Apparently I wasn't enthusiastic enough on a recent I guess this is us being friends phone call and I got dumped as a friend in a manner very similar to that in which I was dumped as a girlfriend almost exactly one year prior(!). [P.S. On my most enthusiastic day I'm Rosanne Barr at best. Plus I hate talking on the tele - a fact that he knows. Not quite sure what he was expecting.]
Around this same time, a friend who had been going out to dinners with a man, cooking in for him, leaving a toothbrush at his request, receiving sweet texts daily and spending solo time with his kid, was flabbergasted when she heard him say that they were not "dating". If that's not dating, I need someone to explain the concept to me.
Another friend went on a first date with a guy who was ready to marry her that night. (This ain't Dharma and Greg, y'all.) While countless other friends date the same guy for years and years and years but he's never quite ready to make a commitment. (This ain't Sex and the City either.)
Several of my gal pals have "friendships" with men who don't want to date them but turn into 14-year-old girls when they don't receive a response to a text within a timely manner. Timely, by the way, seems to range from two and one-half minutes all the way up to a whopping thirty minutes, even during work hours.
So. To the next person who asks why I'm not dating (and people often do), I might say "because I don't know how" or "because men have me stumped, yo" or "because the only men who flirt with me are married (another thing I don't get)". Not dating isn't a choice I've made. No one's asking (spending most of my waking hours around men I already know with no chance of meeting new ones probably doesn't help) and I'm far too afraid of rejection to do the asking myself.
Any tips on understanding the psyche of men? Is there an app for that?
You go girl. Your ex sounds like a real jerkface.
ReplyDeleteI believe he should of cut his ties sooner and quit trying to be your friend. Being mature friends with your ex is so boring. You'll get plenty of grown-up satisfaction (and page hits) by playing he victim and blogging about it. I mean what gives him the right to do stupid stuff like asking you about your day and how your work was going? Umm, duh.
Mild social anxiety disorder (M-SAD), needs to have more understanding and compassion from male clods everywhere.
I mean, you don't need a dude trying to start a dialogue with you unless the know what's up with your hollerin'atch rules, right?
I highly suggest gettin' crafty with it and make you a shirt to wear. Cos you know, guys like quirky women with rules printed over their boobs.
But really where you've hit the jackpot with your anxiety syndrome is that it doesn't affect you with conversations via email, text or old-fashioned electronic chat -- you totally lucked out. Fuh-realz!
And the fact you have no problem spilling you guts to strangers on the internet, well no one would ever confuse your hilarious blog with attention seeking behavior, right? I mean you got M-SAD written all over you!-- people need to be more understanding. It's not joking matter and M-SAD has it's rules.
Girl, being single and pushing 30s is pretty bleak, but I got yo back. Just 'cause he got huffy playing 20 questions the last time he called and you DID-INT want to answer or converse back like a someone without mild social anxiety disorder, well you better off with out'em.
There are plenty of grown men more than willing to create those venn diagrams on communication protocols.
PS: Now, I know your exs provide you plenty of Zoey D-like, quirky, misunderstood single-girl situations, but you might just not want to answer the phone next time a dude calls you and let it roll to voice mail if your mild social anxiety disorder starts to flair.
I mean, it would be pretty dumb if the idiot lost his venn diagram and just wanted to chat. Save him the embarrassment and just don't answer!
I would suggest dating a psychic with extroverted self-centered tendencies. Trust me, his psychic abilities to know when you are in 'shut-down' mode and him never asking about what's going on in your life (since it would just be about him all of the time) would be perfect.
You'd just have to kick back, and let that chump jaw well into the wee hours, sans anything but a mild social anxiety inspired throat-noise from you to keep the dialog moving.
Now get to work on that t-shirt! (For extra zany, single-girl points, make one for your cat.)
PPS: this post will be your highest page hit rate for your blog since inception, since it verifies you actually had a real boyfriend who didn't require four 'D' size batteries.
It's three 'C' size batteries actually.
DeleteUhhh....I've been trying to think of something witty to write for a week now...
DeleteAnd did you write that first comment???
It's okay. No presh for the witty here.
DeleteI did not write the essay, err, I mean, first comment. I'd bet my bottom dollar that I know who did though. (Also, I'm considering becoming a stripper so that I can call all my dollars bottom dollars.)