Sex Addict II -- by Anne Shier

Conner Macmillan surveyed himself critically in the mirror. Not bad for a 32-year-old still-young stud, eh? Am I still able to get the attention of a really hot chick? God, I hope so. I have to know that I have what it takes to attract and satisfy that kind of woman. Let’s see, what would my “ideal” woman be like …

        As he continued to assess his dark-brown hair, brown eyes, classical nose and well-formed lips, with a secret smile, he thought about the kind of woman to whom he would want to appeal the most. She would be petite and blonde, with bluish-green eyes, a small turned-up nose and a bright smile. She would also be smart and have a sense of humour that would be sure to make him laugh. And of course she would have to have a body that a dashing and handsome guy like himself would cheerfully die for. But how old would she be? Come to think of it, I have no idea what age my “ideal” woman should be. Should she be younger or older? How much older than me should she be? I’ve never been with a significantly older woman, but I’ll bet she could teach me a lot about sex, relationships and life in general … maybe I should give it a try.

 With this thought in mind, Conner started getting ready to go out for the evening. He planned on wearing clothes that any young male would consider virile when “on the make.” He thought about his numerous previous sexual conquests and remembered something from the past—women didn’t seem to care what a man wore as long as he was neat and clean. They seemed to really like it though when a man exuded self-confidence and charm and was well-groomed and physically attractive—amazingly enough, he did not have to be the best looking guy in the place. If he had a pleasant personality, that helped too. Conner knew that, while he was certainly attractive to the opposite sex, there were other men out there who could definitely compete with him in this arena. He wanted to have something special to offer a woman, especially if she displayed an interest in getting to know him better. What that “special something” was he had no idea, but he was about to find out—from an older woman.

   As a rule, he never made plans ahead of time about what kind of woman he would meet and hopefully bring home for the night. He knew making plans like that never worked. It was often the luck of the draw—being in the right place at the right time. Call it an accident of fate, if you will, but the fact was, if you were a man looking for a particular type of woman, you would never find her. You had to be open to meeting many different women, and then sometimes you “lucked out” and found someone you just clicked with. That’s when you knew she was the one for you—because she was responding to that “special something” that you were never aware of before but obviously possessed. As a man on the make, you did not always want to show a woman how special you were, but when the right woman came along, you somehow found it in yourself to be the man that you thought she might be looking for.

It really is funny how life operates, isn’t it? Conner surmised. If it’s meant to be, it will be … and all the planning and preparation in the world was not going to help when it came to finding her.  Conner just knew that he had not yet been lucky enough to meet her, but he was willing to go out on a limb and meet whoever was out there that wanted to meet him. If it took awhile to accomplish that, so be it. He was not in any hurry; in fact, he was out to enjoy the ride. Life is a journey, so we are told. How many people meet their true mate in life the first time out and get her to agree to commit to something long term so that they can live together happily ever after? Is there such a thing as “happily ever after”? Conner wasn’t at all sure there was such a thing. These were questions to which Conner did not have the answers, but nobody could accuse him of not trying hard enough to find out.

 As he was getting ready to go out, Conner thought back to the first girl he had ever considered “special.” As a teenager and young adult, he had never had any trouble meeting eligible females to date or to take to bed. Over time, he began to realize that there was a huge difference between making love to a woman and being in love with her. To him, sex was just something you did with someone of the opposite sex because you felt like it and you had a willing and eligible partner. It wasn’t his fault that he felt like having sex a lot and that there were many willing and eligible partners available.

 One day at age 20, he had allowed himself to fall for someone, a girl who was 18 at the time. She was very cute, with medium-length light-blonde hair, clear blue eyes, a very feminine nose and a lovely smile. Her name was Lindy Mitchell and she was the most beautiful girl Conner had ever met in his young life. She appeared to reciprocate his appreciative feelings. When they went on dates, she wore stylish clothing that suited her slim figure; he constantly admired her good taste in fashion. They always had a good time together because she was inherently considerate, compassionate and a good listener. She was also very bright. He would tell her about his life as a student teacher of dramatic arts, and she told him about her life as a college student, studying to become a professional gymnastics coach.

While they had a certain amount in common due to their love of teaching, there were also some differences. It wasn’t until he’d been dating Lindy for almost a year that he realized how those differences impacted their relationship. She had not had nearly the exposure to intimate relationships with men that he’d already had with women, so it became obvious that she was somewhat naïve about men and their devious ways. Still, he loved her for her innocence and ingenuousness and resolved to be the best boyfriend he could possibly be.

 Eventually, however, they broke up. While she was on vacation in the Dominican Republic one winter, she met another young guy who managed to charm his way into her heart and persuade her to start dating him instead. He happened to be a Canadian living in the same city as her, so they started seeing each other. Conner soon became history in Lindy’s life, but he never really got over her. At that point, his love life started revolving around dating as many different women as possible. He was determined to have lots of sexual fun without ever getting involved again. It had hurt him way too much to be involved with Lindy.

Given the events of Conner’s young life so far, it was going to take a minor miracle if he ever met another woman he could connect with, want to make love to and at the same time be able to commiserate with. Lindy had been his confidante and best friend; it was going to take an exceptional woman to make him forget her.

But one day, against all odds, he met Gabrielle. She was a real beauty—albeit in a different way than any woman he’d been with. She had long black hair, flashing dark eyes, a classical yet feminine nose and a beautiful smile. She also had a temperamental personality. On one hand, she could be very charming and nice to people, yet in the flash of an eye she could lose her temper and would say whatever happened to be on her mind. The most wonderful thing about her was that she was extremely honest and forthright in whatever she said to him, or to anyone else for that matter, leading Conner to believe he could trust her. At the same time, she was extremely unpredictable, leading Conner to also believe she could surprise him at any time.

As insane as it sounds, he was smitten with Gabrielle from the moment he met her. He was willing to do absolutely anything for her, which was not like him. Historically, Conner was more likely to think of his own needs when it came to dating women. Call it the luck of the draw, but he had finally met his match—physically, emotionally and intellectually. From now on, he knew that no matter who else he met and dated, there would never be another Gabrielle for him. At the same time, he was also very scared because he had not let anyone near his heart since Lindy had left him. Unfortunately, Conner still had no clear idea of how Gabrielle really felt about him—she was a closed book on the subject. Although this lent mystery and excitement to their intimacy, he thought that if she ever dumped him for another man, he might actually have a nervous breakdown. He made it his mission to discover who she really was, what her vulnerabilities were, and, most of all, how he could make her fall in love with him. It was going to be a challenge like no other, to be sure.   

It was only after six months of dating her that he discovered she was 40, eight years his senior. Gabrielle obviously didn’t advertise her age. When he found out she was actually older than him, he had an unusual reaction. He liked her even more, despite their age difference. Her age made her appear more experienced in life than he was, and he truly admired that about her. He felt she could teach him things about people’s intimate relationships and sex than he might have found out on his own.

One day, he asked, “What do you think is the key difference between sex and love?” I’ll bet you can’t answer that one! he thought.

Gabrielle’s answer astounded him. “People often think sex and love is one and the same; however, nothing could be further from the truth. Sex is simply a preprogrammed response to someone you find physically attractive. You get aroused physically and you just want to do it … you don’t question that feeling at all … you just ‘go with the flow,’ so to speak. On the other hand, love happens when you find someone who makes you happy, who makes you laugh when you don’t feel at all like laughing and who makes you want to do things for her simply because you know it will make her happy. That is true love.”

Conner thought about it for a moment and then replied, “You know, I think you’re right. I never before questioned the sexual feelings I had for anyone. It felt right to sleep with them at the time, so I did. When it was over, it was over. There was no residual feeling of love for this woman unless love had already existed before our sexual encounter. So, I would say this—true love happens when you want to please your partner sexually more than you want to please yourself. And, speaking as a man, I would personally not be happy until and unless my woman was fully and completely satisfied. If that happened, then I would know I was a real man.”

 On another day much later on, Conner asked Gabrielle, “Could you show me how to please you so that I can feel confidence in myself and never again doubt myself and my abilities?”

 To which Gabrielle replied, “If you are as willing to learn from me about relationships as you are about learning how to teach students in high school, you will learn something valuable from me. However, just know this—the only reason you will learn something from me is because you’ve finally realized you don’t have all the answers to life. That’s because life is extremely complex and relationships are no exception. You must find out first who you really are and accept yourself wholeheartedly. Then, you must accept your chosen woman wholeheartedly, as well. When that happens, you will be able to find it in your heart to give of yourself, fully, to the woman you love and that will make you both winners in the game of life. At that point, you can be happy together, probably for the rest of your lives.”

          Conner, after giving these things much thought, knew that Gabrielle was the woman for him. He wanted her more than any other woman he’d ever met, including Lindy. Gabrielle had made him want to act like the real man he thought she wanted and needed in her life. And because of that, he now felt like a real man, the man he wanted and needed to be. He knew he would love Gabrielle for the rest of his life for the wonderful things she had done for his manhood.

copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

The Evil Evangelist -- by Anne Shier

I once met a man who was a bona fide pastor of a local Baptist church, and as improbable as it sounds, he was what I would consider “evil.” I do not consider myself a religious person of any denomination. I was never baptized in any church, and my parents were not religious. However, that does not make me a bad person. So under what authority could I claim that this man was evil? The answer is this—none. It was simply my own feelings toward him that developed over time because of the way he treated people—namely me. Naturally I would expect a pastor to treat people kindly, even those who do not regularly attend church. What I would not expect is a pastor to be dictatorial, selfish, inconsiderate, womanizing and controlling. He was the rudest and most obnoxious man I’d ever met. This one man had all these horrible qualities and more. I had no idea how or why he became a pastor, given his numerous undesirable characteristics. I experienced him firsthand when I moved in with my roommate, Dot-Lynn (or “Doormat,” as I used to call her privately), and he turned out to be her practically live-in boyfriend. His name was Andrew.      

      This event happened in Toronto at the time that I happened to be renting a basement apartment in the house of my landlady, Toni. A big problem was that I was not very happy living in her extremely damp and dingy basement apartment and wanted out as soon as possible. I got busy looking for a roommate who owned a house with at least three bedrooms we could share. My daughter and I each needed our own bedroom, as well as access to the common rooms of the house—the kitchen, bathroom and living room. I had been looking for a thriftier kind of living arrangement ever since I had finished college three months ago. I was earning some money from a temporary full time job, so paying the rent was not an issue. Another problem was that my landlady, Toni, could not always handle the loud arguments that I used have regularly with my teenage daughter.

My student loans and grants had covered our living expenses for the most part while I was attending college, and a part time job took up the slack. Now that I had graduated (with honours, I might add) and now had good career potential in the IT industry, I needed another place to live for the time being until I got settled into a full time permanent job. It was imperative that the place I chose be accessible to public transit since I didn’t have a car, and that the rent be affordable—an amount in the neighbourhood of between $500 and $600 a month. That’s how I came to meet Dot-Lynn, a Jamaican woman, age 35 or so.

She was looking for a roommate, as well—someone who was dependable and reliable enough to pay her the rent consistently on time. She told me she had some household renovations to do, which my rent money was going to help her finance. I replied that I didn’t care why she needed the money; I could see that her house was nice and big, and that alone told me the house was expensive to maintain. We hit it off, and she offered me the chance to move in with my daughter, Elizabeth, who was about 13 at the time. Elizabeth was in middle school in grade 8; soon she would be a high school student.

I gave Dot-Lynn the equivalent of two months’ (first and last) rent, which was $1,200, and we agreed on a moving day. I was relieved to have found a place to live that I deemed much more suitable for myself and my daughter. We would each have our own furnished bedroom; my own furniture from my current apartment could then be put into temporary storage until I needed it again, so our move into this place would be relatively uncomplicated. We just needed to move our clothes, toiletries, books and personal stuff. Thus, a week later, we moved and gradually settled in.

The critical thing that Dot-Lynn neglected to mention was that her boyfriend, Andrew, stayed there a lot, overnight. From what I could see, he was living there; he never seemed to go back to his own place at night, assuming he had a place. Whenever I wanted to do something in the house like store something in the kitchen, Andrew would always be the one telling me I couldn’t do that. Instead of heeding what he said, I told him I would check with Dot-Lynn and that if she gave me permission to do whatever I needed to do, that would be all I needed. Andrew, for his part, would then show me his loud and aggressive side and start ordering me around, objecting to whatever I wanted or needed to do in the house. I thought about what he was saying and doing, realizing that he was not my landlord or my roommate; Dot-Lynn was the owner of the house as well as my roommate, and I decided that I would do whatever she said was okay for me to do, not what he wanted. However, he consistently gave me flack every time I did something he didn’t like. It was amazing to me how many things I did that he objected to. It was even more amazing that he acted like he had the authority to boss me around. In fact, he would boss Dot-Lynn and Elizabeth around too on a regular basis. It was all becoming too much for me to handle, and he was practically standing on my last nerve when I went to tell Dot-Lynn about his obnoxious behaviour and attitude toward Elizabeth and me. It was either going to be him or us that capitulated.

Something that I discovered about Andrew shortly after we’d moved in was that he was legally married with three kids! I’d overheard him talking to someone about his kids one day. His family lived in Jamaica, which was where he was from. How he’d met Dot-Lynn and managed to become her boyfriend was beyond me.

What the hell does she see in him? He’s nothing to write home about. Maybe he’s so good in bed, she can’t resist him. If I had a boyfriend right now, he wouldn’t be anything like Andrew. I know that for a fact!

One day, after a particularly bitter argument that I’d had with Andrew, a strange woman called the house on the landline. She asked to speak to Andrew. I told her he wasn’t there—even though he really was—and asked her to leave a message. She told me her name was Taya and that she was Andrew’s sister, which I did not believe for one second, and she asked me to pass on the fact that she’d called and to tell him to please call her back.

Very politely, I told her, “No problem, Taya, I’ll let him know you called.” Yeah, in your dreams, lady!

Meanwhile, I had no intention whatsoever of telling him about her call. In fact, I had no intention of telling anyone about it. Instead, I hung up and called *69, which is the “call return” option for how to get the caller’s number right after the call. I found out that this caller’s number was coming from outside the country, probably from Jamaica. There was no doubt in my mind that the caller was Andrew’s wife, not sister. He didn’t have a sister, as far as I knew. At that point, I knew how I was going to get even with Andrew for all the shenanigans he kept pulling around here. He was not going to be bossing us around much longer if I had anything to do with it.

 The next day, almost 24 hours after the first call, the woman called back. I made sure I was near the phone all day because I wanted to be the one answering it in case it was the same woman. It was. I recognized her voice. It was a good thing she’d called back so soon—I might not have recognized it or I might have missed her call.

 “Hello, Taya! My name is Shannon,” I told her. “I just moved in here with my daughter, Elizabeth, last month. My roommate’s name, in case you didn’t know it, is Dot-Lynn. Recently, I met Andrew too, though I haven’t seen him lately. I was wondering something though. Did you know Andrew has a steady girlfriend …? Yes, apparently, they’ve been practically living together for the last two to three years. Dot-Lynn tells me he’s been her boyfriend for quite some time now. All I know is that he stays overnight here a lot.”

  “What?! Who did you say you were?” she screamed. “There is no girlfriend there, as far as I know … Dot-Lynn, or whatever her damn name is does not live there, she is only a friend of Andrew’s!”

  "Wrong, lady! You could not be more wrong than you are about your husband, or however you want to refer to him. He is a cad and a womanizer. He treats my daughter and me like second-class citizens when we are the ones who live here, paying rent like any good tenants would. Andrew, on the other hand, eats here for free and sleeps with Dot-Lynn in her bedroom every single night, mooching off her constantly. Not only that, he orders us all around at will. I am sick to death of his crap, so if you don’t mind, why don’t you come and haul your lazy-a** husband back to Jamaica where he belongs! Put him to work there supporting you and your kids!” And with that parting quip, I hung up, satisfied that I had accomplished in one phone call what might have taken a lot longer otherwise.

 Next thing I knew Andrew and Dot-Lynn were fighting like cats and dogs constantly regarding what Taya had discovered about him. I thought, Now I just have to sit back and watch them fight … this is real entertainment! If Dot-Lynn is smart, she will get rid of this albatross quickly because it’s either him who leaves or us. But if she isn’t that smart, then “Doormat” really is the right name for her. At least I know I did my part to make Andrew’s life absolutely miserable from now on.
After that fateful call I relaxed and let the fates take their course. I had done what I needed to do to set the situation right for myself and my daughter.

copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

         

         

Living in Euphoria -- by Anne Shier

(Inspired by the website http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/heroin.html and the TV show Intervention on A&E.)

Chandra got into the new car that had just been bought for her by her kind and loving grandparents and drove out onto the highway. She had more than 100 kilometres to cover before nightfall. But she knew that if she didn’t do this trip today, her physical symptoms would just get worse. They were already almost unbearable—chronic restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhoea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps and involuntary kicking movements. It was a wonder she could drive at all.

Many times, her mother and elder sister would nag her, telling her that if she did not stop shooting H (heroin), she would soon die. The thing is, it was her drug of choice. No one, certainly not her family, was going to tell her what she should or should not do. All she wanted from her loved ones was some loving support, but all she was getting was this constant lecturing, nagging, arguing and fighting. It wasn’t her fault she found it difficult, if not impossible, to kick the heroin habit. She told herself and anyone else who would listen that she really did want to quit, but there was never any evidence of this, just her inevitable daily downward spiral that she seemed unwilling or unable to stop. If only the constant pain in her life would go away. Getting high seemed to be the only time she was happy enough to deal with her daily life.

To support this very expensive habit, she had to get money, and lots of it, every single day. A modest estimate of her daily need for the drug was about $500, but her family was neither willing nor able to fork over that kind of money. She had to find a way to make that kind of money herself in order to pay her dealer for just a few grams of heroin. After pondering her problem, she decided she would start doing “private dances” for various male customers for money, either at their home if possible, or at her home. The main problem was that she had a friend and her sister as roommates, and whenever she brought men to the house, it was obvious to them that she was doing more than just “dancing” for them in the privacy of her bedroom; it was prostitution to get money for drugs. Right after her male customer had paid for her services and left the house, she would leave immediately to go to her drug dealer. This trip had to be done several times a week because her heroin supply would not last her more than a day or two at most.

As if prostitution was not enough for her, Chandra also stole money, jewellery and credit cards from her family members in order to get money for drugs. These thefts were never reported to the police only because they tended to involve family members. To be sure, she was on a slippery slope. Still, she was happy and content just to shoot up daily. Her deteriorating health did not concern her in the least. She looked like hell, but didn’t appear to care. Her face was red, blotchy and full of acne; she habitually picked at her face. Her family was increasingly worried about her and horrified by her appearance. A couple of her family members had, in the meantime, done some research on the long-term effects of heroin use on the human body and found out some very sobering facts about the extremely high risks to her health, which were significant in any drug user. They now knew that she ran a real risk of dying from any number of causes.

To her family and friends, she appeared to be in terrible shape and getting worse daily. But she didn’t seem to care about herself or notice that she didn’t look good. Only the drugs were important—how to get more when she needed them. The potentially deadly effects of heroin were practically nonexistent to her.

Her mother, who had also been a drug addict at one time, tried to talk some sense into Chandra one day. But it was to no avail. Chandra was not the least bit interested in what anyone thought of her neglected looks, promiscuous behaviour, constant drug use or thefts of money and property; nothing was important to her except getting high. When she was high, all she wanted to do was vegetate and nothing else. Everyone who lived with her had to do all the daily housework and yard work. She would not do any of it. No one even dared talk to her, especially in an argumentative or confrontational way. She could “snap” at a moment’s notice and lose her temper very quickly, so no one wanted to start a battle by saying the wrong thing to her at the wrong time. Needless to say, it was trying for everyone who was a family member, whether they lived with her or not. She had lost every friend she’d ever had who did not do drugs; the only friends she wanted to hang out with now were people who wanted to get high.

It was one day during her usual activity of doing “private dances” for her male customers that she met a guy named Les who wanted to hang out with her. He told her he loved her and would do anything for her. He knew all about her heroin addiction, but that didn’t appear to bother him. Les seemed like a nice enough guy, but Chandra’s sister thought Chandra was just using him—to get more money for drugs and for sex. He would mention, in passing, that he didn’t necessarily like her “entertaining” her gentleman friends privately in her bedroom, but he couldn’t stop it from happening any more than anyone else could. She just tried harder to keep him in the dark about how frequently and when she did it because a fight between Chandra and Les might have meant that Les would get pissed off enough to leave her, and she did not want that to happen. He was her “sugar daddy” for the moment—someone who was willing to help her get the drugs she needed so it wouldn’t be necessary for these other guys to come over.

Eventually, though, Les became curious and jealous enough to see what she was actually doing with her gentleman clients in her bedroom. He discreetly and quietly knocked on her door. Then he tried the door knob to see if it was locked; it was. So he started pounding forcefully on the door, shouting for her to open it. She refused; she did not want Les to see her having sex with a strange man. The harder he pounded on the door, the more reluctant she was to open it. Only after a few minutes, when they were supposedly finished, did she open the door fully dressed and slip by Les. She had her coat on and headed straight toward the front door of the house. He followed her, demanding to know where she was going.

Chandra screamed at him, “As if you cared! I am merely trying to get what I need to get through life because my life sucks! Do you hear me? It sucks! If you knew what I’d been through as a very young girl with my stepfather, you would know that I was sexually molested by him on a regular basis when he was still around here and nobody would do anything to stop it! It went on for almost five years—from the time I was 10 until I was 14. The damage he did was permanent. He took gross advantage of me, sexually, and because of that, I will never be whole and healthy again! So get out of my way, Les; I need to get to my dealer today or I will be extremely sick tomorrow without my drugs, and you do not want to be around me then!”

By this time Chandra was hysterical, her voice rapidly rising in octaves, and Les thought he’d better go along with her in the car, just to make sure she would be able to get to her drug dealer in one piece.

The next day, after her customary hit of H, intravenously injected of course, Chandra said she felt this incredible surge of euphoria (the “rush”) along with a dry mouth, warmly flushed skin, heavy-feeling arms and legs that now made her feel lethargic all over and a clouded mind. Following that initial euphoria, she’d go “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. When describing the sensations she felt while high, she would say she was in la-la land; she didn’t care about anything or anybody. The people who lived with her and often saw her in this state would comment that they could not communicate with her about anything important at all. There was absolutely no point in trying to carry on a conversation with a zombie. The only thing that really mattered was getting more heroin, as much and as often as she needed it.

Her health was failing. She ran an extremely high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, as well as heart, kidney, liver and lung diseases of various kinds. An accidental overdose could easily kill her. Intellectually, she knew all of these things, but the power of the drug to control her behaviour and attitude made her apathetic. These negative side effects did not concern her in the least. Eventually, her mother and third husband and her sister had to prevail upon an interventionist who could help them all come to terms with the fact that Chandra was “flushing her life down the toilet” by using heroin daily.

This interventionist, named Candy, a former drug addict herself, knew firsthand what the effects of daily heroin use were. She had the ability to steer Chandra onto a path that would lead her back to health and happiness. But it would also take a great effort by Chandra herself and a solemn promise by each of her family members not to enable her drug habit any longer. They would not be doing her any favours if they truly wanted her to survive and live a good life.

As it turned out, the intervention, a necessary step in the right direction for Chandra, turned out to be a great thing for her. Les, who had been more interested in her when she was drug-addicted, dropped out of the picture much to the relief of her family. Chandra was sent to a drug rehabilitation centre called “New Horizons” in Arizona. While there, she overcame her addiction, first by detoxifying, followed by the help of daily counselling sessions, rest, exercise, good food and loving support from her family. She came to realize that the human body was resilient and could bounce back, over time, given the right ingredients for good health.

     At the end of her rehab session, she was welcomed back into the family with love having learned to rejoice daily in a life finally free from drugs.

copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

Living in a Make-Believe World -- by Anne Shier

Have you ever known a “compulsive” liar—someone who lies on a regular basis? If so, were you ever aware of this fact? I once knew a girl named Janelle who was so experienced at doing this very thing that I doubt she even knew that what she was doing was, indeed, lying to people. I don’t know about most people, but I cannot tolerate overt lying, for one’s own personal and maybe devious reasons. But that’s what she did. Eventually I would discover this fact and call her on it.

Nevertheless, I do believe people lie to others on occasion for at least one of the following reasons:

1)                 To be polite to someone,

2)                 To spare someone’s feelings,

3)                 To avoid an undesirable consequence,

4)                 Because it’s easier to lie than to tell the painful truth,

5)                 Telling a lie has become a way of life for some people.

There could be other “innocent” reasons for lying as well. It’s just one of those things that people often do simply because the truth would hurt too much. A lie just seems easier sometimes.

In my mind, the main difference between “innocent” lies and the kind of lying Janelle regularly did was that she did it only for her own personal and selfish reasons. For example, she would lie so the people she considered her “friends” would not know what she was really up to. And she was convincing most of the time; she certainly fooled me many times. I believed her although I had some of my own suspicions, until the day that she told me one whopper of a lie that I could not ignore. Her reason for telling me this huge lie could only be to conceal the truth from me. It was relatively easy for her to do because I wasn’t living in Calgary, Alberta, anymore; I now lived in Toronto, Ontario. I would not have been around while the actual events of her life had been unfolding, since I’d been in Toronto for the last seven or eight years.

But after going out to Calgary for a friendly visit in 2004 and staying briefly with her and her family, which included her husband, Raymond (“Ray”), and her young son, Brantley, I found out, purely by accident, that Janelle was definitely not the kind of person I wanted to keep as a friend.

When I first met Janelle, my son, Byron, was only 2 years old. We ran into each other at a McDonald’s one day, after we’d met briefly during a temp assignment. At first she reacted like I was a complete stranger. Then, as she warmed up to me again, she told me she had a boyfriend. I told her I’d been married but was now separated. That meeting happened in late 1986. We had first met just a couple of months ago at the Petro-Canada Centre downtown where several oil and gas companies kept their headquarters. We were both temps working at Sceptre Resources. I worked in a computerized accounting capacity and Janelle was an oil and gas secretary. I enjoyed my work there a lot and wanted to apply to work full time for Sceptre Resources, but the company didn’t hire anyone who did not already have industry-specific experience. Since this was only my first job in the oil and gas industry, I did not yet qualify for full time employment there.

Later, when we’d both left Sceptre Resources after our temporary assignments were completed, I went to work as a temp again for Pan Canadian Petroleum for several weeks, and Janelle got a full time job as a secretary for a small oil and gas company. She didn’t like it much though because her boss was a real a**hole, but she was at least working in the industry that she wanted to be in. After my second temporary assignment was done, I soon got a full time position working in accounts payable for Billingsgate Fish Company Ltd. This company was the largest one of its kind in Calgary, supplying all the restaurants and Safeway grocery stories with fresh seafood every day. This seafood came from all over North America into Calgary to our plant to be processed and was then shipped out that day or the following one. I was very busy working with supplier invoices that needed to be paid.

One day, just after I’d arrived home from work after picking up my toddler, Byron, from daycare, Janelle suddenly turned up at my doorstep with no prior notice. I guess she’d decided, after all, to become my friend. But it wasn’t like I needed more friends; I already had plenty. For a long time after that, we would visit with each other on a regular basis, once or twice a week, and we got along very well together.

However, I had no reason to suspect her as a habitual liar until one day, when I found out through the grapevine that she didn’t really have just one boyfriend but many. At that point, I suspected she was more interested in sex than anything else. I could understand that to a certain extent because we were both young and sex was important in a relationship. She was seven years younger than me; I was 33 at the time, so that made her 26 or so. Usually my own social life revolved around the weekends if I went out. Like most women my age, sometimes there was a man in my life and sometimes there wasn’t. I had learned to appreciate those times when I had a good man in my life, which was not all that often. But I started to get the distinct impression that Janelle would be with a man sexually only so she could try to somehow persuade him to move in with her! Why? Because I think she was desperate to be accepted by her younger female friends who all appeared to have steady boyfriends. I didn’t want to live with any man though; I was busy enough just recovering from my bad marriage. Having a steady boyfriend wasn’t a big priority for me at the time.

One evening, while we were out together at a bar on a weekend, she met a guy named Roger. They were attracted to each other pretty much instantaneously and began seeing each other. She told me that he was definitely “the one.” Meanwhile, he would come over to her place after work (he worked till late at night) and stay the night, eat her food and generally live off her. Roger was my definition of a “leech”! But Janelle was totally enamoured with him. As naive as I could still sometimes be, even I could see that he was just using her for his own selfish purposes. In fact, I thought she was just lying to herself. Why any woman would want to lie to herself and allow a leech like Roger to take such advantage of her was beyond me. But she was adamant—Roger was “her man” and their affair was going “gangbusters,” meaning she was very happy with him until, one day, when she found out she was pregnant. The baby was definitely Roger’s and he knew it. We all knew it.

After their daughter, Monica, was born, Roger still remained part of Janelle’s life yet never really got involved with his daughter’s upbringing. He left that part largely to Janelle. He certainly wasn’t the kind of father who would be considered “ideal” by any means. It was still the same old story. He would come over to Janelle’s place merely to eat and sleep with her. Playing with his daughter or paying any support for her was not a big priority. Eventually, of course, he wanted to leave Janelle but still refused to take any paternal responsibility for Monica, such as paying child support. Janelle, however, still thought the world of Roger and told this to anyone who would listen. Roger, being the true prick he was, would later demonstrate this fact by demanding a paternity test from Janelle for Monica. He wanted proof that Monica was actually his daughter! It was a real slap in the face for Janelle.

By now I was getting tired of listening to her constant crap about how great Roger was. Every one of her female friends, from what I’d heard via the grapevine, apparently felt the same way. They didn’t believe her anymore than I did.

Needless to say, we started to grow apart. I had my own life to live and didn’t want to have her friendship anymore, since she was hardly my idea of what a true friend should be. Eventually, I did get a steady boyfriend and was fairly settled. My ex-husband, Victor, had not been a good father to our son either; however, it didn’t seem to bother me much. All I wanted from him was for him to pay me his court-ordered child support ($150 per month) and leave me alone. Beyond that, I was fairly content. Being single, in my mind, was not the worst thing in the world for me. Staying married to my now ex-husband would have been a disaster. I considered myself lucky not to have him in my life anymore.

During the time that Roger was still around and part of Janelle’s life, I didn’t have much to do with Janelle, on purpose. I couldn’t stand being near him. By this time, 1988, I was starting to seriously think about going back to live in Toronto. Janelle and I were talking to each other only occasionally; we weren’t that close anymore—not like we had been. In late 1990 I finally left Calgary for good with my young son and moved to Toronto. After I had settled in Toronto with my new roommate, Gloria, who was a very good friend (Byron was living with his father for the time being), Janelle and I began to talk once more.

Apparently, shortly after I’d left Calgary, she had a major falling out with a couple of her closest younger female friends, Jordana and Sylvia. I guess they’d wanted to show her up for the “fraud” they thought she was and tried getting even with her in a very devious manner. Now she was left with very few “friends,” so she started to call me up again, on occasion.

About seven or eight years after I’d moved, she met and later married her new husband, Ray, and they had a baby son, Brantley. Roger had departed for greener pastures shortly after I’d left Calgary and now had nothing whatsoever to do with either Janelle or their daughter, Monica, anymore. In fact, Monica later went to live in a foster home for delinquent children. Janelle couldn’t handle having her daughter around anymore. Apparently, Roger’s neglectful parenting had had a traumatic effect on Janelle and Monica’s lives.

In the summer of 2004, I decided to go out west to Calgary for a visit. I called Janelle and asked if I could stay with her and her husband and their young son for a few days. She replied that it was no problem. I told her I could stay for only three days, since I was on a 10-day Discovery Canada bus pass that would expire after that.

When I arrived in Calgary by Greyhound bus, I took a taxi to Janelle’s house up in the northwest area of the city. We were pretty glad to see each other. I thought that maybe she’d finally grown up and learned how to live her life honestly, without pretence. In the years since I’d left Calgary, Janelle had met Ray and married him in July 2000. I was genuinely happy for her; Ray was a really terrific guy. I wondered, in passing, how she’d managed to meet and marry someone like him, but then, it wasn’t really any of my business, was it? He’d sounded like a very good choice for her as a spouse and he was. I thought Ray was a decent guy, and he seemed to love Janelle very much. I thought, It’s about time! During my brief visit, I also met her young son, Brantley. I saw Janelle’s video of her wedding day to Ray. She looked very lovely and happy with Ray by her side as her new husband.

When I asked her about Brantley, she told me he was 4 now. I’d forgotten when she had first said he was born, but for some reason, I didn’t ask her at that moment. Meanwhile, Janelle was telling me she and Ray had just celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary. I was really happy for them. It wasn’t until I got home to Toronto, almost a week later, that it suddenly dawned on me that if Janelle and Ray had actually gotten married in July 2000, which I knew was true, Brantley couldn’t possibly be 4 years old now. Either he had to be 3 or 5 years old. He was a big boy, so he could’ve been 5, yet she still had him in diapers. I was curious enough to phone Janelle then and ask her what Brantley’s true age was. While we were on the phone, I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I did not think Brantley could possibly be 4 like she’d said. Otherwise she would’ve been pregnant in her wedding video, which she had not appeared to be. After I said these things to her, she told me Brantley’s age was “none of your business” and that I was totally wrong about her!

I only called her once more after that, but she basically told me not to call her again; she had nothing more to say to me. So I guess her response was my answer. It was obvious that she had lied about something very important—when her son had been born—and she did it only to conceal her premarital pregnancy from me. Why she’d done that was anyone’s guess. If only she’d been honest with me, I could have accepted whatever she said. I guess she didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth about her pregnancy and her subsequent wedding to Ray.

         So much for friendship—I don’t think I will ever really look at my friendships with younger females quite the same again. In fact, this story made me realize how important it is to trust the people you are friends with and that the trust you share with others should be based on an honest and truthful approach to life and relationships. I promised myself never to lie to anyone I was close to because it wouldn’t be worth the price I would have to pay if the trust we shared disappeared for whatever reason.

copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA