Kick Rocks

November 29, 2017

 I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to label this.  Whether leaving it as-is or if it was more along the lines of a very delayed Adventures in Online Dating.  Because it kinda almost is.  Allow me to expound.  

 Shortly after moving to my current digs, I gave online dating another shot.  So we’re talking about 2 1/2 years ago, give or take that this originally started.  Same old story, talked to a girl, went out a couple of times and things didn’t work out.  Actually, if I’m going to be totally upfront about this, we talked for about a week, things quickly progressed to a date, then a second and I’m going to be honest, I really liked where we were heading after that second date.  She had other plans.  She ghosted me.  Multiple daily messages came to a total stop and  I was left wondering what happened.  Not that I lost any sleep over it, just that considering how well the second date went and everything leading up to it, I was curious.  At least an explanation would have been appreciated, right?  

Anyway, it was probably a couple months later that I got a wild hair and decided to look for her here on Facebook.  I know, what are the odds I’d find her but she had a VERY unique name.  Took me about 10 seconds.  And her profile was plastered with pictures of her and some dude.  “Me and my man.”  “The love of my life.”  “Blah, blah, blah.”  O.k., I see what happened.  She was talking to me, him and probably a handful of other guys at the time and narrowed it down to him.  I wasn’t going to hold a grudge over anything.  We were single, dating around to find somebody and she found someone.  Good on her.  Courtesy message to let me know would have been nice but she doesn’t owe me anything.  Whatever.  

That was May, 2015.  

About a month ago, totally out of the blue, I get a friend request on my work profile.  It’s her!?  What?  Why or how did she even find me?  I direct her to my personal profile if she wants to talk and we do.  

Simple, hey how are you, how have you been type of stuff.  

“It was a surprise getting a request from you,” I say.  

“Is it a good surprise?”

“It’s a surprise.  Let’s wait a bit before I say one way or the other.”  

After a couple of days of banal chit-chat, she finally opens up.  I don’t tell her that I knew she was seeing someone when she stopped talking to me 2 years ago but she goes ahead and fills me in.  She met a guy, fell “in love” and was engaged and married in less than a year.  Her divorce was finalized a few months ago.  You don’t need a degree to figure out the math on that.  Married and divorced in less than a year in total.  Turns out the guy was broke, mooching off her, moved in with her and she was paying his child support payments.  She even paid the legal bills for him to get shared custody of his child.  And despite all that, she still married him.  And then when the divorce was finalized, he didn’t move out until a few of her friends “convinced” him to leave.  

Boy, she sure picked a winner!  

Anyway, I figured once she was back on the market, that’s when she must have started looking up former interests and guys she dated.  Looking for a rebound and I must have popped up in that list.  So then, I guess we should go out?  Oddly enough, every time I asked her out, she wasn’t available but kept reminding me that her work schedule was changing in December.  This went on for a couple of weeks and lately she was hinting that she had been on a few dates.  

This is where I check out.  I already went through this song and dance before.  We were never friends to begin with and I’m not going to be a backup choice.  You’re not worth putting up with that sort of attitude.  Kick rocks.