My Boyfriend Butt Dialed Me When He Was Out With Another Woman
It really does happen
It was like something out of a movie.
It was a Friday night. Exhausted from my work week, I had settled in with a movie, snacks, and a glass of wine. I was looking forward to starting off my well-deserved lazy weekend. I was cozy, snuggled in with my blanket and warm lamplight illuminating my bedroom. I was content.
Around 10:30 that night, my phone rang. It was my on and off boyfriend. It was a bit unusual for him to call, because we both preferred to text.
I picked the phone up, looking forward to talking to him. Maybe he wanted to make plans. Maybe he even missed me!
When I answered, I heard the familiar rumbling of a pocket dial. The swishing of fabric and rumble of footsteps.
Then, I heard his voice. He was talking to someone, asking what their favorite flavor of ice cream was. A strange conversation for 10:30 at night.
Then I heard the woman’s voice.
Now, he didn’t say anything incriminating, but it was definitely a flirty sort of conversation. I shouted into the phone that I could hear him, to no avail.
My heart started to race. Surely it was nothing. Surely I was overreacting. I tried to take deep breaths as I could feel myself getting massively triggered. It wasn’t working.
I shouted again and again that I could hear them, but their mundane casual conversation continued. I heard them get out of the car. It sounded like the banter of a first date.
I hung up. I kept taking deep breaths. I tried to slow my racing heart. I trusted J. We lived a bit far apart, but I trusted him to tell me if he wanted to see other people.
The phone rang again. Another pocket dial. More snippets of conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear. I hung up again, tired of fruitlessly eavesdropping.
It rang yet again. I ignored the call. A moment later, a notification popped up saying that I had received a voicemail. Even as I dialed my voicemail, then listened to yet another unwittingly eavesdropped conversation, J’s phone called yet again, and left another voicemail.
I hung up and tried to call him myself, hoping he would hear the ringer, but it showed up as busy and wouldn’t go through.
By now the I could hear the the loud din of conversation and music, like a bar or club.
My heart racing, with tears in my eyes, I starting texting him frantically, hoping he would hear the sound of the text messages over the sounds of the bar.
Please, please, I texted. I don’t care that you are out with another woman. I trust you. But I can’t stand to hear this conversation. Please. Stop calling me.
I started getting more angry. What is going on, you son of a bitch?
My peaceful Friday night was ruined. I tried to go back to watching my movie, but the evening was shattered. I hated myself for feeling so crushed. We weren’t even officially in a “relationship,” even though we had been seeing each other for almost 7 years.
I had no right, honestly, to feel this crushed over what might just be a friendly outing. But I did feel crushed. And my entire view of him had completely changed. What if everything I thought to be true about him was wrong?
He finally called me back more than an hour and a half later. By then I was in tears, trying to breathe through the angst and dread I was feeling. He told me he was just out with a friend.
I told him that I didn’t care what he did, but even if it was friendly, I didn’t want to hear their fun, flirty banter. I didn’t need to know. I didn’t need my imagination to run wild with how beautiful she might have been, or how either of them might have had more than friendly feelings.
I didn’t need to think about how maybe she was getting the attention, however friendly, of this man I cared deeply about.
In retrospect, I think that I might have subconsciously known that our relationship, “casual” as it was, was hanging by a thread. A few months later, he broke up with me for good, saying he didn’t want to see me at all.
On top of that, I found out later that I really had been wrong about him, and that he had “cheated” on me several times, even though the woman I had heard him with was truly just a friend.
The phone call turned out to be a pivotal moment. Later, he said that the pain in my voice over those butt dials had made him realize that I truly did care about him. He broke up with me because he really did want to see other people and cared enough about me to be upfront about this fact.
It was a shocking moment that, however comical, did end up changing the course of my life. All on what was supposed to be a lazy Friday evening.
