The First Fight

It was inevitable. I knew it was coming, but I'm still not sure how to handle my disappointment.

I invited Four to Gutz' wedding about a month ago - the wedding itself was held yesterday. I told him that it was to be a ghetoriffic affair, bride all tatted up, groom with cornrows and tatts as well, held in a place (not a church) right in the middle of the hood. I also said that some of my favorite people would be there and I would like for him to meet them. My gorgeous lil cuz (who's 21 and at least 6 feet tall so I should really stop calling him my lil cuz!), my god daughter, Cousin T, my aunts - so I was happy to be going. And at the least I expected it to be entertaining.

The disagreement started a month ago when I showed him the first dress I had planned on wearing. He didn't like it, which was fine but a bit of a let down. I love to shop, so I found another dress - it was $20 and adorable so that kind of took the sting out of him not liking the first dress. But then he said that this dress was too short. It covered my ass and nothing was hanging out, it wasn't skin tight, so I figured he would get over it. Now for the next escalation.

Four assistant coaches some 13+ boys in a basketball league. I asked him if he was sure that he could make it or if he had a game the day of the wedding. He tells me that yes they have a game but that he should be able to make it and if anything that he would just meet me at the wedding. Ooooookay! I'm thinking that he has a game at 11 or 12 and that he'll be down at 1, head home to take a shower and still be just able to make it to the wedding at 3:30. Then last week, he tells me how the head coach cancelled practice on Thursday and Friday so that he could go to a friends rehearsal dinner and wedding. I'm hoping that he will take the cue and say that he can't make it to the game on Saturday so that he can be my date. No such luck

To make matters worse, my cousin who is the photographer asks me for my help since he is the one giving Gutz away. I'm excited for the opportunity since I recently started getting back into photography, something that I haven't done since I was a sophomore in college. I tell Four thinking he'll be excited since I am, and his reaction is "So you're going to be leaving me alone with a bunch of people I don't know!?" I'm calm, cool and collected even though I'm more than disappointed in his reaction. I don't point out that that is exactly what he did to me when we went to the wedding in VA. I don't point out that in VA, he didn't have a specific function that kept him from being with me, he was just off talking to his friends. Instead I tell him that I will make sure that he is seated with Lil Cuz since they have alot to talk about and my Lil Cuz is the best! He still doesn't look convinced and I'm starting to get nervous about how this wedding is going to play out.

The day of the wedding, I wake up early to take care of some stuff and around noon I send him a text message to see what he's up to. I'm expecting him to tell me that he's in the middle of a game and instead he waits about 10 minutes before texting me back and telling me that he doesn't start coaching until 1. WTF!!!! If he had been in Brooklyn, where the wedding is, or even in Queens, where he lives, I wouldn't have been concerned. But he's not, he's in Harlem and I can see no possible way for him to make it to the wedding. So I say as much, I send him a text that said "So your not going to make it to the wedding..." He waits an additional 20 minutes, til about 1:30 and then he calls me. He tells me that he has his clothes with him. Getting madder because even though I told him it was a ghetto wedding, I still expect him to take a shower before getting dressed. He tells me that the game has been forfeited and that his boys won. Getting even madder because the way I see it that means that he REALLY didn't need to be there. He tells me that he's about to leave and he can make it to the wedding. Getting really mad because I feel like he should have been in the car already making his way to Brooklyn. So I tell him not to bother, that I can go to the wedding by myself, he doesn't have to come with me.

I'm mad and I'm the first one to admit that most people do not act rationally when they are upset. But it's the way I feel. Sure he could have made it to the wedding and I really didn't expect it to start on time (actually didn't start until after 4) but I was feeling like he didn't really take it seriously. Like his priority was the boys basketball team, not going to a wedding with me. I'm thinking about how I spent 4 days in VA to go to a wedding with him. How I paid for my plane ticket. How I spent one of those days mostly alone because he couldn't fly down til Friday night and I came in on Thursday night. How he left me alone at the table while he went and entertained his best friends girl. How he would walk off and have conversations with people and leave me alone at the table and how I would have been madder about it had I not gotten along so well with one of the women at the table. And I don't want to deal with him. So when he sends me a text 20 minutes later that he's on his way to Brooklyn and am I sure that I don't want him to come, I say "no thanks!"

And when I get there and he's sending me text messages about how badly I behaved, I indulged in a text fight for awhile, then realized that I was having a good time at the wedding and told him I didn't want to deal with him now because I was enjoying myself. I was even more pissed off that he would feel the need to lash out at my reaction DURING the fucking wedding. Felt like he was trying to make sure that I didn't have fun. I also got pissed when he told me that he felt that I reacted badly. I didn't curse him out, or scream, or anything of the sort. I just calmly told him that I didn't want him to come with me. When he texted to tell me that my reaction and choice not to have him come was not cool- I told him that I would rather be at the wedding alone than have him with me and be pissed off the whole time because of unresolved issues. Sure the issue is still unresolved but because he wasn't sitting next to me I was able to put it aside and actually enjoy myself.

I know that I made the right decision telling him not to come with me but I know that today is a new day and eventually I'm going to have to deal with my anger at him...