I Was Told to Jump Off a Cliff...

I have been getting a little nostalgic lately. I suppose it's all this thinking about who I am. That always leads to thinking about what made me this way. And that always ends up moving into those rotten years where I screwed up my life so much that I can't even seem to recognize when my life got pretty damn good. I also realized that I never rehashed the wreckage here, so why not now?

It was my second year at school, and after a year of solitary lunches in the Commons areas and going to classes without a soul to talk to, the social scene of the Greek cafeteria was a welcome change. But it wasn't I who had decided to go Greek. It was some former classmates from high school that I ran into one day. No more lunches studying or long breaks by myself between classes. I finally had friends at school.

I was an instant sensation. More male attention came my way than ever before in my life, and I basked in flattery. My resolve was firm though. I had a boyfriend of two years. I planned to marry him. We were in love. But then the new line of pledges came in, and a new wave of adoration swept over me. I was hooked.

Brian wooed me with smooth words and dark brown eyes. He held the allure of age and gild himself in impressive lies and deception. He too was coming out of a long-term relationship. In fact, after one date, he declared his pain too fresh to see me again. Had he leaned his head back and put the back of his hand to his forehead, I would have been none the wiser.

Immediately Fred took up the mantle of my pursuer, only previously resisting me because another brother was in line before him. With the road clear, he showered me with love notes, long conversation, and eyes that turned soft every time he looked my way. But once he had me firmly in his grasp, I never saw him. When cornered, he assured me I was his love. I was... his love of a conquest. And a ride to and from school.

Brian offered his shoulder while he worked his own broken relationship. It wasn't long before he offered his bed and gave up on his ex. For the time. If nothing else, he gave me more affection and time than any man I have known. But it was all false--a way to keep me under his spell and sleeping with him. He even asked me to marry him and took me to his grandparents' house for Christmas. I went but was forced to leave by an ultimatum given by my parents. My decisions were never my own at that time.

The rest of the time Brian spent at his grandparents', he didn't call, despite my messages. I knew she was out there, but I shut it away until he told me a month later that she was pregnant. He would "do the right thing," and we parted. But it wasn't over.

It wasn't long before I fell for John (Not my current spouse. I seem to have a thing for men with the same name.) from the newest class of pledges. He wasn't my type, but he told me what I wanted to hear. I was beautiful to him and unappreciated by that other bastard. He would take care of me and love me the way I was meant to be loved. (Note to mothers everywhere: This is what will happen to your daughter too if you shelter her.)

In the meantime, Brian found out Sheila was not pregnant and thought it fantastic news. We could be together, he told me, glossing over the fact that for him to be suckered by Sheila's lie, he had to have slept with her. He tried to tell me it would have been from before he and I were together, but he already revealed he did indeed see her at Christmas. I refused to be the fool again, and in a rare display of backbone, told him we were through forever. He called me a whore in front of a large lunch crowd and stormed out the door. Surprisingly, the fraternity brotherhood embraced me and shunned one of their own. There were some good men there, but I unfortunately never paid any attention to those ones. I was still busy being dazzled with pretty words thrown my way.

And the pretty words did keep coming. Then I met his mom. She hated me. Never before had a parent of a boyfriend not adore me. I was stunned. He was changed, for he loved his mother more than any woman and idolized her. Her disapproval sealed our fate, and he very seriously told me it wasn't going to work out while I smiled. I knew it was coming, and by that time I didn't really care what happened. I left with his virginity and the secret that he didn't even make it close to me the first time we slept together. I knew there would be no more displays in the cafeteria.

I was done with fraternity men. I still joined them at lunch and during all my skipped classes, which was a lot of time considering how many classes I'd started skipping. There would be no more romance for me within their ranks though. Still, it was peripherally through them I would meet the next man.

Christine started hanging out at the table with us. She and I became quick friends and started spending a lot of time together. One night, I went with her to her boyfriend's apartment. The boyfriend had roommates. So Christine introduced me to Bob.

And that is the where the story of my fucked up lovelife will come to an end, because Bob... well he deserves his own entry.

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