Rene Descartes Walks Into a Bar...

Last night I posted on my private Facebook account that I felt unsafe in my home at that particular moment. Not that anything was seriously going on, just one of those uncomfortable feelings and some weird sounds down the hall. Then somebody I knew if fucking middle school commented on that status, essentially saying "That's stupid and invalid, because I willingly went someplace unsafe and there are actual things to be scared of here."

Okay. You know nothing about what's going on in my life. You know nothing about what has gone on in my life. You don't know if I'm up at 5:00  in the morning freaking out because:

- I have acute intermittent porphyria and am having an attack

- I have a really severe anxiety disorder that goes out of control when it's silent and my mind can wander

- I'm slowly turning into a cricket

- I was sexually assaulted in my bedroom at night as a child

- My dog is barking at a strange orb outside the window

- I consume too much caffeine to live

- I was raped in my own bed in this very apartment

- There are gunshots outside

- Two years ago, I abruptly lost my partner, my family, and my home in the middle of the night and I sometimes panic about the aspect of abruptly losing everything else that is important to me

- Shit's going on at work and I'm terrified I'm going to get fired

- I watched somebody climb up the outside balconies and into my neighbor's apartment the other day

- My neighbor has a history of setting her kitchen on fire

- I can see a demon sitting on top of my bookcase staring at me

- I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve

- I have a history of losing my shirt

- Oops, those last two were Barenaked Ladies lyrics.

You don't know if some of these are true, all of these are true, or none of these are true. You don't know a single damn thing about my situation. Because I haven't had an actual conversation with you in five years because every conversation we had in the five years before that you've been increasingly condescending? And not in a "Haha, that was a dumb thing to do" way, but in an "I don't think your feelings are valid, so watch me belittle you as a person" way. And the stupid thing about this is, I care. I care what you think about me. I mean, if you don't agree with everything I do, whatever, nobody will ever agree with everything anybody does. If you see I've made a mistake and call me on it, okay. Disagree with me on politics or religion? Neat, tell me your thoughts, I want to know why you feel the way you do. You won't sway me, but I care about your point of view. But when you suggest my feelings aren't valid, that's not cool. That's tantamount to you thinking I'm just a worthless excuse for a human being.

I'm now just going to go off in a tangent. If you understand how I've come to this point, I will totally give a cookie.

Rene Descartes walks into a gin bar. Bartender says, "Hey, want a martini?"

Descartes says, "I don't think--" and disappears.

No. Just No. So Very Fucking No.

So, my ex-boyfriend called me last night. He told me he wants me back. I'm going to call this guy Dwight.

Dwight's sweet, he's just a child. No, not literally. He's, like, three months younger than me. He just doesn't have or want adult responsibilities. And he tends to be a little narcissistic. I don't know, read old entries if you want to hear about it. One thing never mentioned is that I paid for something really expensive to help him out of a bad situation, because I'm stupid, and he had no intention of paying me back and made no attempts to pay me back. And yes, that was a major part my decision to end things. So when we broke up, I thought it was really the most mutual break up ever. I went to his house (well, the house his friend owns that he's renting a room in) to end it, and he greeted me with "So, this is hard..."

I cut him off. "Nope. It's not." We hugged, I took my stuff back, the end, yay!

So last night he calls me, saying horrible, stupid shit like "I made a mistake. I changed my mind."

You changed your mind? That's nice. It's so fucking nice to know that I'm a passing fancy for you. "Eh, I thought I wanted you to go away, but I changed my mind. Come back now." Um, no. I'm not a book that you posted for sale on Amazon.com but decided, no, you didn't really want to sell it and have the ability to unlist. I'm a person and so very not your property.

"I made a mistake." Yes. Yes, you did. Several of them. However, darling, our break up was not entirely your decision. I was on my way to break up with you. Remember how I told you the night before I wanted my keys back? Was that your decision? No.

Now that we have the "Here's why you treating me like property is offensive" out of the way, let's move onto why I wouldn't take you back if you paid me.
1) You owe me so much money, Bill Gates couldn't afford to dupe me back in after paying me back.
2) We broke up for a reason. You. You were the reason. Can you provide me an itemized list of the things about you that you have changed about yourself? Can you show me proof? Do you have character references?
3) I want to get married. Not to you. To an adult. Who can function in reality. And isn't a narcissistic asshole.
4) That time you were mean to my dog.
5) That time you were mean to my dog. Yeah, I know I just said that. Really, really not okay.

Please Get Out of the Dating Pool.

I'm not sure what I want more - the be out of the dating pool myself or simply to get rid of the prevalence of assholes.

The following is mostly about an acquaintance of mine, who we'll call Ignar. Now, Ignar has a lot of truly wonderful qualities, but for the sake of this entry, I won't be discussing a single one of those qualities. 

So, Ignar cannot hold a job for shit. He gets hired, keeps a job for about six weeks on average, then gets fired, luxuriates in unemployment for a few weeks before searching, gets another job, keeps the job for six weeks, you get the gist of this cycle. Because of this cycle, and a lack of motivation to be a productive adult, Ignar still lives with his parents and is in his thirties. So on paper, even, Ignar is not a desirable mate. Yet he's out there. He's trying. He's on all of the dating sites and inexplicably, he gets dates. Consistently. And he's totally fucking insane about it. He gets really, really possessive, really, really quickly.

Ignar recently was paired with a friend of mine from college on one of these dating sites. I have no idea why the site would allow this match. My college friend, who I'll call Alex, is a tremendous person. Extremely attractive, going to law school, works three jobs, very nice, great taste in music. All around good person. When Ignar told me they had gone on a date, I had to fight every instinct to not call Alex and scream "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

So, Ignar and Alex talk on whichever site they met on. Ignar adds Alex on Facebook. They go on their date. Then Ignar proceeds to text Alex about a dozen times a day, getting mad when Alex doesn't respond. The texts basically go as follows:

Ignar: Hi, what's up?

Alex: Hey, I'm at work. Can I catch you later?

Ignar: When are we going out again?

Alex: Let me check my schedule and get back to you after work.

Ignar: When's your next day off?

(At this point, Alex doesn't even waste time by responding. After about five minutes, Ignar gets mad and texts again, every five minutes)

Ignar: When's your next day off? 

Ignar: When are we going out again?

Ignar: HELLO?!

So then, Ignar gets mad and goes to Facebook (remember, folks, he has added Alex as a friend on Facebook). After a series of posts about "Dating is dumb", the following pops up (of course, it has been edited to protect Ignar's true identity. It was rife with spelling error, lack of punctuation, and some incoherent words):

Ignar Dingleberry: It's been a week and a half since what I thought was a good first date. I have sent texts and made all attempt to get together for a second time. Am I expecting too much or should I just give up and move on to the next person? 

The following day, Ignar makes another Facebook post.

Ignar Dingleberry: On to the next. Wanted one good partner. Scared little children need not apply.

::facepalm::

Then the following occurred in comments, between Ignar and my friend we'll call Perri.

Perri Socially Acceptable Behavior: You realize by texting him a bajillion times and posting these things for him to see, you pretty much made sure you have zero chance of ever seeing that guy again, right?

Ignar Dingleberry: I'm just being me. If a guy can't handle it, that 's his problem.

Perri Socially Acceptable Behavior: But if you can in a way that doesn't let a guy get to know you, it becomes your problem. There are certain forms of dating etiquette that if you follow, allows your personality to come through so guys can really get to know you. And when that happens, you will find a guy who super likes you because he will get to see who you are.

Ignar Dingleberry: We met on Particular Dating Site where we answered a tong of questions for each other, so much that we weren't sure what to talk about on the first date. I guess I figured if you're on a site like that, you are ready and wanting the real thing. And not to mention you have time for someone.

Okay. I assume that if you're not in a mental institution, you're more sane than to believe it is okay to get that fucking scary and possessive so quickly. Or ever. It's not okay to get that scary and possessive EVER. At now point in your relationship is your partner EVER your property. Your partner is always a person and is always allowed basic freedoms to do shit like go to work. Perri put it about right. When you're that fucking possessive, why would anybody ever call you again? Oh, you're intense so your date is wrong for going to work and actually doing their job? Great. Are you also just intense when you break into their fucking bedroom window at night? This is PPO behavior, not "We've gone on one date" behavior!

So, I met this guy who we'll call Bob. Because that's actually his name. I'd talked to Bob for a bit, stupidly gave him my phone number, he asked when I got out of work yesterday so he could call me. When Bob called me, I was on the other on a rather important call that I wasn't going to terminate. Before I finished said call, I received a text message from Bob, reading "Are you available to talk right now?" Um, obviously not, Douche. If I were, I would have answered the damn phone. I finish my call and check my voicemail. The voicemail irritated me so much that I deleted it, but in retrospect, I wish I had saved it so I could copy it here. It was basically, "Hey, Roz. This is Bob. It's 5:00, and I'm calling you, like we agreed on. So, call me back so we can talk. Like we agreed on. It's Bob." I'm annoyed by this and opt not to call him back right away. I hop online and see an email from Bob, reading (this is not edited. Note the different font? Direct copy and paste): Did you think when I meant "tomorrow" that I meant Saturday? Don't want to bombard you with phone or text messages. Message here, text or phone.

• 
  

Oh, Bob. Guess you will never be hearing back from? I hope you enjoy pursuing your restraining order from some unfortunate woman in the near future.

So, when I venture out a date, I'm left asking myself "Is it safe?"