Meat and Muscle Cars

*I was going to change the name to protect the “innocent.” Forget that noise. You beat me up with words, I’m only going to return the favor.

People always joke about guys comparing girls to meat like “Oh check that out- that is a grade A piece of ass”. I’m willing to bet however, that most girls aren’t told to their face what cut of beef they are. Or what kind of car. I have. I’m a steak and a Ferrari, if you’re wondering. This is the story of how I found that out.

When I was fifteen I fell for an eighteen year old who, because he had the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old, found me following him around smelling him during a choir concert amusing.  My enjoyment of his scent and his entertainment by this led to a relationship.
To the rest of the world, I was the lucky girl dating the doting preacher’s son. He was such a nice boy that people didn’t seem disturbed that had it been a sexual relationship he’d have gone to jail. He’d take me to dinner and to the movies, all the traditional dating essentials. This is who the world saw. The boy (or man really, as he was a legal adult) that I saw was someone else. The person I saw took every availability to tear down my self esteem and beat me down emotionally. Even I didn’t see it initially; I was a young girl in her fist real relationship.
Joe* was really great at manipulating my emotions and in this confusion I didn’t realize at first how cruel he could be.  At first he would tell me that I was special and not the kind of girl you would rush things with, so he didn’t pressure me sexually. (He actually never did, for that I give him props.  People often say that at fifteen and eighteen the boy wants very different things and that they will try to push themselves onto the girl. Joe tried to push himself on me in a more permanent way, making odd comments like “We’re going to have a little girl like Boo [from Monsters, Inc,]”. And I was like, dude, I just want to pass this Algebra test. We definitely had different goals.) 
One day we went out to eat even though I said I wasn’t really hungry, so I didn’t order anything. His response was “That’s good, you really don’t need any more” and patted my belly. Mind you, at the time I was about five eight and less than a hundred and twenty pounds- clearly a cow.  He was an art student and thought everything he did was amazing and that others should praise him for it, often bringing his work around for me to applaud. I’ve always been into art, so one day I showed him something I had drawn and had been pretty proud of. He looked at it quickly and said, “It’s not that bad, you know, considering you have no talent.” Aw gee, that’s so sweet of you. Wait, what?
I went to church with him once to listen to his dad preach. In all honesty, I don’t really remember what was said, all I remember was that I felt like I was being judged the entire time by a lot of people. (He had a lot of siblings.) Afterward, his family came back to meet mine (another weird thing, like the in-laws were meeting each other even though I’d only been with this guy for a few months tops.) At any rate, while our parents were talking, we went back to my room to hang out and I snuggled him on my couch, like ya do, while we talked. When we stood up for him to leave, I saw that my very fashionable tank topped velvet dress with its glitter butterflies (oh early 2000’s fashion, you so silly) had left little fuzzies and glitter on his white dress shirt. When he realized this he got really angry, like I had deliberately sullied his shirt. “Way to go, idiot.” So I got tape and removed all the black fuzz and sparkles, playing the dutiful housewife.
As our relationship went on, he got more and more possessive, and bizarre with said possessiveness. He told me that other people said that even though he was in a relationship didn’t mean he couldn’t look at other girls. His response to them apparently was “Why go out for burgers when you’ve got steak at home?” I don’t know, I guess this comment was supposed to make me feel good. At another point, this topic was brought up again, only this time it was “Why would I test drive a junker when I’ve got a Ferrari in the garage?”  Again, thanks for the sentiment, but no. I’m not a piece of meat, or metal, and you don’t have me at your house. That makes me sound like a beaten down, kept woman, keeping the house clean and staring out the window, awaiting her husband’s return from work so he can eat the dinner she prepared for him. Yeah, no. Maybe some girls would be flattered by the idea, but I was uncomfortable. You have to remember here, I was fifteen years old and instead of dating, I was being prepared to be someone’s wife. At least, that’s how he acted.
We went to the Homecoming dance together, but he never gave me the pictures until the very end of our relationship. Included in the bag of pictures was a picture of him with his arm around another girl. I think it was supposed to make me realize how very lucky I was to have his affections, showing that he could be with someone else if he so choose. I chalked it up to an accident and handed it back to him. His awkward response was “Oh, I thought you’d like to see what I looked like with long hair.”
If I wanted to hang out with my friends, I’d get a lecture about how I should have been hanging out with him instead. I made plans to spend the day with a friend of mine and he called, demanding that I tell her not to come over, because it was our “seven month anniversary” and I should be spending the day with him. At this point, I began to realize that he was a clingy little girl.
He was really big on anniversaries. For our six month anniversary, I got a ring.
Nothing could top the three month anniversary though. I still get uncomfortable over ten years later just thinking about it. We were both singers, (anyone who knows me at all knows that I can’t go a few hours without singing multiple times) and we met in choir. He sang to me all the time when we were dating and I was supposed to be all gaga about it. Which, initially I was. But I wasn’t allowed to sing. If I sang to or around him I was told to stop.  At any rate, for our three month anniversary (a ridiculous notion, really) he showed up to my choir class with three roses, and asked me down to the front of the room. This was a big class, there were probably close to a hundred girls in it. He then proceeded to hand me the roses and serenade me in front of the entire class. I could feel the blood instantly rise to just below the surface of my skin; I was blushing so hard that I thought my face might explode. I was blushing all the way down to my feet. This was mortifying to me- I hate being the center of attention like that. He obviously knew nothing about me if he thought I would appreciate this extremely romantic gesture.  Joe left, feeling like the ultimate master of romance because all the girls swooned and wished he was their boyfriend. I was so uncomfortable I would have happily given him to any one of them if it meant not having lived through that moment.
After school one day, I hugged him goodbye and he walked away, waving, seeming to be sobbing, and saying “I love you so much.” I was horrified. Judging by the look on others' faces in the hall, I wasn’t the only one. I went home and begged my mom to take me to his house so I could break it off. I just couldn’t take it anymore. She obliged, even though she didn’t understand my sudden need to do this. I cried all the way home and into the evening because I felt bad. I hate hurting people’s feelings. Joe called and when I finally picked up the phone, instead of making me feel worse he somehow made me feel better about everything, so I ended up taking him back and we decided to pretend the breakup didn’t happen, or we would make jokes about it.
I think I lasted about a week before fully coming to my senses and re-breaking up with him and not feeling bad anymore. I somehow recognized how horrible he made me feel about myself, even the ways he attempted to make me feel good still made me unhappy. I lost all my feelings for him, and I was just done.
His response to the breakup was to give me a stack of pictures he’d borrowed from my brother for reference images for art, again with bonus pictures. He “accidentally” left in random pictures of him with other girls. Very smooth. Oh, was I supposed to feel jealous? Or maybe bad about myself because it showed he had moved on or had other girls? Instead it solidified the fact that though he was three years my senior, he had a long way to go in maturity. I was done letting him make me feel bad about myself.
Bro, please. I am fabulous. I do not need you or any other man to tell me so.