Improver Guy

It all started because I'd been running late, actually I'm almost always running late...
I'm not a morning person, never have been. Many mornings my first waking thought is, "how many hours do I have to be awake before I can crawl back under the covers again?" I love sleep, everything about it, soft pillows, cool silky sheets, quilts...It's probably the reason I never had kids, they'd have gotten in the way of all that.

I'm off topic, sleep led to me running late, egregiously so this morning and the result was I didn't make my lunch. I decided that I would turn it into a positive and treat myself to Chick-Fil-A. To the un-initiated, Chick Fil-A is the maker and the proprietor of the best chicken sandwich in the South, if not the whole world. It's simple really, they take a plump juicy chicken breast, bread it in a coating of 'secret herbs and spices' (no really, I worked there and I still don't know the contents of the breading which comes in non-descript brown sacks) throw it in a pressure fryer full of peanut oil, then they take all the crispy goodness of that chicken cutlet, lay it on a buttered toasted hamburger roll with two dill pickles, throw in a paper sack of waffle fries and it is quite honestly the best lunch ever!

I sat at a table, eating my sandwich and browsing my phone when for some reason I looked up and there in line was a guy with a face I swore I'd seen before, I thought about it and all of the sudden I got that dizzy, cold sweat, my stomach is in my shoes feeling because whether or not it was the actual guy, he had the face of a man I knew all too well.

Most women at some point date a guy I like to categorize as "improver guy". You aren't quite his type of girl, but he thinks with a few tweaks here and there, you just might get close. You won't. Let me state that again for all the cockeyed optimists out there... YOU WON'T. You'll never get close, but you will half kill yourself trying.

I know, I've been there. Seeing that guy in line today, it brought it all back. Many years ago in the days  when Windows XP was all the rage; I entered into a nine-month 'relationship' with my 'improver guy'. He was like the foreign exchange student that you can't send back until the program is over. We weren't really even friends by the end of our time together.

I still can't quite understand what made him stay around. Maybe it was the fact that I was gullible, emotionally needy and co-dependent.  I think that he enjoyed toying with me much in the same way that a cat will toy with prey before actually 'killing' it. To his way of thinking, I needed a great deal of 'improvement'. My clothes were "too dowdy' and "prematurely middle-aged", my exercise program needed overhauling. I ate far too many carbs and didn't appreciate the finer points of a good curry. My taste in music he found appalling, my politics too conservative. Slowly, piece by piece, he took me apart until I could barely find myself.  I'd been a kindly optimist cum idealist until I met him. When he left, I'd become a world-weary cynic with barely enough enthusiasm to get out of bed in the mornings (much like him).

After he was gone, I started to eat. I craved Lucky Charms, Twinkies, M & M's, burgers, and Chick-Fil A fries. I couldn't seem to eat enough to numb the memories.  I just wanted to get rid of the despair, the emptiness that comes with the realization that no matter how hard you work, how much you try to change, you can't make someone love or care about you.

I had fantasies of running after that guy I saw in line even though I don't really think it was him. The last I knew, MY 'improver guy' was in Spain trying to 'improve' someone else. I wanted to say "Listen, you don't know me, but I knew a guy once who looked just like you and seeing you (him) today brought it all back. You (he) hurt me so deeply, that even now, I can't hear songs from that time period or smell your (his) cologne without nausea. I want you (him) to know that you (he) may have bruised my spirit, but you (he) did not break it! That I'm successful in my life, in my work, that I'm happy in myself. I want you to know without any of your (his) shaming or running until I threw up, I lost over twenty-five (nearly thirty now) pounds and this time I did it for myself, not to get someone who was unworthy of me in the first place to care about me. That I unashamedly listen to Opera, Classical, 80's New Wave and yes, even Easy Listening from time to time and I don't give a damn if you (he) think that it's appalling! Lastly, I heartily enjoyed the Scottish Highland Games this past weekend!" (Improver Guy was English and never had a good word to say about the Scots)

I didn't say any of that of course. I did almost get hit by a pickup truck in the parking lot while fantasizing what I would like to say and I admit that I got distracted a bit at work this afternoon wondering if it really was him, but the important thing is...I'm okay now. I never really wasn't in the first place and it took seeing that guy to realize it.

So, wherever you are, Facsimile Improver Guy...Thanks from Happy Well-Adjusted Woman!