What was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories

Edited by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman

Not really a man bashing book...more of a finally finding common sense book. Tales of the "a-ha moment when you realized it just had to be over!"

Quotes I like:

"Fee-fi-fi-fun, I smell the blood of someone dumb."

"Another one of those deal breakers is to tell me, "What you're trying to say is...." "I don't try to say anything. If anything, I try not to say stuff. It's effortless for me to say whatever I want to say. I don't need to go to great lengths trying to explain myself or make myself clear, or deliver to you that secret passive-aggressive message I have lurking in the back of my head that I want you to figure out after you talk to me for a while. I'll tell you. I won't try to tell you."

"There were lots of times I could see my therapist editing herself...trying everything in her power not to fly out of the comfy leather chair and throttle me until I returned from my yearlong vacation in Crazytown. (Which by the way, is only a quick train ride away from Funkytown, which I've heard is much more fun.) She managed to hold herself back, but I could see her frustration as she rubbed her forehead."

"Ya know, you dodged a bullet with that one, right? You would've lost yourself completely."
"I walked out of the psychics' storefront realizing that this stranger had just said the exact same thing that every person in my life had been telling me all along. It's just that she spoke my language."

"You're all about how it shouldn't matter what a person does for a living, and that your job doesn't define who you are. (Which now that you are older and wiser, you totally disagree with. Now you think that what you choose to do for a full third of our day-to-day existence does in fact have a lot to do with who you are. And if it doesn't, it should!)'

"I was starting to like my date. He was sort of funny, at least I think he was, I often confuse mental illness with other things, like genius, or a great sense of humor."

"So it was not all bad....just mostly."

"On our first date, he wore a t-shirt that read, 'You could do worse.' turned out to be true...but barely."

"Now I have what you could call a big personality. I like to talk. I like to voice my opinions. I like to tell stories and jokes. Sometimes I can be so comfortable being myself, that I can be in the company of someone else and they can get ignored. Think of me as an only child with siblings. For some people this works really well. Because I am this self-amused I have completely missed glaring defects about people that I feel I am close to. For example, I had a friend in high school that I hung out with for a year before I noticed he had only one hand. Seriously."
'Everybody on the football team acts like they don't notice that I am different.'
'Is it because you're black?'
'Black?! I only have one hand.'
Stare

"The relationship was grounding. Funny word, grounding. People are always using it as a good thing, as in centered, stabilized. Of course the flip side is, when you are grounded, you can't get off the motherfucking ground. And I wanted so much to fly."

"I'd say hi." He'd say, "Wish I was."