...but then I thought, "When am I gonna make it back to Haiti?"

[chanfaina]

I am only going to say this once, because I feel dumb enough as it is and I fucking hate being wrong, and I fucking hate it even more when me being wrong means someone else is right. And I fucking hate it most of all when I was on the verge of doing the right thing, then second, third and fourth-guessed myself and bought a one-way ticket to Bad

Comments

[geah]

If it makes you feel any better, I'm always right.

Now you know!

[chanfaina]

Oh, and just so it's not too cryptic -- I didn't say anything to my friend, but I did send the "Hi, casual, Butch says hi (he didn't, but I thought that throwing his name around would make it clear that I am not interested in anything except What Harry Potter Character Am I?), goodbye" OkCupid reply to future ex-husband.

And he emailed me back. I have not read it, nor do I intend to. I don't think I'll even sign in over there, not anytime soon, anyway. (The site has this annoying "Last online on [date]" feature.)

So, geah, I'm counting on you to bat 1000 here.

[geah]

First of all, I want to congratulate you on not reading his response. If you can, delete it without looking at it. Or, have a friend do it.

For the future, treat him as you would a stalker. Block his e-mail address. I'm sure the site allows you to block him from your profile.

Give him 0% feedback. Eventually, given absolutely no response, he'll leave you alone.

Really, this is boilerplate advice. I would give this to anyone in your situation. The details don't matter. The theory works for all situations of this type.

[profrobert]

Wait a second, how is this a terrible result? I thought you were going to say you told the friend, and she freaked on you. Here's the most plausible explanation: He sent a friendly note. You responded with a friendly note and conveyed greetings from your husband. I'd bet that he sent a friendly note back saying something along the lines of, "Please give Butch my regards," or maybe something like "Boy this situations with soon-to-be-ex is really hard. I'm not sure how or whether to reach out to mutual friends she brought to the relationship." If instead it says, "Hey, if you ever want to run around on your husband, give me a shout," I'll eat my proverbial hat. How you get from an exchange of friendly e-mails to this being a potential stalker?

My insecurities are showing

[chanfaina]

I don't think he is a stalker, but I don't intend to read the email to find out. I'm bummed because (a) the only reason I replied in the first place was that I was concerned about seeming rude (by "ignoring") his email and (b) my efforts at crafting The Perfect Reply (that would be polite but would also give a clear message that I wasn't interested in further communication) were a bust.

It's not an Epic Fail, just a reminder that, duh, other people rarely play according to my script. Also that if my wish is not to be in contact with someone, contacting them is probably not the way to go. I was worried about looking like a jerk, but, you know, I kind of am being a jerk. I don't want to talk to him. He might not like that. He's entitled not to like that. He's entitled not to like me because of it. I should just deal.