Still talking with Poffle.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. "But he's bad for you, Fantasticness!" "But you wrote him that letter, Fantasticness!" "Didn't we JUST talk about how much better off you'd be without him?"
Call me a masochist, but I just can't stay away from this particular brand of trouble.
Story time:
Anyway, I killed my phone this week. I was walking from my work to my bank (approximately one and a half miles, on a low- to no-traffic pedestrian/bike path with benches on the side every couple hundred feet) and back again because sometimes you just need cash, amiright?!
After my bank run, I go hit up my favorite shop: the used book store! I spend far too much time and money in there, and one of these day's I'll probably just move into the stockroom so I can read everything without going completely broke. An hour and some change later, I head back to the hiker-biker trail to walk back to work, where I owe someone forty bucks for a carton of cigarettes and hopefully can catch a ride home with my bro before we head out to a concert. (My FIRST concert, by the way, excluding Jesus-y stuff, school stuff, and classical music.) I take my phone out of my pocket to check the time, respond to the notifications in my Facebook app, and stick the phone back in my pocket as I cross the street, book in hand, to begin the trek back to work.
A quarter mile down the road, I realize I hadn't actually checked the time, because Facebook. I reach into my pocket and . . .
No phone.
I spent the next half hour looking for it up and down the street between my bank, the trail, and the used book store. I eventually find it with the help of a kind lady in an SUV, who asked me to "Hey! Pick that phone up!"
Out of the puddle.
In the crosswalk.
In the middle of a busy intersection.
On a rainy, spring's eve, East Coast day.
BUT! No one had run it over, and it turned on when I pressed the button, though the screen wasn't cooperating, and I stuck it firmly in the bottom of my pocket and continued on my merry way back to work, book in hand, reading as I walked.
The first thing I did when I got home was update the Facebook, letting everybody know what had happened in perhaps a little too much detail, but the short version was at the top of the post, so there was no reason for anyone not to get the gist of what had happened. "My phone was in a puddle and now it isn't working. I shall be out of contact for the most part for the next few days." Simple, easy to understand, idiot-proof, right?
The SECOND thing I did was log on to Skype, send Poffle a message to the same effect, and hope his stupid butt would forget about me for a couple days so I didn't have to explain that I don't answer to him when I got back in contact with the world.
So there's a Skype message, and a Facebook post, to the effect of "Fantasticness doesn't have a phone right now so don't expect her to answer your calls and texts, k, thnks, bai."
I got a replacement phone today. I checked the messages first thing, because all the texts that were sent to me while the puddle phone was in a bag of rice were simply waiting in the aether for my technology to be powered up again. The same as the voicemail I got.
You know. The one from Poffle?
Received Wed at 7:57 pm:
"Hi *Fantasticness.* It's me *Poffle.* Just got off work and though that I'd call you again and tell you I missed you again; the problem is you're busy again so I'll continue to call you and eventually I'll get through to you. Ok. Love you, have a good night."
Right after that Facebook PSA and the personalized Skype message.
*headdesk!*
ANYwho, apparently, he's been harassing the Bestie lately about Bestie's relocation to my side of the country (I can not WAIT to have someone to book-rant and shop with! That stuff is so much better in person!) and has been saying he and I are still dating.
Um, hello? Did the break end? When? Why wasn't I informed of my own relationship status? Or are you just concerned that someone else will treat me how I deserve to be treated while you continue to be a bass-ackwards chauvanistic mysogynist over in the corner?
So Poffle called tonight, and after I asked him if he normally avoided Facebook and Skype during the week, because he obviously hadn't got my message, he goes "Oh, I just figured you were busy or sleeping because you go to work super early."
Well, that makes sense, but I MESSAGED you. To INFORM you. Because, for some god-awful reason, I feel like that's the courteous thing to do. And you didn't even bother to respond. And you obviously don't care that much or you would have checked it out.
With that out of the way, conversation changes to other topics. Like, the books I'm reading that he's not interested in but, guess what, they're my life. So there.
So as we're talking tonight and the conversation is winding down, I ask: "So when did the break end?"
"When we worked out all our shit."
" . . . Uh, my shit is not worked out yet. And yours doesn't seem to be either. And you should probably tell me when you change our relationship status, because I'm kind of involved with us, and I'd like to know what I'm supposed to be up to."
"Yeah, well, we're dating, so . . . You should totally send me some pictures."
"Uhmmm . . . No."
"Aww, But please?"
"No. I don't like the way I look in pictures."
"Well, I disagree. You look great in picutres."
"I don't think so. I hate the way I look in pictures. All flat and papery and two-dimensional. I think the best parts of me are things you can only experience in person. They don't show up in pictures."
"Well, that's stupid. You should send me pictures."
Dude. Seriously? I just told you MY opinion on something. Not anything big, but something I feel strongly about. Did you seriously just invalidate my opinion? Really? I should put my beliefs and thoughts and feelings in a little jar and stick it on a shelf somewhere out of your way so you can have what you want. I don't think so.
"No. I'm going to sleep. Be safe. Goodnight."
"Okay, dear. Goodnight. I lo---"
"Yeah, goodnight." Click!
What. The fuck. Am I supposed to do with this? Can I just castrate him and then he won't find a girl who wants him for anything other than sex, and that won't be a possibility, and then I can bully him and push him around and see how he likes being treated like dirt for not having a penis or whatever? Can I just kick him in the nads and be done with it? Can someone geographically closer to him than 3000 miles smack him across the face and tell him to man the fuck up and start acting like a grown-up?
Can someone show him this blog so he knows how pathetic I think he is when he's not mind controlling me with his sexy voice and stuff?
Actually, please don't. This is still my journal. I don't want him to ruin this for me.
I'm really not sure what I'm most upset about. That I'm not being kept up to date on my own supposed relationship status. That I apparently don't have a choice in the matter. That of all the things I could have asked him to do, I asked him to read a book which changed my life and he called me childish for it. The fact that he didn't bother to check his messages to see what I was really up to . . .
There's just so much injustice to choose from!
Anyway, someone wanna help me pick out my dress? I'm thinking skanky patent leather with sharp spikes all the fuck over it so if he so much as tries to hold my hand and drag me down the aisle, he's getting stabbed at least twelve times.
Also, his parents are former ministers, and they would be scandalized!
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. "But he's bad for you, Fantasticness!" "But you wrote him that letter, Fantasticness!" "Didn't we JUST talk about how much better off you'd be without him?"
Call me a masochist, but I just can't stay away from this particular brand of trouble.
Story time:
Anyway, I killed my phone this week. I was walking from my work to my bank (approximately one and a half miles, on a low- to no-traffic pedestrian/bike path with benches on the side every couple hundred feet) and back again because sometimes you just need cash, amiright?!
After my bank run, I go hit up my favorite shop: the used book store! I spend far too much time and money in there, and one of these day's I'll probably just move into the stockroom so I can read everything without going completely broke. An hour and some change later, I head back to the hiker-biker trail to walk back to work, where I owe someone forty bucks for a carton of cigarettes and hopefully can catch a ride home with my bro before we head out to a concert. (My FIRST concert, by the way, excluding Jesus-y stuff, school stuff, and classical music.) I take my phone out of my pocket to check the time, respond to the notifications in my Facebook app, and stick the phone back in my pocket as I cross the street, book in hand, to begin the trek back to work.
A quarter mile down the road, I realize I hadn't actually checked the time, because Facebook. I reach into my pocket and . . .
No phone.
I spent the next half hour looking for it up and down the street between my bank, the trail, and the used book store. I eventually find it with the help of a kind lady in an SUV, who asked me to "Hey! Pick that phone up!"
Out of the puddle.
In the crosswalk.
In the middle of a busy intersection.
On a rainy, spring's eve, East Coast day.
BUT! No one had run it over, and it turned on when I pressed the button, though the screen wasn't cooperating, and I stuck it firmly in the bottom of my pocket and continued on my merry way back to work, book in hand, reading as I walked.
The first thing I did when I got home was update the Facebook, letting everybody know what had happened in perhaps a little too much detail, but the short version was at the top of the post, so there was no reason for anyone not to get the gist of what had happened. "My phone was in a puddle and now it isn't working. I shall be out of contact for the most part for the next few days." Simple, easy to understand, idiot-proof, right?
The SECOND thing I did was log on to Skype, send Poffle a message to the same effect, and hope his stupid butt would forget about me for a couple days so I didn't have to explain that I don't answer to him when I got back in contact with the world.
So there's a Skype message, and a Facebook post, to the effect of "Fantasticness doesn't have a phone right now so don't expect her to answer your calls and texts, k, thnks, bai."
I got a replacement phone today. I checked the messages first thing, because all the texts that were sent to me while the puddle phone was in a bag of rice were simply waiting in the aether for my technology to be powered up again. The same as the voicemail I got.
You know. The one from Poffle?
Received Wed at 7:57 pm:
"Hi *Fantasticness.* It's me *Poffle.* Just got off work and though that I'd call you again and tell you I missed you again; the problem is you're busy again so I'll continue to call you and eventually I'll get through to you. Ok. Love you, have a good night."
Right after that Facebook PSA and the personalized Skype message.
*headdesk!*
ANYwho, apparently, he's been harassing the Bestie lately about Bestie's relocation to my side of the country (I can not WAIT to have someone to book-rant and shop with! That stuff is so much better in person!) and has been saying he and I are still dating.
Um, hello? Did the break end? When? Why wasn't I informed of my own relationship status? Or are you just concerned that someone else will treat me how I deserve to be treated while you continue to be a bass-ackwards chauvanistic mysogynist over in the corner?
So Poffle called tonight, and after I asked him if he normally avoided Facebook and Skype during the week, because he obviously hadn't got my message, he goes "Oh, I just figured you were busy or sleeping because you go to work super early."
Well, that makes sense, but I MESSAGED you. To INFORM you. Because, for some god-awful reason, I feel like that's the courteous thing to do. And you didn't even bother to respond. And you obviously don't care that much or you would have checked it out.
With that out of the way, conversation changes to other topics. Like, the books I'm reading that he's not interested in but, guess what, they're my life. So there.
Side story: We were talking a couple days ago, and I was book-ranting about my series, which I was almost finished with at that point, and he was all "Maybe I'll read them after we get married."
"Excuse me?" When did we say we were getting married? EVER? I mean, we talked about it a year ago, in a really vague "Do you think, maybe, in a few years perhaps, you would consider" kind of way. You know, before you went all psycho co-dependent vengeance-silent-treatment on me and lied to me about when and for how long you were coming to visit me and were rude to my family and awful to my friends, inviting yourself places you weren't supposed to go and really weren't welcome at. And that was A WHOLE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING YEAR AGO!!!
Last I checked, we were broken up. On a break. Doing some serious self-reflection time. When did we agree to get hitched, because I don't remember. You must have drugged me or something. And, also, why is Bestie telling me you're still referring to me as your girlfriend? We are ON a BREAK.
Or so I thought.
I end up causing a huge fight because I tell him I flatly refuse to marry anyone who hasn't read this series because they're wonderful books and have been influential in shaping myself as a person, and in inspiring me to question myself and my beliefs and my perspectives on the big things in life.
And he tells me I'm being stupid and childish.
I'm sorry, but I don't think it's childish to want to share the things which are important to you with the people in your life, and if someone wants to spend the rest of their life with you, they should want to at least try and take an interest in the things that are important to you.
It's not like I'm asking him to join a religious cult or anything. Just read a couple books. And I'm being childish.
Probably about as childish as someone who spontaneously alters their relationship status with anther sentient creatures from "definitely a couple" to "not talking" to "on a break" to "boyfriend/girlfriend for sure" to "yeah, we're getting married but she doesn't know yet."
So as we're talking tonight and the conversation is winding down, I ask: "So when did the break end?"
"When we worked out all our shit."
" . . . Uh, my shit is not worked out yet. And yours doesn't seem to be either. And you should probably tell me when you change our relationship status, because I'm kind of involved with us, and I'd like to know what I'm supposed to be up to."
"Yeah, well, we're dating, so . . . You should totally send me some pictures."
"Uhmmm . . . No."
"Aww, But please?"
"No. I don't like the way I look in pictures."
"Well, I disagree. You look great in picutres."
"I don't think so. I hate the way I look in pictures. All flat and papery and two-dimensional. I think the best parts of me are things you can only experience in person. They don't show up in pictures."
"Well, that's stupid. You should send me pictures."
Dude. Seriously? I just told you MY opinion on something. Not anything big, but something I feel strongly about. Did you seriously just invalidate my opinion? Really? I should put my beliefs and thoughts and feelings in a little jar and stick it on a shelf somewhere out of your way so you can have what you want. I don't think so.
"No. I'm going to sleep. Be safe. Goodnight."
"Okay, dear. Goodnight. I lo---"
"Yeah, goodnight." Click!
What. The fuck. Am I supposed to do with this? Can I just castrate him and then he won't find a girl who wants him for anything other than sex, and that won't be a possibility, and then I can bully him and push him around and see how he likes being treated like dirt for not having a penis or whatever? Can I just kick him in the nads and be done with it? Can someone geographically closer to him than 3000 miles smack him across the face and tell him to man the fuck up and start acting like a grown-up?
Can someone show him this blog so he knows how pathetic I think he is when he's not mind controlling me with his sexy voice and stuff?
Actually, please don't. This is still my journal. I don't want him to ruin this for me.
I'm really not sure what I'm most upset about. That I'm not being kept up to date on my own supposed relationship status. That I apparently don't have a choice in the matter. That of all the things I could have asked him to do, I asked him to read a book which changed my life and he called me childish for it. The fact that he didn't bother to check his messages to see what I was really up to . . .
There's just so much injustice to choose from!
Anyway, someone wanna help me pick out my dress? I'm thinking skanky patent leather with sharp spikes all the fuck over it so if he so much as tries to hold my hand and drag me down the aisle, he's getting stabbed at least twelve times.
Also, his parents are former ministers, and they would be scandalized!
Don't give him the satisfaction of skanky patent leather. You need to full on nun-dress it out… but a nun dress with sharp daggers affixed in a pointing-outward manner.
ReplyDeleteOkay, here's my thoughts on the Poffle situation (and oh my GOD you had me terrified when I read "I'm getting married" and the first line is "Still talking with Poffle." Don't ever do that to me again. My poor heart!
Anyway, he is clearly a selfish, possibly manipulative but it doesn't seem that he has the intelligence or finesse for that, toxic person that you need to cut out of your life. Seriously. If all knew of him was what I read in this post my response would still be the same. It doesn't matter if you're romantically involved or not (whether you know it or not *shakes head*) or whether you have a history that stretches back to 7 reincarnations ago. It doesn't matter because he is toxic and selfish and willfully ignorant and you don't need that shit in your life. If he wants to run around to kingdom come declaring a change in your relationship status it won't matter because you've cut him the fuck off. Be done with him, no matter how much it hurts. Because really… you're hurting yourself worse in the long run by keeping him in your life, and you deserve SO much more and better than that jackhole and his negative influence.