CHAPTER 1- BILKA SOAP OPERA
Let me tell you about a dramatic moment that happened not so long ago. In the evening, I stopped at the supermarket for a few ingredients. As I was taking my bag from the cashier at Bilka I looked up to see him standing only a meter from me, his eyes staring straight at mine. I stared at him for a moment, in stunned silence almost not recognising him. The look of shock on his face, no doubt mirrored the surprise on mine. It was like one of those moments on a soap opera, when someone sees the last person in the world that they'd want to see. If I were in an Indonesian soap opera, I would have fainted or screamed or ran away. But because I was in reality, I just said "hi", engaged in awkward conversation for two minutes and then went home.
I'd seen him a few months before that which was even more dramatic. He sat outside my house for more than an hour as I was trapped in my home waiting for him to leave. This escalated to us yelling at each other through the gate in front of my house. That evening he messaged me to inform me that I was now stupid, arrogant and ugly. Well, good to know at least?
During the nine months before that he messaged me relentlessly from his jail cell; asking for money, asking me to visit him and asking stupid pointless questions about my private life.
It's hard to believe that this person was the same person I spent so much of my time with.
CHAPTER 2- SIMPLE BEGINNINGS
Let's call him Monkey (that's what I used to call him anyway).
You would have never seen any of the drama coming if you knew him in the beginning. We met in early 2013 when I was brand new to Surabaya. He was a friend of my housemate and we met one night at my house. The day after we met, as I arrived home from work, he happened to drive by my house, which he has maintained all this time was totally by coincidence. He took me to a cheap mall to buy sheets for my bed, socks and a few other things I needed for my room. The fact that our first date was to Royal Plaza was probably a bad sign but I didn't notice at the time. From the beginning he promised to make my life easier and help me settle into like in this crazy city. It was all good fun for awhile- we lived cheap, frequented cheap food stalls and didn't drink a lot of alcohol. I loved it. It felt like a simple life. I saved a lot of money. If I needed something, he took me to buy it. We had good conversations, we laughed a lot and we spent our weekends taking drives around Surabaya. We also went on a few trips out of town together. We took long drives to Jember, Malang, Kediri and his hometown- Sumenep.
Of course there were issues. He was often late to meet me. And by late, I mean three hours late. But I just grew more patient. Cultural issues popped up here and there but at the time I was determined to make it work and that seemed like enough at the time.
CHAPTER 3- THE BABY
In 2013, I had decided to fast for Ramadan. We scraped through 30 days together. One day, I broke my fast by getting angry because he decided we were "sharing" my motorbike and disappeared with it in the morning and I was later to work than I would have liked to be. Otherwise we got through.
On my final day of fasting, I woke up to a Facebook message from a girl called Retno. She told me that Monkey was her husband and that they had a baby together. She attached several photos of them together as well as one of the baby. Because he had been less than reliable and certainly dishonest, I decided to hear her out. She gave me her phone number and when I rang her, her story seemed legitimate.
When I asked Monkey about it later he told me I couldn't get angry because I was fasting but that she was lying. He swore that she was a jealous ex-girlfriend who was trying to break us up. At the time, I didn't know what to believe but decided to believe him. In the meantime, I got so many awful phone calls and messages from Retno that I had to change my number.
Following that, she switched to Facebook stalking me, accusing me of breaking up her family. Each time I blocked her Facebook, she made a new account and started again. After awhile it died down and I stopped thinking about it.
A few months later, when Monkey was out of town I got a message from her latest Facebook account saying "my happy family back together". It kind of panicked me that she knew he was in Sumenep. But later, she attached a photograph of Monkey holding a baby which looked far smaller than the baby from several months earlier. Unless babies shrink, her story was rubbish.
CHAPTER 4- DISAPPEARING MOTORBIKE
Yes, my ex-boyfriend could also do magic tricks. He could make my possessions disappear!
One day, in late February 2014, Monkey asked to borrow my motorbike. I went out with my friends and came home by taxi that night. I drunk-dialed Monkey on the way home from the bar and asked him to come over. He showed up by taxi.
I asked him where the bike was and he told me he had lent it to his friend Harto. I wasn't really worried about it because I knew Harto but I explained that he shouldn't lend my things to other people without asking first. He said he understood and that it wouldn't happen again.
The next morning he went of to pick up my motorbike from Harto's place. I spent the day dying of a hangover and not really paying attention to the time. Soon, I realised it was the afternoon and I hadn't heard from him. He didn't answer when I called him, but an hour later he informed me that he had picked up the motorbike and stopped at another friend's house and that friend had borrowed the bike to pick up his brother. I don't know what happened to the "don't let people borrow my stuff" conversation.
That night I got more and more frustrated. He hadn't really gotten back to me a lot all day and I still had no clue where my motorbike was. He showed up to my house later that night saying his friend was missing and he didn't know where the bike was. I told him to go find it and went to bed.
At 6AM the next morning, He showed up. "I've been tricked" he said. No shit, you've been tricked and MY motorbike is missing. Apparently his buddy had taken my motorbike to Bangkalan, Madura and used it as collateral to get a loan of $100 and then used the money to fly to Makassar. This all sounds crazy, I know! So, at 6AM I had to go to the ATM to get out $100 to get my own motorbike back.
Later that day, my motorbike reappeared. The next day, I broke up with Monkey (not surprisingly).
CHAPTER 5- SUICIDE
I tried to end things amicably, but it wasn't really possible. I was a mess for awhile, I think he was even more of a mess. He had my tablet and I asked him to return it. Every time I tried to set up a time to meet with him, he flaked out. I started to suspect he had already sold my tablet.
One day after work, I was having dinner at McDonald's with a guy. Monkey chose that day to show up with my tablet. He phoned me.
"Hey, I'm at the parking lot at Delta with your tablet are you coming out?" he asked.
"Ah, sorry I'm at McDonald's with Dila, I can't meet now" I lied, not wanting him to know I was with a guy, "Can we do this another time?"
"I just saw Dila out here! Who are you really with?" Bad choice of lie I guess.
"Don't worry about it, let's just do this another time."
I hung up.
I got a text message: I'm going to throw your tablet on the road. I called him and told him I'd meet him for a moment at the parking lot. When I got there, he had already left.
"No one cares about you, so you should just kill yourself. Your tablet is already smashed on the road." he told me when I called him on the phone.
I was upset and angry so I went home. So, I lay in bed, drinking tea and watching episodes of Daria. Monkey rang me repeatedly. I didn't answer his calls. After a few hours I heard a huge crash from the front of my house. A few seconds later Monkey stormed into my room "oh, I thought you killed yourself" he said looking disappointed to see me alive. I tried to get out of my room because I didn't want to be alone with him but he pushed me up against the wall and started shouting at me. Not long after, my housemate came in to check if things were okay and I got out of the room.
Monkey returned my tablet (which hadn't been thrown on the road) and as I locked the gate behind him that night, I wished I could lock him out of my life altogether.
CHAPTER 6- THE UNKNOWN
Let me tell you about a dramatic moment that happened not so long ago. In the evening, I stopped at the supermarket for a few ingredients. As I was taking my bag from the cashier at Bilka I looked up to see him standing only a meter from me, his eyes staring straight at mine. I stared at him for a moment, in stunned silence almost not recognising him. The look of shock on his face, no doubt mirrored the surprise on mine. It was like one of those moments on a soap opera, when someone sees the last person in the world that they'd want to see. If I were in an Indonesian soap opera, I would have fainted or screamed or ran away. But because I was in reality, I just said "hi", engaged in awkward conversation for two minutes and then went home.
I'd seen him a few months before that which was even more dramatic. He sat outside my house for more than an hour as I was trapped in my home waiting for him to leave. This escalated to us yelling at each other through the gate in front of my house. That evening he messaged me to inform me that I was now stupid, arrogant and ugly. Well, good to know at least?
During the nine months before that he messaged me relentlessly from his jail cell; asking for money, asking me to visit him and asking stupid pointless questions about my private life.
It's hard to believe that this person was the same person I spent so much of my time with.
CHAPTER 2- SIMPLE BEGINNINGS
Let's call him Monkey (that's what I used to call him anyway).
You would have never seen any of the drama coming if you knew him in the beginning. We met in early 2013 when I was brand new to Surabaya. He was a friend of my housemate and we met one night at my house. The day after we met, as I arrived home from work, he happened to drive by my house, which he has maintained all this time was totally by coincidence. He took me to a cheap mall to buy sheets for my bed, socks and a few other things I needed for my room. The fact that our first date was to Royal Plaza was probably a bad sign but I didn't notice at the time. From the beginning he promised to make my life easier and help me settle into like in this crazy city. It was all good fun for awhile- we lived cheap, frequented cheap food stalls and didn't drink a lot of alcohol. I loved it. It felt like a simple life. I saved a lot of money. If I needed something, he took me to buy it. We had good conversations, we laughed a lot and we spent our weekends taking drives around Surabaya. We also went on a few trips out of town together. We took long drives to Jember, Malang, Kediri and his hometown- Sumenep.
Of course there were issues. He was often late to meet me. And by late, I mean three hours late. But I just grew more patient. Cultural issues popped up here and there but at the time I was determined to make it work and that seemed like enough at the time.
CHAPTER 3- THE BABY
In 2013, I had decided to fast for Ramadan. We scraped through 30 days together. One day, I broke my fast by getting angry because he decided we were "sharing" my motorbike and disappeared with it in the morning and I was later to work than I would have liked to be. Otherwise we got through.
On my final day of fasting, I woke up to a Facebook message from a girl called Retno. She told me that Monkey was her husband and that they had a baby together. She attached several photos of them together as well as one of the baby. Because he had been less than reliable and certainly dishonest, I decided to hear her out. She gave me her phone number and when I rang her, her story seemed legitimate.
When I asked Monkey about it later he told me I couldn't get angry because I was fasting but that she was lying. He swore that she was a jealous ex-girlfriend who was trying to break us up. At the time, I didn't know what to believe but decided to believe him. In the meantime, I got so many awful phone calls and messages from Retno that I had to change my number.
Following that, she switched to Facebook stalking me, accusing me of breaking up her family. Each time I blocked her Facebook, she made a new account and started again. After awhile it died down and I stopped thinking about it.
A few months later, when Monkey was out of town I got a message from her latest Facebook account saying "my happy family back together". It kind of panicked me that she knew he was in Sumenep. But later, she attached a photograph of Monkey holding a baby which looked far smaller than the baby from several months earlier. Unless babies shrink, her story was rubbish.
CHAPTER 4- DISAPPEARING MOTORBIKE
Yes, my ex-boyfriend could also do magic tricks. He could make my possessions disappear!
One day, in late February 2014, Monkey asked to borrow my motorbike. I went out with my friends and came home by taxi that night. I drunk-dialed Monkey on the way home from the bar and asked him to come over. He showed up by taxi.
I asked him where the bike was and he told me he had lent it to his friend Harto. I wasn't really worried about it because I knew Harto but I explained that he shouldn't lend my things to other people without asking first. He said he understood and that it wouldn't happen again.
The next morning he went of to pick up my motorbike from Harto's place. I spent the day dying of a hangover and not really paying attention to the time. Soon, I realised it was the afternoon and I hadn't heard from him. He didn't answer when I called him, but an hour later he informed me that he had picked up the motorbike and stopped at another friend's house and that friend had borrowed the bike to pick up his brother. I don't know what happened to the "don't let people borrow my stuff" conversation.
That night I got more and more frustrated. He hadn't really gotten back to me a lot all day and I still had no clue where my motorbike was. He showed up to my house later that night saying his friend was missing and he didn't know where the bike was. I told him to go find it and went to bed.
At 6AM the next morning, He showed up. "I've been tricked" he said. No shit, you've been tricked and MY motorbike is missing. Apparently his buddy had taken my motorbike to Bangkalan, Madura and used it as collateral to get a loan of $100 and then used the money to fly to Makassar. This all sounds crazy, I know! So, at 6AM I had to go to the ATM to get out $100 to get my own motorbike back.
Later that day, my motorbike reappeared. The next day, I broke up with Monkey (not surprisingly).
CHAPTER 5- SUICIDE
I tried to end things amicably, but it wasn't really possible. I was a mess for awhile, I think he was even more of a mess. He had my tablet and I asked him to return it. Every time I tried to set up a time to meet with him, he flaked out. I started to suspect he had already sold my tablet.
One day after work, I was having dinner at McDonald's with a guy. Monkey chose that day to show up with my tablet. He phoned me.
"Hey, I'm at the parking lot at Delta with your tablet are you coming out?" he asked.
"Ah, sorry I'm at McDonald's with Dila, I can't meet now" I lied, not wanting him to know I was with a guy, "Can we do this another time?"
"I just saw Dila out here! Who are you really with?" Bad choice of lie I guess.
"Don't worry about it, let's just do this another time."
I hung up.
I got a text message: I'm going to throw your tablet on the road. I called him and told him I'd meet him for a moment at the parking lot. When I got there, he had already left.
"No one cares about you, so you should just kill yourself. Your tablet is already smashed on the road." he told me when I called him on the phone.
I was upset and angry so I went home. So, I lay in bed, drinking tea and watching episodes of Daria. Monkey rang me repeatedly. I didn't answer his calls. After a few hours I heard a huge crash from the front of my house. A few seconds later Monkey stormed into my room "oh, I thought you killed yourself" he said looking disappointed to see me alive. I tried to get out of my room because I didn't want to be alone with him but he pushed me up against the wall and started shouting at me. Not long after, my housemate came in to check if things were okay and I got out of the room.
Monkey returned my tablet (which hadn't been thrown on the road) and as I locked the gate behind him that night, I wished I could lock him out of my life altogether.
CHAPTER 6- THE UNKNOWN
2014 was a year of a lot of messages from Monkey. Sometimes, he hated me and threatened me. Sometimes, he said he loved me and begged me to get back together.
He claimed to have been attacked by the guy who had taken my motorbike which escalated into Monkey cutting off the guy's finger (which he said he would bring to me as a gift). He claimed that his Grandmother had died and asked me for money to cover the funeral costs. Finally, he claimed to have been framed in a motorbike theft which resulted in 9 months imprisonment.
I don't know if any of these things really happened and I don't care to find out. Monkey still messages me. Just a few weeks ago he sent me a kind of disturbing picture (as below) on my birthday.
I don't know where he is, what he is doing or how his life is but I hope I never find out. My biggest hope is that the end of this blog is also the end of this story.
He claimed to have been attacked by the guy who had taken my motorbike which escalated into Monkey cutting off the guy's finger (which he said he would bring to me as a gift). He claimed that his Grandmother had died and asked me for money to cover the funeral costs. Finally, he claimed to have been framed in a motorbike theft which resulted in 9 months imprisonment.
I don't know if any of these things really happened and I don't care to find out. Monkey still messages me. Just a few weeks ago he sent me a kind of disturbing picture (as below) on my birthday.
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