"No, I Do NOT Want To Play Cards!"
by Steve
(Somewhere in England lol)
Anger Management Gone Wrong - Steve-Stylie!...
Okay, I need to provide you with a little back-story here. (And you know when you have to provide 'back story' that this means you're really trying to find 'justification' lol.)
Okay, I used to have a girlfriend called C. The relationship was a serious and 'important' one but it didn't work out. I tried very hard to make it work, by being the so-called 'perfect boyfriend' and by not doing things 'wrong' like her previous boyfriends had done but as you can imagine this is a recipe for failure and resentment.
My relationship with C lasted 2 years - 1 great/good year and 1 painful/bad year. She ended it, even though I didn't want it to end.
Still, when I broke up with C I stayed friends. In fact, I was still quite close with her and emotionally supportive of her, especially when she seemed to be having problems with her latest boyfriend.
(There are so many warning sirens blaring now - can you hear them? Lol.)
So that's why it seemed the most natural thing for me and my current girlfriend (G) to go on holiday with C and another friend (a man) called V. (If I say this was a climbing holiday in Majorca then everyone concerned with this story will immediately recognise themselves, so let's just say it was a 1-week 'holiday abroad' shall we! :-) )
All 4 of us stayed in a remote cottage. There was another group on the holiday, too, so it wasn't just the four of us during the day. But, we did spend a few odd nights in as a cosy foursome.
And it was one of these nights that I quite unceremoniously 'lost it' with C.
And all over a game of cards (called Sevens.)
Now maybe it was the alcohol, or the confined space or the fact that C's complaints about her current boyfriend to me, her ex, were, er how to be polite about it, 'annoying' me ("I never did these 'bad things' to her so why is she putting up with it when she'd never have put up with it with me and why is she telling me about this new bloke anyway?" were the kind of angry, resentful thoughts swirling through my head). Or maybe it was some other kind of self-help issue, you decide. But I 'lost it' over a game of Sevens.
Okay, so do you know how to play Sevens? I won't explain here, but it's a fairly straightforward game involving a fair amount of strategy. Anyway, at the start of the evening C did NOT know how to play this game. She'd never played it at all!
So I explained the rules quickly to her, and then we played.
And, as you'd expect C didn't do too well. Me and G and V took it in turns to win.
But C is a smart cookie! Much smarter than I realised (and maybe was comfortable realising, at the time). So in very little time indeed C started to grasp the game and then she started to win!
In less than an hour C, the beginner, was beating all of us at this card game of Sevens.
And, er, I found this to be frustrating. (Competitive, moi?)
Nobody else had a problem with C's success...
but me, it seems!
And so when she (easily) won the next game I had quite literally had enough! (Of what, who knows!) I exploded in front of the other 3 people and angrily reacted to a comment she made or a comment someone else made or maybe the night sky was 'too quiet', I don't know!
I just exploded!
"Aaaargh!"
I can't actually remember what happened apart from my being angry, my leaving the card table to go outside, everybody else being stunned (by the way, did I tell you that I NEVER get angry, normally, ever!) and then apologizing to C a little while later.
Of course that was the end of the card game for that night, AND the rest of the holiday.
My outburst didn't spoil the holiday too much and I remained friends with C (until the next boyfriend came
onto the scene, anyway) and V and G who stayed my girlfriend.
Yes, it's all a bit blurry really but I do KNOW that I lost it, and I lost it badly.
And writing about it all now - my issues of anger management (never getting angry is NOT a good sign), my issues of low self esteem (I really should have distanced myself emotionally from C, once we had split up) and my issues of not being a happy bunny at the time (I was out of work and had no real idea about how I was going to earn a living) - has helped a great deal.
(I can also remember, come to think of it, that I lost it a little when I used to play Scrabble with C back in the good days of our relationship! (Oh oh!))
But, just in case any of those folks concerned are reading (G, C or V) I'm sorry. Okay? :-D
Thanks for reading.
And, hey, don't let your anger go unnoticed, eh! ;-)
