I hate Jodi Arias. AND I am Jodi Arias.

No I’m not really Jodi Arias. I’m not a calculating cold blooded murderer. I’m not actually a stalker (facebook stalking is NOT stalking!).  I’m not, typically, a liar- oh puhlease like you’ve NEVER told a lie?!

I have pretended to like sports more than I like them for a guy. I have been a little bit nicer to friends of a guy I was into. I am a non drinker who has gotten a bit drunk to make a guy think I was “fun”.
I never converted to another religion for a guy… but faith and ideology can sometimes be fleeting when the big “I like him A LOT” feeling emerges.

What Jodi Arias did to Travis Alexander is unfathomable. And really…unforgivable.
I find myself repeatedly bewildered that someone could commit such a heinous crime and THEN behave the way she has in its aftermath.

I have NEVER, NOT EVER thought about killing someone. It is just not how I am wired.  I am very jelly belly when it comes to physically hurting another.
However psychological warfare?!
BRING IT ON!

I do recognize the intense emotional response to a guy who says “No!” or “No more!” or “I’m done!” or “We’re breaking up!”
I do recognize the intense emotional response to rejection.

I remember in my teens thinking about the crush who didnt like me back- how I wanted to devastate him emotionally somehow. That all of my smarts and efforts would go toward that endeavor.
Did I succeed? Nah. Something always stopped me short of being ruthless. But the feelings I had were unbelievably strong and powerful.
I wouldn’t ultimately hurt the guy who hurt me, rather I would turn the pain inward and blame myself for whatever had gone wrong.   I wasn’t hot enough. I wasn’t fun enough. My tush wasn’t small enough. I wasn’t good enough.

My way of dealing with a guy breaking up with me was, sometimes,  to put out even more than I had planned:

“Oh, you don’t want me anymore, then we will have sex! We will have really dirty crazy raunchy EXTRA naughty sex! You will like it! You will want it. You will want it again! ” (And he did. I’m not proud.)

And no, I would never damage his property, or his world.
But I might fantasize about it.

I recognize the DESIRE to stalk. I recognize the compulsion to try to make him change his mind.

And I would say with a boatload of confidence that MANY women recognize these things too.

I believe most women have a little Jodi Arias in them- and this may be, in part, why we are so fascinated with her crime.

I know one friend who called me 30 times, maybe 40, after a guy she liked blew her off. They had sex a couple of times. It was not a serious relationship, but her mental turmoil resulting was SERIOUS!  She could not stop thinking about him. He pushed every button (pun intended) and just when she finally let go- he re- engaged her.  My friend did not stalk this guy nor did she contemplate physically harming him- but her insides were all mixed up over him. It was intense.

One friend faked a pregnancy – for a LONG time- to keep a guy.

I have another friend who would wait each night for her guy to call her, after he’d been out with whomever, and they’d have late night bootie calls (this is in the 90s when it wasn’t called a bootie call). Anyway, she ended up marrying him.

Show me a girl who likes boys,  a woman who likes men and I will show you someone who has felt like Jodi Arias.

We just don’t usually kill the guy when it ends. We feel horrible. The emotional pain can linger- for years sometimes- but ultimately, the healthy girls,
we detach. We recognize it is enough and we move forward.

What was your “Jodi Arias” moment?