We received this reader submission from our buddy,
Brady. After reading his story, our New Year's resolution is now to give the finger to flaky exes once and for all.
My worst holiday horror story was last New Year's Eve. The love of my life, the girl I dated back when I was 23-25 (I'm 31 now) had gotten back in touch with me. This has been a pattern with us over the years: getting back in touch. Maybe see each other. Start talking about the future. Have a blow up fight. Don't speak for a year.
Sweet.
Anyway, she proposed in the fall that we meet up in Brooklyn for New Year's. I was all for it, but leery of her flakiness. We kept talking about it, and after I made her a really cute birthday video she said, that yes, she really wanted to go through with it. Again, remember: this was her idea. Not mine. It was 100% her.
So we move forward, trading emails about plans, etc. etc. Three days before New Year's, she emails me to say she's really excited to see me. Awesome.
I went to New York and spent a couple days with my wonderful-but-quiet crew of married and pregnant friends in Queens. On December 30th, when I was already in town and waiting to meet up with her, she emailed me and said that she'd decided that things would just get too complicated if we saw each other and it would be "simpler" if we just did our own thing. Well, conveniently, most of the other options I had were back in Philadelphia, and I couldn't get back there. I'd left Philadelphia for her sake, after all. She, conveniently, had made a back-up plan for herself, and I hadn't picked up on it.
So I spent New Year's at my friends' place in Queens, eating Hors D'oeurves and watching Robo-Dick-Clark with three married couples on a couch and stewing. When I checked out at 12:30, I could barely sleep I was so annoyed with myself. If not for a iPod full of Willie Nelson, I might have stared at the ceiling all night long.
It was, of course, my own fault, and one that I'm definitely not going to make again. Beware of making traveling plans to see your exes, that's all I have to say. Even if they were, once upon a time, the very best ever.
Oh, man! That's
the worst. This girl sounds flakier than a Southern biscuit. I did like how there was a moral of the story at the end. How very Danny Tanner of you. Well, Brady, thanks for sending this in and reminding us that flaky exes should get the boot!
2 comments:
wow. this sounds too familiar.
i'd gotten the run around from captain cornflake for almost a year.i actually talked to him on new years eve. like many nights he was supposed to meet up with me and as more often than not he flaked out. after a really fun evening of drinking and dancing with friends and after the umpteenth pathetic emo text from him i called him up and said "my new years resolution is to NEVER speak to you again. i deserve better than a guy who tells me he loves me one week and then his actions don't back up the statement. all my friends have been telling me over and over but i finally realize what a fool i've been. don't ever contact me again." i attribute my knack for attracting cute bipolars not on meds for being with him in the first place and my pesky internal florence nightingale instinct for sticking with it for so long.i'm proud of myself that i finally got off the roundabout and vow never to deal with flaky drama again!
There was one upside... I wrote the darkest letter I have ever written in my life. I have always felt like I have a talent for writing really powerful "f.u." letters. The secret is in getting specific. I never sent her the full version, just one with the essential message ("never talk to me again"). But it's been a lot of fun to read it to other people since then. People I can trust not to be totally terrified.
The conceit of the letter was coming up with a bunch of extenuating circumstances under which she might think I'd understand if she reached out to me again, and clarifying that, no, I still won't care. Don't try it.
Like I said, ultimately, she did get a letter but it was short and simple. We're thru. Like for realz.
I have heard from her once since then. The woman that introduced us those many years ago got married and she sent me some photos from the wedding. Nice to hear, I guess, but all she heard from me was crickets.
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