So this crazy idea popped into my head after my third failed relationship – wanted to figure out if certain backgrounds made women better partners long-term. Started scribbling in my notebook like a madman.
Setting Up This Mess
First thing Monday morning, dragged out my dusty journals going back 10 years. Spread ’em all over the living room floor, coffee stains and dog-eared pages everywhere. Made columns: Relationship Name, Her Ethnicity, Duration, Why It Ended, Happiness Level (1-10). Took me three damn days just to sort through old memories.
What I Tracked:
- Shared values?
- How we handled arguments
- Family involvement level
- Money fights
- Relationship effort over time
Realized halfway through that half my Asian exes were actually mixed race. Had to redo the whole chart. Total nightmare.
The Awkward Interviews
Got gutsy last month – actually texted some exes for “research”. Most blocked me immediately (fair). Two actually humored me. Took Jessica (half-Korean) out for awkward coffee. Asked her point blank: “Why’d we crash and burn?” She laughed in my face: “Your mom kept comparing me to your Filipino ex!” Made me rethink my whole data-collecting plan.
Staring At the Wall
After all that chaos, pinned my charts to the wall last Tuesday. Stood there three hours straight smoking cigarettes. Saw the same damn pattern in every ethnicity column:
Breakdown Reasons:
- My jealousy issues (Black/Mexican relationships)
- Communication breakdowns (White/Asian)
- Me prioritizing work (All categories)
Noticed my “happiness” scores were highest when she pushed me to quit drinking after dad died – happened to be Polish girlfriend. But correlation ain’t causation. Finished my last cigarette realizing something obvious.
Epiphany at 3AM
Woke up sweating last night. Walked barefoot to my wall of crazy. Ripped down all the ethnicity charts. Stuck up a fresh paper with giant letters: “IT’S YOU, DUMBASS”. Every single relationship died from MY commitment issues, MY emotional unavailability. That “pattern” I kept seeing in the data? Was my own damn reflection staring back.
Drank cheap whisky till sunrise thinking about Jessica’s words. My mom wasn’t comparing races – she was calling out how I kept dating people-pleasers regardless of background. Messed up real bad when I dumped Maria for setting boundaries. The background that mattered? Mine. My baggage. My bullshit. The “experiment” worked just not how I planned.
Morning light hit those crumpled papers on the floor. Didn’t see races anymore – just all the good women I’d screwed over chasing some data-fueled fantasy. Experiment successful: Found the common denominator for failed relationships. Spoiler alert – it’s the idiot holding the notebook.