Me Too, You Too, Your Heroes and Their Power

Warning: Explicit sexual details below.

This isn’t easy. I am writing from my personal experience. Everything written here is factual and there is no sensationalism. I am not a journalist and I’ve never published anything like this before. I am not looking for anything other than expressing what I’ve experienced with this article. I have nothing to gain, personally, professionally and especially mentally from putting this out there. This is just incredibly important to me and others who have had to deal with similar situations.

I met Jordan in January 2017 on Facebook because of a post he made looking for areas of NYC to live in, which I had a lot information to share. I occasionally watched his videos but I wasn’t a ‘fangirl’ as I would come to find out he so lovingly called his female fans that ‘liked’ him. This was my first taste of his condescending nature and my blinders were on. Rose colored glasses are dangerous.

After the formalities and small talk it quickly turned to flirting and him giving me his phone number. We started to text fairly often, had a few phone conversations and tried to make plans around his hectic schedule.

In early February, we finally met for our first date. We went to two different places and he was even recognized by someone. There were red flags from the start but he had this way about him. I would say he kind of lacked any real personality and had a giant ego that was constantly being inflated and still it was easy to fall for the bullshit. He was no straight shooter like he had claimed to be.

Before he officially moved into the city, in February, he came over to my apartment in Brooklyn. This was our second time hanging out and the first time we would have sex. We ordered Chinese and I was incredibly nervous. This was my first and certainly not last time getting to hear about his previous sexual experiences in full grotesque and inappropriate detail as the story related to ordering Chinese and climaxing with a college girlfriend. Something along those lines, yet another turn off. I received a text from him around this time (either before or after we had sex for the first time) that said “you should get on birth control so I don’t have to wear rubbers.”

The next time I saw him it was early March and he had just moved to his apartment in Manhattan. He had no kitchen sink yet. He took me to a Mexican place and told me he got nervous when he saw me watch his live videos. As we downed a lot of margaritas, quickly, He kept going on about what he wants in his future. He claimed marriage, kids and even teased that I could possibly be the holder of his apartment key instead of his assistant at the time. I definitely rolled my eyes at that. The next stop was some bar he made a point of telling me he’s taken two other women to before, romantic. We get back to his studio apartment and have what started out as consensual sex, for only the second time since we met. I didn’t find out the condom we started with was taken off until after the fact “otherwise it would’ve taken forever to cum.” I did not consent to this. Had he asked me instead of just taking it upon himself, the answer would’ve been no. When I flipped, he mentioned only something about him buying Plan B, as if what just happened was no big deal or that was my only concern with not consenting to him doing that. Aside from the obviously problematic nature of the events that had occurred, he was very much aware I was not on birth control.

I was livid & had enough of the constant talk about how “The only safe thing to eat in North Dakota is pussy” type conversation that was dominating the evening. He fell asleep and I knew I had to get out of there. I woke him up to let him know I was going and he should lock his door, he mumbled something to which I replied ‘it’s not you’ and he said “that’s what they all say.” Later, I was livid at myself for basically apologizing for wanting to get out of there. I left in tears and took the long Q ride back to Brooklyn. Sadly, this wasn’t the last time I saw him.

Our last & final encounter happened after more than a month of not really speaking much or hanging out, I agreed in April to ‘reunite’ because he “missed me in his bed.” We didn’t see each other until the end of May. I had lost the same desire to be around him that I had felt before and had been dating other people in this timeframe. He made a comment to me about us hooking up until “something better comes along for the both of us” which in hindsight is a really fucked up thing to say, but I also didn’t care anymore about pursuing anything further with him. This time I got to hear about a sexual encounter in a bathtub in North Dakota. I left in the morning after he disappeared for hours into his own bathtub. Never spoke to him again.

If I could go back in time, I would’ve cut off all contact after my experience with him in March when I left crying. If I had known what happened two weeks before in Flint, this meeting wouldn’t have even happened.

There were plenty of other details that should’ve turned me off but I have nothing to apologize for. He has no respect for the women he works with, dates or doesn’t fit his idea of attractive. He constantly talks about other women whether it’s about their looks or his sexual experiences with them.

There are a lot of things people don’t understand about consent. Sometimes people don’t realize that what happened to them was wrong or think because their abuser likes them it was normal or forgivable. Also, how often people have continued to be in contact with someone that really hurt them, it doesn’t discount what happened to them, sometimes it just takes the person in the situation longer to see that.

Your heroes aren’t always who you think they are and just because someone does something you like and is nice to you, it doesn’t take away from the behavior they have exhibited towards other people.