'But I'm a Good Guy...'
[I wrote this post in March, just discovered it in my Drafts folder and decided to publish it. For laffs. Enjoy]
Woooweee
I’ve been contemplating blogging about this, but I thought it’d be too personal, too weird, too insidery and too meta. But demand is high. People want to know what other people get up to behind closed doors. Voyeurism is completely natural.
So.
I will be putting down some of my dating experiences, mostly because they’re mad funny/ pathetic. I haven’t been single for too long. I’ve just come out of an intense almost four year long relationship and the dating scene is presenting me with all types of interesting material to write, think and tell my therapist about. Ok, I lie, I don’t have a therapist. Yet.
Some background on the following email exchange that I will share with you.
I’ve been hanging out with someone for just over a month now. Hanging out = that completely non-committal, weird space we occupy when we’re getting to know someone, but don’t want to overexpose our hand (yes, that’s some kind of a poker metaphor or something).
Everything’s been going veeerrrryyy well and I was starting to get real optimistic about what this could become. Then. He informs me that he’s decided to give it one more go with his ex-girlfriend. Ok, fair enough. Yay, honesty! Except he told me about 5 days after the fact…. Not cool. Now, if you haven’t noticed this about me, let me tell it like it is: I do not, under any circumstances, condone bitchassness of any way, shape or form. I told him to step, and the next day I received this missive in my inbox:
Hi
I didn’t mean to come off as an asshole or hurt you, you know how I feel about you. It is a tough situation for me. . I’d still love to ‘kick’ it with you but if you want to cut ties with me; I understand. I won’t be happy but I understand. I respect you a great deal and to be honest with you, you are one of the few people I’ve met that I can see myself having a long term future with; I don’t know how, but it’s the truth, in the words of twitter wankers #realtalk. Please don’t harbour any hostility towards me and take a bit of time to think about it and lets see how we can move forward from this point…
Nick
Now, sure it sounds sweet, but this is a guy who suggests I continue hanging with him while he’s with his gf. errr, what? I’m not a second best kind of girl, unfortunately. I refuse to settle. So I handled it the best way I know how: with words. My response:
*Disclaimer: yes, I am angry. And I have every right to be*
What do I say to this? I almost pissed myself laughing. I don’t understand where this Cult of The Good Guy ™ comes from, but these days I find that guys have a hard time acknowledging their assholeness. You didn’t ‘come off’ as an asshole. You are an asshole. It doesn’t mean you’re branded for life; alas, you do have redeeming qualities. I’m sure you’re kind to your mom and animals and children probably love you, but you’ve treated me badly – make no mistake about that.
Now let’s talk about this situation. What’s happened between you and me over these last few months was a nice surprise – unexpected and fun. I have to admit that the more time we spent together, the more my expectations were raised about what this could be. Granted, it is tricky from a political perspective (as you like to put it) and, to be fair, I’m not looking for anything permanent right now. Still, it could’ve been great, right? But the one thing I did expect from this was honesty and kindness – it’s the least we could do for each other. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve more than met that expectation – I’ve never been intentionally mean to you; have never disrespected you and have always been honest and kind and understanding of where you are, especially with regards to your past relationship.
For you to not even tell me what was really going on sucks immensely. This past weekend, while I was under the impression you were in ‘isolation’ (your words), you were really with your girlfriend, reuniting and feeling so good. Not telling me what was going on is bitchassness personified. But the greatest display of disrespect was when you asked me whether you could come back to me if things don’t work out with her this time. Like, really? Am I that much of a back up plan for you? If you haven’t noticed, I’m an amazing girl and I deserve to be treated so much better than that.
You keep going on about what a tough situation it is for you. Nah, dude. People in Haiti and Chile are in rather horrible positions. You? You’re just a victim of your own decision-making. You can’t make up your mind. The reason clichés become over-used is because most times they’re true: You’ve made your bed, now lay in it. If you don’t want to be with her, don’t. But you do want to be with her.
You’ve chosen to go back to your girlfriend, lie to me about seeing her and where you guys stand and disrespect me by suggesting that I hang around while you squeeze the last bit of juice from your dying relationship – all of this comes with the consequence of not seeing me. Simple as that. I don’t want to be your side piece while you amble through your fucked up, emotionally abusive relationship. For the time being, I will definitely harbour hostility towards you.
If you need further clarity about this, let me know.
Wow. What a letter, right? Feel free to use it if you feel it’s fitting to your situation…
Say what?