Nerve Endings: Female, 19, New York

"He was taking it well, until he showed up at my door, drunk and sobbing into the buzzer…"

Female • 19 • New York

Looking back on my first serious relationship, it seems that the ecstasy I felt with my boyfriend was mostly naïveté, tinted with the happy surprise that I actually had someone to be in a relationship with. After a while, the reasons to end the relationship were pretty compelling. I was a sophomore in college. Neal was thirty-one. I know age is just a number (and emotionally, he was closer to my age than he looked), but that number was a full twelve years greater than my number. But I'd say the greatest problem was a classic one: we just didn't have that much in common. He spent his day smoking weed and working as a waiter, and I spent my day at school. That wasn't enough to sustain things for the long-term. 

I finally realized it was time to end things, but I didn't realize that meant I was in for one crazy breakup. When I told him it was over, he said he wished me the best. It seemed like he was taking it well — that is, until he showed up at my door three hours later, drunk and sobbing into the buzzer. 

I went downstairs to tell Neal he needed to go home, but by the time I'd gotten there, he had passed out on the doorstep. I tried every college trick I knew to get him back on his feet, but he was really, concerningly drunk. It was the kind of thing I'd expect from guys my own age, not grown men. So I called an ambulance and rode with him to the hospital to make sure he was all right. 

Neal woke up in a hospital bed, still drunk, with me sitting in a chair across from him. He got up with a start, clearly still blackout drunk, and started pulling the IV out of his arm. Before I could call a nurse, he started taking off all of his clothes. Somewhere along the way from fully-clothed to buck-naked, Neal realized I was standing in the room with him. He looked at me and said, "Why would you do this to me?" and then proceeded to pee haphazardly around the room while I stood frozen in horror.

Once the nurse arrived, I figured it was best to just leave right then and there and vow never to see this man again, for fear that I'd have to tell him what he did the night I broke up with him. I haven't spoken to Neal since.

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