Happy new year rube!
Well, here we are in 2020. I've thought of writing you all this directly, or hell, even posting it on Facebook where you might read it. Even thought of just leaving a single, solitary laugh reaction on one of those "look how damaged I am" memes you like to post into your mid 40's here. Willing to bet that'd send you scurrying back under your rock again for the next 3 years. But I won't do any of that, because, really, what'd be the point? I'm too goddamned old myself to make some anxious, avoidant paranoid my project. Be a better use of my time rattling off two paragraphs on that Omega Man reboot script.
So, I know what you're thinking. And I guess there's a healthy dose of arrogance in the statement, but it's true. Hannibal Lectering people is a skill I picked up in the last, eh, 19 years or so. It's not actually hard, I picked it up just like my comedy improv, said I wanted to, then practiced here and there. People so rarely say what's really on their mind, so you have to take the little bit they give you and what you know of the person if you're going to Professor X somebody. Bit of extrapolating from available data, bit of role playing, generally being observant, assuming a jackass will continue to be a jackass, that's all it is. You can take some credit for that, and a few other things, but who knows really? I find ALOT of use for it. If nothing else, you really want to piss someone off or fluster them, get their number. I've had alot of people get pissed, not so many say "Oh no, that's not me". Oh, and pretty much everybody wound up where I predicted decades ago, so...hey.
Oh right, you.
So, you're thinking I'm obsessed with you or still not "over" you, whatever that actually means. I assume it to mean where you NEVER think of someone at all, but I'll be honest, I'm not there with ANYONE. I still think about that kid in 3rd grade who punched me in the mouth because he thought I called him something. I think about that random teen who threw a brick at me when I was in 4rth grade. Hell, I think about that head case that snapped at my wife when she asked about pet sitting service like 10 years ago. Just kinda marvel at it, in my middle age, ya know? At odd moments, when I'm stuck in traffic. So, if that means I'm obsessed, then you've got alot of company. Now, *I* have no problem admitting it, because I don't think it's actually an issue. I'm just worried you'll assign undue importance to yourself at this late stage of your life when you're probably looking for all of it you can get. And planning out your cat lady years possibly. I can't have that, but, I've had the urge to write this for awhile (like that Omega Man reboot!), so here it is.
Let me say it plain. I don't give half a shit if you were chain whipped in a parking lot when you were 8 or molested by your uncle last month. And honestly from what I've seen and heard, and just what I know about people in general, I really doubt you went through some Batman style tragedy. What you did used up any sympathy I had (and I had quite a bit), because I don't understand it, and there's nothing to understand. It's so petty and pathetic and pointless, and dumb, and you should have known better, and the older I get, the dumber it seems. What you did was the equivalent of walking off a job that had invested everything in you because you're scared of confrontation. Or you just didn't give a fuck. Leaving them to call and call and finally figure out after x weeks you just abandoned it instead of taking 2 minutes to write a "I quit, best of luck", and then you'd be done. And then exert maximum effort ducking those calls.
Ghosting is a chickenshit bitch baby maneuver. If you give someone their walking papers and they don't get the hint, ok. But ya didn't even try. In the immortal words of Buddy Revell, how does that even feel?
Let's be clear. That's what I have heartburn with. Not the wasted time, not the wasted effort, not the wasted dollars (and wow, how hard would it have been to save me those too, don't think I couldn't use a new dishwasher and a plumber to fix my faucet). I would have had the maturity to read a brief little blurb, cry it out a week, move on, and keep all the positive feelings and thoughts about you (unmerited though they were). Would have been no embarrassing "are you alive over there" phone calls, maybe you would have got a John Hughes-esque Ducky style final letter that you could have tossed in the trash, and that would have been the end of it. Honest. Everybody wins.
But you didn't have even the most minimal amount of respect for me. "There's someone else, best of luck." Oh man. Hard, hard, emotionally high effort stuff. So fuck you.
For a long, long, far too long time I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and I mean, up until about 2016 when I finally sent you that IM, just to see what you had to say, if anything. It was so obvious, but if you were in IT like me, you'd understand this. Some days, you get a technical problem, and you're just so overloaded and stressed, you can't think even think about it. Then, you take a weekend, get just a little more information come back to it, and solve it like snap. That was you, could finally look at you without the rose colored glasses. I wasn't expecting an apology, never believe that, but the whole "don't remember you/never knew you" play? That was so tired and cliche. When people get that fucking predictable, that's the time when I'm able to write them off. And then, this is the knee slapper to me, ya go dark 3 years. Now that more than anything put everything into perspective. You went from some poetic chivalric love figure to the trite little bumpkin you are. Thank christ for me getting perspective and seeing that mountain for the mole hill it is.
Oh, and my Facebook is wide open, philosophical and political posts, family pics etc, to any sack of shit I tangle with online. I don't live in fear of you, or my closest relatives, or some ass I just schooled on Newsweek who just declared virtual jihad on me. I never even been reported far as I know! I think it's important for my friends to see that when I write things (like this), that the current reality is me with my wife and kids and for enemies to see that my life is objectively better and happier than theirs. You can call it egotistic and self destructive, but I have a compulsion when people say I'm this and that or will wind up a certain way, and the fact is they're so wrong they shouldn't even be ordering lunch. I'm a teacher that way, ya dig?
I'm grateful I met you though. Not because of anything positive you did intentionally. But I met my wife while waiting for you one of those nights you were probably washing your hair. My wife is great, as I tell her near daily. She has loads of balls (not physically mind you) compared to your average woman, and compared to you? Makes me laugh thinking about what'd she do to you in argument, fist fight, or hell, even a math competition. She's travelled the world, got the husband she wanted, the house she wanted, the kids she wanted. If she really wants to buy that dish washer I alluded to, she could do it too without going into debt. Can buy 10 of them without breaking a sweat actually, but hey, it was a rough year. But on that note, still, fuck you.
But wife. I give her full credit for where she is and what she is. Have two beautiful, special kids that I wouldn't have had with a partner who wanted them less. She'll be 39 this spring, and I expect her to hit 40 sometime in the next 20 years. If I need help, or someone to listen, or if she needed to go to work at a job where they were less understanding about your crippling social anxieties, she could do it.
It wasn't all peaches and cream some of the middle years. Wife had her temper, her entitlement, your typical female communicating in signals and not big boy words issues. Didn't like to be told no. Expectation of a charmed princess life which I and, let's face it, probably some 90% of men in today's world weren't equipped to give her. But I could at least wrap my mind around those issues, there was actual substance to them and we worked through them. I try imagining working through, say, managing a budget with you, as an adult, and know right off there was never any chance of that. So I *should* thank you for what you did, and helping me dodge that bullet relatively quickly and cheaply, but still, I could have avoided that heartburn altogether for the price of about 2 minutes on your part, and $800 would buy alot of Hillshire Farms, so again, fuck you.
Old me believed love conquers all, he had faith in the best version of people. He believed there was some effort he could make, some combination of magic words you could say to anyone to get through. He believe if you put all your feelings into those words, they'd come across, and touch whatever part it is inside someone's self that writes a two sentence blurb to the dipshit who's still taking one's words at face value. If he just gave what he never had and was always looking for to someone else, well, at the very least, that person would recognize it for what it was and respect it enough to respond with the kind of common courtesy I expected out of say, a middle schooler.
Current me knows better. You do your best, but you either pull a nut, or you don't. Doesn't matter what you hope or believe about them, only what you're able to read between the lines. Often times, it really doesn't matter what the fuck you do or say. Stumbling, bumbling words work about as well as poetry on either type. Either you can reach them, or you can't, and it depends entirely on them. it's just that simple.
Current me knows when to cut his losses and stop taking shit. He looks at actions, and weighs them appropriately against words. He knows he'll almost never get a straight answer, so he has to take what little he knows, apply logic, and come to a conclusion, not based on what he wishes, but what is. It's a really useful minor superpower that I hope to pass on to my kids before they have to learn it the hard way. He's lost an awful lot of romantic misconceptions, but at least he'll never get Amway ambushed again. He's got a dark, gallows humor, because the overly serious thing sure didn't work, and that's how you cope. So thanks for that, and fuck you.
After I solved your riddle of bullshit, so to speak, I felt really cold for awhile, ya know? Some part had always held out hope I guess, foolishly, that there was some better explanation for you doing what you did than you just being the weepy, maudlin asshole I know you are. It's like a murder plot where you've got two characters and one is the victim, how trite, ya know? And understand, I was FULLY prepared to accept any fault on my part. But after 2016, I saw how pointless that was. Nah, I think I can put it all on you, I really do. Because hey, let's face it. If I was a rich model, would you have ever pulled that shit? Bet not.
I had in mind a long list of things I wanted to write, but I think I've actually got to the end, so I'm going to switch gears and wrap this up on a positive note.
I wondered if having my obvious answer was worth that coldness for awhile. I knew what I should have known, but I didn't feel better, at first. Then, I'd say a month after, I started comparing you to my wife, and ya know what? I always appreciated her, but compared to you? I feel luckier than ever. She's Netflix and you're Blockbuster. I used to wish the best for you, but now, I just wish you what I know is ahead of you. You might be married or in a relationship, but I'm doubtful. Does a person who is, or if they are, is content, post the shit you do? Not that I've seen.
I see cats in your future. Lots and lots of cats. Or someone other animal/plant that doesn't have the option of opting out. Enjoy today, I guarantee tomorrow won't be any better.
PS
I came back to this today, thinking I'd make it private, but I actually don't think it's too bad so I'll leave it up. In therapy, a classic technique is writing a letter to someone and then not sending it, and that's all this really is. I've written lots of these kind of letters, believe it or not. Once again, the ONLY thing special about you is what I mistakenly projected on you, I want to reiterate that. That's been apparent for years, but seeing is believing, and I feel like I saw, and now I not just know it, I believe it too. Consider this. I got this out of my system, and I don't think I'll ever need to write this sort of letter again, at least in regards to you. What else is there to say? If one of my kids had your sort of outlook and life, or even wound up with such a person, I'd wonder what the hell I did wrong
So, I know what you're thinking. And I guess there's a healthy dose of arrogance in the statement, but it's true. Hannibal Lectering people is a skill I picked up in the last, eh, 19 years or so. It's not actually hard, I picked it up just like my comedy improv, said I wanted to, then practiced here and there. People so rarely say what's really on their mind, so you have to take the little bit they give you and what you know of the person if you're going to Professor X somebody. Bit of extrapolating from available data, bit of role playing, generally being observant, assuming a jackass will continue to be a jackass, that's all it is. You can take some credit for that, and a few other things, but who knows really? I find ALOT of use for it. If nothing else, you really want to piss someone off or fluster them, get their number. I've had alot of people get pissed, not so many say "Oh no, that's not me". Oh, and pretty much everybody wound up where I predicted decades ago, so...hey.
Oh right, you.
So, you're thinking I'm obsessed with you or still not "over" you, whatever that actually means. I assume it to mean where you NEVER think of someone at all, but I'll be honest, I'm not there with ANYONE. I still think about that kid in 3rd grade who punched me in the mouth because he thought I called him something. I think about that random teen who threw a brick at me when I was in 4rth grade. Hell, I think about that head case that snapped at my wife when she asked about pet sitting service like 10 years ago. Just kinda marvel at it, in my middle age, ya know? At odd moments, when I'm stuck in traffic. So, if that means I'm obsessed, then you've got alot of company. Now, *I* have no problem admitting it, because I don't think it's actually an issue. I'm just worried you'll assign undue importance to yourself at this late stage of your life when you're probably looking for all of it you can get. And planning out your cat lady years possibly. I can't have that, but, I've had the urge to write this for awhile (like that Omega Man reboot!), so here it is.
Let me say it plain. I don't give half a shit if you were chain whipped in a parking lot when you were 8 or molested by your uncle last month. And honestly from what I've seen and heard, and just what I know about people in general, I really doubt you went through some Batman style tragedy. What you did used up any sympathy I had (and I had quite a bit), because I don't understand it, and there's nothing to understand. It's so petty and pathetic and pointless, and dumb, and you should have known better, and the older I get, the dumber it seems. What you did was the equivalent of walking off a job that had invested everything in you because you're scared of confrontation. Or you just didn't give a fuck. Leaving them to call and call and finally figure out after x weeks you just abandoned it instead of taking 2 minutes to write a "I quit, best of luck", and then you'd be done. And then exert maximum effort ducking those calls.
Ghosting is a chickenshit bitch baby maneuver. If you give someone their walking papers and they don't get the hint, ok. But ya didn't even try. In the immortal words of Buddy Revell, how does that even feel?
Let's be clear. That's what I have heartburn with. Not the wasted time, not the wasted effort, not the wasted dollars (and wow, how hard would it have been to save me those too, don't think I couldn't use a new dishwasher and a plumber to fix my faucet). I would have had the maturity to read a brief little blurb, cry it out a week, move on, and keep all the positive feelings and thoughts about you (unmerited though they were). Would have been no embarrassing "are you alive over there" phone calls, maybe you would have got a John Hughes-esque Ducky style final letter that you could have tossed in the trash, and that would have been the end of it. Honest. Everybody wins.
But you didn't have even the most minimal amount of respect for me. "There's someone else, best of luck." Oh man. Hard, hard, emotionally high effort stuff. So fuck you.
For a long, long, far too long time I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and I mean, up until about 2016 when I finally sent you that IM, just to see what you had to say, if anything. It was so obvious, but if you were in IT like me, you'd understand this. Some days, you get a technical problem, and you're just so overloaded and stressed, you can't think even think about it. Then, you take a weekend, get just a little more information come back to it, and solve it like snap. That was you, could finally look at you without the rose colored glasses. I wasn't expecting an apology, never believe that, but the whole "don't remember you/never knew you" play? That was so tired and cliche. When people get that fucking predictable, that's the time when I'm able to write them off. And then, this is the knee slapper to me, ya go dark 3 years. Now that more than anything put everything into perspective. You went from some poetic chivalric love figure to the trite little bumpkin you are. Thank christ for me getting perspective and seeing that mountain for the mole hill it is.
Oh, and my Facebook is wide open, philosophical and political posts, family pics etc, to any sack of shit I tangle with online. I don't live in fear of you, or my closest relatives, or some ass I just schooled on Newsweek who just declared virtual jihad on me. I never even been reported far as I know! I think it's important for my friends to see that when I write things (like this), that the current reality is me with my wife and kids and for enemies to see that my life is objectively better and happier than theirs. You can call it egotistic and self destructive, but I have a compulsion when people say I'm this and that or will wind up a certain way, and the fact is they're so wrong they shouldn't even be ordering lunch. I'm a teacher that way, ya dig?
I'm grateful I met you though. Not because of anything positive you did intentionally. But I met my wife while waiting for you one of those nights you were probably washing your hair. My wife is great, as I tell her near daily. She has loads of balls (not physically mind you) compared to your average woman, and compared to you? Makes me laugh thinking about what'd she do to you in argument, fist fight, or hell, even a math competition. She's travelled the world, got the husband she wanted, the house she wanted, the kids she wanted. If she really wants to buy that dish washer I alluded to, she could do it too without going into debt. Can buy 10 of them without breaking a sweat actually, but hey, it was a rough year. But on that note, still, fuck you.
But wife. I give her full credit for where she is and what she is. Have two beautiful, special kids that I wouldn't have had with a partner who wanted them less. She'll be 39 this spring, and I expect her to hit 40 sometime in the next 20 years. If I need help, or someone to listen, or if she needed to go to work at a job where they were less understanding about your crippling social anxieties, she could do it.
It wasn't all peaches and cream some of the middle years. Wife had her temper, her entitlement, your typical female communicating in signals and not big boy words issues. Didn't like to be told no. Expectation of a charmed princess life which I and, let's face it, probably some 90% of men in today's world weren't equipped to give her. But I could at least wrap my mind around those issues, there was actual substance to them and we worked through them. I try imagining working through, say, managing a budget with you, as an adult, and know right off there was never any chance of that. So I *should* thank you for what you did, and helping me dodge that bullet relatively quickly and cheaply, but still, I could have avoided that heartburn altogether for the price of about 2 minutes on your part, and $800 would buy alot of Hillshire Farms, so again, fuck you.
Old me believed love conquers all, he had faith in the best version of people. He believed there was some effort he could make, some combination of magic words you could say to anyone to get through. He believe if you put all your feelings into those words, they'd come across, and touch whatever part it is inside someone's self that writes a two sentence blurb to the dipshit who's still taking one's words at face value. If he just gave what he never had and was always looking for to someone else, well, at the very least, that person would recognize it for what it was and respect it enough to respond with the kind of common courtesy I expected out of say, a middle schooler.
Current me knows better. You do your best, but you either pull a nut, or you don't. Doesn't matter what you hope or believe about them, only what you're able to read between the lines. Often times, it really doesn't matter what the fuck you do or say. Stumbling, bumbling words work about as well as poetry on either type. Either you can reach them, or you can't, and it depends entirely on them. it's just that simple.
Current me knows when to cut his losses and stop taking shit. He looks at actions, and weighs them appropriately against words. He knows he'll almost never get a straight answer, so he has to take what little he knows, apply logic, and come to a conclusion, not based on what he wishes, but what is. It's a really useful minor superpower that I hope to pass on to my kids before they have to learn it the hard way. He's lost an awful lot of romantic misconceptions, but at least he'll never get Amway ambushed again. He's got a dark, gallows humor, because the overly serious thing sure didn't work, and that's how you cope. So thanks for that, and fuck you.
After I solved your riddle of bullshit, so to speak, I felt really cold for awhile, ya know? Some part had always held out hope I guess, foolishly, that there was some better explanation for you doing what you did than you just being the weepy, maudlin asshole I know you are. It's like a murder plot where you've got two characters and one is the victim, how trite, ya know? And understand, I was FULLY prepared to accept any fault on my part. But after 2016, I saw how pointless that was. Nah, I think I can put it all on you, I really do. Because hey, let's face it. If I was a rich model, would you have ever pulled that shit? Bet not.
I had in mind a long list of things I wanted to write, but I think I've actually got to the end, so I'm going to switch gears and wrap this up on a positive note.
I wondered if having my obvious answer was worth that coldness for awhile. I knew what I should have known, but I didn't feel better, at first. Then, I'd say a month after, I started comparing you to my wife, and ya know what? I always appreciated her, but compared to you? I feel luckier than ever. She's Netflix and you're Blockbuster. I used to wish the best for you, but now, I just wish you what I know is ahead of you. You might be married or in a relationship, but I'm doubtful. Does a person who is, or if they are, is content, post the shit you do? Not that I've seen.
I see cats in your future. Lots and lots of cats. Or someone other animal/plant that doesn't have the option of opting out. Enjoy today, I guarantee tomorrow won't be any better.
PS
I came back to this today, thinking I'd make it private, but I actually don't think it's too bad so I'll leave it up. In therapy, a classic technique is writing a letter to someone and then not sending it, and that's all this really is. I've written lots of these kind of letters, believe it or not. Once again, the ONLY thing special about you is what I mistakenly projected on you, I want to reiterate that. That's been apparent for years, but seeing is believing, and I feel like I saw, and now I not just know it, I believe it too. Consider this. I got this out of my system, and I don't think I'll ever need to write this sort of letter again, at least in regards to you. What else is there to say? If one of my kids had your sort of outlook and life, or even wound up with such a person, I'd wonder what the hell I did wrong