A Guy Used Me To Make His Ex Jealous & It Was Just As Awful As It Sounds

I had a huge crush on this guy for the longest time but unfortunately, he had a girlfriend. Eventually, they broke up and after they did, he asked me out and we started dating. I thought it was destiny working out in my favor. Turns out I was just a pawn in his game.

  1. He told me that he was the one who dumped his girlfriend but it was actually the other way around. He told me that he chose to break up with his girlfriend because they’d been growing apart for a while and he started to have feelings for me. I believed him initially, but one day, a mutual friend of ours told me that she was one who dumped him. I thought it was odd that he lied but I kind of brushed it off and just assumed he was embarrassed about it.
  2. He moved way too quickly and seemed to be in a hurry to get serious. Even though I really liked this guy, I didn’t necessarily want to just jump right into a relationship with him and make it official. I just wanted to get to know him and spend time with him. Instead, he started telling everyone we knew that we were together and posting pictures of me on his social media calling me his “perfect girlfriend.” It was weird and felt very rushed.
  3. He never wanted to stay in. I always like a good combination of going out and staying in, but sometimes I just want to be a homebody and Netflix and chill, you know? That was never an option in this relationship. He wanted to go to bars, restaurants, and parties every single night and we almost always met up with friends. I asked him once why he never wanted to just stay in and kick back and he would always laugh it off and say he wanted to show me off or some BS answer like that.
  4. When we were out, he always seemed distracted. Whenever we went to a party or anyplace where a bunch of our friends would be, he always seemed slightly distracted and was constantly looking around. It didn’t take me too long to realize that he was looking for someone. Then I realized he was looking for his ex. He was always hoping we’d run into her while we out or that she’d be at some party we were at.
  5. We never had meaningful conversations. Over the several weeks that we dated,  I never felt like he wanted to know me on a deep, emotional level. It was such a strange thing for me because he was so adamant about us getting into an official relationship, yet he didn’t seem interested in my life outside of our relationship, my family, my friends, my passions, or anything that was truly important to me. Our relationship just felt very superficial and it got old really quickly.
  6. He talked about his ex-girlfriend nonstop. At first, when he would bring her up it was just little details peppered into normal conversation. I didn’t think much of it at first because I thought it was accidental, but the longer we dated, the more he talked about her until it finally turned into an everyday thing. I was sick of hearing her name so I asked him why he was always mentioning her. He immediately got extremely defensive and told me I was overreacting. It was so weird.
  7. We ran into her once and it was so bad. We were out at a bar one night and we ran into her while she was also out with friends. It was a total disaster. All of a sudden his hands were all over me, it was PDA city, and he paraded me around the bar as he slowly inched closer and closer to her and her friends. It was so clear that night that all he was trying to do was make her jealous, but I didn’t realize yet that this was the whole point of our relationship to him.
  8. When he found out that she’d started dating someone else, it was explosive. When he saw on social media that his ex was in a new relationship, he freaked out. He was so angry and clearly envious. I straight up asked him if he was still in love with her and all he did was deny, deny, deny, get angry, and deny some more. That’s when it all hit me: I wasn’t just his rebound, which is bad enough—I was just some prop he was using to try and win his ex-girlfriend back.
  9. I broke up with him right then and there. In the midst of his little green-eyed monster tantrum, I had to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t bear to stay in this relationship one more second with a guy who would so selfishly prey on me just because he knew I liked him. I told him that he needed to work his issues out and I wasn’t going to wait around for him to do it. Of course, he tried to convince me to stay with him. He told me that he truly cared about me and he wasn’t using me but I knew it was just a big lie. My feelings for him just completely disappeared in an instant.
  10. It felt good to be so secure in my worth. Walking away from that relationship felt so amazing. Sure, for like a millisecond I mourned the loss of who I thought this guy was, but once I saw his true colors, just the sight of him sickened me. I’d so much rather be single and free myself up for a guy who sees and thinks all of that and gives me what I deserve in a relationship.
Shelby is a journalist and fiction writer raised in the South but built for the big city. She's a book nerd (well, an overall nerd, honestly) and coffee addict and obsessed with all things leather and lacy.

She has a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication and Media Studies from Sam Houston State University and worked for her university newspaper, The Houstonian, as well as serving as a producer and part-time entertainment anchor for Cable 7 Huntsville. You can follow her on Twitter @shelby777.
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