This is going to be a lot more difficult to write about. Not only did the Bodyguard break my heart, but there are also things that I am ashamed of, plus the fact that my pride was terribly hurt. And I am a place now, where I don’t even want to bother with him mentally.

But here goes. He is a part of my story for better and worse and has contributed to the person that I am today. And where I am right now, is pretty fantastic.

I met the Bodyguard on a normal dating site. He was 42, and I was 48. Of course, he was younger. I do have a thing for the younger men, as y’all know by now.
I found him good looking and charming and even if he was dyslexic, he was relatively good at communicating with me. First, I was about to reject him, because he lived 2½ hours away with an expensive bridge between us, but when he told me that he was going to move to a city, only an hour away, we kept chatting.

He was fun, not particularly intelligent, but still sweet and fun, and some primitive part of me liked the fact that he was very muscular and buff. He was working as a bodyguard and in security and had many exciting tales to tell.

Eventually we agreed on a date. It was late January and except for hotels, everything was in Corona lock down, so what to do? We couldn’t go to a restaurant, it was too cold for a walk, so eventually we decided on a room in a hotel. Not that that meant that we should have sex if there were no sparks, but it was the only possibility we could find. I still had that dating rule that no man was allowed to my address before I had met him on neutral ground. A precaution to keep the most lunatic people away. Kind of ironic …

Anyway, he arrived by train and while waiting in the cold wind and snow, I became convinced that the hotel room idea was okay. A walk wouldn’t have been fun, so we met, went to a supermarket for something to drink and snack on and went to the hotel.

I sat on the bed, he in a chair, and we talked for a long time. He found him both sympathetic, sweet and fun. He wasn’t the cheeky type, even if he could crack a joke from time to time, but he was warm and pleasant to be around. Very calm and … I want to say safe. Maybe it was his size, but he sent out such a reassuring and protective vibe. And he always did, also afterwards, even with what I know now. Or … what I THINK I know now.

I told him about the rape thing, and he told me that he had been abused as a child. As I later got to know him, I very much could see that he was a wounded soul and had been subject to many dramatic and evil things.

Of course, we had sex that evening. He was cute and there was a bed, so what the h*ll, and that is where he really surprised me. The sex was alright, but it was not just sex; he made love with me! It was warm and intense, and I had totally forgotten how “love making” felt after I became single, and it took me completely by surprise. It was very intense.

He told me that he never had a one-night stand before, and I believed him. He didn’t seem the type. He also said that he never had received a BJ before, but I found that pretty hard to believe, even if he stuck to that story for the rest of our relationship. But that was also before I knew that lying was his entire modi operandi and had been so for his entire life.

We had a great evening together, and a week later we had the opportunity again to meet up. Again, he arrived by train, not because he didn’t have a car, but it was not available. I never actually saw him in a car in the entire 11 months we were together, even if he kept sending me pictures of a very nice leasing car, but then his security partner drove it, or it was in the shop or whatever. There was always something going on with the cars.

After just the second date, he became very affectional, sending me very rosy messages and declaring that he was fallen in love with me.

First red flag.

Never trust a person who falls in love instantly, people afterwards told me, but that advice came a bit too late. (Insert eye rolling here). Not that it would have mattered at this point.

I think – and remember I even said as much to my sister – that I fell in love with his overwhelming affection, more than the man himself. I was bullied in school and have always struggled with a low self-esteem, and I am very much aware that I used men to fill up that hole of self-esteem. I never violated myself and was always in control of my feelings and boundaries. If they were pushed, I did so of my own free will. But still the love bombing … that was new, and I could feel that I needed it. I wanted it. And maybe it was the reason that I opened up my heart for him.

Also … I was beginning to get fed up with the sex-dating part. It was fun and easy. If you want to shag, there is always somebody available (at least from that one dating site), but after the thing with the Caretaker, I knew that I was ready to move on to something more serious.

But I wasn't ready for what came.

Thumbnail picture by Succo from Pixabay