Evil Mike: A Cautionary Tale

The summer before my 10th grade year, I met my first boyfriend, Evil Mike*, over the phone while at my friend Veronica’s house.  Because I was awkward and weird and had REALLY low self-esteem, I immediately agreed when Evil Mike, after talking to me for a week or so, asked me to be his girlfriend.  This happened over the phone, of course, and I had not actually seen him yet, as the internet didn‘t exist so I couldn‘t force him to send me a picture before I accepted. I thought he was funny enough though, in a fart joke sort of way, and his voice was very attractive, which, you should know, is never indicative of how someone actually looks, but Veronica had assured me that he was “totally fine” so I figured I was good.

Yes, Clint Eastwood is my ultimate measure of sexiness, thank you.

I was still 14 when I agreed to his proposal of datitude, even though I was forbidden from actually dating, so our first date required the “best friend secret rendezvous” maneuver, wherein I’d spend the night at my friend Katriya’s house (because she was the friend my family liked/trusted the most) so I could do things my parents didn’t want me to do because they were bad bad ideas.  I got all dressed up in my sexiest acid wash mom jeans and an off-the-shoulder tube shirt with a horrendous flower pattern and applied my iridescent tan lipstick and off we went to meet him and his friend at Loehmann’s Plaza, where we were going to see Child’s Play III.

Katriya and I sat outside on a planter that doubled for an ashtray, nervously waiting for him to make his first appearance.  “Over there, that’s him!” Her voice was not kind  as she pointed at the pair of heshers coming out of the arcade.  “Veronica LIED!” I hissed at her as she began to laugh. Please let it be the blonde, please let it be the blonde, fuck, of course it’s not the blonde.  His friend was fairly attractive.  He, on the other hand, totally wasn’t.  He wasn’t much taller than I was, fancied himself a body builder, but his frame didn’t support it well so he just looked a bit like a tall little person. Beyond that, he had a mullet, but not just any mullet, it was a super mexi-mullet. And he was wearing a fitted jean jacket with Eddie Van Halen air brushed on the back of it. I wanted to flee. To pretend it wasn’t me, but it was too late. He had spotted me.

We bought tickets.  I can’t remember if he bought my ticket for me or if I had to buy my own. I spent the whole movie alternating between chastising myself for my desire to dump him on the spot because he was so repulsive to me and thinking how incredibly awful the movie was.  Really, have you seen Child’s Play III?! Serious crap! He spent the whole movie trying to touch my boobs and making me very uncomfortable by actually acting like he was my boyfriend. The only high point was that he smelled of Drakkar, which he might have bathed in.

Afterwards, we broke off from our friends and walked around the deserted outdoor mall. “So, what do you think?” I somehow realized he was asking me to assess his attractiveness. “Oh, yeah. You’re as fine they said.” I’m a liar, a dirty liar. Which should pay off right? Flattery and what not…  “And what about you?” Of course, he didn’t hold to the same principles that I did as his response was not flattering in the least. “Well, you’re not the beautiful flower they said you were, but you’re okay.”  He was entirely wrong.  I was an AMAZINGLY beautiful flower, and he was a jackass.

When I got back to Kat’s house, I called Veronica and informed her that she was a lying jerk, and she told me I was shallow (which I took to be a confession that she knew damned well that her pants were on fire) and she convinced me that I should give him a chance, which was a really bad suggestion, but somehow when you are 14 and you have really low self-esteem, you make really bad decisions, and instead of dumping him, like a sane person, I dated him for approximately two years.

Those were not two consecutive years, of course, because he would break up with me every couple of months/weeks/days because he was convinced I was either cheating on him at that moment, or was planning on cheating on him at any second, and I would cry and  plead with him not to dump me and he would declare that I just wanted to be with him because he was “sooooo fine.” Each time this declaration would come and each time it was really hard not to guffaw the moment he’d say it, but I somehow managed not to laugh openly at him and would assure him of all the stupid reasons I didn’t want him to break up with me, my level of attraction to him had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it.




* Evil Mike's name was coined after I started dating my husband, who is "good Mike" or just Mike.  But evil Mike was evil... or compared to all other Mikes who did not make my life miserable for 2+ years... Come to think of it, he wasn't really clever enough to be evil, I guess... he was really just a dick.. but Evil Mike has a better ring to it than "Dick Mike." 

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