Still Judged

Today I happened to find myself reading the blog of an exgirlfriend, which I found in the blogroll (who knew these still existed?) of another old friend's blog because Google Reader suddenly decided to serve up some updates from 2009. I only read the first few lines of her latest entry, which was from 2010, before my finger flicked the scroll wheel and my eyes scanned across numerous entries and photos, none of which inspired me to read further. That is, until...


I saw an entry that started, "I dated this guy in college..." Well, I couldn't exactly pass that one by, could I? It turns out, I probably should have.


I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that the entire blog post was about this boyfriend of hers that was unemployed, lazy, and basically made her realize all the things she didn't want in a husband. It was pretty disparaging, not at all forgiving or understanding... and totally about me.


Now, I'll be the first to admit that I was somewhat lacking in direction when I was younger. In fact, I've used the term "lazy" myself when referring to the me from those days. I guess what really irked me was that someone (ironically, a Christian and former Bible College student) would carry around that image of me for 20 years and feel the need to base a blog post on it. Sure, I'm a different person now. Yes, it's true that it has been over 14 years since I was unemployed for even a single day. Of course I've been a responsible single father for the past 10 years, raising my 12 year old daughter without any financial assistance. Yet, it still stings to be thought of as that guy who liked to sleep in, skip classes, and play pool instead of going to work.


Next time Google Reader dishes out a serving from the past, I'm going to be a little quicker on the "Mark As Read" button.