So I'm in DC for about a week for work. And while I'm on the other side of the country, Honey Bunny was having separation anxiety. Yep, even though there's a 3 hour difference and I'm in the middle of conference sessions all day and work socializing every night, apparently I was supposed to be checking in and calling her regularly. Say what? Yeah, she finally got through to me 2 days into my trip. And mind you, while all this is going on, I'm also dealing with another bit of drama AT the conference. Well, not AT the conference itself but the people that were there.
You see, this was the first time the office assistant was allowed to go on one of these trips. She only went as a courtesy and she didn't pay for her room, one of our city liaisons offered to let her bunk up with her so it only cost the agency the flight and registration. The Executive Director ok'd it and while that was happening, the office assistant started to tell me all about the stuff she was dealing with. One of the employees of the liaison, who also happened to work as a production assistant for us quit working for the city. But she kept working for us. And the liaison was having a meltdown. She was calling and texting the former employee at all hours of the night. She was treating it worse than when she divorced her husband. And thanks to the office assistant, I was given ALL the details between sessions.
Anyway, Honey Bunny, that was my pet name for JB. Anyway, she finally got hold of me on the phone for a bit while I was taking a break for lunch. And that's when she told me all about how difficult it was for her that I was gone.
"Babe, I've been gone 2 days."
"And why haven't you called me?"
"Because I'm up and out the door for breakfast meetings by 7. It's 4 in the morning back there. Do you want me to wake you up? I know how you get when you're woken up too early. And then during my lunch breaks, it's 9 back home, you're at work." The times just weren't going to line up. And it's been 2 DAYS!!! How can you miss somebody for 2 days?! I'm going to be gone for 3 more.
"See, this is why I told you I wasn't ready to date somebody!"
"Wait... what are you saying? You're not... not while I'm on the other side of the country. And it's been 2 days!"
I eventually talked her off that ledge but come on, how unstable is that?
But from that point, I made sure to send her good morning texts and a few random messages throughout the day. That seemed to settle her down for the time being and we started talking about me coming home on Sunday.
By the way, DC is beautiful while I was there. Got a LOT of sightseeing done and it made me realize I should have booked a few extra days before or after the conference to take in the town. A habit I started doing the following years. Just an extra couple of days, I'd pay back the agency for those hotel nights. Turn it into a mini-vacay on the company dime.
Anyway, come Sunday, I'm boarding the plane, which was also the last flight out of DC, my connection was going to be in Atlanta and I'd be home by 9:30 pm. Only that didn't quite work out that way. Mechanical failure and heavy storms pushed everything back to where I ended up deplaning and the airline put me up in a hotel for the night. Also scored a few hundred dollars credit voucher out of it. But, that also meant I wasn't going to be seeing Honey Bunny until Monday. And Monday meant that my flight wasn't going to land at John Wayne. Nope, I was going to LAX. And she wouldn't be able to pick me up because of work. I'm scrambling to find someone to drive out to LAX to pick me up. Which is a HUGE ask from anyone if you're at all familiar with LAX. Had plenty of friends and family say they couldn't but if I wasn't able to make arrangements, let them know and they'll see what they can do. Which is such an odd thing for people to say. I mean, if you were that concerned and really interested in helping out, why not just make arrangements to pick someone up in the first place? You know? It's like, "oh my God, let me go out of my way to help you out so I can lord this over you for years to come..." Dude, if you can help out, help out, don't make a big issue out of it. That's something I've always done. If someone has a big ask of me like that, either I'm going to change my schedule and say yes right then and there or say I really can't and apologize for it. No wishy-washy, maybe, we'll see, if I don't have to be too put out by it. Anyway, my cousin Vanessa stepped up and drove up from Murrieta to LAX to pick me up, drove me to John Wayne to pick up my luggage. Weird that made it to the airport in the same amount of time it took for my direct flight to LAX and drive down to Santa Ana. I thanked her profusely. And I was home. I got to finally see JB that night at her place. Yes, that's right! I finally got to visit her at home. Seems grandma was out for the night so it was cool for me to visit.
And it was during that visit that JB started in again with the: maybe I wasn't ready for a relationship yet talk. She was really trying to break up with me again. What the hell. I was home. But once again, we smoothed things over and were back to being ourselves for awhile. Turns out a while was just about a week.
She had mentioned she wanted to have some skin tags surgically removed, remember, body dysmorphia, but was worried about keloids. She finally found a surgeon who could do the work and take the utmost care to avoid the scarring. Great. But we were supposed to go to Disneyland that weekend. My friend, Keri, whom I hadn't seen in MONTHS was coming up from San Diego and she wanted to meet you. We had a little back and forth and JB didn't want to go because she was supposed to stay off her feet to recover from the surgery, don't stress the incisions. It was Keri who suggested, why don't you rent her a wheelchair, so she could be with us and not have to walk. That's brilliant! I'll let her know.
JB came back with, she didn't want to be a bother, she didn't think she'd be strong enough to push herself around the park all day in a wheelchair. Honey, you're my girlfriend, I shouldn't even have to say it but I'll be pushing you around the whole day, it was a given I didn't think I had to explain. And JB was ok with that idea. For about a day.
Literally the next day, she opted out of going to the park again because, and I quote, she didn't want us to be using her in a wheelchair to get to cut in lines at the park. Say what?! When did that EVER become a thought? Nobody even suggested it, she overthought the entire thing and she zeroed in on her being in a wheelchair was going to be us taking advantage of her in the condition she was in. What?! Yep, that became the reason she didn't join us at the park that day.
Needless to say, Keri and I had a great day at the park but she was a bit disappointed JB never made it out. I don't think I mentioned the reason. But before the end of the night, I got a text from JB asking me to call her once I got home. Yeah, saw that one coming. And I'm sure you can all read the writing on the wall by this point.
I finally get home, exhausted, tired from a day at Disney. I call JB and she wants to come over. Ok...
She arrives and I'm still splayed out on the couch, she comes over and sits down, ready with her prepared and practiced speech.
"You knew I wasn't ready for a relationship but you still kept pushing for it. I don't think this is working out so I'm just going to take my stuff and say goodbye. I'm really sorry."
I was so done with it I literally said, "Ok, you know where your stuff is." I'm pretty sure she wasn't expecting that. She kind of hesitated and then got up and started cleaning out the two drawers full of stuff she had kept at my place. And I still sat on the couch half-asleep while she was going about doing her thing. Which took a LOT longer than it should have. It was pretty obvious she was expecting, maybe hoping I'd make a big dramatic scene begging her not to go. But that's not me. It hasn't been me in forever. My thinking, and it's been for several years now is, If you think you can do better than me, good luck, have at it, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I know my worth and I'm not begging anybody to stay. I have way too much self respect to be chasing after anyone.
She didn't get that, which I'm sure upset her. I didn't bother to walk her out to her car, either. I only got up to lock the door after she left. See ya!
Only, we know by now that wasn't the end. No, it never is.
I kept her as a friend on Facebook just to show I wasn't the bad guy this time around. And a few weeks later, I felt I was coming down with something and I posted on my wall, "I think I'm coming down with something. If somebody wants to come over and feed me some chicken noodle soup, I'd love you for it!" Which if you know me, you know I say shit like that ALL the time. And nobody EVER takes me up on it.... until this time.
About an hour later I hear a knock at my door. It's JB. And she's holding a bag from Souplantation. "I brought you some chicken noodle soup."
What. The. Fuck?! Are you, what?! Why? What are you even doing here, why would you... you broke up with me! Why are you bringing me anything? I'm sure the confusion on my face was enough to let her know she wasn't getting invited in. So she handed me the bag and said, "Ok, hope you get better soon!" and was gone. No, I did not eat the soup.
It was a couple months later she calls me out of the blue. I had celebrated my birthday that weekend and posted a lot of fun pictures from that night. I think I had fun. It was my birthday, there's little chance I was sober enough to remember what happened. And again, I kept her as a friend on Facebook but didn't keep track on what she was up to but I still answered. She's upset because her friends hurt her feelings. This was something that happened often and I saw it several times when we were together. I even told her back then that she needed better friends. Most of her clusters of friends, because she literally had 4 or 5 different groups of friends. None of them knew about the others and none of them really treated her as anything more than an acquaintance. She would only get invited to big group outings but no one ever really connected with her on a more meaningful level. Yet, she persisted. And before long, I agreed to let her come over that Monday... why, why, why do I do this to myself???
She comes over and in the time she's there, we spend most of the time talking about her life and mine and then she turns the conversation to what happened between us and what went wrong. She admitted she had never been ready for a relationship. The phrase you're probably looking for is, No doy! And then admitted that she hadn't been fair to me because she kept wondering about a friend of hers and what it might have been like to date him. Hold on, it gets better. She actually took a step forward herself and approached him after she and I broke up and asked him if he may have been interested in being more than friends, if there was any interest. He rejected her.
She followed that up by complaining that there was one of the girls in my group of friends that she felt was too friendly/too relaxed with me and JB was tempted to confront her about it. In effect, ask my friend why she was making googly eyes at her boyfriend. Yeah, that would have been awkward if she had gone through with that. And don't forget, she JUST admitted to me that she was interested in another guy the entire time she and I were dating! JB was so sure that this other girl and I were going to hook up once she was out of the picture. That didn't happen.
About a month later, I was laying out at home alone and was about to call a friend and catch up on stuff when my phone rings and it's JB again. Why did I answer? Apparently I never learn. She's clearly upset, almost in tears because another one of her "friends" turned out to not be as good of a friend that she thought she had been. I reminded her that her friends were shit people and she needed to surround herself with a better class of friend.
Eventually while we're talking, she manages to bring the conversation back around to us and our breakup. Clearly she obsesses about things. In case you hadn't been able to take note of that by now.
Only this time, I flippantly mention that before she and I started dating that yes, there was a girl I was interested in at the time. It's true, I'm not going to lie, she and I were broken up and let's be honest, I'm interested in girls ALL the time. Whether or not I act upon it is an entirely different matter. But she zeroed in on that point, naturally. She twisted the meaning of my words: "Oh, so you only dated me because I was accessible?!"
Isn't it interesting how some might have taken that comment as a compliment, which it was. That I was willing to pass on any other girls, any other opportunities to be with JB. Whereas JB decided to interpret that comment to assume she was the runner-up for my affections. And don't forget, just a short time ago she admitted that she was interested in ANOTHER guy the ENTIRE time she and I were dating and she broke up with me to try to get together with him.
But somehow, I was the bad guy
After that I did unfriend her, deleted and blocked her number. I just couldn't anymore.
Funny thing though, I found out through the grapevine that about 4 or 5 months later, she had gotten married. LOL After ALL that, she found a guy that put up with her crazy enough to put a ring on it.
God, I wish I could make this stuff up. But I'm not that creative.
No comments:
Post a Comment