7/18/2011

What Friends Aren't For

Story Sent in by Jonathan:

I was checking out dating profiles online, and one of my suggested matches was Lia. Her profile was great, and her pictures were terrific. Only problem was that she lived two large states away from me. Too far for me, so I left her profile without writing to her.

Two days later, she wrote me a message: "I saw that you checked out my profile. I'm Lia! Nice to meet you."

She wrote a bit more than that, and although she sounded friendly and sane, I replied that I wasn't looking for a long-distance relationship.

She responded, "We can still be friends, can't we?" and then launched into her life story.

I saw no problem with remaining friends, and I told her so. She wrote me at least twice a day for a week straight, and while I wrote her back when I could, writing to her wasn't a very high priority on my list of daily, much less weekly, activities.

She pointed that out to me after a few days: "Hey Jonathan, I've noticed that you don't write me as much as I write you. Why?"

I wrote back that I was busy (which was true, not a blow-off), and could only respond so often. She replied, "Okay, then it's time for plan B."

I had no idea what plan B meant until in the middle of my workday, my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. I picked it up and was surprised to hear, "Hey Jonathan! It's Lia!"

"How did you get this number?"

She said, "I have my ways. You could at least be excited to hear from me. We're friends, right?"

Less and less so. I told her, "I appreciate the phone call, but now's a bad time. I'm at work and–"

"So when's a good time? Tonight? I'll call you tonight."

All six times she called me that night, I didn't pick up. She left me strange voicemails, all about what good friends we were and how she couldn't wait to talk to me and meet me. I decided at that point to stop talking to her completely, and while I read some of them, I ignored her future messages and didn't answer her future calls.

Instead of driving her away, this frustrated her to the point of writing me a message in which she wrote, "11 Windemere St., Columbia, MO 65201. That's where you live, and that's where I'll be this weekend. I'm driving out there to sort this out, once and for all. See you soon, friend!"

I would have been a little freaked out, but 11 Windemere, however she came by the address, was a place that I hadn't lived in three years. What a fun surprise that would be for her. The messages she sent me over the following two days were full of, "Here's what we'll do when I see you…" and "Can't wait to see you!"

The weekend arrived, and no joke, I must have received close to a hundred calls from her. Each voicemail was funnier than the last:

"Hey, I'm on my way! See you soon, good buddy!"

"I'm stuck in traffic, but I'll be there soon!"

"I just crossed into Missouri! Can't wait to see you, friend!"

"We're such good friends! I can't get over what good friends we are, and what fun, friendly stuff we'll be doing together, friend! Yay for friends! Yay for you! Yay for me! Yay for us, being friends!"

"I'm in Columbia! The city where good friends meet! I'm passing by the university right now! Maybe we can take a walk there later! There is so much fun stuff to do when you're with a friend!"

"I'm turning onto your street! I'll be seeing you in just a few seconds! I can't believe that we're such good friends that I would do this, but that's what I do for my friends! And you are such a good one!"

"Okay, so apparently, you don't live at 11 Windemere Street anymore, but I'll find you. I swear it. If I have to die, I will find where you live. If I have to quit work and spend all of next week and knock on every door in this fucking city, I will find you."

"I'm staying in a motel tonight. Sure would be nice to spend the night with my friend, but my friend's gone AWOL. Maybe it's time for me to change tactics. See you soon."

"Today's a brand new day in search of my friend. Can't wait to find him and set him the fuck straight about what friendship means."

Her messages abruptly stopped, and aside from a final email from her that said, "went home. byebye," I never heard from her again. 

14 comments:

  1. Holy shit is the only thing I kept saying.

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  2. ^Same. I wonder what I would've done. Probably wouldn't have stayed home considering the current resident at my old address might know my new address... creeper!

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  3. Why'd you agree to still be friends with someone you had no intention of ever seeing, though?

    I don't get the appeal of going through the motions of writing someone back if there's no plan to ever visit or get together and you have no other connection to them. Even if she wasn't crazy, how was that a good idea?

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    Replies
    1. I don't know...e-mail friendships can be cool. Not when they end this way, though.

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  4. @Andrew- "...and her pictures were terrific." You never know when a business trip might afford you the opportunity for a "friendly" visit. In this case, however, TOTALLY not worth it. She be psycho.

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  5. I bet she went home to boil a bunny...

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  6. ZOMG FRIENDSHIP! FRIENDS! FREINDZSSS I'M A BATSHIT PSYCHOCASE WITH NO CONCEPT OF REALITY OR ANTISTALKING LAWS

    LOLOLOLOLOLOL

    Jesus Christ...

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  7. Wow, that got really freakin' scary there near the end. It really might have been time just to let the cops know, open a file, just in case.

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  8. "Today's a brand new day in search of my friend. Can't wait to find him and set him the fuck straight about what friendship means."

    This is the kind of sentence that is only ever said with an insanely cheerful smile, while brandishing a phone in one hand and a knife in the other. Or by Chucky from the Child's Play movies. "We'll be friends till the end!" :-D

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  9. Hee crazytown. I have two thoughts. Wouldn't it be better in these cases to send one last "not interested, please stop" message, instead of the last thing they know you were fine with them before you disappeared? I'm all for ignoring them from that point forward, but it might help nip some of the crazy in the bud, no?

    Two, did anyone else get a strong vibe of the blue floating squirrel from Something Positive?

    http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp03202007.shtml

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  10. "I would have been a little freaked out, but..."

    But what? But the crazy stalker lady got her facts wrong this one time before she drove across two states and then went on a mission to "set you the fuck straight"?

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  11. I bet she was wearing diapers during her interstate tour de crazy.

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  12. Am I the only one who's noticed that there seems to be an oversupply of bad date stories about girls named Lia? I think there's been a Pia and Sia once or twice as well, but Lia pops up more frequently than it should. Common thread? Or Jared's subconscious?

    On that note, you know what name hasn't been used for a bad date's yet? Jared. Just sayin'.

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  13. ^I frequently play myself in my own stories.

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