Regretless B – Part 5
Regretless B is me. Barbara Doduk. This is the one where I tell you about how I ended up making this website about the Cancelled Career and MeToo of Matthew Good. Then how it evolved into a deep dive into my own vices.
B a Groupie
Many, many years of no communication.
Then one day in April 2018 – a single me – I am swiping along on the app Tinder. Yes. Tinder the hook up sorta dating app. And I see Matthew Good. I swipe yes, thinking this can’t be really him. It was. So he phones me. We start chatting about life.
After all it had been almost 11 years since the 2007 blow up, there was a lot to catch up on.
So you have to put this into perspective. 11 years is a lot of time, a lot of water under the bridge. I had vaguely heard things about his career or rumour mill things that musicians mumble over beers. I didn’t buy or listen to any of his music after Audio of Being. I wasn’t really all that keyed into what he was up to. I dove into his IG and saw what was what, but truly, 11 years of not knowing one another.
I suppose, I wondered how he had changed. I wondered how he hadn’t. I wondered the way you do about people like that from in your life.
I was living in White Rock – South Surrey. I had bought a townhouse for me and my child. I was co-parenting with Paul. My life was pretty normal. I had kicked the rockstar habit. Sorta.
Matthew came to my townhouse in White Rock once in May 2018.
After that one evening hanging out together, we just chatted on the phone or mostly texted for the next years. Often he would suggest having sex again, but it never happened. I am just so different now. He is so different, but we are the same somehow.
Aging is interesting.
I think Matthew still likes the idea of planning these complicated sexual scenarios, so he would message me these graphic details, of some fantasy of his, and I would just laugh at it most times. I have a dirty mind, so talk like that between me and my lovers, even former ones, it not all that unusual.
Probably morally questionable but it’s just talk/text, until it’s not. I have that power, that power of yes or no. Mostly I say no. I am a recovered minor Sex Addict.
So we spent May 2018 – November 2020 just randomly texting now and again. About kids and exes. He was on tour. I mentioned I saw his new girlfriend’s IG. We talked about child custody. We talked about Star Trek. Just whatever. Then his dad died. We texted. His mom died. We texted. And after that in November 2020 he went totally quiet. Didn’t reply to a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year text. I figured no biggie, that’s Matt.
Little did I know what was going on for him.
Me Too
When the Hayley M story broke in February 2021 and I shared my shock with my co-worker, a man that I had considered a friend and explained why I couldn’t believe it. My co-worker called me a groupie. It gave me great pause. It forced me to do some more inner reality checks.
I suppose I am just a groupie to Matt. To men.
It became part of the reason for the title of this web site. Upon reflection on that time in 1998-99 I was indeed a fan of the music. I wouldn’t have got to know Matthew if I wasn’t.
Yet I have never had sex with someone just for the sake of who or what they are/were. Fame was not a factor in the decision. I didn’t have sex with every “famous” person that offered. And believe me there were other offers.
I doubt I would have had sex with Matthew Good if we hadn’t spent a lot of time getting to know one another in a non-superficial way. Yes it was an ego boost that he was a rockstar but the conversations mattered. I was attracted to the skinny skater with shaggy hair and shitty attitude back in 1999. Clearly I cared and I thought we had a good friendship beyond the sex back then. In 1999/2000 I thought I loved him.
Then in 2021, some of the women that I spoke to said, his way of “grooming” them into sex – was to talk to them and make them feel “special” – because of the personal nature of their conversations.
I think he just talks openly to anyone, but you have to understand the difference between being open about common knowledge and being vulnerable.
I think his conversations with me went deeper and they were very personal, I had felt he was vulnerable with me. It wasn’t just flirty sex talk to get me to have sex. Or maybe I was duped. Like a chump.
However from the outside, him seeking out and contacting female fans and making them feel special does seem to be his smarmy MO. It is a sad thing to do.
I mean it is one thing for a “groupie” to show up at your tour bus or back stage, but for him to purposely seek out these women in his social media, it is sick. Just because a women likes your photograph, your song, that doesn’t mean she wants to have sex with you.
Only Matt truly knows for sure what his opinion of me was or is.
Blinded by the Light
I think whenever he flattered me, I said thank you or I said it is a lovely lie to hear. I know what we were to one another and there is never any “confusion” about that for me after these decades.
I care about the motherfucker but I don’t think he cares/d about me to that same degree. Whatever happened between us always meant more to me, then it did to him, because he always reverted to dismissing me as a disposable slut.
Funny thing is, as experienced as I may be, I know my number. The number of people I have had sexual contact with is minuscule, specially when you compare it to how many Matt had sex with. I probably was just another number to him. I accept that.
Even recently, in October 2021, Matt told me I was a light to him all these years. I appreciate the sentiment, even if I don’t truly believe it coming from him.
I felt he was always a kind of “what-if” of my life.
I don’t know what was exactly said between him and those other women either – in their 20/20 hindsight version of things I hope they can accept they willingly let themselves be fooled by a man they were blinded by – and sure, they feel duped and regretful about their encounters. I am not going to dismiss that regret they feel. Their hurt is legit.
I understand that regret!
I doubt you truly ever know another person fully even if you are married to one another for a life time, but certainly not in the beginning of getting to know someone.
Definitely not if one person is a rockstar messaging a random-nobody – just because you looked hot in a picture online. Certainly not after a few sexual emails or texting about sex, and then randomly banging for an hour in hotel room, or giving a massage and blow job on a tour bus.
Groupies are what they are to certain musicians.
Regret after the fact doesn’t change the consent in the moment.
B Supportive
It was never my intent to enter that Victims of Matthew Good Facebook group on March 12, 2021 to debunk anyone – I honestly wanted to share the version of the man I have known all this time, the good and all the bad – and I genuinely wanted to hear and support anyone that had been “abused” or even just felt used.
I think I was supportive to the women and I was told I was.
Until they said I wasn’t.
Until I was kicked out and accused of all the utter nonsense they came up with in their attempt to cancel me. Calling me racist, transphobic, etc.
After April 13th, 2021 when I publicly answered Hayley M‘s inquiries on my public Twitter, Matthew Good did reach out to me.
Matt messaged me, then he phoned me, probably to use me as a woman he could promote as being on his side or maybe just because we have the history we do – and I always forgive him.
I took the call, for my own set of reasons.
I asked him everything.
I have very small filters in life, and no qualms about just saying what I think or asking the hard stuff. He has told me a lot of his truth in this situation. His side of things. From his perspective. I reminded him everyone’s perspective is individual.
He was aware I am writing this web site. He approved the information regarding the unreleased album, but he had no control over what I decided to write otherwise.
Some of what I wrote upset him. And in Feb 2022 he sent me a message via Instagram and a text, asking me why I was using him.
I don’t think I used him, but it could seem that way. I could stay silent.
But I have been silent before. I have lived in fear before.
Now I am Fearless
Truth, is a multiple layered reality and sometimes it hurts. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore, but I think truth is important. I also think every side of the situation needs to have some day light set on it.
If anyone wants to share their side of things with me, I am open to hearing every side.
No judgement.
I am here.
I am not going hide.
Not even gonna hide from the monster – me.
My Matthew Good story in 5 parts spanning from 1998 to 2022 explaining our history.
- Part 1: Died for You
- Part 2: Regretless Bee – MGB Days 98-99
- Part 3: Regretless Bee – Bizarre Love Triangle
- Part 4: Regretless Bee – Life is a Bugger
- Part 5: Regretless Bee – B Groupie
Updated October 14th, 2023 Originally uploaded December 31, 2021