Like my new nickname?

Guess what? I have a new nickname. I won't tell you until I tell you the story why I am getting this nickname. It kinda hit me while driving yesterday as I started thinking about every guy that I seriously dated in the past few years dating back to 2000. I was trying to figure out the pattern to why every guy I have been with falls out of love with me. I have mostly been dumped by all of these guys. Only one guy I have dumped within this time period. Sad, huh? I did have my first two year relationship starting in 1998 after I graduated from high school. This guy really seemed to love me but got aggressive later on in the relationship and I had found out he was dealing drugs a year later but was too scared to leave him. I got the guts one day, dumped him on the phone, and hung up on him. Pretty cool for a 19 year old! He isn't really part of the story, it started happening after I left this guy. I am going to give the guys names but not their real names to protect confidentially. For those of you who know me, you might know some of them but don't tell them I am writing about them! I will start with 1998 when I went to the photo lab to get my pictures developed. Yes, I was with the other guy. Anyways, I remember filling out the envelope with my name and phone number, etc. and I looked up and saw "that guy I was going to marry." It was a feeling I had never had before. He was decent looking and was very mature acting. He wasn't THAT handsome but to me he was. I will call him Pilotman (because he loved to fly airplanes). I didn't say much. I just dropped off my pictures and when I came back for them, he was gone. I actually came back a week later to see him again hoping to talk to him. Someone at the lab said that he no longer worked there. Bummer.... A year later, 1999, I got hired at the photo lab and actually had forgotten that Pilotman worked there. He later came back to work for the lab when I was hired. I looked at him as he walked in the lab and I immediately recognized him as the man I would marry. He was married..... DARN IT! He got married when he was 20 and was married a year ago. When I first saw him a year ago, he had just gotten married and left to live in Asheville, but they couldn't afford the house there so they came back home. Why didn't I recognize the ring in the first place? ARRGGHH! So... I remained friends with him and actually dated his brother for the heck of it or maybe just to get to know Pilotman a little better regardless if he was married. I wasn't trying to steal him away from his wife, I was just really interested in his views of life. While dating his brother, I was able to get to know Pilotman very well. His wife was ok with our friendship. But his brother starts driving me really crazy and we cut off that small dating whatever we were. Two months later, Pilotman calls me and tells me he got separated. I was actually ecstatic, how crazy was that?! We started hanging out a lot and for the next couple of months we were dating. He didn't mention too much about his wife and I couldn't believe he was with me that fast. We had lots of fun with his family, going places, and chilling at his house. I remember I was a little tipsy at my sorority social in 2001 and he was trying to sneak me out of the social because the police had barged in after they heard that it had an open bar and the majority of sisters were underage! "You need to act sober," I remember him constantly saying. That night, I remember he had to put me to bed with a trash can on the side. A few months later, he started pulling away and telling me he's not ready to jump into a relationship. I was a little, no very, upset. This was the first guy I KNEW I love. It was the first time I felt love. I had to let him go and then later found out, he was dating someone else while being dishonest to me saying he wasn't ready. He was on the rebound and was looking for something to take his mind off the separation. To this day, he is still with that girl. Going on seven years! I felt like crap....

After Pilotman, I moved on, I was young, I had A LOT of time to start my future. I saw his brother again for a while. I was THAT bored! His brother actually got me into going to church again so I start going to church regularly and stuck with Christian values. I am thankful for that. Then... in 2003.... Moviefreak (movies are his life, he is the next Steven Spielburg! Or the next Dawson from Dawson's Creek and LOOKED like him!) comes along as my friend Susan invites me to Kings Dominion with two of her guy friends. Little did I know that Moviefreak would ask me out the next day! I didn't really know what to say, I wasn't that interested but he asked me to go on a trip with his family and hey, I couldn't say no. Three months before, he had gotten out of a five year relationship with a girl that dumped him because he proposed to her! He still had the ring! She freaked and left! He didn't mention much about her, he talked negatively about her I guess because he was angry that she left him. But he rarely said much about her. I heard more about her from his cousin of how she was like but I didn't really care for that information. I stayed at his house ALL the time. His family was very close to me especially his little sister. She was 9 when Moviefreak and I started going out and always sat with me, played games with me, and eventually I ended up taking her whereever she wanted to go. She constantly mentioned, "I think people think we are mother and daughter." It made me feel good. His grandmother and mother would the greatest people in the world and I loved his grandmother because she cooked all the time, the greatest country food! I got to the point where I would call her grandma sometimes. I think I became more attached to his family than him. He sat at the TV most of the time and never really took me out very much. If we ever really went on dates, it was the movie theater that he was the manager of. All the free movies we could watch! Wow. We would watch the new releases the night before they came out at 2am on Thursday nights! I think the first movie we saw was American Wedding. But that's all we ever really did. I would go spend time with his family and his mom brought me to her church constantly which became my church now: C3. I still see her and his sister there. As the relationship started to fizzle, I was constantly on him about getting out and taking me places. He got fed up one day, pushed me, and left his house with me there alone! While he was gone, I found a letter below some papers and it was addressed to Susan our friend that hooked up us. He quoted, "I miss Cheri (his ex). Crystal isn't who I want." I was shocked to see that all this time, he was still thinking of her. Again, he conquered me on the rebound as he was dealing with his breakup from his "future fiancee." I realized in the end, I didn't really love him. I did like him in the beginning of the relationship but only stayed with him because it was company. I never stayed at my Mom's new house in Clayton, it wasn't until we broke up in mid 2005, I started getting to know some of my mom's neighbors which brings me to an interesting point later.

I am not spending much time talking about Thief. He was the one that stole my money. There isn't much to say about him except he was a liar. He started dating me telling me he had two kids with his FORMER wife. During our short lived relationship, he was on the phone with her everyday for a long period of time. I told him that had to stop. He said that she had his kids and he wanted to see how they were doing. I didn't think it would take but less than ten minutes to find that out. In the end, he was out the door with my pin # and debit card (I can't imagine how he found my pin #) and went back to his FORMER wife in which I found out in court when I dragged his butt there that they were never formally separated....

In the end up to this point, I met the second love of my life. I would call him Mechanic because he loves to fix cars. He was the neighbor of my mom. I remember I had the SAME feeling about him as I did Pilotman. That love at first sight feeling. He was in my yard around February 2004 talking to my mom. I was actually visiting my mom from moviefreak's house that day. Dang it! Did I just see a ring on this guy?! Oh come on! I excused myself and later told my mom later that I felt something for that guy and I was jealous that he was married. I told my mom at that time that I would rather be with mechanic than with moviefreak if pigs could fly. He lived with his wife at the time next door. When I was at my mom's house and not at Moviefreak's house, I did see the handsome blonde in his backyard or hanging around his house. After Thief and I ended our relationship, I heard that the Mechanic was single and his wife was gone. I thought "Well I am going to talk to him, no matter what!" He was my medicine to cure me from Thief. I will always thank God that he was brought into my life for that reason. Without him there, I don't know what would have happened to me. I think I would have done something bad to Thief. I came to a point where I just wanted to hurt Thief for destroying my life and making me homeless at a point to where I had no money to even eat or gas to put into my car. Unfortunately, this Mechanic like most of the others had separated from his wife four months earlier. Another guy on the rebound. I am not going to go into much detail about this one. All I can say is of all the guys I have been with, the Mechanic was the one that affected my life in a good way. His personality and charm was all that mattered to me. I didn't want him to go and buy me stuff or take me places, I was content just talking to him. Just to find out that he stops loving me, and he doesn't know why, it's the worst feeling in the world. In comparison to his ex, I don't meet the standards ever.

My nickname is "Rebound Girl" for the majority of guys I have dated see me in their path and figure I will be the way that will take up their time without thinking about the one that really matters to them. It always ends up with them telling me that they love the person before me. Don't get me wrong, I am sure they really loved me in the beginning but deep down inside their souls, they were loving their first loves.

This is off the point but anyways:
After analyzing this yesterday, I have come to the conclusion that there were two guys I ever really loved and to my surprised they have lots of similarities. They don't look alike (but the same body type) but both had been married at a young (same) age as well as getting divorced. They have careers now but once delivered pizzas around the same age. They LOVED fixing cars. Cars was what they loved to talk about. They liked to buy new stuff and try it out (sometimes stupid stuff, example: a rocket and blast it in front of him and a go cart that had a computer seat strapped to it and not fasten good enough.) They went to NC State. I know that they would be best friends if they ever met.

I still talk to all of these guys except for Thief. If he ever talked to me again, I will put his butt in jail (again). Pilotman has his pilot's license to fly small planes, is still with the same girl, and works for a medical equipment company, he gets to travel a lot. Moviefreak is now working in a different state doing what he always wanted to do, a movie projectionist. wow.... Mechanic is working for a big company working with something on mechanical engineering. I don't know the exact title. He doesn't live next to my mom, he has relocated back home. It is sad to go see my mom and see his empty house.

This is the pattern and just hit me yesterday. Guys on the rebound. I didn't realize that this is it. I wished that I wasn't viewed like that but rather as a person to be respected at all times. I have respect for these men and am proud of their accomplishments. I will always love all three of them and I was taught to love those who don't love you back. I have forgiven them for their flaws and mistakes and hope that no other girl will be the rebound girl for them.

This is a difficult time for me. It sucks when someone says that they no longer love you anymore. It makes you not want to trust the next person. I know now I can say I won't date a guy that has recently been separated or divorced or gotten out of a very serious relationship.

God put them in my path to realize this. I am supposed to hit brick walls and have to learn to be strong enough to tear them down. I wished it didn't take four guys but less than that because I don't want to be 30 and unmarried with no children. I love children and want them. I just hope that the father is someone who is willing to be with me.

On Myspace, all three of them are on my friends list. I get a message from Pilotman once in a while or I will send him a message. As for the mechanic, we still talk constantly but I hope he never pushes me out. His family was like Moviefreak's family, once you get attached to a family that is good to you, it's to painful to let go especially when your own family hasn't done much for you in the first place. I did seek them as my second family and hope they they still consider me a part of their family. Last Christmas, I went to Moviefreak's family's house (he wasn't there) and his grandmother still has my picture on the wall. I felt really good about that. Moviefreak and I remain Myspace friends but rarely send messages but his family mattered more to me. As for the Mechanic's family, his parents are way cooler that any parents I have known.

No matter how many guys will crumble my heart, I look to God to find a miracle. I pray that I can move on but still have the lasting friendship with those who affected my life in a good way. I made friends I could trust through them and learned a lot from them as well. Though the bad happens, the good did happen and we can reflect on that. Too bad time punishes us by taking away what we want to hold on to the most.

"Are we beginning again to tell you how good we are? Some people need to bring letters of recommendation with them or ask you to write letters of recommendations for them. But the only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves! Your lives are a letter written in our hearts and everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ prepared by us. It is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on stone, but on human hearts. We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we can do anything of Lasting value by ourselves. Our only power and success come from God. He is the one who has enabled us to represent his new covenant. This is a covenant, not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old way ends in death; in the new way, the Holy Spirit gives life." 2 Corinthians 3:1-6.