10/27/2011

Grab 'n Go

Story Sent in by Carlene:

Jason was friends with my college roommate, and the more time I spent with him, the more I thought we'd potentially make a great match. However, Jason was already in a long-term relationship, and so I kept my mouth shut and figured that we'd remain friends.

I called him up one day and asked him if he wanted to hang out. Platonic, in a public place, and so on. We met at a local cafe and sandwich shop, spoke for a bit, and took a walk to nowhere in particular.

In the middle of our walk, talking about how annoying our respective siblings were, he blurted, "I'm thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend for you."

I liked him, it's true. However, I wasn't about to encourage him to break someone's heart. I replied, "I think you should only end things with her if things weren't working out, even if I wasn't in the picture."

"Yeah, I know," he said.

He didn't say anything else about it, and the rest of our time together passed without any further mention of it. We said goodbye, and parted ways.

A week or so later, he called me to tell me that he had broken up with his girlfriend and that he wanted to take me out on a date. He sounded downright celebratory. I was a little taken aback, but I agreed to meet up with him to see how things shook out.

He brought me to a nice place and insisted on treating me. I thanked him and asked how things had gone with his girlfriend.

He said, "Oh, it went fine. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Now I'm all yours!"

His level of excitement effectively blunted my own attraction to him. After all, supposing that he and I were to date, how long before someone else came along to excite him even more? I remained cautious.

"We can date now," he finished, "So we may as well start tonight."

I said, "This is all pretty quick. Let's just take it as it comes and see how it goes."

He shook his head. "Oh, no. I broke up with my girlfriend for this. We're together, you and me: we're an item."

I asked, "Do I get a say in this?"

He replied, "Well, we both know that you like me. You never said that you didn't, and I told you that I'd break up with my girlfriend for you."

I said, "Yes, but can you see how that would make me uncomfortable? I'd have wanted you to end things with her because things weren't working out between the two of you, not because you think that things would work out better with me."

He gave me a smile and said, "I've been looking forward to kissing you."

"We'll see, okay?"

"Not okay. I'm allowed to look forward to kissing you."

This sort of talk was making me more and more uneasy, and despite how nice he had been to me in the past, I realized more and more that I didn't want to be there with him.

I said, "This is all a little fast for me. Can we slow it down, just a bit?"

He gave me a dark look and clammed up. I really didn't want to be there anymore, so I said, "Maybe this was a mistake. I'm going to go."

He sprang at me from across the table, with both hands jetting toward my head. I ripped away from him, without a word, and left the restaurant as quickly as I could.

He called me up. Foolishly, I picked up my phone. He said, "I was just trying to kiss you. Am I really that repulsive?"

I knew that the truth wasn't what he'd want to hear. I said, "I have to go," and hung up.

He called me right back and I let it go to voicemail. It was the nastiest, most vitriolic message that I've ever heard, accusing me of conspiring to make him miserable, of manipulating him into doing things, and so on.

As if I needed any further convincing that I was right to leave him there, he ended the message with, "And your plan didn't work! I didn't ever break up with my girlfriend! We're still together, so I don't need you. I've still got someone! Ha ha ha!"

I had no idea if he was telling the truth, but just in case, I saved his message, recorded it onto my computer, and emailed it to his girlfriend.

Whether or not he wanted to be, by a couple of days later, he was definitely single.

14 comments:

  1. One in the hand...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, the ravages of insecurity...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm with Howie - not to mention pulling the classic case of, "I wanted him when I couldn't have him, but as soon as that changed I started to lose interest" - doesn't exactly paint her like a real mature person.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't know . . . I'm moderately on team OP. It's possible to have a platonic friend. The guy made too many assumptions, and got angry with her when she told him to slow down. That's not okay.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to hang out with somebody you have feelings for as long as you don't intend to act on them.

    Emailing his GF after the fact is not at all cunty. He claimed he was still seeing her which means he was trying to cheat on her. Not cool.

    Team OP.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Whenever I want to get together with somebody who's already in a relationship, I just eat the skank ho that's standing in my way. Makes life much easier.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Team OP. She didn't change her mind about him because now he was suddenly available...she changed her mind about him because he was creepy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hmmm... I kind of need to hear the other side of the story on this one. But, simply following OP's story ans taking it as true, yep, the dude's attitude was creepy.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm mostly on the side of OP but agreeing to a date with him after he told her about the breakup and such was not a good idea at all. If he'd break up with someone for her he'd break up with her for someome new.

    ReplyDelete
  10. My opinion: everything Baku said, tempered with what Ashley mentioned.

    Still team OP though.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ashley- the OP said that in the story

    ReplyDelete
  12. OP, if you play with fire then you're gonna get burnt. And yes, it was a bee-ochy thing to e-mail the message to the girlfriend. Not your place or your business. Other wise he was nutty.

    ReplyDelete
  13. wow...just so much wow here. you have feelings for him, he has a girlfriend, so you just call him up to hang out with him. He blurts, with absolutely no help from you "I think I'm going to break up with my gf for you". Just, totally out of the blue, eh? I think there is so much unsaid here, the story barely makes sense. Then what she did afterwards? Emailing the g/f? Bad move. Shows her true side. She has totally and completely eliminated her part in this entire play, except as poor, pitiful victim of a big, bad man.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I don't see why it was bad/wrong for her to email the girlfriend. If I was in her (the girlfriend's) position, I would definitely want someone to tell me about this. If we were already broken up it would emphasize that and if we were still together then I would be able to make an informed choice as to whether we should stay that way. That choice, of course, being a very firm NO.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Content Policy

A Bad Case of the Dates reserves the right to publish or not publish any submitted content at any time, and by submitting content to A Bad Case of the Dates, you retain original copyright, but are granting us the right to post, edit, and/or republish your content forever and in any media throughout the universe. If Zeta Reticulans come down from their home planet to harvest bad dating stories, you could become an intergalactic megastar. Go you!

A Bad Case of the Dates is not responsible for user comments. We also reserve the right to delete any comments at any time and for any reason. We're hoping to not have to, though.

Aching to reach us? abadcaseofthedates at gmail dot com.