Matthew Reynolds-Hollon is an Asshole.

We all do some crazy things when we’re young, dumb, and full of cum – but it’s easy to chalk it up to hedonism when you’re not the victim. While a one-night stand or a few drinks with fair-weather sycophants might be remembered as “good times” for some, for others, it may be the biggest mistake of their lives. Yeah, that’s right – I’m venting about crap from the past again.

Flashback to two years ago: October 23, 2012. Obama is running for re-election against Mitt Romney and “Gangnam Style” is still relevant. I’m 24 years old, my divorce is final, it’s about ten days after I published my first (and to date, only) graphic novel, and I’m feeling pretty invincible. A couple of weeks earlier, my first boyfriend from high school, Matthew Reynolds-Hollon (known back then by a different surname but was later adopted), and what started out as simple catching up soon evolves into a “road not taken” scenario:

Wait a minute, didn’t I write something about this guy already? In brief, yes. In fact, that’s probably the summarized version of what happened – but the story runs a lot deeper than that. I’ll leave out some of the messier details, but I don’t think I’ll have true closure until I bring out the bulk of it.

So anyway, eventually we get to reminiscing about the past, and then sexting, and eventually agree to meet up one day after I get out of class for “catching up” before he left to be stationed at the USAF base in Lakenheath (which we all know was code for “fucking”). This was at a time in my life where I was young and stupid, and I had that Elliot Rodger mentality of thinking I was missing out on life by not having causal sex and that I was owed a shot at the wild life for my shitty upbringing…this is also the incident where I realized the hard way that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

So, Matt picked me up at my campus…I got into the passenger seat of his car and we immediately hugged, passionately. He kissed my neck and I hugged him tighter, and I sought to make our lips meet (which they did). We drove off to the Holiday Inn Express in Beaumont, talking, listening to music, exchanging knowing glances with affection…we parked and walked hand-in-hand to the elevator, up to room 243, where we removed shoes, backpacks, sweaters…and resumed making out on the king-sized bed. I won’t go into the play-by-play of what happened next (though I have all the cheesy details elaborated on in my diary), but I will stress the significance of what transpired: the experience left me feeling freshly devirginized, in a sense, and just the way he did what he did with me made me feel more…connected than I had in previous sexual experiences, even those with my ex-husband. I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though it was supposedly “just sex,” it felt like more to me, and he let me believe that he felt the same – eye contact, gentle caresses, whispered sentiments…things you don’t really get with a normal fuck buddy (if you do, don’t kid yourself you’re not getting attached to them).

Anyway, after that we went out with some of his friends to a bar, where I had my first drink since before I turned 21 (but those are stories for another time). One of those friends, John, became my boyfriend later (which I’ll get to in a moment), but at this time we were all just friends having a few drinks. I did get tipsy enough to make out with Matt while nobody batted an eye, though, which should have been my first clue that this guy was probably a sleaze and that his friends would cover his ass no matter what God-awful stunt he pulled. But as I was saying, we were having some drinks, and one of the friends had a little too much and things went badly – I touched upon that incident before, so I won’t elaborate again, but let’s just say I showed my human side that night and it did not go unnoticed. Later, Matt and I went back to the hotel and spent the night, and the next day we went to see his family and out to Olive Garden with them and another friend. Finally, Matt and I said our rather bittersweet goodbyes, even going as far as to say “I love you”…but as you know, I’ll be the first to confirm that the phrase means nothing without explanation. In my case, I meant it as one would think it would mean when said to someone you’ve recently slept with, but in Matt’s case, I wasn’t entirely sure. Granted, he did eventually send me these texts:

But of course, not before he sent me these (and many other messages that were similar):

And most significantly, this one, which shows that there wasn’t a misunderstanding over the definition of “I love you” in this context and that he truly was leading me on:

(I forgot to censor the phone number out, but he changed his number before he was deployed to England, so that one is no longer current.)

Now, I understand that there are instances of unrequited love where one person goes to far and you wake up with your pet rabbit boiling on the stove, but once again, I have to emphasize that up until his conscience finally got the better of him and he told me a month or two later that he “loved me as a best friend, but nothing more,” he was stringing me along while feeding into my fantasy that he and I could actually be together in spite of the circumstances. And once he did tell me that it was “over,” as it were, I backed off and left him alone. Matt, on the other hand, decided not to take any half-measures against what he perceived as his would-be stalker.

The friends from the bar/Olive Garden that I mentioned earlier became Facebook friends as well, and while none of them knew what was going on between me and Matt at the time (to the best of my knowledge, although now I suspect otherwise), one guy in particular – John – seemed to take an interest in me and help me feel better about my heartache. I was a little attracted to him, but had no intention of pursuing him. However, when I went to his birthday party at the beginning of December, we got drunk and one thing led to another (which I also made reference to before). Now, I don’t consider it rape because a) we were both drunk by choice and 2) I might have slept with him even if I was sober, since I was volatile. But all the same, I think I was set up to be in a position where I was meant to be taken advantage of, and I think Matt and his friends were the ones pulling the strings. You see, that was the most alcohol I’d ever had to drink in my life at that point, a fact that I had alluded to back at the bar when I told them I wasn’t a drinker, so they would have known I wouldn’t know how to control myself when it comes to alcohol. Then one of the friends refused to drink at the party, citing the excuse that she didn’t like the kinds of drinks John was serving, but if she was as good a friend as John claimed her to be (she also happened to be one of his exes), why wouldn’t he have had something there for her? Why did she just leave when we went off to the room together when she may have known he couldn’t be trusted? And why did John suddenly want to be my boyfriend when we woke up together, only to forget I existed three months later? I think these people set me up because Matt wanted me away from him.

But even without the conspiracy theories, there is no doubt that Matt is an asshole. I mean, I know for a fact that he blocked me from Facebook chat while pretending to be “busy” – I found this out through John. And even though John himself wasn’t a great person, I feel sympathy for him because he had recently lost his grandmother (who had basically raised him) and was struggling with alcoholism and possible depression – which just proves my point further that Matt is a piece of shit, because he was willing to use one of his alleged “closest friends,” who was going through a crisis, as a patsy in an attempted assault just to make a girl he was done using go away. But I guess it’s not entirely Matt’s fault that he’s a shitty human being. In fact, I blame myself entirely for everything. And I myself am not the greatest person alive by any stretch – I once convinced a guy I gave him HIV, I logged into my then-fiance’s email and sent a letter to his ex begging her to give him a second chance just so I could be rid of him, I found nudes that an ex-girlfriend of a different cheating ex-boyfriend had sent while he and I were together and posted them to his MySpace, I posed as a guy on Facebook and friended John to get evidence that he was cheating on me, and I once planned to leave a flaming bag of my own poop at my ex-husband’s door and take a video of him stomping it out. I am a horrible human being, but as such, I’ve faced the consequences for all of these actions. However, I did absolutely nothing to Matt to deserve to be humiliated, used, and hurt by him and his allies – even Hitler doesn’t deserve what Matt did to me. But Matt can keep partying all he likes – one day, karma will catch up with him and knock him the fuck out.

 

EDIT TO ADD, 8/22/15: So, apparently the douchebag in question got wind of my blog post about him (it’s been up for almost a year, and only after I reposted it the other day on my friends only FB does he say something? How uncanny) and had some things to say that weren’t very nice…so I got nasty right back. And to be fair, if he had asked me nicely to cease and desist my diatribe, I would have.

As expected, he not only blocked me to keep me from responding, but is continuing to send out his groupies to do his light work. (I wanna say it would be nice if I had friends like this, but then I remember that my friends are tactful and capable of independent thought, so never mind the trade.)

So let’s see where this goes. If I get a day in court, I’ll keep ‘ya posted. 😉

I’ll Keep You My Dirty Little Secret

I will never look at a cute heterosexual couple again without wondering how many demimonde-level concubines the guy hurt, used, and screwed over before he ended up with his “take-home-to-mother” trophy. I know I’m not the only woman who has experienced this – two other girls who are my friends have been experiencing something similar, thus inspiring me to write this – but I will cite only my personal experience as an example.

This segment from an email that my ex-boyfriend from high school (Fox) sent me eight years ago pretty much sums up everything I’m about to go into:

Oh, and by the way. I’m still keeping you a secret. And if anyone asks who my girlfriend is, I’ll just nod off and say “We choose to remain anonymous.” Anyway, have a good evening! and Sleep tight!

So, Fox was the first of my long string of heartaches to pull this crap, but far from the last. Next, if I recall correctly, was probably my ex-husband, as ironic as that sounds – after all, we were legally married, so what was there to hide? Well, apparently his initial attraction to me was shallow – had I not lost control of the situations I let myself get in with him and allowed him to take advantage of me without realizing what was going on, I would have left him long before we had the chance to get married (though a lot of this I blame on trying to live up to my shitty family’s standards without even knowing what it was I was striving to accomplish). He was reluctant to introduce me to family and friends, and was quick to try and get rid of me for stupid things that any normal couple would talk over and forget within five minutes of being brought up. Nevertheless, I refused to let go, and eventually, I got what I wanted…I even had something of a family for a while before I stopped kidding myself that I was happy.

But even after we separated and divorced, there were times that we tried getting back together – partially for the kids, and partially because neither of us wanted to be alone – but I quickly learned that even though he made it clear that he wanted me to change my need to be seen by the outside world, he refused to change any of the traits that made him a horrible marital companion (marijuana addiction, immaturity, financial irresponsibility, being disrespectful, etc.). On every one of the occasions that we tried to reconcile, he made it clear that he did not want anyone to know we might be getting back together – if his mom or his best friend came over unexpectedly while I was there, he made me hide in the bedroom until they were gone. But at least he made it seem like he wanted a relationship with me. Others wouldn’t even grant me that much.

Then there was my ex-FWB (Doug), whose story I’ve already mentioned. That in and of itself is an example – some privileged neckbeard wanted the satisfaction of female attention without disappointing his parents, and the white girl next door that he lost his virginity to (presumably so he wouldn’t have to waste it on a poor Hispanic single mom, i.e., me) wasn’t kinky enough for him, so…there’s where I come in. We had an on-and-off flirtationship for some time, and I thought he was legitimately my “friend” even if there were no longer “benefits” to be had. Now, I won’t judge him too harshly, since we both made an equal amount of mistakes in this involvement, but the biggest one that I made was thinking that he would still be interested once I began to develop a larger attachment to him. When I confessed said feelings and asked him if he’d like to make our relationship more substantial, like a perfect gentleman, said, “Well, I like what we’ve been doing, but I don’t feel like we’d be compatible outside of the bedroom. If you want to discontinue our sexual relationship, I understand completely, and I’ll continue being just your friend unless you’d rather I got out of your life completely.”

Nah, just kidding – Doug ignored my message (while continuing to make his presence known elsewhere on Facebook) until two days later, when I guess I annoyed him enough to get him to say, “well, I guess I really just don’t feel that way,” which he could have just as easily said right off the bat without making me lose my respect for him. But I guess some lessons are better learned the hard way…

Which is why when I made the same mistake again last year with another ex-boyfriend from high school (Matt), I was ready to call BS right away. Instead, I gave him the benefit of the doubt because he had been something of a friend to me in high school (even though he rarely contacted me until his own divorce and the day he happened to be coming back to my area), and even he admitted he was uncertain about developing feelings for me after our brief encounter…but instead of acknowledging that he wanted to make up for the time wasted in a marriage that ended in heartbreak and failure (which is exactly what I did, so I would have understood completely even if I didn’t approve), he suddenly started ignored me after weeks of leading me on to think that maybe he did want something more to do with me, and then replied a few days later with this half-assed Dear John message:

 I am going to be honest with you. I just want to be friends, like we agreed before. I’m sorry if that hurts, but I have to tell you the truth. You are amazing, but I don’t see myself coming back to California for any period of time. Know that I love you as a best friend, but nothing more.

 I think that what really pissed me off is that he had the audacity to call me a “best friend” and then proceed to pretend that I didn’t exist, block me from chat, and try to form serious relationships with other girls and complain to me about it when it didn’t work out. Wait, what?

And then there is the aforementioned “John” in that dialogue – John Barclay, a piece of Nazi fodder so utterly despicable that I could write an entire book on the brief-but-traumatizing moment of hell he put me through. Yeah, the fact that he was friends with Matt did make me skeptical at times, but obviously, not skeptical enough – he became my steady boyfriend only to lie to me about being in legal trouble to make me gain sympathy, cheated on me, and pretty much abandoned me until out of the blue he decided I was being “clingy as fuck” and “obsessive as hell” (although the next day, he proceeded to harass me on Facebook under a fake account):

And of course, here’s what old Matt “Bros Before Hos” Reynolds-Hollon had to say regarding all that:

(And just to clarify: Matt and I have known each other since he was a freshman in high school. He and Barclay met in their junior year. If anyone is “entitled” to be defended under the “bros before hos” sentiment here, it should be me. But whatever.)

And as it currently stands, he’s sending his groupies to harass me and accuse me of “hacking his shit” – same as he did to the ex before me:

 

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I didn’t grant them the courtesy of censoring their names, but I’m just following the Golden Rule: I don’t want to be anyone’s dirty little secret. If you’re fucking me, dating me, or I’ve ever been a part of your life, for better or worse, I’m no longer going to honor anyone’s wishes to “remain anonymous.” And all you ladies out there who have been swept under the rug, kept in the closet, hidden in the bedroom – I encourage you to stop honoring your beaus’ pleas for relationship anonymity and reclaim your self-worth. And all you men out there who have ever done anything I’ve openly accused these men of doing, take note – your hooker’s heart of gold will eventually be replaced with one of stone, or even ice.