[TW: Domestic violence]

Didn’t get pulled aside by a BP agent, but did get told to go “back to [my] own country” by another airline passenger after making a phone call, in French, at the gate. That guy got a piece of my southern-fried mind.

Once you meet someone like that you can’t un-meet them, unfortunately. I’m thousands of miles away and still do a double take when I see someone with the same physical type.

Thank you. I hope it may help someone else feel like maybe they aren’t crazy or shouldn’t doubt their gut instincts. Glad your memory is a distant one.

Thanks. There is something very reassuring about Internet hugs. <3

Okay, so there are tons of details that didn’t make it into this account because it’s already long to begin with (and it’s pretty clear what’s going on after a certain point), but he would repeatedly tell me about weird things he had done, or some of his barely-legal “business models” and say things like, “Now you…

You know what’s even worse? My first job out of college was in a counselling center that provided services to survivors of domestic violence. I have been trained to identify these types of people and ignored Every. Single. Red. Flag.

A while ago I was offered a job in Berlin, so I upped sticks and moved, looking forward to turning a new page. It was a bright spot in what had been a dreary few years: working long hours for a series of startups that never amounted to anything, endless travel and a relationship that had been dead in the water for…