Hello, I’m really desperate because I don’t know what to think. It may be that the story I’m about to tell you is very very recent and my head feels like a frisbee still… Any word of advice or opinion will really help me.

I’m not going to say my exact age or exact details since, well, this post is 100% public haha. I reached the age of majority not so much time ago, and I met a guy online, I’ll call him Brad, who’s five years older than me. We talked and got to know each other a little for a few months and then we finally met in person. This was in September, last year. On our very first date we spent the entire day together, I think we really liked each other. At least the impression he gave me was that of a really cool guy with a nice sense of humor, full of life, and energy that, I unfortunately think, I lack of. Our first kiss was on that date too. After that, he started visiting me at my school. I take evening classes but his schedule was mostly in the morning on that semester, so he had the time and will to spend the entire afternoon with me. Since the beginning we treated each other like partners, we kissed, we hugged and everything was good and lovely. Of course, some time after we started hanging out more (you know, going to the movies, parks, malls, etc) and we learnt things about each other too. Soon after, we fell in love. He invited me to his house and I met his mother, I invited him to mine and he met both of my parents. They knew we were dating. I really like spending time next to him; he’s a very simple guy, which I like. We don’t do very fancy stuff or dine at restaurants or things alike; we’d rather have movie afternoons at our homes or go to the cinema, or just wander around the city if that’s the plan. And I like that. Whenever I’m with him I don’t get bored and I don’t feel the urge to go back home, which is something I do often when I go out.

It all was in general really good, until I learned that he loves drinking.

I do have an alcohol history in my family. Unfortunately my dad was an alcoholic and did stupid things to my mom and sometimes to my brother and me. I was very little when this happened but he overcame it and now rarely drinks, and when he does, it’s moderately. However because of this, I hardly accept alcohol in my life. Sometimes I do drink myself, but other times being around it really upsets me. I hate people who get drunk and wasted without a justifiable reason. And sadly, Brad is like this. There were nights that I’d phone him and he’d answer drunk and said weird things to me. He’s never been violent or extremist, anything bad, but he just acted differently than he used to when sober. He said “i love you” to me just a few days after we met! That didn’t scare me, but it was definitely unusual behaviour for me. But I didn’t mind it at all at first because everything was new to me and I was eager to know him more and I wanted to be in a relationship with him, so I kind of overlooked this problem.

The bad stuff started when he started doing (or he stopped doing) things because of his drinking. One day we were going to have dinner somewhere and we agreed to see each other in a certain subway station. I waited for half an hour and he called me saying that he would be a little late. It didn’t bother me at all. I waited some more time and he called again, to ask if I would like to travel to another station and meet him there since he was probably going to be more late than he thought. We ended up meeting more than one hour after we agreed to, and when he said hello and kissed me, he tasted and smelled like alcohol. I asked him what happened and he cinically said that he ran late because he was drinking at the seedy bar near his school and decided to keep drinking for another 30 minutes. That pissed me off. There was another time when I was feeling really depressed, mainly because of stress at school and the thought that I was losing my friends because we weren’t hanging out as often as before. I felt empty and lost and I asked him to please come see me; I wanted to tell him how I was feeling in hope that he would be supportive. He said yes and agreed to be there at a certain hour. An hour later, he called to say he was going to arrive later because he was doing school work with his friends. I said it was OK. After all, it was school day and he probably was busy finishing homeworks and whatnot. One hour passed by and there were no signs of him. I called him, and when he answered, I could hear music in the background. He said “hey, let me go outside, I can’t hear you well”. I was confused since he had said that he was doing school things! When his side was audible, he sounded drunk and I asked him what the hell was going on. He replied that “he wanted to have some drinks with his friends, and when he was on his way to see me, he met some other friends who convinced him not to leave and to keep drinking more with them”. I hanged up on him feeling angry, disgusted, disappointed, insulted and way sadder than I already was. I was determined to leave him and tell him this all was over. We weren’t even partners at that time so I didn’t think it’d be that hurtful. That night we spoke though, and we both said what we had to say. I decided to give him another chance and we started again.

Unfortunately I started feeling overwhelmed. Whenever he hangs out with his friends, drinking and getting drunk is all they do. It’s like that’s the only way they know how to have fun! It really upsets me, it makes me angry and I just can’t bare it. I talked to him, told him that I hated the way he drank and that I wasn’t willing to be with someone like that. He said that he knew he was drinking way too much and that he was going to put limits on himself because he wanted us to be together, because he really liked me and he had met no one like me before. I trusted him and things seemed to get better. One time he told me that he was hanging out with his junior-high friends, whom he hadn’t seen for years, and that they were singing at a karaoke and, of course, drinking a bit. He asked if it was OK for me if he got drunk that night, and I said yes. After all, I thought that having a reason to drink, not to do it just because, was OK for me. But after some time that started bothering me too. Time passed by and there were other things that bothered me about him. He unconsciously lies and contradicts himself. He once said that he was going to invite me to have dinner at a restaurant with him, and that he would ask me to be his boyfriend there. I’m not saying that he was obliged to do it, but he never did it and it made me feel bad. He never did it because of the obvious reason: he squandered ALL of his money on alcohol for ONE NIGHT. And I’m not talking about a few cents; he had a considerable sum and he wasted it all because it was “an important party”. Some time after that, he again wasted a lot for another party, but that specific time he completely disappeared. I had no idea where he was by 5pm, he didn’t see any of my messages until 1pm THE NEXT DAY, when he apologized and said that he did an afterparty at a friend’s place. I was pissed off.

There are far more things that I could write here, but I think that’s enough so you can have an idea of what it’s like. He asked me to be his boyfriend in December and I said yes. I wanted to believe that it was all going to be just fine, but the truth is that I was feeling overwhelmed by those little things that bothered me. I was feeling sad because even after we talked about those things, I still was being bothered by them. But I fell in love with him and wanted us to be together. A few days ago I couldn’t stand it any more and I exploded. He went to a GAY BAR with his friends without me! To be honest, those places disgust me and I was upset because he didn’t invite me, his boyfriend, to go with him there, and he even texted me saying “i wish you were here”. And of course, past midnight he asked me if he could end up drunk. I thought “really? you want to get drunk in a gay bar?” and I said “why do you even ask me for permission if you already know you are going to do it anyway. That’s what you do when you go out!”. He didn’t text back until later, when he said that he had felt dizzy but was not drunk, and that he didn’t like the feeling that time. He said that he thought alcohol was not his thing any more and that he was maturing. Would you believe him? I certainly didn’t…

I was MAD, I was really really mad at him for that, for all the other times he had disappointed me because of his drinking. I was mad because of his lies and contradictions (and the fact that he thought I wouldn’t notice). I could only think about all I hated about being with him, including the alcohol, his annoying and unlikable friends, the way he would refer to himself and to his other gay friends in feminine words (which disgusts me incredibly), and two days ago I broke up with him.

I cried for hours because I was disappointed that nothing got better. I never felt he tried to change and I never got to accept him the way he is. That’s what made me break up. I thought I’d feel free and good about it but truth is I want to give him another chance… We talked about all these things and we finally spat out all the rancor we had towards each other – but it didn’t feel wrong. On the contrary, right now I feel as though I took the bad feelings out, and I believe he feels the same. Today we spoke as normal. I told him that I wanted things to end the good way. He told me that he didn’t want me to turn away from him. And I really don’t want to, so that’s why we spoke today as normal.

I don’t even know how I feel! I despise alcohol, but I don’t want him to change because of me. He said that he has sacrificed most of his nights and evenings with his friends because he tried to avoid getting drunk, and that when he did drink, he didn’t go crazy and he tried to foucs on being in good terms with me. He said that ever since I told him I hated his drinking, he has being doing it way less frequently, and that I was being selfish for not wanting to be with him even after all he’s done. This made me angry, because the fact that he has stopped being the relentless alcoholic he used to be is not a favor he’s doing to me, it’s a favor he does to himself. But he doesn’t care about it. Whenever I think of alcohol+him I become angry because I just wish he’d stop doing it, but at the same time I don’t want anyone to change because of me. It’s his life and he knows what he does with it. He and his friends know nothing else, but to drink to get drunk. And that should be fine. But even now that we broke up I feel the urge to make him stop drinking and I don’t know what to do about it… He’s asked me to go out with him two days from now and talk in person about all what has happened, and I have been feeling the need to give him another chance, but I don’t want to keep suffering and of course I don’t want to deal with this stuff any more. Am I wrong for disliking alcohol? Am I selfish for not wanting to be with him this way?