You see, my 20-something year old son is living at home right now (did I say rent-free but temporarily while he supposedly gets on his feet?) and using my Windstar. It's a great car, but it's nearing 300,000 miles right now, and I need it to last me a few years more before it gasps its final breath. It just got a brand new transmission a month or so ago which has really set us back a ton, but that's another issue. To make this a little shorter, I'm trying to preserve the car. I've told my son repeatedly when he's assumed he's going to drive his Boy Scout troop to a camp out, or drive to somewhere other than the necessary days at work, that he is not to take the car anywhere, anytime, for any reason that is not essential. I thought that was pretty straightforward.
A little background here. He dated/got engaged/moved in with/broke up with/had to be rescued from with all of his stuff a similarly aged female in the short span of September of last year to moving in with us in April of this year. They were "in a relationship" on Facebook after one day. They were engaged in one month. They moved in together within 2 months. Then they were broken up in about 4 months but he still lived with her for awhile since he was using her car. September-April. That's a total span of 6 months for those that are counting. We packed and moved his stuff out of the apartment over Memorial Day weekend. That was 6 weeks ago. She lived in the next state. I didn't want my car going up there. He plotted and tried a variety of ploys to take my car up there but eventually had her come and pick him up on weekends prior to his moving in with her in that neighboring state. I caught him in a couple of lies and figured I'd let it go since he was moving out of my house , butat that time I didn't see him moving back in with me after only 6 months. His girlfriend, or should I saw fiance, was really different. There, that's how I'm going to put it. But I guess when you get engaged in a few weeks, and move in within a couple of months, you don't notice that kind of stuff beforehand. Some people also drive their significant other nutso and I wasn't there to see it so I can't say what happened. Either way, they were both to fault for moving so fast.
So fast forward to now, 6 weeks past that girlfriend, son is home again, and still without a car. There are many excuses why he has no car, says he's saving, so he's been driving my car to see the NEW girlfriend who thankfully lives really close by. He's told me three stories about how he met her, and three versions of how long he's known her, but supposedly he just spent time with her for the first time over the weekend, and on Tuesday they were "in a relationship". Are you freaking kidding me? No, I guess he didn't learn anything last time around. Then, on Thursday she posted on his page that she wanted to spend her life with him. Sounds like a middle schooler that's desperate, doesn't it? Just like the first girlfriend he had, but there are a couple of differences. This one is nearly 5 years younger than him, and has a child that's under a year. She or her parents (or grandmother) that she lives with should know better than to get the child involved with my son so quickly, but maybe they're looking for someone to step in as a dad for the kid. I don't know if I should giggle or gag, only this is serious, for not only the child, but for my kid. Deja vu?
He says when I ask about the Facebook stuff that they're casually dating, yet he's been there every day this week. Yeah right. Casually dating. And he tries to tell me that I'm out of date on what status changes mean. I'm laughing now. I'm friends with a ton of people in their 20's from our kids and co-workers, reenactors, and other people I know. So duh, no, I'm not out of date. And don't get me started on how many versions of how the girl got pregnant with the child I've heard now. Nothing against the child, but just get the story straight, it's taking me too many brain cells to keep the stories straight.
So he goes to see her last night, and I tell him to be back by 9. At 11:25 he texts to say he's on his way. He finally makes it home after 1am. He's driving my car, which I told him wasn't going to happen for anything but work again because he can't be considerate about getting home at a decent hour...before I go to bed. My bedroom sits in the front of the house and the car coming in wakes me up. Plus I don't sleep until my ancient Windstar comes in because it's ancient. Needless to say I was up until 4:30am because I was so pissed. I yelled, he tried to placate me, and I calmed down. He's burning some pretty important bridges with me.
So here's where the academy award happens. He texts me today from work to say he will have to work until 8pm. (Really, I think, raising my eyebrow.) So I tell him to do what the boss says and that I might drive out to his job and see him around 7pm. Then he starts going on about how burned out he is (he's been getting off rather early this week to go spend time with the new girlfriend.) I'm thinking "burned out?" He's gotten off early (for him) every day and didn't work this past weekend at all. Do you think it's sleep deprivation from him getting in so late? NAH, he says he functions better on only 4 hours of sleep. So even when he's in his room, he's messaging with her anyway. She lives at home and doesn't work. She has help for her parenting duties because mom and grandmom, dad, and brother live there, so she can sleep if she needs to. But he is getting tired, admitted or not. He's never mentioned being "burned out" at this job until this point...just kept saying how much he loves his job. I guess having this girl makes him 'burned out". Go figure.
So the texting conversation continues. I told him to keep his social activities to the weekend, separate from work during the week, and the response is that he might have to work on Saturday. (There is still a lot of time on the weekend.) Then he gets into how he needs his social activities and his friends to keep sane when he's burned out. He's worked 60 hours a week in the past and it was fine. He's worked 50-60-70 hours a week before the girlfriend and everything he said was about how he loves his job. Now he needs to have social/friends to hang with or he's going to get burned out. Now mind you, he hasn't had any friends to "hang with" besides girlfriend #2 and #1 and his former girlfriend from North Carolina since he moved back from North Carolina June 2011. He sees this friend occasionally for a few hours, but that's been it. I asked him about friends when he moved back, he told me he didn't keep in touch with anyone from High School, he didn't fit in, and didn't really like anyone from that time period. So all of a sudden he's got all these friends from his High School to hang with. Really? (Imagine the eyebrow raise now.) I didn't even respond. Why bother?
And that's after trying to link a co-worker with meeting this girl when I know he met her on the internet. That's no big deal to me, but why the elaborate story?
What a performance. Honestly, the whole conversation was such great acting that I almost (just almost) felt badly about seeing right through it. Come on, it's not like she's going to de-materialize if he doesn't see her every moment. I'm sure they text all day anyway, I just hope she doesn't cause him to lose his job. Then he'll be homeless, carless, and jobless. Maybe he can move in with her big happy family.
It reminds me of my daughter sneaking around in middle school to see a boy because "She had to see him". Emphasis on "had to". But middle school is middle school, he's in his mid twenties. That gut wrenching drive to do anything to see that person...even if it means your head goes completely up your ass and you stop thinking logically, it's just not smart. It's tough to be enfatuated and lose all of your brain cells to the point that you don't realize that when you make things up, people are on to you, and you start doing stupid things in all other areas of your life.
I told him point blank that if he takes my car to her house against my wishes there will be serious ramifications. (Like as in "Move your Ass out right this minute".) and that I will know. Trust me. I will know. It's not like he isn't very close to getting a car...but it's always "I don't have enough money this week." That story is best left for another day. And it has nothing to do with her per-se, she's just another desperate young girl that has been charmed by someone paying her some attention. A desperate young (19) girl with a baby. But I just don't understand anyone that can be totally in love to the point of already proclaiming that she wants to "spend the rest of my life" with someone after less than a week. Even a week, even a month, really screams desperation. What kind of dating website is he using where he's finding these girls? Why don't girls realize how important it is to really get to know the guys they date over a period of time? Why doesn't she realize that her child depends on her to make sure this guy is a keeper over a period of time. I would imagine that abusers and creeps hone in on these types of girls, and that's alarming. No, I am not calling my kid one of those kinds of guys.
Perhaps girlfriend #2 should talk to girlfriend #1 who thought the same thing about everything being perfect immediately and has a different opinion now. I actually feel sorry for the girl because she seems nice, and I know that he's leading her on. And her family seems to like him too. I hope they slow her down if not for her own sake, for the sake of the child.
But I digress again, I apologise. So I decide to take a drive over to visit his work site this evening. I figure I'll leave at 6:15 or so and miss most of rush hour and go say hi to him at work (if he's even there) but he calls at 5:30 to say that he's going to be able to leave. He gets home and he's not hungry at all and wants to go to bed right away. Since there has been so much deceit, I'm wondering if he didn't get off early again (he can get off after 3ish) and have dinner with her on the way home. But he brought the car home and is home before I go to bed so I'm satisfied. But I can't wait to see his pay stub for his hours. lol
So I can't wait to see how this plays out over time...it's pretty amusing so far. And my Windstar is sitting outside.
No comments:
Post a Comment