Called it — crazy is as crazy does!

A word to the wise fellas (and ladies too no doubt): at the first whiff of crazy run! Run fast, run hard, and run long. And don’t — I repeat do NOT look back, lest you be sucked back in by the crazy tractor beam. This is my problem, what I do too often. I  look back and think, maybe…. DON’T DO THAT! [swat with a rolled newspaper on the nose]

This of course raises the question, what does crazy smell like anyway?There in lies the rub — crazy comes in a plethora of fragrances. It can have a simple, basic smell, like ivory soap and water. Or it can be more pungent, like Virginia Slims and sour lemon candy. Perhaps even flowery. Or like pot and sandalwood. A musty garage. You just never know. That’s what makes it so tough to identify sometimes. But trust me you’ll know it when you really get a good snoot full, and at that point it may be difficult as hell to pull the eject button. But you gottta. You just gotta.

So what’s all this blathering about anyway? Glad you asked, young squire.

As I blogged previously, Gigi had returned. I anticipated that my post about might possibly prove ill-advised, as it could back fire on me, bite me on the ass, squirt in my eye —  ouch, it burns! But that was in fact NOT the case. What was the case was that it was prophetic. Okay, perhaps that is a bit much. In any case, it is not going  be an issue. For Gigi is gone. For good this time.

Or is she? Only the shadow of my willingness to tolerate crazy knows…….

As was the case in the past, she was set off by something I said/- we were chatting online — and did her eStompoff, saying, well, I can see that this is going to be a point of contention between us. I can’t do this. Have a good day and a good weekend. And then logged off.

Now, did you notice that her response seemed to suggest that after the weekend there may be a chance that she’d be back? Well, that is how I read it, and I just decided, Nawp, not going to happen. Not this time.

So I texted her. And without spreading out the gory details I essentially said we were done. I no longer wished to continue doing whatever it was that we were doing. She of course did not cotton to that. She stomped her little feet and told me NOT to talk to her like a child. To which I replied, I would be glad to if she would stop acting like a child. There was more back and forth. And then she called me to whine that she was at work and for me to stop. I admittedly childishly said, why don’t you stop responding? But clearly she was a last-word girl. Before she could, I said, Never contact me again and disconnected. Ha! Take that missy. Clearly you have no idea who you are dealing with. I can out-immature the best of them. So nanny nanny boo boo!

My point is: the bitch be tripping. And I ain’t having it.

Actually my real point is that this behavior was not new, and was in fact predictable. Why I stuck around to suffer it is, while not beyond me, clearly not a wise choice. Ah, sweet hindsight. 

And this is where the beauty of internet dating comes in. Within an hour I was already chatting with another woman, who contacted me via OkCupid. How long do you suppose before I’m blogging about this one?

So begins the countdown, to see if Gigi actually tries to contact me again with “I’m sorry how we left things….” blah blah blah.

Day 1

Should I be annoyed….

…by this response on eHarmony from a woman I contacted?

Hi Chris, wanted to send you a note as I find your profile very humorous and appealing. But I am pursuing a relationship and have shut down matches.
If my situation changes I will seek you out. Chances are you will be snapped up.
Best of luck to you,

I mean, yeah, sure, it’s complimentary, but really why respond at all? That’s what most people do. That’s what I do.

Would you rather get no response or response such as this?

Perhaps I’ve become too sensitive, or even grown paranoid? I don’t know. All I know is that this irked me. Makes me wonder why she felt the need to respond as such. I guess it felt a bit patronizing, as if I needed her assurances or something. As if….pffft.

Anyhoo….

Summer of the Zombie Novel

My daughter has been working on a zombie novel. She is very excited about it. It’s a about a kid named TJ and begins with him day-dreaming in school about this girl, Debbie, that he kind of likes. After that the structure gets a bit fuzzy, but still it sounds cool.

Anyway, it got me to thinking that maybe it is time I started work on my own zombie novel. I’ve been kicking one around in my head for awhile now.

Here is the opening:

For the past thirty-seven hours I have been trapped in my ex-wife’s attic. And I can still  hear them down there. By them I don’t mean my ex-wife, Carolyn, or her new husband, Roger, or my daughter, Melanie.

No. I mean the zombies. That’s right — zombies, undead, walkers,  biters, ghouls, legends of the undead. Whatever the fuck you want to call them. They are down there.

It happened. The dead came back to life. I don’t how it happened or why. I just know that it did. And I don’t know where my daughter is. I need to find her and make sure that she’s safe.

What do you think? Does it grab you?

I thought this could be a project for the summer, for my daughter and I — we could work on our stories together.

The Return of Gigi

This may prove to be an ill-advised post. But aren’t those the best kind?

Gigi has returned. If you’re recall she was the one that gave me the let’s just be friends speech — actually, it was a text, but no matter, you get the point. Some time after that we had a text blow out, based on the fact that she had promised to allow me to contact her if I felt comfortable doing so and then proceeded to contact me anyway. When I pressed her on her intentions she shut down and eventually ended the conversation which led to us basically ending any contact at all. I predicted that she might return. And I was right. She did.

She sent me an email, apologizing, which I did not see until after she texted me, which I did not immediately answer because I was attending a memorial for a friend who had lost her baby.

Gigi and I talked (texted actually) and what came out of it was that we are in fact dating again now, but not exclusively (I know — why?) We both have concerns, which we have not spoken about because we have not had a chance to talk on the phone or in person and these things are far too complicated to discuss via text, but I have been doing the single dad thing all weekend and week while the X is jet-setting around the country for her job apparently, or perhaps not. I’m not sure. Don’t care. (I know, I know. You’re going to say if I didn’t care why mention it? Because it is the truth. Go evaluate someone else’s emotional stability in regards to their ex and leave me alone….mmmmmkay).

Thing is, I’m not sure this is entirely a good thing. I dig Gigi. I do. But I can’t help worrying that I am acting as a placeholder. You know, until she finds someone she really wants. She has said that this is not the case. But honestly if it was would she say so? Also, I’ve found that some people (and by people I mean women because I don’t date dudes, but I’m sure they do it too) do this sort of thing without even realizing it, or at least admitting it to themselves. That way when they do dump you, after they’ve gotten enough use out of  you, they can say, “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” It’s like those people who say offensive things and then follow it up with, “No offense.” Yeah, the thing is, there is offense, and you need to take responsibility for it. That is almost as annoying as “Just saying,” another way of saying something that stirs the pot without taking responsibility for the repercussions.

So where was I going with this…? Oh yeah, this kind of goes against my code of NOT blogging about relationships that have potential to go somewhere, but since this one seemed to already be on the trash heap I’m making an exception. Also, I can always delete delete delete if necessary. But somehow I don’t think that is going to be the case.

We’ll see…

Damn right we will.

That’s what I said.

I know.

Okay then.

Okay.

:-p

Same to you buddy. Same to you.

Emotional Vibrator

Emotional vibrator is a phrase I used in my last post in regards to Gigi, the most recent lady of the online night to take her leave of me. And really, who can blame her, right?

I thought it quite clever myself, although I’m not sure I coined the phrase. In any case, it seemed to me what Gigi wanted me to be for her, an emotional affirmation machine to help soothe her through her most recent break-up blah blah blah. But of course I was unwilling to do that because it seemed a one-sided and ultimately losing proposition for me. I don’t expect a sure thing – although I did like that 80s movie with John Cusack;

but let’s face it I dig any movie with John Cusack in it (and a chick like Nicollette Sheriedan), man I can’t wait to see the new movie with him about Edgar Allen Poe….wait, what was I talking about.

Oh yeah, vibrators, of the emotional variety.

Of course, this is not just a woman thing. Men do it too (though in a slightly different way I suppose), they seek out women to soothe them emotionally, and when they are done being soothed, they clean up, dispose of their emotional self-healing toy and move on.

I’ve been called out for doing something like this, being told – no, not just told but literally chastised: “I can’t fix you!” All for expressing the fact that I was feeling sad and missed my family. I didn’t expect this particular woman to fix me. In fact, the very notion was laughable; she was so fucked up herself.

That’s part of why my date the other night was so cool. I could actually talk about my ex – good and bad – and was not punished for it – some women will come right  out and tell you they are not interested in hearing about it, others will simply glaze over and check out, others will get an irritated look on their face, still others will pretend to listen and simply disappear later. But that was not the case. My date spoke of her ex, in both good and bad terms. And really that should be allowed, up to a point. And I think because I was allowed to express a few things it was easy to simply shut up about it…more or less.

But that is not where I was planning on going with this. No. My intention was to bring up the phrase Emotional Vibrator (you know, even though  I may not have coined it, I wonder if I could still copyright it? Is that possible?) because it gave me an idea for an App.

The App would of course be called: Emotional Vibrator. Or perhaps even better  Your Emotional Vibrator. And it would work like Siri on the iPhone 4. You could lament and complain and bitch and piss and moan and whine an gripe to it all you wanted and all it would ever do is offer you positive affirmation and support, agree with you, soothe you. And it would never get tired of your pathetic bullshit like everyone has.

There could even be a PlusVersion of it that has an actual vibrator attachment that you can…..

The revolving door of dating

Out with the old and in with the new as it were, eh.

In this case Gigi — remember her; she gave me the “let’s be friends” spiel — would be the old, and NOT TO BE NAMED EVEN WITH AN ALIAS  is the new.

I had a date with new girl yesterday evening, whom I met on OkCupid…..

Random ADHA aside: I noticed today that the color combo that OkCupid uses for it’s logo:

Is pretty much identical to the colors of the pink urinal cake and the blue rubber urinal mat  in the bathroom at the coney where my daughter and I had dinner tonight.

Anyhoo….I was saying…oh, yes.

I had a date yesterday after work, but earlier in the day who should text me? That’s right, Gigi. The woman who said she would respect my wish to not be confined to her Friend Zone and not contact me, allowing me to do that should I wish to.

She texted that she missed talking to me, for what that is worth. And, that she felt that she and I got each other. My only response to her was to say that I could not talk just then because I was busy at work. I was not ignoring her and would not leave her hanging. She accepted that, I guess. She got what she wanted — a response from me.

I was busy, but also I did not want to talk to her because I was too excited about my date with the new woman who shall not be named not even with an alias. I didn’t want that cool vibe tainted by Gigi’s bring down moods.

So I went on my date and it was pretty cool. That’s all I’ll say.

Later, at home, I texted Gigi, told  her I was sorry I could not chat earlier. She texted, “No worries.” But the thing was, I had worries. And I wanted some answers. So I decided to ask for them.

“So you want to talk about what you texted me earlier today or did you just want to tell me how you felt?”

She just thought I should know how she felt. But I wanted to know what she wanted, what she expected from me, from us. She said she could not answer that right now. I replied that I wasn’t buying that, that she must want something otherwise she would not have texted what she did. It felt manipulative to me, and I told her so. She did not like that. She accused me of bombarding her with questions, demanding answers. I said, you’re damn right I am demanding answers. She didn’t like that either.

I didn’t care if she didn’t like it. I’d grown tired of  her BS. Because it seemed to me that what she wanted was an emotional vibrator, some guy to be her supportive crutch to help her through whatever she was going through from her last failed relationship until she was ready to finally have a new one, which would no doubt be with some other guy, at which point I would be cast aside.

She tried to cop out with: It’s been a long, busy day, maybe we can talk about this tomorrow. I pushed back even more so, saying she was stalling.

Finally, she said she was ending the conversation. I said, fine. In fact, let’s do it one better and end everything, permanently.

She said, okay. She would delete my contact information.

I said, you might as well. I already deleted yours, which I did not only on my phone but from my gmail account. etc.

Even at the end she was saying, Goodbye and I wish you well. I was tempted to tell her to fuck off and even more vile things, but I didn’t. I just deleted it all.

I thought she might still try to contact me again today, but she didn’t. So we’re done, and I am fucking relieved.

NEXT!

Let’s just be friends

Yeah. I actually got that speech yesterday. I wasn’t even aware that people still tried to parlay that garbage but apparently they do.

It wasn’t even a speech. It was a text. But then….

Well, let me back up a bit and give some context.

I met this woman online. Let’s call her Gigi. I met her on eHarmony. During the three-day window that she was actually on the site. She’d signed up but decided within three days to cancel her account thus allowing her to get a refund in full, unlike myself who signed up for a full year some months back and am on the hook for that entire amount….but that’s not my gripe today, so let’s just take that little tirade and put it in a pocket for later, shall we.

Suffice to say Gigi and I met and we seemed to hit it off, via email and chat and text anyway. Of course as we all know the real test is the face-to-face meet, which we did and which went quite well I think. It’s a good sign when you end up making out for an  hour in the backseat of her car in the parking lot later, right? Well, I took it as a good sign. Gigi is a great kisser, and perhaps that, along with what seemed like an incredibly strong connection, was the problem.

We moved too fast. I won’t go into the gory details, as much as I’d like to, since Gigi has stated that she is an incredibly private person; I’d probably catch hell for divulging this much online, but meh. It’s my life. In any case, it caused complications and things got downshifted pretty quickly. As a result we moved into this place where we were texting and sometimes talking on the phone but the situation was tortured. Suddenly both of us were unsure, had doubts. It seemed like it could be really good but there were thing…things…things….suddenly there, popping up like Tribbles in that Start Trek episode. Boink! Bonk! Plop!

Finally, we decided we needed to take a break to reflect, a week we decided. Well, Gigi did not even need a week. And Oingo Boingo yesterday I got the text message. And of course, she hoped their would be no ill feelings. Well,  hope in one hand shit in the other, see which one fills up first. Of course, there are going to be ill feelings. I feel bad. I feel sad and disappointed. But I’ll get over it. Trust me.

Mostly though, now, I feel annoyed. At the the whole “I think we are better off as friends.” Not “I’d like to be friends if you’d like that” Or “I hope we can still be friends.” No, I think it is significant that Gigi stated it as an assumption and not a request because to be honest I think this is what she’d been angling for for some time. Even though I told Gigi that I had not desire to be relegated to the Friend Zone. I don’t know how other people feel about this but I find residency in the Friend Zone to be humiliating and degrading. I’ve been there before and I have no desire to go back. Ever. Perhaps you’ll say this is just my wounded pride talking, my ego. Maybe so, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Frankly, I am of the opinion that people say let’s just be friends as a way to assuage their guilt or to cushion the blow of the bad feelings they feel when they break up with someone, because it is rarely the person being dumped who says this sort of thing. Or if they do it’s really just an attempt to hang out in some way, which is whole other kind of pathetic. And the problem is that it can create an unhealthy dynamic in which one person is always pining for the other. Trust me, I’ve seen this sort of thing first hand, watching my Ex do this to a male friend for years only to be supposedly totally surprised when the poor sot professed his undying love to her upon my exit from the marriage. Of course, she was the only one surprised — I saw it, her family saw it, friends saw it. Apparently everyone saw it. It must be nice to live in this kind of oblivion, thus allowing one to take advantage of all the perks that come with having someone smitten with you while all the while feeling no obligation to their feelings or well-being.

Anyhoo… my point is that I think that their is a segment of the population out their that seem to require such attention. Not only do they desire and like it, their egos seem to need it, even demand it. And frankly I have to say that I think this is a particular syndrome of very attractive women who are used to a lot of attention from men. They’ve had it their whole lives and they get to the point where they have to have it. And thus they manipulate circumstances, whether consciously or unconsciously, and use people to get what they want. They don’t see it or just won’t admit it, but it is what they are doing.

Bottom line: people are selfish and go about getting what they want by almost any means required. I’m not saying I’m better, I’m not saying I’m different. I’m not better, I’m not different. I’m not even saying it makes people bad for being this way. People are people — they do good things and bad things. What I am saying is that one need not put themselves in a position to be used for someone else’s purposes, which is all a long-winded way of saying, Bye Bye Gigi. Best of luck to you. I’m outie.

Did I mention I had a date last night. Didn’t go so well, but I have another possible date tonight. Bazinga!