You see I’m aware that humans rationalise out their actions as reasonable by doing some mental gymnastics… I guess I worry that I do it so effortlessly that I don’t even realise it! Thus my study of my unsuspecting friend.
She seems wonderfully confident to those who don’t know her…. indeed so much so that even I feel fooled sometimes… but I gently remind myself to our conversations and emails…
~~~~~~~~~~
I get a panic call early one morning….She met this guy….. Saw him for the first time. She complains to me that he’s a bit older. But he mentioned sending something she might be interested in seeing… so at the end of the night, he gives her his card. (No major catastrophes, right?)…..Wrong!!
‘I sent him an email at 1am in the morning. I know, I broke some mortal sin doing it so soon’ she whinges…. and then qualifies ’but it was a fairly nonchalant email, an attempt or two at humour, and I threw in my number at the end. Very casual. No pressure. (I stop listening for a moment - there’s a rule about replying and emailing timescales??? I feel suddenly under pressure!!!)
Her distressed voice brings me to attention again, ‘why hasn’t he written back?’…. naturally there are loads of very rational reasons why not, and I offer a dozen perfectly good reasons… she ignores them all, and can’t seem to help obsessing about ridiculous ones.
I hang up exasperated…. and the support line goes silent for a few days….
She went out with him twice. And from her glowing reports it went well. So much so that she’s now totally hooked on waiting for him to reply… and then getting disappointed that the emails/ texts she receives weren’t worth waiting for. I listen sympathetically as she tortures herself, ‘he’s dated extremely beautiful women. I doubt I’ll ever sleep with him’… (As I said, she’s massively insecure). She continues ‘I sort of wish he would just lose interest and leave me alone.’ (Yes even when it’s all going great she’s into crazy talk!!)… ‘It kills me that somewhere in his head he thinks his old girlfriends are prettier than me. I can’t stand it. (I share her sentiment that I wish he’d leave her alone and then feel a rubbish friend)….
The whole concept that is swimming around her troubled head is illogical
She continues and it doesn’t sound good to me… but I listen. ‘This guy is nice enough and attractive and bright…but there were no sparks when we met.’ On either side?? (my question doesn’t compute)… she railroads on… ‘I only like relationships for the attention and the ego boost. I’m getting neither. (my mind wanders…. is there room for two super sized egos in any one relationship?…. I recapture my runaway thoughts).
With conviction, she informs me of her master plan…. ‘I’ve decided though, I’m going to use Valentines as a bit of a barometer. I’m not going to mention it to him obviously, (obviously?) and I’m really not sure if he’d specifically ask me out for the night (isn’t this a fundamental flaw?)… and I wont go if he asks me as I’ve got solid plans with some friends anyway (am I missing a dating gene cos this isn’t making sense to me at all)… Conclusion = ‘if he figures out a way to send me flowers..then we’re cool. and I’ll see where the relationship goes.’ (didn’t she just say there was no sparks??)….. ‘if he doesn’t… I’m going to take it as a sign (more of a sign than the non-spark, lack of attention, omission of ego boasts?)… that none of this is really worth it and I’m going to taper off my contact with him. Whatever, no loss to either of us really. I’ll just say I’ve gotten really busy.’ This is a plan????? all from the lady who says she’s obsessively waiting and looking for replies???? (my mind wanders again…. to a scene from Gladiators where they’re jostling with oversized cottonbuds… ‘games on’ the commentator announces ‘apathy v. obsession’ - the crowd erupt into chanting…
….. ‘Sorry, I was jst thinking about what you’d said’ (I lie unconvincingly but she doesn’t notice)… the chanting in my head changes into ‘Stupid Brain. Stupid Brain’ and I have to agree… then she says she has to go…. cos he usually emails around this time…
Days pass and I hear nothing….. I tell myself this is good… but this is not good….
I get an update: no flowers on Valentine’s Day!! (The end?…. Nah)… she fills me in with the details, ‘There was no way I was going to text him or anything… and I hadn’t, but he sent me a message asking how I was. (Isn’t that nice? I ask)….’no’ she exclaims with a shocked look on her face… anyway, she continues, dismissing my obviously stupid brain remark….. ‘I replied with something innocuous and added happy Valentines Day at the end.’ To which he replied, “you too, any secret admirers” and I thought, “no, you misleading asshole.” I was livid (How come? I thought whilst sporting a blonde head tilt)… ‘I mean, he’s got a really good job and could easily afford flowers, but to not even be acknowledged on Valentines Day… he’s a bit of a no brainer. Right?’…. umm… ‘right’ I echo, whilst trying to recall if they were on date two or twenty two…
I thought that this heinous would’ve decided whether or not she’d see him again… but obsession had taken root…
‘He continued to text me a bit over the following few days and asked when I would be around. I played it really cool, and was like ‘oh, sometime after Wednesday.’ (I wondered why she did that cos I know that her schedule is about a busy as a geriatric patient’s) … apparently, he didn’t need to know that. (For undisclosed reasons… even to me!!)
I got a call at lunchtime Thursday.. ‘We got together last night. I told him I had to leave a bit early to go to a friend’s birthday. (which friends and why was I not invited??)… I told him I wasn’t really up for it and decided I’d stay with him….. We walked around a bookstore for a while…got some coffee. and then decided to head to part of town where I live and got a few drinks.’
(I felt myself smiling)… ‘I was fine until somehow his past of dating models and dancers and actresses came up magically, and you can guarantee I was not the one to bring it up. I was a bit merry by this point, and obsessed about it for a while until he finally got a cab to go home.’ (I felt myself nodding …. I was obsessing about this too…. where are all these models, dancers and actresses in Aberdeen?????)
‘You know what’s funny?’….. ‘what?’… What’s funny, is that I had considered sleeping with him last night……(to try to generate sparks no doubt)… ’At first I thought I was never going to, because of his apparently gorgeous ex-girlfriends, but I was finally starting to get over it. But up comes his ex’s and there goes my confidence… do you think he does it on purpose??’… (blank look) ‘I hate men who play games!’ (other than the part they ought to play in your own games? I thought cynically and then felt bad)…
‘I wound up telling him in my slight drunkenness that I would probably never be able to sleep with him a) cos we’re not in a relationship and b) insecurity and then I made up some other reasons in a vaguely coherent argument. I came home feeling seriously down. I think he felt awful.’ (How awful!)
…’Don’t look at me like that, whatever, it worked!!!! (he ended it???)… cos when I got home. I fell straight asleep, but I heard him text and then ring me an hour later. I didn’t get it. I text him this morning, saying I fell asleep but got home ok. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to a museum this weekend. I told him I had some work to do. (what work?)…He called. I ignored it. Then he text and said, ok well just come out for a few hours. I very nicely and jokingly said I should really get started on this work. He said ok.’ Cool huh?’…. (yeah real slick)…
I get a call Friday lunchtime…..
‘It’s over!!…(It’s over?)…. ‘I would have been more than happy to keep seeing him. But I woke up this morning… and thought about it for a while. This guy isn’t some 20 year old student. He’s a 36 or 37 year old very comfortable professional, and we are (or were) more or less dating. Him calling me, him inviting me out, but I kept remembering the times we went out together.(all those thousands of times?)… The first night he took me a really nice upscale bar. We got champagne, it was lovely, something I’d like to get used to…..We also went out to dinner once at some restaurant. I had a nice time then too. But I was jst thinking, other than that our “dates” have included coffee, drinking beers at normal bars, and walking around book stores.’ (I think, what’s wrong with that? …. I love doing things like that but keep quiet and listen). she continues… ’i mean, lets be honest, the effort to impress really isn’t there. I don’t mind being a cheap date, (oh my god - i’m a cheap date!)but when he tells me he was once dating a girl and flew back and forth from another city just to see her for one day at the weekend, I’m started to get offended that I’m an easy date, as in “ah we’ll just walk around she wont mind.” And what am i getting in return?’ (i pray that this is a rhetorical question)..
…’Whether intentionally or not, he makes me feel very bad about myself, and it’s not like he wants to be my boyfriend or anything. What’s the point. I have other things I need to be concentrating on. So that’s that. I’m just not going to see him again. I simply refuse to keep bother my friends with my obsessive nonsense for such a loser!’……
….Ummm, thanks!
~~~~~~~
Don’t get me wrong… altho’ i don’t understand half of her thought processes and many of her actions are a complete mystery to me… i am in awe of her ability to not care what others think of her… I really wish I can do that (Stop caring what other people think of me not the mental gymnastics as shown above!!), …… but I really don’t want to be a target in a modern-day witch hunt. Most people are still sheep and follow the loudest leaders. Meaning the least-liked individual will always be vulnerable like a fox who gets “ripped apart” for turning up at the wrong party!. Stupid fox thinks it can get away with mingling with human beings!!…. Like my friend…. I want to learn to let go of past events… to rewrite and remember only a sugar-coated history in which its all about me! But there is only one problem…. Stupid Brain!!!!
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