Content warning: heavy themes

Truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction, can’t it? My goal is to tell stories that (apart from supernatural themes) conceivably could happen in real life. To do that, I focus on relationships and dialogue a lot, and involve high-stakes situations. Sometimes the stakes get too high, in multiple ways – sometimes, they get too intense, like the stakes getting higher in Consequences until… the last two chapters happen. And sometimes, they become unreal and not credible. Once, someone criticized how I handled Milo’s threat in Mutual Benefits, because no one would ever want to go on a crusade like that in real life. I took it as a criticism at the time.

Some events have happened recently that make me want to revisit this criticism. I hold it aloft not to dismiss them for criticizing the character/situation, but rather to just marvel that sometimes, even real life sends us through adventures that make us want to turn to the camera and note about how not real this all feels.

Somewhat recently, I entered into a relationship under dubious circumstances. Coworkers but more complicated, if you catch my drift. We were very conscious and aware of the nature of our working relationship, and navigated it tastefully. Consent and comfort were a regular discussion. Open communication was a must. We worked fantastically together for months, and I always visited their house and got along with all of their housemates. All except for one.

This person clearly disliked me, although I wasn’t believed when I told my girlfriend. For months this person seemed to smoulder. This person was That Kind of Person – insulted people for jokes then laughed really hard afterwards to pressure others into laughing too. Always commanded all the attention in the room. They needed to be the center of attention. I think she didn’t like that I was taking up more and more of my girlfriend’s attention. So they planned, then they struck.

They found out the dubious circumstances of our relationship’s origin, then made a Master Document, if you will. Then they pulled a Milo – they threatened me. Blackmail, I guess, more precisely. “Break up with <Bashful> or I go to his work and get him fired.” This Master Document contained all the reasons they should not just break up with me, but despise me too. It was also completely filled with complete fabrications. Everything from the banal that “sounds bad” – “why does <Bashful> have no friends his own age?” when I did and my girlfriend met many of them – to the straight-up insane, like claiming that I was a sex criminal. I’m sure if they found this website, they’d have a field day presuming my intentions.

This person went the extra mile and even included screenshots of our private DMs that were altered to make it look like I said things when I didn’t. All provable lies in a really desperate attempt to get “every piece of evidence ever” and prove a case against me. Wouldn’t stick in a million years, right?

The other housemates fell like dominoes, and went from liking me to banishing me from the house. My girlfriend herself, who had been with me for over 6 months with no issue ever, said we needed To Talk and tried to find out if I truly was “a monster” or not, her words.

One would think that the claims would be easily debunked. As I said, she met my friends my own age. Debunked. I showed her my actual DM history with this housemate. Debunked. What’s crazy was that I asked around to people who knew this crazy housemate and apparently she did this sort of thing a lot and was known as a local menace. Did everything from harassing other couples to… sexually violating an ex she didn’t like. For those keeping score, someone with an actual history of sexual abuse claimed that I was a sexual abuser. I’ve said before that my first time was without my consent – I went from being annoyed with her to furious with her to… scared of her.

Bizarrely, my girlfriend played defense for this friend the whole time. She never said they were in the right, but denied even that her housemate was a willful liar. She was willing to say the housemate lied, but not that she was a liar (although me being “a monster” was fair game and on the table). After I defended myself, she decided to have a word with this housemate… and then decided to forgive her for everything. The blackmail, the lying, the forged evidence… even the sexual crime this housemate committed. She decided to stay friends with this person, and the housemate, shockingly, wasn’t done. The housemate went on to insist I still be banished from the house.

Naturally, the claim that I was a deviant was out the window, so her only grounds was “I don’t like him.” Somehow, that stuck. My own girlfriend went to me not only saying that she’s not going to argue my case, but spent a long time talking about how she totally gets where she’s coming from and how understandable her intentions were. When I protested, my girlfriend noted, almost with a shrug, that she’s just so trusting of others and always cares more about the feelings of others than herself.

Of course, if she trusted me, she wouldn’t have entertained the idea of me being “a monster” when faced with such laughably flimsy evidence. If she cared about my feelings, she wouldn’t immediately cater to this housemate’s whims. Open-and-shut case, right? She doesn’t actually trust me. If this were a few weeks in I could believe that. But… this is someone I’d been seeing for over half a year, with full open communication, and no problems. Then suddenly, over the course of a week (almost to this day), everything just went to shit.

I’m honestly at a loss as to what to do. My friends are practically screaming for me to break up with her, but I’m one of those people that put a lot of emotional stock into my relationships. To have a relationship that’s going so well uprooted so quickly would frankly destroy me. Plus… reread this story. It sounds stranger than fiction, just to read, doesn’t it? Imagine it happening to you. I’m practically shellshocked. I genuinely have no earthly idea what to do.

I’m aware that whenever bad things happen to me, my writing suffers. I’m very aware of this and don’t want it to happen again, and am doing my best to put in my daily 500+ words. Of course, on the flipside, I made this note to my friend and they lifted up their jaw long enough to tell me, “You just told me that shit is happening to you and your primary concern is whether you get a chapter out on time?!” Still, you’re not here and reading these blogs because you’re my real-life friend. You’re here because you want my writing, and maybe this story is even an unwelcome intrusion. If so, I’m sorry. I’m frankly not doing well at the moment and needed to get this off my chest. Still, I pledge to you that I’m going to use this to keep writing. Maybe I’ll use this as fuel; Dinner Break gets pretty bleak, after all. Why not use it to my advantage?

I’ll talk to you all next week. Hug your loved ones; you never know what’ll happen in life.