Arguing for the Church: Your Atheist Boyfriend!

Well, I wasn't actually an atheist yet. I was some sort of lapsing Pagan or somesuch, after being some other sort of believer in the aftermath of the Big Breakup of April 1995.

Let's call this girlfriend "Number Two"; it's appropriate in quite a few ways, now that I think about it--she was the second woman I'd ever been involved with, and she's the crappiest human being I've ever met. Maybe she had good reasons, maybe not--that's a different post. Also, this was the single worst relationship I've ever been in.

Oh, hell, I might as well give a little background. I met Two while I was still living in Scumbag's living room, about 3 months after I tried to keep "Whitney" from killing herself over him. Two and Scumbag are cousins of some sort, and he was trying to hook up with her. She called on August 8th, 1996 (certain dates stick with ya, huh?) and ended up talking to me, instead.

I shoulda hung up the damn phone. Nope. I ended up going out with her, and by month's end we were an "item." I helped her move out of her tiny one-bedroom apartment and into a relatively palatial 14-by-80 trailer on Tallahassee's outskirts. This is a big deal for anyone--having their own place--but in her case it's even more than that. Two is legally blind, something like 10% of the normal range of vision, and forget about 20/20. She's also bipolar--and at the time, the docs were tinkering with meds, trying to find the right pill and the right dosage.

She was also on Norplant.

Holy crap, what a combination. I really shoulda hung up that damn phone. But the horror stories can wait: this is about me arguing for her church.

She had this notion that the church she was going to was supposed to give her communion, and that they were interfering with her closeness to the Divine by denying her the cookies and juice. She complained to me at one point that they weren't playing along, being fair, giving her HER WAY, and like that. She was even taking Bible study classes!

So here's me, trying to get it through that skull of hers that the church doesn't play from her book. They have their own, and they've got hoops for her to jump through, and she was only on the third or fourth Bible class out of several. She hadn't done all of her own part yet.

"But they don't have the RIGHT to deny me! There's only one perfect man, and that's Jesus Christ!" blah, blah, blah. I know I didn't wear her down, so I'm pretty sure Two thought she'd won. But the church continued in its disobedience of Her will and she dumped them a few weeks later.

I'd say they won. I think they owe me.