For those of you just joining us....
Mar. 12th, 2009 12:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelleIn 2002, I went to this party, met this guy. We hit it off. Blue eyes, long blond hair. He was wearing cool boots. We had some mutual friends. I gave him my number, I think, but he didn't call. Mutual friends told me he'd met some girl online, and moved to Canada to marry her. Loser, I thought. But almost a year later, I was in the back of a car getting carted around NCRF-land, and I got an email on my phone-- same guy, wanting to know if maybe we could have that dinner date.
I met him for sushi, and we wound up almost living together for about nine months. As you might surmise, he didn't have issues-- he had the Library of Congress. A codependent relationship with his ex, with whom he was still living. A ridiculously exaggerated love of his membership card for the Church of Satan. An adamant refusal to get a bank account or a car because he "didn't want anything the Government could come and take away." A "secret" way he'd discovered to legally not pay his taxes. A slight-- ahem-- problem with alcohol. The tattoo he couldn't afford but got anyway that he swore was really an Old Norse wheel. An annoying habit of laughing when he said things he knew would piss me off. He laughed a lot. There was some other stuff, too, that I won't go into, but that would probably make some of my friends break him into tiny pieces if he ever showed up. I probably wouldn't stop them. Okay, I might do a Willy-Wonka-Oh-No-Stop. Maybe.
And then there was the time he started speaking to me in German in bed. The only word I caught was "Judenfrau." Ohhh, yeah.
I mean, I knew there was something wrong on our second date, when he wore all black, with a button-down black shirt crossed by a sam brown belt, and a black tie. And his black pants tucked into his knee-high black steel-toed boots. I knew. I just kept saying, "No way! He knows I'm Jewish. No WAY."
Yeah. Way. His favourite movie was "The Night Porter," and that's pretty much the life he wanted to build for us. He even applied for a job as a night auditor at the local Holiday Inn.
All I can say is I was young and stupid. And yes, I know six years isn't that long a time ago. But I'd never actually met a Neo-Nazi, and I honestly...well, maybe I just didn't believe in them, somehow. So I gave him prim comebacks and tried to talk to him seriously about his attitude, and introduced him to my Jewish friends and family, and argued back when he started complaining about African Americans, or Mexicans, or you-name-it. Anyway, one night, we got into a fight and he said some really cruel things. He also said I should send my puppy back to the breeder and get my money back, as I needed money more than a dog. I realised two things: Clue was far, far more important, and I was fighting for something not worth saving.
So a few days later, after he went on yet another rant about Mexicans in his LiveJournal (an account I'd gotten for him, back when you still needed invite codes), I called him on it, right in front of his friends with ridiculous names like NaziNazi and Panzer and crap like that. I told him maybe someone who didn't pay taxes or vote didn't have the right to critique those of us who did. Trust me, I knew exactly what I was doing. Sure enough, he completely blew up-- not that I'd disagreed, but that I'd told people he didn't pay his taxes or vote. Like I said, issues.
He called that night, and sputtered that he was too angry to come over as we'd planned. In the middle of answering him, someone knocked on my door. It was evening, and I wasn't expecting anyone, but instead of being even vaguely concerned that there might be an axe murderer-- or, gasp! a minority!-- at my door, he went on about how righteously indignant he was, and that he just needed to hang up. So I saved him the trouble and hung up on him. And after I answered the door-- it was Korman maintenance-- I packed up all of his things.
His housekey arrived in the mail with a semi-coherent letter about trust and betrayal on the same day I left his boxes on his doorstep.
I will say it was only after the break I think he really just let it all hang out in his endearingly Aryan way. He started dating a Messianic Jew (which was a whole other argument), and for her birthday, he apparently bought her a super surprise gift! An authentic Nazi Waffen SS helmet! Wow! What girl wouldn't want that! And he started talking about his "regalia." Months later, I looked at his LJ, and it was covered in anti-Semitic, racist propaganda. He either stopped trying to resist it, or just stopped trying to hide it.
I make a lot of jokes about the whole episode now, cos, seriously, you want a worst-boyfriend-ever story? Ha! Don't try to beat me on this! But it really did some damage. I have an almost knee-jerk reaction to distrust anyone who brings up any kind of Jewish issue unless I know them well, or know they're Jewish. I'm enraged by people who wave dismissive hands when anti-Semitic incidents happen right in front of them. I feel older now, and much more jaded. I half-jokingly say that he didn't just take off my rose-coloured glasses, he stomped them under his jackboots.
Sigh. I really meant this to be a brief, snappy quip about the Neo-Nazi I used to date. I think, though, parts of the whole mess have been floating around in my head lately, so there's obviously something I needed to take out and examine again. Something I need to make sure I've learned, or have yet to figure out. I mean, when I screw up in a relationship, I don't make a little error-- I make a giant, colossal mistake. Yet there's usually something to pull from the ashes-- some small bit of hard-won wisdom. In a terrible way, I suppose, this particular screw-up made me a more politically active human, and a more dedicated Jew. But honest to G-d, couldn't there have been an easier way to go about it?
I met him for sushi, and we wound up almost living together for about nine months. As you might surmise, he didn't have issues-- he had the Library of Congress. A codependent relationship with his ex, with whom he was still living. A ridiculously exaggerated love of his membership card for the Church of Satan. An adamant refusal to get a bank account or a car because he "didn't want anything the Government could come and take away." A "secret" way he'd discovered to legally not pay his taxes. A slight-- ahem-- problem with alcohol. The tattoo he couldn't afford but got anyway that he swore was really an Old Norse wheel. An annoying habit of laughing when he said things he knew would piss me off. He laughed a lot. There was some other stuff, too, that I won't go into, but that would probably make some of my friends break him into tiny pieces if he ever showed up. I probably wouldn't stop them. Okay, I might do a Willy-Wonka-Oh-No-Stop. Maybe.
And then there was the time he started speaking to me in German in bed. The only word I caught was "Judenfrau." Ohhh, yeah.
I mean, I knew there was something wrong on our second date, when he wore all black, with a button-down black shirt crossed by a sam brown belt, and a black tie. And his black pants tucked into his knee-high black steel-toed boots. I knew. I just kept saying, "No way! He knows I'm Jewish. No WAY."
Yeah. Way. His favourite movie was "The Night Porter," and that's pretty much the life he wanted to build for us. He even applied for a job as a night auditor at the local Holiday Inn.
All I can say is I was young and stupid. And yes, I know six years isn't that long a time ago. But I'd never actually met a Neo-Nazi, and I honestly...well, maybe I just didn't believe in them, somehow. So I gave him prim comebacks and tried to talk to him seriously about his attitude, and introduced him to my Jewish friends and family, and argued back when he started complaining about African Americans, or Mexicans, or you-name-it. Anyway, one night, we got into a fight and he said some really cruel things. He also said I should send my puppy back to the breeder and get my money back, as I needed money more than a dog. I realised two things: Clue was far, far more important, and I was fighting for something not worth saving.
So a few days later, after he went on yet another rant about Mexicans in his LiveJournal (an account I'd gotten for him, back when you still needed invite codes), I called him on it, right in front of his friends with ridiculous names like NaziNazi and Panzer and crap like that. I told him maybe someone who didn't pay taxes or vote didn't have the right to critique those of us who did. Trust me, I knew exactly what I was doing. Sure enough, he completely blew up-- not that I'd disagreed, but that I'd told people he didn't pay his taxes or vote. Like I said, issues.
He called that night, and sputtered that he was too angry to come over as we'd planned. In the middle of answering him, someone knocked on my door. It was evening, and I wasn't expecting anyone, but instead of being even vaguely concerned that there might be an axe murderer-- or, gasp! a minority!-- at my door, he went on about how righteously indignant he was, and that he just needed to hang up. So I saved him the trouble and hung up on him. And after I answered the door-- it was Korman maintenance-- I packed up all of his things.
His housekey arrived in the mail with a semi-coherent letter about trust and betrayal on the same day I left his boxes on his doorstep.
I will say it was only after the break I think he really just let it all hang out in his endearingly Aryan way. He started dating a Messianic Jew (which was a whole other argument), and for her birthday, he apparently bought her a super surprise gift! An authentic Nazi Waffen SS helmet! Wow! What girl wouldn't want that! And he started talking about his "regalia." Months later, I looked at his LJ, and it was covered in anti-Semitic, racist propaganda. He either stopped trying to resist it, or just stopped trying to hide it.
I make a lot of jokes about the whole episode now, cos, seriously, you want a worst-boyfriend-ever story? Ha! Don't try to beat me on this! But it really did some damage. I have an almost knee-jerk reaction to distrust anyone who brings up any kind of Jewish issue unless I know them well, or know they're Jewish. I'm enraged by people who wave dismissive hands when anti-Semitic incidents happen right in front of them. I feel older now, and much more jaded. I half-jokingly say that he didn't just take off my rose-coloured glasses, he stomped them under his jackboots.
Sigh. I really meant this to be a brief, snappy quip about the Neo-Nazi I used to date. I think, though, parts of the whole mess have been floating around in my head lately, so there's obviously something I needed to take out and examine again. Something I need to make sure I've learned, or have yet to figure out. I mean, when I screw up in a relationship, I don't make a little error-- I make a giant, colossal mistake. Yet there's usually something to pull from the ashes-- some small bit of hard-won wisdom. In a terrible way, I suppose, this particular screw-up made me a more politically active human, and a more dedicated Jew. But honest to G-d, couldn't there have been an easier way to go about it?
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 06:34 am (UTC)He was NOT happy when I became a Christian at 16. But, as a compromise between my parents, I'd really pretty much grown up with no religious training/background at all...so I felt he didn't have a right to judge. He was pretty clear on his opinion that it didn't matter what I called myself, I'd have been in the gas chambers with everyone else, though. A fact I didn't dispute (and almost had ME doing the messianic Jew thing for a while...but not having grown up kosher or with the culture consistently, I didn't really know how to pull it off). Not sure if he had much of an opinion one way or another when I decided to chuck Christianity for Paganism (though I know it took me a lot longer to make the decision after how hard I'd had to work to have the Christianity coped with).
Just in case, ya know, you didn't know. :D (Sorry, that ended up a lot longer than I'd meant it to.)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 06:38 am (UTC)*grin*
That seems to be the theme for tonight, no?
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Date: 2009-03-12 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 11:07 am (UTC)what he is up to...
a neonazi nutcase (most neonazi's are not as big as a nutcase as this one obviously is) who has a habit of dating jewish women?
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Date: 2009-03-12 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 02:08 pm (UTC)Here is my unsolicited tuppence, love. I think you continue to be way too hard on yourself regarding this issue, and I think you are ascribing blame to yourself that doesn't belong. Most people have had at least one relationship where they failed to notice cues, or gave someone the benefit of the doubt who didn't deserve it. Wanting to believe the best in people is not a flaw, IMHO. If someone you trust turns out to be an asshole, it is THEIR fault for being an asshole, not your fault for trusting them.
I think, in this particular case, the extremeness of his asshaberdashery makes you feel like this was an "epic screw up" on your part, but I disagree. I think most women in your place would have acted the same way, including myself. He was friends with your friends, he had some good qualities, and he dated you knowing you were Jewish, so I could see how his true nature wouldn't have been immediately apparent.
I'm so sorry this happened to you, as I think it ranks right up there as one of the worst possible experiences. I know it will linger and keep coming up, how could it not? But, I wish you could go easier on yourself about it. It's like you were sideswiped by a bus, but instead of blaming the bus, you are beating yourself up for having had the nerve to be out on the street in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 02:55 pm (UTC)What ever made me go to that level - I will never know. Oh yeah, that's right it was *hope.* Hope that he would see the error of his ways if he was just around a decent person for long enough. Life was hell, thank the gods I had my friends. *shakes head* I learned from that that I (or anyone else) can never ever rationalize with irrational people.
I send you many many hugs and agree with the poster above with the analogy about the bus.
(And now I've said far too much on a public post... but *shrugs* it needed to be let out.)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 02:57 pm (UTC)And *hugs* - we were all young and stupid at some point - even if it was just last year... :)
I can't help giggling a bit though - and totally not at you... giggling at your ex... my brain keeps doing this sing-song rendition of "you dated a Jew... you dated a Jew..."
I mean - how can he ever live that down to his little Nazi friends?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 03:29 pm (UTC)And yeah, he absolutely had a thing for Jewish women. It was a power/fetish thing with him. Go look up "The Night Porter." I never saw it-- nor do I ever want to-- but he fetishised the movie.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 03:30 pm (UTC)Sort of like root canal is an experience, I think.
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Date: 2009-03-12 03:38 pm (UTC)I think the nature of my whatthefuckery isn't so much that I dated a nazi, it's that I dated him long after I knew I needed to get rid of him. Beyond the raging racism and paranoia and conspiracy-theorism, he was just a terrible boyfriend. He was inconsiderate, always late, never called when he said he would, he absolutely didn't believe in compromise, and to top it all off, the sex was mediocre at best, and usually non-existant. And there was something else, but that's just the cherry, so to speak. I knew positively I had to get him out of my life-- he had an almost radioactive field of negativity. But I didn't. I let it drag on for months.
I'm very, very glad I DID eventually spark the catalyst, that final fight. I'm just angry that I knew what he was, and still let him linger in my life and my home.
Having said that? Yeah. He was a bus. A cut-rate Greyhound Local. Hell-- not even. More like a school bus. The short kind.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 03:40 pm (UTC)And yes, I sympathise. Smart women do sometimes do weird things-- but hey, we learn!
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Date: 2009-03-12 03:42 pm (UTC)Like I said: Library of Congress. Shudder.
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Date: 2009-03-12 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 04:22 pm (UTC)He belongs in the basket with the folks that named their kid Adolph Hitler...
And yeah *shudder*...
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Date: 2009-03-12 05:58 pm (UTC)"The Night Porter" is one of the very few films I've seen, wish I hadn't, and will heartily NOT recommend to anyone and everyone.
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Date: 2009-03-12 06:03 pm (UTC)My first boyfriend and I got really really good at breaking up - I indulged my desire for drama something fierce more than once (the nicest bit was putting everything I'd ever bought or made for him in trash bags and waiting for him to come home so when he asked, "What's all that?" I could hiss, "OUR RELATIONSHIP!" and storm out - oh, draaaaaaaaaaaaaaama!) - and I think...I think you have to reach that crystal clear quiet moment of realizing, "I can't be here anymore" before you can really truly walk away, no matter how negative the relationship.
We are conditioned to hope and to love and sometimes the dysfunction becomes an ill-fitting suit that some part of us hopes will fit again some day - and somehow waiting is easier than taking that bad boy to Goodwill. If ya know what I mean.
*hug*
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Date: 2009-03-12 07:22 pm (UTC)Seriously - it helps...
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Date: 2009-03-12 07:23 pm (UTC)*hug*
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Date: 2009-03-14 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 03:00 am (UTC)Yeah, I guess I could imagine how you could get involved with him. At least socially, he's rather nice. I've hung out with him at a few parties back in the day, but never really had any in-depth conversations. But the Nazi obsession is rather obvious.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 03:06 am (UTC)It wasn't as obvious when he and I were dating, I know that. And he came across as mostly nice, yes. It was easy to assume he was just really into the industrial scene, the way he dressed. But it just got worse, I think, the more he knew how much it bothered me. And once we were over, it got completely out of control. Shudder.
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Date: 2009-03-14 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 05:36 am (UTC)*faints*
Too awesome. Oh, my G-d, too awesome!
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Date: 2009-03-14 05:39 am (UTC)I remember enjoying your company more than R's. I haven't seen him in years - think his life took an even darker turn if you can believe it.
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Date: 2009-03-14 05:48 am (UTC)And I think after we broke up, he went and joined what's essentially the American Nazi party. He moved off somewhere. I know, like I said, about the Jews-for-Jesus girl and the memorabilia collecting. What'd I miss?
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Date: 2009-03-14 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 05:56 am (UTC)First thought, "What, can EVERYONE get married but me? Even THAT?"
Second thought: "Back to Iceland, hm? Thank G-d-- now I KNOW I won't run into him at Nocturne!"
Makes sense, though. There are very few Blacks in Iceland-- and even fewer Mexicans-- from what I understand. Hm. And heeeey, didn't that country's whole banking system just go under?
How the heck did you even hear that much?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 03:56 pm (UTC)I heard this years ago when he was still posting to LJ.
Who knows where he could be now.