Ernie: Part One

Keep Being the Crazy One Ernie: Part Two

Ernie: Part One

I told my writer friends I feel like I’m writing my villain origin story. I have somewhat of a reputation in the indie writing community for being a cunt or a generally difficult person. And I’m over here like, “come my friends, let’s dive back into the lore…”

But in all seriousness, I want to try to be a little nicer to people. I’m wondering if the reason why I’m so mean might be because I’m so uncomfortable forming bonds with people.

I wasn’t always like that. I didn’t always stalk people online and form attachments to people who’ve never interacted with me. I didn’t always panic and make excuses when people asked me to hang out or push them away when they tried to bond with me.

You guys want to know something very weird? This might be the first time I’ve admitted this. I created a writer’s discord last spring, because I realized I was spending too much time lurking on a fucking [redacted] forum and getting my social needs…met? not really, I don’t know, I was watching them and getting to know them by watching and it made me feel close to this group. I realized that the whole thing was weird and knew I’d never really be able to part of that group. And I realized it was very VERY off to be getting some kind of social-emotional fulfillment out of watching this group of people that I couldn’t ever be a part of.

And I thought, where the fuck can I get whatever I’m getting here? What can I do to replicate this in a healthier way?

I went and created my own little community and aside from some weirdness that came about from letting people from outside the writing community join, it’s been really great.

There was a time when I wouldn’t even make online friends, or if I did I wouldn’t allow myself to actually care about them. And it’s been years since I had irl friends.

In my late twenties, I stopped making friends. And I started watching people online and imagining some kind of bond with them.

I didn’t do that in my early 20s. This is a semi-recent problem. Although, looking back, I can see the seeds of that behavior early on. It just didn’t really burst into existence until recently.

But let me just keep going in a linear way for now. I’m skipping some stuff. The stuff that either isn’t that important or I’m just not ready to talk about it yet.

So, I guess the next important thing that happened was meeting Ernie. I feel like he’s gonna fucking hate the name Ernie.

I’ll tell you right now, since I am still married to Ernie, he’s the only person who is actually getting a say in which parts are told. There are some parts that he doesn’t want told. So I won’t tell them, but just imagine a lot of cut scenes where I give the poor man a massive headache and make his life difficult. I’ve told him the only reason he puts up with me is because he’s the type of man who sees a woman who needs saving, and he’ll make any excuse to stick around and try to save her from her own stupidity. And he responds by saying, “You have a good heart. You do the best you can.” And it’s nice that he thinks that. But a lot of the time, I wish someone better than me had snagged him. I’ll keep trying to be a better person, because he deserves an awesome partner. I’m not that.

Like the scene with Chris carrying me drunk through the woods? So duplicate that, only I’m 26 and it’s not the woods, it’s downtown of a major city. And the man corraling me is autistic and shy and doesn’t know what to do and instead of laughing, I’m sobbing. Full on ugly-crying and off-my-ass drunk because I had a rough conversation with my mom. All while he tries his damndest to get me on the bus and people stare. I hope downtown Major City enjoyed the show. It wasn’t my best work, but it was a noteworthy part of my oeuvre.

So there is more of that and worse, but most of it has to stay cut scenes. Just keep that in mind while I tell this part. I don’t want anyone to find me more sympathetic than I actually am.

Well, I met Ernie on a site called Sweet on Geeks.

I wanted so badly to meet another man like Dennis. It had been almost 2 years since we’d broken up and I’d heard through the grapevine that he was dating someone new. Of course I was jealous. He was my first love. He wasn’t my first boyfriend. He wasn’t my first kiss or any of that. But he was the first time that I felt like a man really saw me and cared about me. He was the first time I felt completely safe with a man, like I didn’t have to be on guard with him or worry about what he’d do next. So, yeah, I heard he’d finally started dating again. I was crushed. I didn’t go bother him. I did, however, type into google things like “where to meet nerdy men?” “where to meet anime nerd men?” Eventually, I found this site called Sweet on Geeks and it isn’t around anymore. There’s an equivalent site, but I’m told it’s pretty dead.

The big problem that I had trying to meet men on Sweet on Geeks was that I saw a lot of myself in these men. A lot became very clingy way too quickly. I understood it then. Being on the receiving end of that was alarming. I was afraid to proceed with any of the men who became so overwhelmingly attached after only one or two conversations. I didn’t want the responsibility of caring for somebody that fragile. So yes, I get it. I get why guys were mean when I got clingy after one hookup. It’s alarming.

Others were okay and it just didn’t go anywhere.

A couple tried to neg me. Those dudes got the Blocked-No-Response treatment.

I received a far more manageable number of messages on Sweet on Geeks. Since I didn’t get that many, I sent messages out myself.

That’s how I met Ernie. And he was kind enough to go back in his emails and find the very first message I ever sent him. I had sent him a friend request and I think my email was on my profile. He sent me an email. I won’t include his first message, because he is shy. Please know his email is far FAR less retarded than my response.

He actually used capital letters and he was far less painfully cringe.

This was 22-year-old me, responding to men on online dating sites.

God, it’s bad.

If I wasn’t such a whore for good content, and if y’all weren’t blowing my stats up binging this series…I’m finally about to beat July 2020 for best views ever and I’m here for it.

Alright….why in the world did that man respond to that pretentious hyper-active fever dream of an email?

God, I read that and want to fight 22-year-old me, like a lot. What a snotty, self-important fuck. And would it kill me to throw in some capital letters? Why the fuck does this have such rawr-I’m-random-early-2000s-emo-girl energy?

Fuck, I can’t with that bitch.

This was back when I was still majoring in Human Services, because hospice had shown me I liked old people. What else did this man learn about me? I guess music was my life? Because THAT is sooo unique…criminey.

Well, for God knows what reason, Ernie read this and decided, “Yep, gimme some of dat” and after a few more messages, he asked if he could call me.

Chris, Erica, and Ethel were hanging out at my house when he called. I went outside to take the call. I liked his voice. Not too deep, not too high-pitched. That’s the best kind of male voice.

He told me a few things about him. He spoke German. He’d actually just come back from Germany not too long ago. He loved history. This was all before he went back to school for his Computer Science degree, and he was still hoping to be a Museum Curator one day.

I walked up and down the walkway outside. I grinned and listened to him talk. He did just the right amount of talking and just the right amount of listening.

I talked to him about dinosaurs. I made jokes about velociraptors living in the woods of New Hampshire. I don’t fucking remember the joke, but I’ll bet it was just as stupid as you’re probably imagining.

I talked about everything I did for hospice and interning at the adult day center. I talked about why old people were cool.

I hung up and went inside and told my friends, “I think I met a really nice guy.”

And then I sat back down to watch the anime that Chris had brought over and I drank an Ensure. Because I was trying to get over an eating disorder.

That’s right, I met Ernie, the man who was silly enough to marry me, while I was trying to tackle an eating disorder. When I stopped yelling and screaming and just all around going off constantly, that’s when the eating issues started. I didn’t fight my grandfather anymore. He yelled. He threatened. He’d already taken legal action to try and take away my right to make decisions for myself. More than once he tried to badger me into signing paperwork to give him “power of attorney.” I held my ground. I wouldn’t sign anything.

When I met Ernie, I was maybe 85 pounds. I looked like Eugenia Cooney. Looking at old pictures from that time period, my elbows were disgusting. Like these bulbous things protruding from these little stick arms.

And Ernie walked up to me in the middle of downtown, in the major city where he lived at the time, and he handed me a stack of science fiction novels and said, “I thought you’d like to read these.”

I liked him right away.

He nodded a lot and didn’t make great eye contact. For once in my life, I felt shy with a guy. He didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at him.

He didn’t kiss me until the very end of the date and when he did, it was like Wooowww.

Photo by Zichuan Han on Pexels.com

Well the picture is blurry, but that’s me on my 4th or 5th date with Ernie. And my gosh those elbows are grossing me out.

Anyway, if you ever accidentally just stop eating for so long that you’re in the danger zone like that, I can’t recommend Ensures enough. Your stomach starts to hurt when you eat if you go long enough without eating. Ensures are very easy to digest.