To recap, for those at home keeping score:
When J glimpsed me at a group event, and later impressed upon mutual friends to bring me to a party at his house, I had no clue as to how, why, or who he was, or how someone I didn't remember from months ago would remember me. It was only when penis-having mutual friend jogged my memory with, "He liked your tattoos? 'Cause he has them too- remember, he took his shirt off in the theater to let his fresh tattoos breathe?" that a vague, man-shaped memory surfaced.
"Mmmaybe?"
"Well he's having a party..." he trailed off.
The female mutual friend hastened to affirm that he was generally a nice guy, and had asked for my attendance specifically, which, if you paid attention in the last I Really Shouldn't Date post, was ATTENTION, and all mine.
Now, with the benefit of (mumble) years between then and now and hindsight being 20/20, I hasten to caution impressionable minds with the following 'yellow flags.' (That I will flag. In yellow. Creativity Incarnate, I am not.) For there were no true red flags with this kid- so sorry to disappoint some grander ending you kids out on the tubes had imagined up for me- but like with many less-than-stellar events, it's not one massive problem that kills it. Instead, it's that veritable straw that breaks the camel's back, or if you will, a tedious stacking of Lego blocks. In your slippers. Given enough of those spiteful little suckers and even the most callous (ha!) among us is kicking those puppies to the curb and possibly investing in some slipper-socks.
So we begin the stack with the gestation period: four months is a long time to recall a girl who might have said three words to you in toto. Let's be honest. I'm more Mildred Pierce than Mila Kunis, and even that takes some work, kids. In retrospect, it maybe should have tipped me off that a guy who would be passive enough to think on a girl for months, and then make his big play... by asking someone else to ask me to a non-date... perhaps may not be the storied streetwise Hercules. It wasn't a self-confidence issue, either, because from what I remembered, he wasn't hard on the eyes at all. He knew it, too, catching the second yellow flag in the one interaction we'd had: taking your shirt off in public indoors to show off tattoos to girls you've just met, stone sober all the while, is around two-popped-collars on the Douche Scale.
Why he felt the need to revert to the fourth-grade with his "DO YOU LIKE ME CHECK ONE PLEASE NONE OF THAT MAYBE CRAP" note, I hadn't a clue. Nor was I looking for one...
The party was well-attended, and initially I spent it consorting with everyone except J, as he was party host and was constantly chaperoning the jungle-juice punch bowl- what, was someone going to spike it *more*?- but as the night waned on, and people drifted out of the party, he and I found occasion to speak. He himself brought up that he'd remembered my tattoos and this prompted his curiosity; mine extended to seeing what new work he'd had done, which he proudly showed in the exact same fashion as the movie theater. My memory had served me pretty well, and as I was now somewhat expecting it, it didn't seem as douchey. What I remember of this conversation was a confirmation of remembering the movie at which we'd 'met,' viewing of a youtube video,
and a few awkward pauses. It turned out that, body art and military aside, we had very little in common. What's worse, what J had in tattoos, he lacked in conversational skills... but since you don't need those to make out...
We hung around eachother for a month or so after that. Not so much at work- while both in the military, we were in separate squadrons, and really had little reason to visit eachother's buildings during the day. The most time we spent together at work was a night wherein J pulled NCOD, a duty that, boiled out of its fancy acronym jacket, meant a living, breathing human had to babysit a building for a shift of 2-4 hours. (Oh, the things recruiters leave out of their spiels.) To help pass the time, J requested and I agreed to make and bring us dinner. I threw together a lasanga-pan-sized batch of Italian food, a salad, and bread, and drove on base and to the building late that night. J watched on the security camera as I struggled with keying open the outer door, dropping the salad in my attempts and nearly losing the glass pan and bag of bread as the door slammed shut on me. After cleaning up, juggling the remaining food and managing to key, open and enter the door, J met me with laughter as he regaled me with how funny I had looked, and how he had laughed the whole time he'd watched me, from his perch four feet from the door. He then ate the whole pan of food, stopping only at the last two bites to say, "Oh, did you want some?"
Elsewise, we hung out on the weekends, whenever he would text or call me to come over to his house; he would play COD (poorly) and I would sit on his bed next to him and wait for him to get bored enough of 12 year olds spawn-camping him and maybe make out with me. This is pathetic, and not just on his part; why on earth I would hang around being Jane-On-The-Spot for his occasional desires, I can't tell you. And boy, am I embarrassed to admit to it, in writing, on the Internet, which, I have been advised, is forever. But if you never made mistakes, you'd have nothing to write about on a blog for an audience of 4 people.
Our like was not to be as it happened; we were both set to deploy to the exact opposite ends of the earth. And so we did, with little fanfare- he left in December, and two weeks later, I boarded the mission jet and left the states too. Neither of us felt the need to keep in touch; either I finally had my fill of sporadic attention morsels, or he'd had his, or maybe, just maybe, his idea of what having a girlfriend who got tattooed as regularly as he was seemed better in his head than the incident after we'd both had appointments, and had to un-stick ourselves from eachother/his sheets the following morning. (Oh, the things Suicide Girls leave out of their blurbs.)
However, J was back in my sights only a few months later, when both the female mutual friend and another disinterested third party/dude I'd dated years before approached the topic online; specifically, they both informed me that while I was under the impression that our parting was amicable, J had wasted no time in running his mouth about what an awful, bitchy, clingy, needy girlfriend I'd been, and how he'd had to dump me, and how terribly I'd taken it.
Now, of that statement, no one who's met me, read this blog, or can make inferred guesses of the "if there are two crayons and one is blue and one is red, which one will you use to accurately color in a tomato" caliber, would ever argue the bitchy comment. I'll own that proudly, even if I didn't really see 'makes food and delivers on request' as bitch moves persay. But the rest sounded like the cliche of every lowbrow comedian who depleted his stock of 'airline food- gross or what?!" jokes and had to move to the much less explored quadrant of "women be shoppin'." And as for the dumping... funny how that didn't come up when I drove him to the airport or made him his requested puppy chow for his deployment. Both friends hastened to tell me that, when they'd overheard him boasting about 'kicking her to the curb for being so needy' they'd interjected their disbelief; the from-before ex, when relating this to me later, laughed when he recounted how of all the adjectives one could use to describe me as a girlfriend, 'clingy' was not it. The female friend seemed mortified that she'd had to do with us meeting, let alone, "him saying you were needy- I mean, did he ever try calling you? You don't pick up for anyone."* Both, however, let me know that they'd set the record straight, and that he'd clammed up immediately.
(Their incredulity was only made possible by my track record with most of my friends as being one of the flakiest, reclusive people in a community of people that are known for their lack of interest in being social; so, the teacher who smugly gave me my Myers Briggs results like a death sentence is hereby most cordially invited to slob my figurative knob. That introvert poop worked out for me after all!)
Not a day passed from their relaying of the RUMINT before J had sent me a message on MySpace, which, yes, yes, the message was actually carved in stone and delivered via pterodactyl and I get it now get off my lawn, thanks. Expecting a hasty retraction or an explanation of how "well, guess I'll see you around," was translated as "move, bitch, get out the way," I was most surprised to find a cute little note, saying he wished he'd gotten to know me even better, and wanting to take me out again when we were both stateside.
After I informed him that his version of events and its lack of resemblance to reality had been made known to me via the same friends who'd stopped him in the first place, he responded only once, and as the subject line read "They musta made it up I'd nev..." I promptly deleted both him and the message. Not only did he lie about me, and then lie to me that the very friend he'd asked to get me to attend his party and an ex-boyfriend would have some stake in keeping us more separated than 3 continents already did... but he clearly thought I was that stupid, and that's a no-go for any level of relationship, right down to 'favored cashier.' In fact, I never received another MySpace message from the kid, as the Ice Age happened and all the servers were destroyed to make way for newer social network evolution in Facebook!
Wherein J reconnected with me, a year or so later, in order to send 9 separate invitations for me to become a fan of his new DJ band/group/circle jerk.
Invitations to become a fan of someone as well-known and close to you as 'favored cashier' would be more welcome. Hell, not even the good cashier who remembers your name- even 'that one cashier with the lazy eye who crushed your eggs' would be better received than a dude who was not great to you, lied about you, lied to you, and now expected you to become his groupie... but the absolute worst of his slights was, quite clearly, this last. I mean, what does it say when someone thinks your greatest potential lies in being a groupie of a person who doesn't even make their own music? Feels so strongly about it they feel the need to send that invitation to supply adoration 9 times?
I lied. That's a massive red flag. If you take nothing away from these dating stories (save a lingering feeling that there must be something in the water in the Midwest, and we're not talking fluoride) please, please, PLEASE, take away only this:
1. You are worth far more than the sidelines of a never-was.
and
2. If you're getting tattooed, buy a set of sheets you don't mind destroying, unless you want the boudoir looking like a butcher's. If he'd cited that crusty bruise of a bedding set as the reason we'd broken up, well hell. I couldn't even be mad.
*Lies. I pick up for my mother.
When J glimpsed me at a group event, and later impressed upon mutual friends to bring me to a party at his house, I had no clue as to how, why, or who he was, or how someone I didn't remember from months ago would remember me. It was only when penis-having mutual friend jogged my memory with, "He liked your tattoos? 'Cause he has them too- remember, he took his shirt off in the theater to let his fresh tattoos breathe?" that a vague, man-shaped memory surfaced.
"Mmmaybe?"
"Well he's having a party..." he trailed off.
The female mutual friend hastened to affirm that he was generally a nice guy, and had asked for my attendance specifically, which, if you paid attention in the last I Really Shouldn't Date post, was ATTENTION, and all mine.
That was that. I was going to this party.
Now, with the benefit of (mumble) years between then and now and hindsight being 20/20, I hasten to caution impressionable minds with the following 'yellow flags.' (That I will flag. In yellow. Creativity Incarnate, I am not.) For there were no true red flags with this kid- so sorry to disappoint some grander ending you kids out on the tubes had imagined up for me- but like with many less-than-stellar events, it's not one massive problem that kills it. Instead, it's that veritable straw that breaks the camel's back, or if you will, a tedious stacking of Lego blocks. In your slippers. Given enough of those spiteful little suckers and even the most callous (ha!) among us is kicking those puppies to the curb and possibly investing in some slipper-socks.
So we begin the stack with the gestation period: four months is a long time to recall a girl who might have said three words to you in toto. Let's be honest. I'm more Mildred Pierce than Mila Kunis, and even that takes some work, kids. In retrospect, it maybe should have tipped me off that a guy who would be passive enough to think on a girl for months, and then make his big play... by asking someone else to ask me to a non-date... perhaps may not be the storied streetwise Hercules. It wasn't a self-confidence issue, either, because from what I remembered, he wasn't hard on the eyes at all. He knew it, too, catching the second yellow flag in the one interaction we'd had: taking your shirt off in public indoors to show off tattoos to girls you've just met, stone sober all the while, is around two-popped-collars on the Douche Scale.
Why he felt the need to revert to the fourth-grade with his "DO YOU LIKE ME CHECK ONE PLEASE NONE OF THAT MAYBE CRAP" note, I hadn't a clue. Nor was I looking for one...
he thought I was pretty. Or... memorable. Whatever.
The party was well-attended, and initially I spent it consorting with everyone except J, as he was party host and was constantly chaperoning the jungle-juice punch bowl- what, was someone going to spike it *more*?- but as the night waned on, and people drifted out of the party, he and I found occasion to speak. He himself brought up that he'd remembered my tattoos and this prompted his curiosity; mine extended to seeing what new work he'd had done, which he proudly showed in the exact same fashion as the movie theater. My memory had served me pretty well, and as I was now somewhat expecting it, it didn't seem as douchey. What I remember of this conversation was a confirmation of remembering the movie at which we'd 'met,' viewing of a youtube video,
and a few awkward pauses. It turned out that, body art and military aside, we had very little in common. What's worse, what J had in tattoos, he lacked in conversational skills... but since you don't need those to make out...
We hung around eachother for a month or so after that. Not so much at work- while both in the military, we were in separate squadrons, and really had little reason to visit eachother's buildings during the day. The most time we spent together at work was a night wherein J pulled NCOD, a duty that, boiled out of its fancy acronym jacket, meant a living, breathing human had to babysit a building for a shift of 2-4 hours. (Oh, the things recruiters leave out of their spiels.) To help pass the time, J requested and I agreed to make and bring us dinner. I threw together a lasanga-pan-sized batch of Italian food, a salad, and bread, and drove on base and to the building late that night. J watched on the security camera as I struggled with keying open the outer door, dropping the salad in my attempts and nearly losing the glass pan and bag of bread as the door slammed shut on me. After cleaning up, juggling the remaining food and managing to key, open and enter the door, J met me with laughter as he regaled me with how funny I had looked, and how he had laughed the whole time he'd watched me, from his perch four feet from the door. He then ate the whole pan of food, stopping only at the last two bites to say, "Oh, did you want some?"
Elsewise, we hung out on the weekends, whenever he would text or call me to come over to his house; he would play COD (poorly) and I would sit on his bed next to him and wait for him to get bored enough of 12 year olds spawn-camping him and maybe make out with me. This is pathetic, and not just on his part; why on earth I would hang around being Jane-On-The-Spot for his occasional desires, I can't tell you. And boy, am I embarrassed to admit to it, in writing, on the Internet, which, I have been advised, is forever. But if you never made mistakes, you'd have nothing to write about on a blog for an audience of 4 people.
So when you cringe, know I did these things for you!
Our like was not to be as it happened; we were both set to deploy to the exact opposite ends of the earth. And so we did, with little fanfare- he left in December, and two weeks later, I boarded the mission jet and left the states too. Neither of us felt the need to keep in touch; either I finally had my fill of sporadic attention morsels, or he'd had his, or maybe, just maybe, his idea of what having a girlfriend who got tattooed as regularly as he was seemed better in his head than the incident after we'd both had appointments, and had to un-stick ourselves from eachother/his sheets the following morning. (Oh, the things Suicide Girls leave out of their blurbs.)
However, J was back in my sights only a few months later, when both the female mutual friend and another disinterested third party/dude I'd dated years before approached the topic online; specifically, they both informed me that while I was under the impression that our parting was amicable, J had wasted no time in running his mouth about what an awful, bitchy, clingy, needy girlfriend I'd been, and how he'd had to dump me, and how terribly I'd taken it.
Now, of that statement, no one who's met me, read this blog, or can make inferred guesses of the "if there are two crayons and one is blue and one is red, which one will you use to accurately color in a tomato" caliber, would ever argue the bitchy comment. I'll own that proudly, even if I didn't really see 'makes food and delivers on request' as bitch moves persay. But the rest sounded like the cliche of every lowbrow comedian who depleted his stock of 'airline food- gross or what?!" jokes and had to move to the much less explored quadrant of "women be shoppin'." And as for the dumping... funny how that didn't come up when I drove him to the airport or made him his requested puppy chow for his deployment. Both friends hastened to tell me that, when they'd overheard him boasting about 'kicking her to the curb for being so needy' they'd interjected their disbelief; the from-before ex, when relating this to me later, laughed when he recounted how of all the adjectives one could use to describe me as a girlfriend, 'clingy' was not it. The female friend seemed mortified that she'd had to do with us meeting, let alone, "him saying you were needy- I mean, did he ever try calling you? You don't pick up for anyone."* Both, however, let me know that they'd set the record straight, and that he'd clammed up immediately.
(Their incredulity was only made possible by my track record with most of my friends as being one of the flakiest, reclusive people in a community of people that are known for their lack of interest in being social; so, the teacher who smugly gave me my Myers Briggs results like a death sentence is hereby most cordially invited to slob my figurative knob. That introvert poop worked out for me after all!)
Not a day passed from their relaying of the RUMINT before J had sent me a message on MySpace, which, yes, yes, the message was actually carved in stone and delivered via pterodactyl and I get it now get off my lawn, thanks. Expecting a hasty retraction or an explanation of how "well, guess I'll see you around," was translated as "move, bitch, get out the way," I was most surprised to find a cute little note, saying he wished he'd gotten to know me even better, and wanting to take me out again when we were both stateside.
After I informed him that his version of events and its lack of resemblance to reality had been made known to me via the same friends who'd stopped him in the first place, he responded only once, and as the subject line read "They musta made it up I'd nev..." I promptly deleted both him and the message. Not only did he lie about me, and then lie to me that the very friend he'd asked to get me to attend his party and an ex-boyfriend would have some stake in keeping us more separated than 3 continents already did... but he clearly thought I was that stupid, and that's a no-go for any level of relationship, right down to 'favored cashier.' In fact, I never received another MySpace message from the kid, as the Ice Age happened and all the servers were destroyed to make way for newer social network evolution in Facebook!
Wherein J reconnected with me, a year or so later, in order to send 9 separate invitations for me to become a fan of his new DJ band/group/circle jerk.
Invitations to become a fan of someone as well-known and close to you as 'favored cashier' would be more welcome. Hell, not even the good cashier who remembers your name- even 'that one cashier with the lazy eye who crushed your eggs' would be better received than a dude who was not great to you, lied about you, lied to you, and now expected you to become his groupie... but the absolute worst of his slights was, quite clearly, this last. I mean, what does it say when someone thinks your greatest potential lies in being a groupie of a person who doesn't even make their own music? Feels so strongly about it they feel the need to send that invitation to supply adoration 9 times?
I lied. That's a massive red flag. If you take nothing away from these dating stories (save a lingering feeling that there must be something in the water in the Midwest, and we're not talking fluoride) please, please, PLEASE, take away only this:
1. You are worth far more than the sidelines of a never-was.
and
2. If you're getting tattooed, buy a set of sheets you don't mind destroying, unless you want the boudoir looking like a butcher's. If he'd cited that crusty bruise of a bedding set as the reason we'd broken up, well hell. I couldn't even be mad.
This is a cute version of what I looked like after I googled "gross bloody bed" with the safe search off.
Not pictured:insomnia.
*Lies. I pick up for my mother.
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