What I Learned From Dating Someone Totally Wrong For Me

An important lesson with a heavy price tag

Photo: Adene Sanchez/E+/Getty Images

Our “relationship” lasted a long four months and, boy, was it a roller coaster.

We met on OkCupid when he messaged me a cheesy pick-up line: “I’ll have to turn my AC on when you come over because you’re so hot.”

I know. It was a real promising start.

From the get-go, Charles showed ridiculously clear signs that he had some kind of narcissistic wound.

A few days after we began dating, I visited his apartment and noticed three things:

1. Full-length photos of just him, in which he’d oriented himself to assume “cool” poses.
2. A sign with the words “The Man” over his headboard and an arrow pointing downward, just in case there was any ambiguity.
3. A creepy list of positive attributes about himself, conveying a tone of self-persuasion: “You are fabulous. You are noble. You are a unicorn.” (I’m paraphrasing.) The list ended with something along the lines of: “People are lucky to be in your presence.”

He looked like the kind of person I wanted to end up with. He was tall, financially settled, and outgoing. We also shared a similar cultural background, which was a priority to me.