Stupid Cupid: Part 1

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There is no age limit when it comes to FB drama - #agedefyingdrama

All I wanted to do this morning was write. And I wanted to write at Barnes and Noble, far away from any domestic duties that might lead me into procrastination. 

#delivermefromproductivity

But it seems a higher power had other plans – or a wrecked sense of humor.

I had just sat down and readied my laptop and root beer, plugged my earbuds in … when a man in a pink suit sits down next to me.

I pretend not to notice. Except his suit is pink, so I look over at him - and he’s staring at me.

He looked to be about 60-years old, black, blue eyes, and had Don King’s hair. No, seriously, it’s like he stole Don King’s hair and put it on his head.

I smile and look back at my screen.

“Excuse me, miss.”

He’s looking at me and I make eye contact so he knows I heard him.

“Yes, sir?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

Now, I’m thinking, 'Pastor King' has to pee and wants me to watch his stuff.

I remove an earbud and ask, “What’s that?”

What happened next caught me off-guard. Because old people shouldn’t have these problems. Actually, anyone over the age of high school shouldn’t even have these problems.

“See, every time I go on this one web site, it says the link has been broken or taken down. I see you’re on Facebook (#busted) and was wondering if you could go on this girl’s page for me.”

I’ve blocked enough people to know what the block screen looks like.

“I’m pretty sure she blocked you and that’s why the page won’t come up.”

“Well, why’d she block me?”

He seemed genuinely surprised and confused as to why this had happened and I figured he must have been a helluva playa back in his day – he did this to the ladies, they didn’t do this kind of thing to him – and rejection hit him hard.

“I don’t know, what did you do?”

Never ask a question if you don’t really care to hear the answer. It was long, but amounted to:

“Well, I’m a pretty important pastor on this coast and she’s the friend of a pastor on the west coast and she was posting stuff on my page all the time and texting my phone all the time and I couldn’t get a break so I made it so she couldn’t post on my wall because I didn’t want other pastors to see my page and I just didn’t want those sermons posted to my wall I’m part of an elite church group and this girl was posting and sending me stuff and engaging me in conversations I shouldn’t be having – if you know what I mean, you DO know what I mean, right -all the time I just couldn’t take it and now she blocked me from her Facebook and I didn’t want her to think I did what I did because I didn’t like her I just didn’t like her posting that much to my wall so I made it so she can’t and then I was talking to another girl on Facebook too and – OMG, I CAN’T EVEN!“

Okay, so maybe he didn’t say that last part, but he may as well have because he sounded like a 16-year old girl with some high school drama.

But, I had stopped listening. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around how much space Facebook was occupying in this 60 year old man’s head – to the point he had drama … about a girl or two and inappropriate conversations and shock at being blocked. And he’s a pastor. He then asked me to scroll through her profile to see what she had on her wall (#stalkerstatusachieved), all the while worrying himself over the fact that she didn’t just delete him, she BLOCKED him.

I sympathized a little. After all, I’m not #totallyheartless.

The last time someone blocked me it was because I called him out for creeping girls with his Facebook account and refusing to acknowledge he was in a relationship with me to the girl(s) he was flirting/talking with - because he said if he wanted everyone to know, he would tell them and besides,  he “is a private person.”

Um … if you have an FB at ALL, and that FB has more than just immediate family and

a few friends of the SAME sex, you are NOT a private person. (#bulls***) I digress.

So, here is a 60 year old man who is worrying himself toward a heart condition about getting blocked from a girl’s Facebook. A chick he made out to sound like a stage five-clinger that he should have been glad to be rid of, if you ask me.

And he did ask me.

“What do you think?”

I wanted to say: “Sir, why the s*** are we even having this conversation? Shouldn’t you be preachin' a sermon in a church somewhere or at the least enjoying the twilight 

years of your life not stalking chicks on Facebook?”

But what I actually said was: “I think if you leave her alone for a few days, she will cool down and get in touch with you.”

I don’t even know if I’m right, but I wanted him to stop talking to me because I was there to write and not stress over his drama. I have my own.

#middleagedramaqueen

Lucky for me, Joey Abs showed up. #SAVED. And the moment I switched tables, the old man grabbed his stuff and left.

Yes, I know a Joey Abs.

Pastor King was flabbergasted, upset and one of his feelings was hurt. I’m sure he didn’t even think that this chick could or even would block him. On some level, even though he said she annoyed him, I bet he really liked the attention.

What guy doesn’t like a little ego stroke now and again? Even a 60 year old guy. 

 #OldPeopleProblems

Not gonna lie, it’s not a super feeling to be blocked. It’s different from just being unfriended. When someone unfriends you, it’s like they are saying they just need a break, or no hard feelings.

When you get blocked, they are telling you that you’re dead to them.

Dead. To. Them.

As far as I know, I’ve only been blocked by that one person and to be honest, if he hadn’t, I would have blocked him first. But the nerve that he felt I’m the one who needed to be blocked pissed me the f*** off. He was in the wrong, and I was 'punished' for it.

No. Not punished. Dead.

DEAD. 

Just get me the tombstone to that FB friendship already … #RIPFB.

After the initial shock of being actually blocked and what it meant wore off, (because I really didn’t care) I just resumed my regularly scheduled life. It’s like the time I was banned from Paddy’s Pub for life … over a Facebook post I had written two years before that wasn’t about Paddy or his Pub. 

Surprisingly, my pride and dignity stayed intact and I was able to function as a normal human without going to the Pub to sing my stupid song with Paddy - or dealing with #thesociogames of a typical Fayetteville variety douchehole. 

Imagine that.  My life didn’t stop.

The point is, it’s Facebook – a very elaborate, interactive chatroom for folks who want to find old friends and make new ones, and the other folks who want to keep up with family, and the creepy stalkers. But the sad truth is, for a lot of adults, it’s a rebirth of their youth, a way to celebrity and a stroke to their self-esteem and popularity through Internet narcissism. So much so that what happens to them online, affects them offline. Deeply. #cray

And this 60-year old pastor proves it – someone made him DEAD to them. And it was eating him from the inside out. #walkingDEAD

Because he probably wished that he had done it first. It’s like being dumped – if you’re the one being dumped, you’re pissed. If you’re the one doing the dumping, you’re in control.

If he had been smart, Pastor King would have just opened up a creeper account and checked for himself instead of unloading his drama on a complete stranger.

#toomuchdramaforthismama.

#OMGICAN’TEVEN. 

What walls are made of ...

I had a moment of clarity this morning while I was talking to the recent ex. 

We were talking about our points of view as far as the how he and when he chose to dump me  - which were somewhat clouded by past experience (mostly his) and fueled by misrepresentation (also his).

I had a hard time putting my feelings into words. We pointed out things we never talked about, accusations of comparisons, and how impulsive I can be … for cutting everything off so abruptly after he dumped me.

In trying to explain why I did that, and in doing something I never do – opening up about the only issue I've ever had with people in general – I figured out why I stayed with my ex of four years when he didn’t deserve me. 

Aside from the fact that I'm just stupid. You know you're mature when you can admit you do stuff simply because you're stupid. Anyway ... 

It’s because no matter what happened between us, he never really left me. Although he douchebagged me, he kept coming back. He said it was because he loved me and I interpreted his many returns as saying I’m worth working on the relationship when it was probably more that he was using me because I was available. 

Eventually, I think I was just exhausted with going back and forth and couldn't find a reason to stay. So, I left him to get my life back, because in the process of trying to make him happy enough to stay, I lost the person I use to be. #lostgirl

It was liberating, to be the one to walk away and not look back. I only wondered why it took me so long to give up.

And it dawned on me when I was talking to the recent ex, as I was contemplating giving it another go. Hearing myself talk to him and saying the same things to him I'd say to my ex - I recognized the cycle. Then something clicked and I knew what I was doing and why.  

When I was six, my birth mom packed me and my brother up and dropped us off at a relative’s house. I think I knew something was up, I begged her not to go because even though she said she’d be back Saturday, I knew she wasn’t coming back.

It’s weird how, as a kid, you have an intuition about these things. I cried everyday waiting for her. On a side note, why is it I can’t remember little things from a few days ago, yet I can remember this event like it was just yesterday? #oldpeopleproblems?

But I was right. She never came back and I never heard from her again – my own mom. I heard she wrote letters to me, but I didn’t get them. As a kid, I thought it was my fault. What could I have done to show her that me and my brother were worth staying in our lives? What was better than us? What could I have done to make her want to stay?

If I could just be someone different ... 

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great dad and a wonderful stepmom and I love them both so much. When the going got tough – because, trust me, I was no angel - they didn’t give me away.

I’m sure that’s mostly because there was no one who would take me. Or unconditional love. Probably a little of both? I love my parents for that, but for whatever reason, I held onto that one negative experience and that’s shaped how I handle friendships and relationships.

"Say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say you're going to do."  It's a motto I live by and expect others to as well. But not everyone else believes in it. So, I have very few friends and even few that I'm close to, because I'd rather be douchebagged by an asshole than be disappointed by someone I call a friend. 

In relationships, I try too hard and for the wrong reasons. Of course, when you're the only one trying, it isn't going to work out no matter what, so when someone chooses to leave, I let go. I cut off all communication. They’ve basically just said I’m not good enough to be friends with or that me and our relationship isn’t worth trying to make it over that bump (literally on this last one).

My ex of four hated that about me, that I could just let go and seem so calm. If he could only have heard the loud bass of the pity party I’d throw for myself after each time he left, he might feel better. But by the time I left him, I was over him. Because I realized no matter what I did, he would never be with only me. 

And I’m forever a monogamous girl, which seems to be so hard to come by these days you'd think I'd be a hot commodity! But I digress ...

I know I’ve blogged about that particular ex a lot, and some (including the recent guy) might argue that I still have feelings for him, maybe I’m not over him or that I’m reaching out via my writing to urge him to try harder to get back to me.

Which is funny, because he’s never read a single thing I’ve written and for the first two years we were together, he had no idea what I did for a living or that I had been laid off work for a year. Why would he pay attention to what I wrote online? Besides, a blog post about being a douchebag isn’t the way to endear someone to you. Especially if it's true.

No one likes to be called on their shit.

I don’t want him back. What I feel for him is indifference. And although I’m over him, it’s hard to get over what he did to me, the person I had become for him and the guilt I feel over how I moved for him, leaving my kid with her dad – I pretty much became my mom.

That came full circle, didn’t it?

And maybe that is what my fairy godmother is trying to tell me. No one worth being with will ever want to change who you are because you’re worth being with as you are 

There are no happy endings except the ones you make for yourself and they don’t come easy - regardless of what anyone says. But nothing worth having is ever really easy, is it?

Moving and moving on happening at the same time for once

That quote, which is one of my favorites, applies to so much in life. Like relationships. 

Like moving. 

Moving sucks. Like, it sucks big, gigantic, rotten apples. 

It doesn’t matter if I am moving one block or 1300 miles, having to pack, move, and unpack is inconvenient, not to mention an unnecessary expenditure of energy.

I could have been Facebooking and Googling random stuff over a glass or few of wine.

Although I was only moving about one county block (not as big as a city one), I had a little bit of furniture to move this time. And since I’d been dumped a few days ago I lost my help.

Which was really, REALLY inconvenient.

No, there won’t be a blog on that guy, we didn’t date long enough. That’s disappointing in itself (the no blog part). Suffice it to say, that it doesn’t always take me four years of being with someone until I realize I’m being played big time. Sometimes it only takes an act of God, Facebook, a few text messages and the balls to call someone out on their shit before they become ‘uncomfortable’ and feel ‘threatened’ by a relationship they wanted more than I did in the first place and worked so hard to prove that they are worth me wanting it, too.  Clarity in hindsight heals all wounds.

But I digress … 

So, there I was on day one of the move. I had help for a few things, (my brother from an entirely different family) but didn’t want to keep him too long as he had a life he probably needed to get back to. I didn’t have a truck or trailer and we were literally carrying things from my place to the new place. I promised dinner, but there is no amount of food that would equal the work I was asking him to do.

Plus, I needed to focus my energy before I went completely Lizzie Borden on Cupid for misfiring his arrows for the last 21 years.

Looking at all the boxes and furniture I had left, I wanted to cry. Crossfit did NOT prepare me for this. I was moving from a second floor apartment to another second floor apartment and I drive a Jetta. Boxes are not a problem; but heavy, antique chairs, a 5’x5’ glass and metal coffee table, shelves, a TV stand and carrying all of it up and down stairs – and counting the stairs and how many trips I would have to make - I was tired just thinking about it. And I wasn’t sure I would last.

But I did, because I had to, and as it turns out, Crossfit kinda DID help prepare me for this move and having to do it alone. Aside from my determination and resignation to having to get it done, I think the last eight months of Crossfit helped build up my strength, endurance and ability to understand the right and wrong way to lift something.

Especially those God-awful, awkwardly shaped, ugly yellow, antique chairs. I would never have lived down the shame of being found crushed beneath something so hideous. But I think they give my place an air of eccentricity so I had to keep them.

Being a geek and an artist, I’m all about the weird shit.

Anyway, it took me two nights, working four hours each night to get everything over to the new place, it’s all moved over except for the metal 5’x5’ coffee table. It’s not heavy, just awkward to carry. But I think I will introduce my daughter to light, manual labor tonight, enlisting her help in getting it moved.

After all, she will be getting her own room and bathroom.

Which was the reason for this move.

When I first moved back to NC, I could really only afford the one bedroom in the complex to keep my daughter in the school district she was in, since her dad was moving. I figured sharing a bed was okay because she would always crawl in my bed since she was a baby anyway.

I realized super quick that she was not a baby-sized girl anymore, though.

“Every morning when I wake up, mom, you’re clinging to the corner of the bed. Are you sleeping okay?”

Yes, munchkin, I sleep fine if I can keep that distance from your knees and elbows. It hurts when they make contact with my body piece. And holy hell your feet are like icicles in the middle of the night.  

Having one bathroom between two girls brings a whole other set of issues. It’s a small bathroom, so twice the femme-care products plus two chicks getting ready in the morning equals one of us (usually me) giving up necessary face time to leave the apartment ‘as-is.’

Plus, if you both have to use the bathroom at the same time … and it’s an emergency … guess who gets it first? When you’re a mom, it’s never you.

Although the move was rough, I’m excited to be able to give my kid her space – even if she doesn’t plan on using it unless her friends come over. Which also, means I can no longer eavesdrop on their convos for entertainment … but at least I won’t have to vacate the apartment to give them room to be teenagers.

There really is only so much coffee I can drink and spending three hours at a coffee shop gets boring. Because there is also only so much social networking I can do in three hours.

Well, one bedroom apartment, it’s been real, but I'm so ready to enjoy the upgrade.

Jeep waves are like club handshakes

“Owning, registering, insuring, or driving a Jeep implies knowledge of and intent to abide by the following rules. Failure to obey the rules may result in your being ignored by other Jeep owners as you sit along the side of the road next to your stalled vehicle in a blizzard surrounded by Saturns, Yugos, and Hyundais.”

My ex-boyfriend owns a Jeep – funny, actually, both of them do. It’s a vehicle that I once flippantly attributed to surf-brahs, posers, gym-bros and general vagina-hopping douchehats as well as anyone whose fave movie of ALL TIME is “Snatch” or “Point Break.”

And, I haven’t been proven wrong.

The first time I saw my ex-boyfriend drive up in his new jeep, all rugged and manly-like, I – okay, so I was hoping every girl would have the same misconception of male jeep drivers and just stay away.

I know, totally unfair and girly, but at least I’m honest.

Anyway, we went on our first road trip and that’s when I learned about the “jeep wave.” 

Apparently, only jeep owners know about this wave and understand how to use it.

What is a jeep wave? It’s exactly that: a jeep wave. One jeep owner waves at another jeep owner as they pass each other. Jeep owner.

Not jeep passenger, as my boyfriend gently reminded me the first time we passed a jeep and I waved vigorously at the other jeep driver – with jazzy hands and spirit fingers.

Who did NOT wave back, I might add.

“Please, don’t to that,” said the ex.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because you’re doing it wrong,” he said. “It’s a quick wave, not jazz hands. And 

passengers don’t do it, drivers do.”

In my head, I heard, “Your wave is just not as cool as mine.”

So, I decided at that moment, I would win over a jeep driver with my emphatically benevolent jeep wave – much to the dismay and annoyance of the ex-boyfriend.

After a few miles and a few jeeps, one actually acknowledged me and I was like, 

“BOOM! Look at that! That guy totally waved at me!”

“No he didn’t, he pointed at you,” ~ him

“Yes, he pointed! At MY wave,” ~ me

“WITH his middle finger,” ~ him, grinning.

Whaaaat? For serious? How rude. Of the other guy, not the bf. But that did NOT stop me. I WOULD win this one.

“Look, just stop. It’s cute, but you’re embarrassing yourself,” him

Later on, I will realize he was only trying to save me from myself.

But I’m not a quitter.

And so, for the rest of the trip to and from our destination, (and much to his irritation) I was perched at the edge of my seat, close to the windshield so that I could be seen. 

My ex-boyfriend was witness to the biggest fail as I tried wave technique after wave technique and received NO response whatsoever – except confused looks from other drivers or a “finger” pointed in my general direction.

Every so often, the ex-bf would do the wave and get a wave back, give me a smirk and keep driving. Eventually, I gave up as we got close to home, deciding I needed a better strategy – like maybe leaning towards the steering wheel so they don’t think it’s me?

Then, this happened:

“What is SHE doing?!” ~ the ex-boyfriend, in total shock and disbelief

“What? What happened?” ~ me

“That lady driving a jeep Cherokee – an SUV – she just waved at me,” ~ him

“So? It’s a jeep, right?” ~ me

The look he gave – you would have thought I had grown a testicle on my chin.

“Um, not in the same off road jeep family,” him, aggravated with me at this point

Okay, so apparently, there are more rules to this jeep wave that I didn’t realize Not only does it have to be the driver doing it, it can’t be emphatic, you can’t use jazz hands or spirit fingers - it can’t be me – and it has to be a rugged, off road jeep, not an SUV type.

Got it.

This jeep wave business was just too complicated. It’s like a club you silently join once you own a jeep. But I suppose once you start bending the rules of membership, it’s no longer a jeep wave but a regular wave, and then it’s just NICE and not a JEEP THANG.

Right?

And that’s okay, because I’ve decided to come up with MY OWN THANG. I’m going to call it the Jetta wave. Only, instead of just waving at other drivers of Jettas, I’m 

going to wave at everyone.

The message:

“Jetta drivers are so nice, we will say hello to everyone regardless of preferred vehicle for transportation.”

Or …

“My attempt at revising the jeep wave failed.”

I know, it’s all pretty silly. And honestly, none of this bothered me more than it amused me to see how far I could get with it. I might be annoying, but I’m never boring.

In closing, I will leave you to a link to an in-depth definition and criteria of the Jeep Wave:

http://jeeptalk.org/jeep_wave.php