I received this text message today:

“I hate you for doing this to me. We had all summer to try. I can’t live. You suck right now.”

My immediate reaction was a brief panic. Who had I spurned so badly? Then, I took a look at the phone number from which the text came. Local, yes, but not anyone in my phone book. Which means it was a wrong number. Or someone I’d deleted from my phone book, hoping to never communicate with him again, but we’ll assume that’s highly unlikely.

This mistakenly sent message got me thinking. Clearly, the sender was heartbroken. They’d been dumped or rejected by someone they had major feelings for, and the sender was deep into his/her pain phase of the break up. The phase wherein you send terrible messages like this one. What good is a message like this going to do? The hating and sucking parts: sure, fair enough. The summer part: a bit cryptic, we’ll get back to that later. The declaration that the sender doesn’t want to live: unacceptable.

In the midst of a break up, it is never fair to tell someone you want to die. Even if you really feel that way at the time, you’re not actually going to die from a broken heart. If you tell the person on the other side of your break up that you want to kill yourself, however, what are they supposed to do about it? That is a super sucky thing to put them through. To avoid confusing hypothetical pronouns, I’m going to use myself as an example…

Let’s say I was dumping a guy. And it wasn’t pretty. Feelings were hurt, things were misunderstood, he was having trouble letting go. He may, in a fit of desperation, tell me that he was so miserable about our break up that he wanted to die. I, being empathetic to a fault, would then feel worried about the guy’s welfare. I’d feel responsible if he were to (god forbid) attempt to hurt himself. I would feel obligated to pick up the phone of he called, or to respond to texts. If I didn’t respond, I’d be sitting there worrying that he might try something stupid. And there I’d be, ensnared in his net, unable to truly break free without feeling horribly guilty. And probably, perhaps without even realizing it, that’s what the guy I was attempting to dump was trying to make happen with his inconsiderate morbid whining.

I realize that got a little ranty there. You are now wondering if this has happened to me. Not exactly, but something similar did occur. And I’m clearly still a little pissed about it. The moral is: do not threaten to hurt yourself as a way to manipulate your bf/gf into staying with you. Moving on…

So: “We had all summer to try.” Being that this is the beginning of summer, this poor chap must have just gotten dumped recently. It sounds like the couple had intended to keep the relationship going through the summer, but now, no dice. I say: summer is the best time for lovin’! You’re free, man (or maybe it’s a gal who wrote it)! Have a fling! Hang out at beer gardens in the out-of-doors! Don’t moon over what was lost- you’re young! (maybe; I have no idea how old this person is) You’re beautiful! (perhaps; again, no real profile on the sender) You’re about to embark on a new frontier! (that one seems pretty certain)

Anyway, enough analyzing. I haven’t responded to this mystery text, but now I’m wondering if I should. Did the person realize their mistake and resend to the true receiver? Are they still wallowing in grief? Could I help by responding? Would it be kind of fun to respond anyway?

xoxo, Lucy

P.S. Opening up the floor on this one, readers. What do you think? Should I respond, and what should I say?

9 June 42 Permalink

“The guys you date are like peaches: sometimes you go to the grocery store, and you just come home with bad peaches.”

-Last night’s dating advice from my friend Ian. Ain’t it the truth.

xoxo, Lucy

16 July 27 Permalink

So, after the must-wear-pants-in-bed incident, I hadn’t seen Austin in about a month. I decided it was time to end things. It was time for the “Let’s be friends” talk. Then I realized something shocking: I actually want to be friends!

Having made the sometimes wrong decision to sleep with several of my guyfriends, and a few of my girlfriends, I have come to believe that one can never assume that after sleeping with a friend, things will stay the way they’ve always been. Unfortunately, it is to the contrary. No matter how close the friendship, no matter how platonic, no matter how much the sex is just for fun, the friendship will always change. Sometimes it is subtle, and the bond that was already established can overcome any weirdness created once sex is added into the equation. Sometimes it just adds to your love for each other, or develops into a great romantic relationship further down the road. But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t supremely fucked up some great friendships by sleeping with my friends.

With Austin, however, it is the opposite. We were mere acquaintances when we started hooking up. I didn’t get to know him until after we’d had sex a few times. Then I got to know that he’s pretty hilarious, clever and witty, charismatic, quirky, smart, creative. But really not good in bed. And for the sake of this blog, and of course my sanity, I couldn’t continue dating a guy who I didn’t want to have sex with.

I decided to break the news through text messaging. This is a total jerk move on my part. Maybe I’m just a scared baby using the technological age to my advantage so I didn’t have to have a difficult conversation. Who wants to have that conversation?? Ugh, I hate breaking up with people. I feel so guilty. So I added another layer of guilt by justifying my newest text break-up, thinking “well, we haven’t talked in a month, it would be weird to call now…” Instead, I typed up a friendly little bomb-drop:

“Hey, haven’t talked to you in a while. I was thinking I’d like to hang out, but in a friendly way, not a datey way. Do you agree?”

His response was great! What a relief:

“Yeah, that’s cool. Hey, I know you have a show Saturday which I wanted to check out…”

I felt totally alright about the whole thing. Saturday rolled around, and sure enough Austin showed up to where my band was playing. Then… things got a little confusing. He was looking cute, and he winked at me when he came in. I was on stage at the moment, and blushed a bit through my guitar solo.

Later, he told me I looked hot in the skirt I was wearing (Silver vinyl. How could you go wrong?). And he stuck around the party after his friends left, stayed til the bitter end. I was starting to worry about the texts. Had he understood my message? Did he expect to go home with me? Wait… do I want him to go home with me? Luckily, he said good night and left on his own, but not before giving me about 5 kisses goodbye.

We’ll see where this new “friendship” with Austin will lead…

27 January 10 Permalink