He had been nagging me that he felt “unequal” in the fact that I had not yet been in his apartment. I pointed out that we had been dating less than two weeks, but I think the statement fell on deaf ears. Finally, on Saturday, I felt ready to venture into his apartment.

On Saturday night I would have preferred to go listen to an Irish band play nearby, but I knew he wasn’t ready for that kind of outing as he does not go out a lot because of his anxiety. Still, I didn’t mind the prospect of having a cozy Saturday night with him.

There was an ominous sign from the start. For one thing, you could not fully open the front door. This was because a huge box that previously held a 60 some-odd inch flat screen TV was in the hallway leading to the doorway. It had been there long enough that it was full of paper trash. You could not walk in the door in a straight forward manner. You had to enter sideways because of the box that was in the way.

Right away, my peeps did not like this. But I was so taken aback that I did not notice the internal chaos inside of me. There was too much going on all at once. The way I had to enter his apartment reminded me of my childhood home that had boxes of magazines from floor to ceiling in every hallway. I always had to walk sideways in hallways at my house as a child.

Walking further into his apartment sent me into fuzzy mode. There was stuff everywhere, in every available crevice. When I finally sat down I had these 4 foot speakers with scary looking gargoyles on top of them staring back at me. The apartment gave me the sense that it was tightening its grip on me.

We watched a movie he had downloaded for me. But through out the movie I twitched and shook rather painfully. Mercifully, the movie was only an hour and a half long.

When I rose from the couch I felt shaky and dizzy. Once I got out of the apartment I had to hold on to the hallway walls in order to make it out of the building. I felt drunk, though that wasn’t possible because I had not drank a thing in that dreaded place.

He followed me out to my car. Surprisingly, once I got inside my car I started to feel like myself again. The drunk feeling left my body. I was no longer twitchy or shaking. I even got my voice back. In the moment my voice returned I turned to him, and said without thinking twice, “I can never go back in there.”

The abruptness of my statement shocked me, and him as well. But as soon as I said it I knew it was true, and my body relaxed even further.

He then said to me, “Why should I be surprised? My ten year old daughter won’t even spend the night.”

Then he commented that 5 am comes around quickly, and he needed to go so that he could get enough sleep for work tomorrow. And before I could respond, he flew out of my car, and ran back into his apartment building.

I think there’s the possibility that he expected to come after him when he ran off. But I don’t play those games. I drove away, and the further I got from his place the calmer my peeps became. No worries, kiddos, we are never ever going back in there again. I promise.