reply to Key

I figured that I'd slept on his email enough; my feelings weren't really any different, so I wrote Key back. I started out by saying that it took me a while to reply because I wasn't quite sure what to say, and that I really still don't know what to say, so I thought I'd just spell out for him some of the stuff that ran through my head when I got his original email.

Basically, I told him how I gave him dates when he asked about dinner, how non-ideal those dates were for me but how I did it anyway because I thought it was important, how disappointed I was when he didn't reply for three weeks, and how hurt I was when he finally did write back, only to say he wouldn't be free for dinner until a month later.

In the last paragraph, I think I told him that I didn't really want him in my life anymore. Not in such explicit terms, and I wasn't really even sure that's what I wanted to intend when I wrote it, but write it I did:

"So I don't know, Key ... I've been sleeping on this for almost a week now. I'm glad I didn't follow my gut and send you a nasty email back because that I don't think that would have been entirely productive. At the same time, I haven't really felt any less hurt. I really don't know how to directly respond to your email of getting dinner after your spring break. I feel like I'm kinda done trying to reach out to you time after time, but not before I let you know why."

... and there's no taking back emails.

When I told West Side, she asked what I thought Key would do, would he call me now to talk about it. I told her that I highly doubt he would call me, that at most he would email me back. I don't even know what he would send back in an email. I don't think I left much room there for a response. So without consciously intending for it to be, this was an email telling Key that I'm done with him in my life, not because I don't want him in it, but because the way that he is in it is unhelpful to me. I am done with getting my hopes up for him, only to be hurt again and again and again.

and who's taking care of me?

I know I'm really busy when I don't even remember to visit blogs I generally check at least once a day. I realized today that I haven't really read anyone's blog for a few days, let alone write in my own. There were several times in the past few days when I thought about writing something, with the same title as this entry, but in the end, I just didn't feel like enumerating everything.

Basically, this past week has been one big dump of flakeyness from the sky, from friends, from colleagues, from acquaintances, from everyone around me. I felt like I was going out of my way to accommodate people, but not only were my extra efforts unacknowledged, people were taking advantage of me my generosity. I'm not usually one to complain and whine (in person, not in blog-form), so even when I do go out of my way for someone, I don't really make a big deal of it. Mostly, people don't really even know my thought process, and the sacrifice (though mostly trivial) I decided to make on their behalf. But when everything backfires and nothing gets appreciated, I can only take so much.

Key's email was the first major let-down, and while one can argue how I probably was more emotionally invested in that than I would have been with any other friend, it was a huge disappointment nonetheless, and objectively speaking, I think what he did was pretty insensitive and rude.

Additionally, there is a colleague I have been helping for most of this past month on one of her major projects for the year. The big deadline was this past Saturday, and essentially, she has been making unreasonable demands on me all week leading up to the deadline. My normal working relationship with her is that she heads up a committee, and I oversee her committee, along with a few others. About a month ago, she asked me to be one of 4 others (herself included) who would form the core of organizing her big committee project of the year. Since I knew the other committees would be pretty quiet this time of year, I agreed to help her because I thought that was one way I could offer her as much support as possible.

She and I then agreed on what all sub-tasks I would be in charge with. On average, I think most people would see me as being above-competent in the tasks I complete, but she is a micro-manager at heart. She called me repeatedly to check in, including several calls when I traveled to DC and got stuck because of multiple flight cancellations due to the storm in the northeast, even after I told her I was stuck in DC and couldn't do anything. The phone calls were more annoyances than anything else, but she really got crazy in the few days right before the big deadline.

To make a long story short, as organized as she tried to be, she couldn't anticipate all the problems that did come up. I dealt with, and provided solutions, to all of them as best as I could, especially given the circumstances. 99 people out of 100 would have said "Wow, thanks so much for taking care of that for me. That wasn't exactly how I envisioned it, but it will work just great, and really is the best we can do at this point." Her, on the other hand, was completely dissatisfied and requested that I redo things including start over on something three hours before the deadline on Saturday. I'm as much of a perfectionist as the next person over, but I also know when to let up and agree that while something is not perfect, it is more than good enough.

In the end, none of my help really got acknowledged. My going out of my way for her project not only landed me no thanks but angered me and stressed me out.

So again, who's helping me?

The other big example from this past week is a good, old friend and RC both letting me down. Both had said that they would go snowboarding with me this past Sunday. I had to go because I signed up to lead a bus trip, incidentally as a favor to another friend who was really in a bind because he hadn't gotten enough volunteers (again, me going out of my way for people around me). I mentioned this to RC when I first signed up as a bus leader. Since it's to a mountain we both have season passes for, and he has his own equipment, it wouldn't cost him anything extra because the bus transportation is about equivalent to his share of a tank of gas if we drove ourselves. The bus is actually better because we can both sleep on the bus instead of having to drive.

He agreed right away to going on the bus trip with me.

I reminded RC of this toward the end of last week, mentioning that the sign-ups would be Monday through Wednesday, but that the buses usually fill up fairly quickly. He again confirmed that he would be sure to sign up on Monday. I also mentioned the bus trip to Old Friend, who canceled on a personal trip I organized a couple of weeks back for a few friends. I might add that she decided not to come on that trip when I called her to confirm the night before.

Come Monday, Old Friend signed up for the bus trip, but not RC. Tuesday, with only 6 spots left on the bus, I called RC to say he should sign up asap. He told me that he wasn't sure he wanted to go anymore and asked if Old Friend had signed up (I mentioned to RC that Old Friend had indicated interest). When I told him yes, he used that to justify his decision to no longer go. When I expressed disappointment, he thought I was unreasonable, and I told him I thought I was only holding him to what he said he would do. Regardless, it became a futile discussion because the 6 remaining spots were quickly gone.

Now Old Friend is rather notorious for not being all that reliable with her word, and West Side knows this. In fact, when I told West Side that Old Friend and I were going snowboarding, she warned me that Old Friend may drop out. I told West Side that I thought it was unlikely because Old Friend had already signed up and paid for bus+lift+rental, and she would lose all that money by canceling because the trip does not offer discounts. West Side actually told me to not be so sure.

Again, to make a long story short, Old Friend backed out of the trip, AND got away with it in terms of the money because she sold her spot to someone on the waitlist wanting to go but who couldn't sign up in time. This left me extremely upset, feeling furthered wronged by the fact that I had been completely willing, without a word, to spend a whole day on the bunny slopes with Old Friend to teach her snowboarding because this would have been her first time. I am very skittish about going down a mountain without a buddy, mainly because I got into a very major accident last season that left me not unable to walk for a couple of months. I want someone there with me should something major ever come up, and of course be there for the other person. Now, both RC and Old Friend backed out on me, and I was stuck going by myself. I couldn't back out at the last minute because I was leading the bus trip.

Three big examples, all within the same week, not to mention several small relatively trivial things I would have otherwise shrugged off (canceled dinner plans because of last minute scheduling conflict, changed meeting agenda that cut out my less-important item, pizza party with no food left when I arrived a mere 15 minutes after the event started, etc. etc)....

I just feel really really exhausted. Seriously, who is looking out for me?

losing patience

Willow called me tonight. I was in bed already, but instinctively at the sound of my ring, I jumped out to see who was calling me. I ended up screening his call and going back to bed. Usually I love getting phone calls, and I'll talk to people, even numbers I don't recognize, but tonight I was fed up with Willow.

We haven't talked for a long time, which is a bit strange given all the interactions we had at the beginning of January. The deterioration of communication really began because I no longer had three hours on end every single evening to sit in front of the computer and chat with him. Then, after a few days of this, I decided that I actually don't WANT TO sit in front of the computer and chat with him three hours each night. Furthermore, the fact that he continually has three hours each night to sit in front of the computer is reason perhaps that I should be wary. I know it's different to be working versus in school; there's not much else to do after work. But aren't there projects he wants to work on? TV he wants to watch? Or friends he wants to hang out with?

It's a bit problematic I think, when consistently, he has nothing better to do than to sit in front of his computer and chat with me for 3+ hours.

So anyway, I screened his call because I didn't want to talk to him. I have actually lost all desire to talk to him; seeing him or interacting with him is a burden right now. Not because he's not a nice person, but because I feel like his interacting with me is laden with something more than friendship, and I have nothing for him except friendship. So thinking about interacting with him is a mental block for me. I just feel a heavy weight on my shoulders.

I have to admit, though, that he is nice, and he is sweet. He called me the night before my presentation-from-hell just to say hi and to wish me luck. He would probably make a really good boyfriend, treat me in every way I would want to be treated. But in the end, I just don't feel attraction. Not to mention not wanting to get into a whole long-distance thing. That's just ridiculous. He also needs to realize how ridiculous that would be and move on and find girls down where he is.

Or maybe it really is as the saying goes: nice guys finish last. His niceness and sweetness lacks spunk, and I get bored easily.

what do I write back?

Key finally replied back to my email, the one letting him know dates I was available for dinner because he asked to get dinner together to catch up. The dates I gave him? February 7, 8, 9. And the date when I sent my email? January 30. Yeah ......

I guess from now on, I will assume his response time is on the order of 3-4 weeks.

I had actually already accepted his flakiness and was prepared to not ever hear from him again, but his email not only reminded me that just when I try to shovel him out of my life, he appears again, but also his actual response really pissed me off. He went on a while about his mom, school, snowboarding, and toward the end wrote this about getting dinner together:

I just re-read your email, and I realized that you had asked about getting dinner. I'm sorry that I didn't write back sooner -- because that deserves a response. Dinner sounds really good, actually, but right now school is really busy because of [some activity]. But maybe we can plan on something right after spring break (mid-March)?

The first part sounds pretty good; at least he's sorry (but must I always forgive him every single time he pushes me to the way-side?). The second part is just absolutely ridiculous. 80% of me wants to write back an angry email and just completely tell him off. The other 20%, the rational 20%, sits back and ponders just what exactly that would accomplish because that may in turn piss him off, and then I really wouldn't ever hear from him again. Part of what I want to do is to let him know just how much he's hurt me, how I feel, but telling him that in the past has never really ever changed things. His response has always been, "But I'm a flaky person, you know that. Don't take it personally."

What kind of a response is that?

So here's why I'm pissed with the second part: who plans dinner with someone, who lives within a couple of miles from each other, a month in advance? Furthermore, I'm more pissed because when I sent my email on the 30th, I had thought about telling him I wasn't free until after my humongous presentation. I didn't do it because I thought it was ridiculous to schedule dinner with a friend 2-3 weeks in advance.

Because I thought it was important for me to catch up with him and get dinner together, I made my sacrifices and gave him dates I was free the week after Jan 30, which essentially was the week right before my presentation-from-hell. I didn't complain; I didn't even tell him I had the presentation coming up. I just nonchalantly told him some dates I was free for dinner.

Now he tells me that he wants to schedule for something after his spring break mid-March? What kind of bullshit is that? Am I over-reacting?

Maybe the issue is that this really is only important for me, and that's why I'm making the sacrifice. But it's not important for him, so he pushes me to after mid-March. So I should just wake up, deal with it, and move on. That seems to be the trend a lot lately: me making sacrifices for others, and nobody caring about me.

So now I don't know how to respond. I know I don't want to sit back and pretend that I'm not upset, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to flat out tell him off either. So it's got to be somewhere in between where I get my point across. But just how upset should I be? I'm not sure. Do I guilt trip him? I want to, but again, what purpose does that accomplish? I'm the one with everything to lose here because I would care more than he would if we no longer talked to each other. And I can't very well blame him for being a flake if I myself take too many days thinking about how to respond that I don't actually respond.

Suggestions welcome.

dream about Email Boy

The dream about Email Boy requires the back story, a story during which I really wished I had an anonymous blog to rant to.

Email Boy was this boy I fell hard for, for a long time. I first met Email Boy when I came to Boston for grad school. He was in my department, a couple of years ahead of me. The first time I met him, I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, he's really cute. Too bad I'm getting married to Key." Well, not really getting married, but enough for us to both decide to come to Boston together after college. At that point, we had sincerely talked about marriage and thought that no matter what, we wanted to be together, and that we would come to Boston and get engaged after he finishes law school in three years. How naive of me.

At some point later in the year, I got a sense that Email Boy may be interested in me, but I was happily attached to the man of my dreams that I felt sorry for Email Boy that he was liking someone in vain. And of course, I still thought he was extremely cute, athletic, outdoorsy. All in all, a perfect guy for me if I weren't planning to get married. To someone else.

I started liking Email Boy over the summer of 2005 when Key decided that I wasn't important enough for him to stay in town for the summer and took a job in DC instead (even though he had a job offer here in town). Before he left, we planned that I would visit him once in DC, and that he would visit me over July 4th weekend. I flew down as promised, but he never came to visit me. No, I'm not bitter about that still.

Email Boy and I had quite a few mutual friends (from our department as well as from common outdoorsy interests), so we had plenty of run-ins that summer. The most memorable run-in was a camping trip we all took together. There were two cars going up, but we got separated on the drive up. So my car, which had Email Boy in it, arrived first, and as it was late, and we were all tired, we decided to go ahead and pitch the tents and go to sleep instead of waiting for the other car. There were two tents for 4 people, and other two were kinda sorta dating, so that left me and Email Boy to sleep in a 2-person tent. For those not tent-trained, a 2-person tent has a base about the size of a full-size bed. Well, obviously, nothing happened, but I believe there was a lot of unspoken temptation on both of our parts.

So my feelings for Email Boy grew and grew and grew, and while I harp on the religion issue as the breaking factor for Key and me, my lack of exclusive interest for Key was also a reason (he didn't disagree; in fact, Key told me that he, too, had started thinking about wanting to date other people when I told him that I liked someone else). When Key and I broke up in October, I happened to be at a meeting the next evening with Email Boy, and he, myself, and a friend of mine grabbed some beers at the campus pub afterwards. There, I spilled the beans that Key and I had broken up, definitely well aware of the fact that I was making sure Email Boy knew I was now single and not attached.

Thus started a series of dates-that-never-were and also how he got his name of Email Boy. At the time, I was in a different office, that was actually down the hall from him. Granted, it is a long hallway, and we were at opposite ends, but you would think being on the same floor would have been a plus for us to develop something. To make a long story short, we sent multiple page emails to each other at least once a day for about a month, saw a movie that he wanted to see with two of our mutual friends (who happened to be dating) but ended up being just him and me.

All in all, after a month plus of sending emails, I got tired. He never made a move, and all of our communication was always on email. He gave me a book as a present; he got me truffles; he scheduled an ice skating thing around my schedule, skipping a day when I was out of town. Basically, he showed interested, but never acted on interest.

This all came crashing down sometime in January when he asked me to have a talk. So this was some 1.5 months after all the ridiculous emailing started. When we sat down to talk, he basically said that he never made a move beyond email because he was scared of commitment. He told a mutual friend over the summer (the same summer we slept in the same tent together) that I'm the kind of girl he sees himself marrying. So when I became available, he was scared that I would be the last relationship that he would ever be in, and he wasn't sure he was ready for that.

"Oh, and by the way mini, I'm seeing another girl."

F-ing A. He strung me along this whole time just to tell he he's now seeing another girl? He kept saying that she's not his girlfriend or anything, and they've only been on a couple of dates, and he likes her better because he doesn't know anything about her, but we're friends, and if things don't work out between us, he would lose a friend. And he's not the one to date multiple girls at the same time, so he really thought he should talk to me and tell me that things wouldn't ever lead anywhere between us. Bullshit. In my head, I imagine some brunette bombshell (not blonde, somehow I don't think he's into blondes). A few months later, I find out she's Asian, and has quite a slutty personality. I also read her blog for a while; that's how I came to the conclusion that she was slutty.

Email Boy and Slut Asian are still dating now, more than a year later, while I've gone through 2 boyfriends and countless 1st/2nd dates. So that makes me bitter, too. Not to mention that he's a grad student, and she's finishing up her senior year, which means that when they started dating, he was 26/27 dating a girl who wasn't even allowed to drink legally.

But back to the dream I had. Slut Asian is apparently an accomplished pianist. So I dreamed that RC and I went to a concerto where she was the pianist of the orchestra. We ran into Email Boy among the audience, so I said hi, and we chit chatted, and the conversation came to Slut Asian being in the concert. So I asked Email Boy, "She's the piano player, right? Or what's actually her official title?"

I was especially proud of the double entendre of using "official title". As in, what's her official title? Pianist? Or Girlfriend?

Anyway, it was just a dream.

an awkward day

It started in the afternoon last Thursday. I was feeling rather giddy and wanted to send a text to RC, so I flipped open my phone, went to the last text in my Inbox and replied to it, sending "baby, i miss you!!"

A few minutes later, I felt my phone vibrating, and I smiled to myself thinking that RC was texting me back. Except it wasn't RC. It was Mr. Consultant. At first I was confused, then it dawned on me that I had actually texted "baby, I miss you!!" to Mr. C (oh. my. god.) and not to RC because the last message in my inbox was actually from Mr. C (he texted me during the Super Bowl).

Totally flustered, I didn't know what to do, so I tried to make it all seem funny and lighthearted, texting back:

Hahahaha!! sorry, no :)

Then I realized that the text could be misinterpreted pretty badly, as in, sorry, that wasn't for you, but just to rub it in your face, I'm gonna put a smiley face on it. So I started to text a 2nd message to explain ... Before I could finish, Mr. C texted back.

That's what I thought. Better resend to the new man in your life.

By now, I had finished my explanation text, so off it went: Sorry, I should explain more. I hit reply on my last text instead of starting a new one ... but the last one was yours about the colts :) so sorry!!

His response: Whatever dude

Which made me pause ... wait, was he mad? My first instinct was to text something along those lines, "wait, are you pissed off?" But then I thought better of it, not wanting more things to be misinterpreted ...

So I sent another sorry: Sorry again...

He writes back immediately: Really it's okay. I'm gonna delete this in case my girlfriend wants to play with my phone again

My reaction to this was, oh okay, he's being sarcastic, nothing new, but hey, he's making a joke! Yay, it's lighthearted again!

So I texted back: Haha sounds good; you do that :)

Then I get his text: Yup

This made me rethink the purpose of his sarcasm; I don't think he was trying to make things light-hearted. I think that he was indeed pissed off. But if he were so mad, why did he keep texting me back? It made no sense to me why he would have sent me the worthless text of "Yup." What could that one word possibly have been for? Nothing, so it was a worthless text. Best Friend (who's now back in the US, yay!) disagreed; she thinks that maybe he wanted to make sure he had the last word, which may be true.

I'm also confused as to why he would have gotten upset in the first place. It was an honest mistake; I didn't send the original text to him out of some weird plot of spite to rub it in his face. And we dated only three times, and it was last summer, that I think it's a bit ridiculous if he would harbor resentment that I'm dating someone new. In fact, I would think the normal assumption would be that after seven or eight months, both people have probably dated other people.

Then I thought maybe the smiley faces, my attempts to make the situation funny and lighthearted, may have pissed him off, that he really did misinterpret my first text. More and more, I think that's probably what happened. I should have just initially said something along the lines of "gosh, that was embarrassing. Sorry, the text wasn't intended for you" and just left it at that.

I did not reply to his "Yup" (what would I have even said?), and he didn't send any more texts. To add to the awkwardness of the day, I went to the grocery store later, and totally thought I saw my friend British Guy in the "Shop the World" aisle. At first, I walked right by the aisle (he didn't see me) because I didn't have time to stop & chat, and I didn't want to do a fly-by hello. Then, I saw him in the main aisle, so I had to say hi; I even waved. Until I realized that he was staring back at me with a very blank expression on his face, and he was, in fact, NOT my friend British Guy, but a complete stranger.

a confidence boost

I should mention that for the past 1.5 years, I have served in a RA-like role for a dorm of undergrads. It's a pretty sweet deal because I get a nice one-bedroom apartment for myself, and I don't have to pay rent for it, so all my graduate stipend money can go to frivolous things like shoes. Workload wise, it's really not bad at all; I maybe spend 5-10 hours a week with my students.

Another round of applications for open positions will be due soon (in mid February, I think), and the office that runs the process has been holding information sessions in the past few weeks about the role, the job description, the requirements, etc.

So RC went to one of these yesterday, and he said that the person leading the info session started things off by asking everyone present to introduce themselves and talk about why they want to apply. One guy said he wanted to apply because he knows a couple of people who currently do this, and he really thinks it's a valuable thing. So the session leader asked the applicant whom he knows, and the applicant rattled off two names, one of which was mine.

RC said that after the session leader heard the two names, he said, "Well, I'm not really familiar with so-and-so, but Mini, she's fantastic. She's really one of our best."

Wow, I didn't realize I was doing that great of a job :) I asked RC who the applicant was who mentioned my name, and he said he didn't recognize the guy. I also asked if RC himself mentioned knowing me when it was his turn to say why he wants to apply, and he said no, he just let it go.

key, flaky as always

I have a big presentation coming up in about a week (on Valentine's day, no less) and thus have been scrambling like mad to get data collected, analyzed, and into some kind of coherent form. It's interesting to note that when one thing picks up and becomes incredibly busy, others things around me seem to do the same. More interestingly, when I become focused on being productive and efficient at one thing, say research, I get more of other things done, too. It's like the energy of productivity carries over into all aspects of my life, and I become less flaky of a person for a short period of time.

Speaking of flaky, Key is flaky, and I am sick and tired of interactions with him. A day or two after the new year, I sent him an email to say hey and to talk a little bit about my trip to China last October. He had asked me about it a while ago, but I never really mentioned anything, so while sending him a "happy new year" email, I elaborated a bit on that trip.

It took him three weeks to reply. He wrote back last week, and mentioned some things about his mom, his brother, stuff that I had asked questions about in my email to him. I also said that if he's not too busy, I'd like to at least see him once or twice this semester since he's graduating in May and probably leaving Boston. In his response, he mentioned that he had accepted a job offer in DC starting this summer, so yeah dinner sometime would be great -- to really catch up.

After reading that email, I felt really good, really warm and fuzzy inside. I suggested getting together and had nothing more than a coffee or something in mind, but was ecstatic that he would mention our getting dinner some time. I wrote back a day or two later telling him days that I would be free this week for dinner ... and never heard from him again.

This got me thinking about how I was always the one to continually reach out to him. He wouldn't reply for three weeks, and not only do I not get upset, I write him back so enthusiastically and bend over backwards to make time to go to dinner with him (work is so chaotic right now that dinner would really be out of the way for me). But in general, I don't complain because I don't mind, and I regard him high enough to WANT to spend time with him, even if it is a bit inconvenient for me.

However, when he doesn't even think it important enough to warrant a reply (and this is SO typical of him), I have to ask myself what's really even worth it? I'm tired of dealing with this. I don't have to see him; I don't have to care about him. I want to not reply when he emails me back to let me know of his availability ... it's just not worth it anymore. I'm done trying to reach out to him, only to have completely not care and flake out.