Boys Still Suck, But Also I May Be an Idiot

My good friend L offered a sympathetic ear over the weekend, as I threw myself around like a spoiled child wailing, "Why doesn't he like me????" (Perhaps a slight exaggeration.) When I had finally calmed down and was able to listen to rational advice (which might have not been until Monday afternoon) L said to me, "I know you. You will totally go out with him again. If that's the case, you need to let him know it's not ok to blow you off like that. Maybe you should send him an email?"

"But what should I say?" I whined. (This should surprise no one. I tend to whine.) Also, I'm lazy or really can't think straight when I'm upset or considering confronting someone with something unpleasant. So L pretty much wrote the email for me.

It went something like this: "Fluffy, fluffy pleasantness, something about what did you do last night, blah, blah, blah... Maybe we got our signals crossed or I misunderstood, but I thought we talked about doing something this weekend? I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything, I just want to see if it's early onset dementia. I did just turn 36 recently, so dementia is not out of the question."

And I sent it. I even got a reply right away! Which went something like this: "Yeah, we did talk about that. But I sent you an email on Friday letting you know I had Saturday free and you responded saying you were looking forward to a relaxing weekend, so I took it as you were just going to take it easy. I guess our communication wasn't so good. We definitely need to make it up though..."

For the record, I never did receive the email he is speaking of. I did at some point on Friday email him that I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend, but I certainly didn't mean I didn't want to go out with him. So, yeah, communication was a big FAIL on both of our parts.

This is why email, text, IM, etc. are all really crappy methods of communication. Especially when you are just getting to know each other. I'm totally guilty though, because there are times when I would so much rather email or text someone rather than call them. But emails get lost. Tone is misunderstood. Texts have character limits (and I am chatty).

Obviously, I could have saved myself (and you all) a whole lot of misery and "boys are stupid" and all that if I had just said what I meant in my email to J on Friday. Which was "So, are we going out or what?" And he could have saved us all a whole lot of misery and "boys are stupid" and all that if he had just picked up the phone. Lesson learned.

I spoke with J tonight. (On the phone!) We have plans for later this week. Not sure what night yet, but we have plans.

P.S. L also said something really simple today that I'm going to try to remember in all of my relationships. Stop jumping to conclusions and communicate when something isn't sitting right. Simple, right? But not always easy to remember.