It was my birthday and I was excited to receive a special delivery from my boyfriend for the occasion. Unfortunately, I had no idea it was going to signal the end of my relationship. Here’s what happened.
- My boyfriend sent me flowers. They were gorgeous red roses, which sounds like such a romantic cliche, but they were my favorite. The delivery guy took them out of his van and handed them to me and my heart filled with joy. I knew immediately that they were from my boyfriend. He had signed a sweet note saying that he loved me.
- The delivery guy was overly chatty. I was ready to take my flowers and go back inside my apartment to bask in the warm, fuzzy feeling that the delivery had put in my stomach. But the delivery guy wanted to talk about his day and how beautiful the flowers were. I humored him for a while, then he said something he probably wasn’t supposed to.
- He told me about his next delivery. To make conversation and be polite, I asked him if he had another delivery to get to. It was a nice way to make him leave. He told me that he had to go deliver the exact same bunch of roses to someone else. Um, what? This delivery guy had zero boundaries, it was clear to see, but now I was curious. I wanted to see what he was talking about. He showed me the other bunch of roses in his van. They really were exactly the same as mine. Huh.
- What were the chances? I could tell myself that it was a giant coincidence, but who was I kidding? My boyfriend must have been the one to organize both deliveries, so I asked him about it. When I phoned him to thank him for the beautiful flowers, I told him that there was the same bunch in the delivery van for someone else.
- Interestingly, he didn’t deny it. He could have said he didn’t know what I was talking about or that that was a weird coincidence but he didn’t. He said that he had ordered that second bunch of roses for another woman. I was getting anxious, but he told me that his colleague had had a heart attack so he was sending her flowers to make her feel better. Yeah, it was a heartwarming story and something really nice of him to do, but…
- I just didn’t believe it. I’m sorry if that woman really had had a heart attack and needed some cheering up, but honestly, I just didn’t believe what my boyfriend told me. I had so many questions in my mind. Why should he have sent her flowers? Why should he have sent her the EXACT bunch that he sent me? I don’t know. It just seemed so weird.
- I thought he was messing around on me. I started to think that he was cheating on me. I mean, bright red roses? Come on! I asked him about the flowers again a few days later because I just couldn’t seem to make peace with it or get over it. He denied any wrongdoing and said he said he was sorry I felt like he wasn’t being truthful (that’s not even a real apology!) but he stuck to his story.
- I called his workplace. I had asked him for the name of his colleague the first time I mentioned the funny story of the roses and I remembered it. It was sneaky, but I phoned his place of work and asked to speak to her. Guess what? She didn’t exist. I even tried to run the heart attack story past the woman who answered the phone, but she said that no one by that name worked there. WTF?
- Busted! I told my boyfriend what I’d discovered. I didn’t care that he called me crazy for snooping around in his private affairs. I knew that he’d been lying to me. We broke up that day. Since then, I’m always wary of men who give me flowers as a gift. It sounds silly, but I guess that experience has put me off red roses for life.
