Mothers Day

Today is my one-year anniversary of being a dog parent. My little guy, Teh Doggeh, and I celebrated by splitting a bowl of popcorn.

Teh Doggeh and I have had some rough patches in our first year together. When I first got him, I burst into tears because he didn't come bounding out of his carrier and jump up on me. In fact, it took him about two hours to come out of his carrier at all, and then, he mostly just shook with fear. He got used to me eventually. We also had a few incidents where he tore up my things and one occasion on which he pooped on my couch. But this morning, I woke up sleeping on my right side to see him sleeping on his right side with his head on the other pillow, and I was so happy that we were together.

Jackass

So, Reefer Madness finally confirmed me as a friend on the friendship/networking website in which we both participate. Stupid jackass -- leaving me in limbo for two weeks and then confirming me only after he's blown me off for plans. I wish I could punch him in the head, but that would be uncouth.

Why Did I Get Married?

When I was out to dinner the other night with my friend, talking about my alleged love for Cindy Kim, we were also talking about our former high school classmates who had gotten married. My friend said he doesn't see me getting married until I'm in my late 30s because he I'm enjoying the kind of life I have now and he can't see me deciding to settle down until I can say "this is exactly who I am." My first thought was, "Dick." My second thought, after I let the idea simmer a little, was "What a relief."

There's something kind of relaxing about the idea of thinking that marriage is something far off in the future. Many of my friends are engaged or married or otherwise in the process of settling down now, and it makes me feel pressured to do likewise and it exacerbates my feelings of loneliness. It draws attention to all the things I don't like about being single instead of letting me focus on all the reasons that have led me, consciously or subconsciously, to steer clear of major commitments that might lead to the altar. There's something empowering about thinking that I remain single not because I'm not good enough to be chosen but because I'm still trying to sort out who I am.

Get Up Stand Up

I went out to dinner with a friend of mine last night, and when I brought up Cindy Kim, my friend unveiled his hypothesis that I like him before I even said how disappointed I had felt when Cindy Kim told me he didn't have time to see me again for a month or so. As my friend and I discussed the situation, we pondered whether Cindy Kim's making the comment about my supposed acne, while completely inappropriate and hurtful no matter that he treats acne for a living, might have ultimately had the positive effect of making him more attractive to me. It cannot be denied that I thought about him more than I otherwise would have. My friend's theory was that, before the comment, when Cindy Kim and I went out, I thought I was better than he was, and that I took umbrage because, at some level, I felt like he was failing to show the proper deference that the ugly friend should show to the pretty friend (not that Cindy Kim is ugly -- I'm oversimplifying to make my point). And yet, his uppity behavior engendered increased feelings of respect because he wasn't afraid to say what he really thought, even if it was something negative. I mean, I have a strong personality, and I know that. But the last thing I want is a boyfriend who is a milquetoast because I am not going to respect someone who lets me run all over him. I don't want someone who is combative or who craves drama and argument, but I want someone who is unafraid to assert his opinion or to question my opinions. My closest friends have that quality of being willing to stand up to me, and even if it annoys me for a minute when they challenge me, I am ultimately grateful that they do it. With this acne remark, Cindy Kim revealed himself to maybe, possibly have the stones to be that kind of person, which I had previously not suspected and which I now find appealing.

I've Been Looking So Long at These Pictures of You

I saw a picture of someone I used to like, and I could not remember at all what it was I found so attractive about him. Maybe it was the angle or the lighting or the stupid hat he had on (white guys should not wear those newsboy caps -- even Britney Spears has given up that look), but I seriously could not remember why I was pining for him for so long or why I was so wounded when he blew me off.

This dude and I worked together for a very short time at my previous job in my former city, so most of our process of getting to know each other has taken place over email. This is a powder keg for me. I can overlook almost any shortcoming if a man can be charming in writing, which is dangerous. Anyone can compose a few witty, flirtatious lines, given enough time. I even revise some of what I write here to make my words crisper or more sparkling. The take-away point here is, I think, that you can't allow yourself to develop romantic feelings for someone on the basis of correspondence. This seems like something I should already have known.

I feel like what I'm writing here is sort of disjointed because I have one eye on the computer and one eye on The Jane Austen Book Club. I like the movie better than the book -- that rarely happens.

I'm Taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line

I made plans today to head back to my former city of residence for the first time since I moved here. To avoid having a whole stressful weekend of running around from place to place to see this one and that one, I'm going to go on a Friday and a Saturday and work out of another of my company's offices on Friday. I also opted to stay in a hotel rather than couch surf with any of my friends so that whoever I stay with won't have to organize his or her entire schedule around my comings and goings. Plus, I like to stay in hotels.

I kept putting off this visit because I didn't feel like going back to my old stomping grounds, but now I'm really looking forward to seeing my friends again

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby, Right Round Like a Record, Baby

I may have misjudged someone. No, not Reefer Madness. He's still douching it up.

There's this guy I've hung out with a few times since I moved here. Let's call him "Cindy Kim" for reasons that may become clear to any Harold and Kumar fans out there. I didn't initially realize that this person and I were spending time together in a dating sense because we are different religions (read: he is one and I'm not), and it was my understanding from our mutual close friend that he only dates women who share his religious background. Recently, I started to question whether the information I got from our friend about Cindy Kim was accurate because he started saying some things about how we were on dates, had been on previous dates, and so forth. During the "date" when I started to catch the snap, Cindy Kim used his professional knowledge to make an observation about my skin that I didn't care for, and I basically vowed never to talk to him again.

Cindy Kim is, on paper, a perfect boyfriend candidate. He's attractive, well-educated, relatively clean, and poised for great professional success. He's also a genuinely nice person who just happens to stick his foot in his mouth once in awhile (who doesn't?). I didn't think I was interested in him in that way, but I figured I would probably end up marrying him whether I liked it or not.

He sent me a few very nice emails while I was studying for a big test in February that, in spite of my efforts to maintain my steely resolve, charmed me. My frostiness melted tinily.

Tonight, he called me. I hadn't heard from him in awhile, and we hadn't (and still haven't) gotten together since the big skin remark debacle, and I admit I screened his call. I wasn't going to call him back until tomorrow, but I was bored and slightly curious to hear what he might have to say. We ended up talking for almost an hour, and I really enjoyed speaking with him. There was a good mix of substantive conversation and flirting. Perhaps most tellingly, when he told me he probably wouldn't be able to get together to see me again until May, I was damned disappointed. I was surprised by how disappointed I felt -- and that I felt disappointed at all -- considering that I had screened his call in the first place.

What is happening here? Maybe I'm just tired or over- or under-caffeinated, but I am feeling like up is down, black is white, and my Cindy Kim might be becoming my Maria Quesa Dilla.

People Always Told Me, "Be Careful What You Do and Don't Go Around Breaking Young Girls' Hearts"

Okay. It is now Friday, and I believe it may be time to accept that Reefer Madness is, in fact, blowing me off. I really don't get it. He sounded happy to hear from me and excited about the idea of hanging out. I don't want to send him another email to remind him or nudge him because I think that pestering him is probably not the way to go here.

I'm disappointed in him. I thought he must have changed since high school, but I overestimated him. I'm also bummed because I just had the strongest feeling last Friday that I should email him, and whenever I've followed that feeling before, it has been right. Oh well. Like I said before, at least now I don't have to wonder whether Reefer Madness was the one that got away or anything like that. Ass.

I Just Can't Get You Out of My Head

All important life lessons can be learned from the Golden Girls. Today, I was thinking about one episode of the G-Girls in which Blanche attempts to help Dorothy raise her self-esteem by sharing a mantra that she repeats when she feels a little down: "My name is Blanche Devereux, I am beautiful, men find me desirable, and people want to be my friend." (Of course when Dorothy tries it, Blanche says, "You're supposed to say three things that apply to you. Like, 'I'm Dorothy Zbornak, I'm a good speller...I'm very prompt...and...' Well there's no law that says there has to be three.") The take-away point is that part of positive self-esteem is engaging in a positive internal monologue.

I've taken more note lately of my internal monologue, and I can't believe how many negative thoughts I have about myself. I am working hard to reprogram myself to eliminate this.

Take the current situation with Reefer Madness. I still haven't heard from him in response to the email I sent last Saturday suggesting we try to make plans for this weekend. I've been bummed out about that, and I've been assuming that he's blowing me off. But what reason do I really have to draw that conclusion?

There are only two possible things happening here -- either Reefer Madness is blowing me off or he is not. I have no information to support either theory. I have no way of knowing his thoughts or intentions. The only things I do know are: (1) when I emailed him initially, he responded that same day and said it was good to hear from me and sounded enthusiastic about getting together in the future, (2) he told me he is around most weekends, thus providing me with a guideline for proposing plans, and (3) he has not followed up on my suggestion of next weekend as a possible time to hang out. Why would I conclude that he's blowing me off? There is very little to go on here and the evidence that exists supports the idea that he has every intention of making a plan but just hasn't done so yet. There are many reasons why I might not have heard from him -- he's busy with his rigorous school program, he's waiting to see whether he's going to have time this weekend, he assumes that I'll interpret his silence as acceptance -- other than that he's leaving me hanging. So why would I choose to believe the worst?

Not only have I been polluting my brain with these negative thoughts about being blown off, but I have been making it even worse by assuming that it would have something to do with me. It really doesn't make sense for Reefer Madness to totally blow me off, but if he is doing that, I don't think there's any real basis for taking it personally. If someone invites you to hang out and you agree and then you fail to cooperate in making a concrete plan, that makes you a dick. It is no reflection on the other person.

I am skeptical of The Secret and its ilk, but there may be something to the power of positive thinking, at least as it pertains to conversations one has with oneself. Maybe the fact that I assume that people are blowing me off or the fact that I take it personally when people fail to comport themselves with proper manners is attracting more of those types of situations into my life. Maybe if I reprogrammed myself to assume that people are going to do what they say they are going to do, even if their timetable differs from my expectations, and that if people do not do what they say they are going to do, that says something about them and not about me, I would not attract jackasses into my life quite as much. Or at least I wouldn't feel so bad about myself when I do. In any case, I'm giving it a shot.

Communication Breakdown

I'm having one of those weeks where it seems like nobody is responding to anything I'm sending out there.

After much unnecessary agita, my troubleshooters finally got back to me about the various things that need fixing in my apartment. I'm slightly annoyed that my call to the actual landlord was not returned (I pay him rent in a timely fashion every month and he can't be bothered to return my phone calls?), but I'm going to overlook it for now. The truth is I stumbled ass-backwards into an apartment in a superb location for a great price that allows me to have a pet, so unless the walls cave in, I'm not moving out for a long time. And even then, it would depend on which wall it was because one of my neighbors is really hot, and I might not mind it that much if our apartments were suddenly merged.

I still haven't heard anything from Reefer Madness either. Like I said, I'm basically assuming that I'm being blown off at this point, which pisses me off, but it occurred to me that I might be dealing with another species of rude behavior. I used to date this guy who would send me an email saying something like, "Are you free for dinner on Friday X or Friday Y?" to which I would respond with something like, "Friday X would be great for me." I would then hear nothing further from him for two weeks. Assuming that he'd blown me off, I would make alternate plans for Friday X. Then, on Friday X or maybe on Thursday X, I would get an email from him saying, "So, we're still on, right?" to which I would reply with a slightly more tactful version of the sentiment, "Um, no, we are not because you never gave me any indication that you, in fact, intended to show up on that date so I made other plans." I'm using this erstwhile consort of mine as an example, but he's not the only person who's ever done this to me. It makes me crazy when people do this. In my younger days, I used to assume the person was tacitly accepting the plans and would often be disappointed to be blown off at the last minute after having turned down something else I could have been doing and be left with no plans at all. As I've grown older and marginally wiser, I've taken the position that if you can't be bothered to affirmatively confirm plans, you assume the risk that I'm going to bump you for someone who can. Now, the reason I am concerned that this would not be the case with Reefer Madness is that we did not even have plans narrowed down to a specific day. I just threw out the general idea of this coming weekend (forgetting that it is Easter, not that I have Easter-related plans, but I'm sure other people do). Yet at the same time, I can't totally allow myself to believe that he would be blowing me off because that just seems like such a gratuitously dick move. Of course, after promising myself I wouldn't let myself get caught up in this, I have obsessed about it non-stop since Saturday.

I've also been trying to reach a friend of mine at work, and I haven't heard any responses from her either.

I'm starting to think I'm in some kind of technology dead zone and all of these people are trying desperately to contact me, but I can't receive their transmissions. Maybe it's a full moon or something, or they're all busy trying to get straight with JC before Easter.

Design of a Decade

I haven't heard anything from Reefer Madness in response to my suggestion that we make a plan to get together next weekend. It took him about eight hours to respond to my first email, but it's been three days and he hasn't responded to my second, so I conclude that he isn't going to.

I wish I could say I'm not disappointed by this, but I am. I initially approached him by email, and he could easily have ignored my suggestion that we meet up to discuss what we've both been doing over the last ten years or so. I would have been slightly miffed but unsurprised. I expected him to ignore me. But when he responded by saying that he thought getting together was a good idea, I mistakenly interpreted that to mean that he actually wanted to make a real plan.

I have noticed in the past that some people, when they say that they think getting together would be a good idea, actually mean the exact opposite of that. This is so rude. If someone emails you out of the clear blue after over a decade of radio silence, you have a right to ignore that person. However, if you choose not to ignore her, and you choose instead to gratuitously agree to drink a caffeinated or alcoholic beverage with her and engage her in conversation, you are then obligated by the rules of politeness to cooperate with her efforts to set a meeting place and time. It's just good manners, and if you didn't want to go, you shouldn't have agreed to do it in the first place.

Though I am annoyed, I am not entirely shocked by Reefer Madness's behavior. The last time we were in each other's lives, he disappointed me profoundly, and even though I can, at some level, concede that he has probably matured and changed in the ensuing years, I remained wary. Apparently, I was right to do so. I am trying to smooth over my twinge of disappointment by assuring myself that it is his loss (opinions to the contrary are unwelcome). Back in high school, he obviously, at some point in time, wanted to be in my life, even to be my boyfriend, and he bungled it. In virtually every case, that would have been the end of the situation, but in this case, circumstances brought us both to the same city as adults and is giving him a second chance to get to know me better and see if we could be friends. It's so unlikely that the two of us would have ended up here together that I allowed myself to believe that we were fated to be in each other's lives again at some level. I may have let my sense of romance get the better of me there, and I may have confused fate with coincidence.

Because I feel the need to learn some kind of lesson here, I'm considering the possibility that the result of this situation was not supposed to be that Reefer Madness would have a chance to correct his past mistake but rather that I would have the chance to see that this guy I thought was so fantastic was kind of a douche. In other words, this is teaching me that Reefer Madness is not the one that got away. He's just some guy who seemed pretty awesome to me for a minute in high school who's grown up into a somewhat inconsiderate adult who happens to live in the same city as I do.

It's fitting that Reefer Madness and I would have this run-in now because I've been in a weird state for a few months of wanting to hark back to high school all the time. I wasn't that into high school when I was in it, but I have been driven by the urge over the past few months to resolve some issues or repair some relationships from that period in my life. I had written to a guy that I felt I had been a shitty friend to, and I recently got a very nice letter back from him basically saying that he remembers our friendship fondly and harbors no ill will whatsoever toward me. It felt good to let go of some of the guilt I felt in that situation, and I think it inspired me to try to revisit the situation with Reefer Madness, which had been very painful for me at the time. Unfortunately, it does not look like any soulful conversations over coffee and/or alcohol are in my future, at least not next weekend. This is probably a sign that I should stop looking backward, or at least stop looking backward to such an awkward time in my life, and stop romanticizing guys like Reefer Madness who were not that great to begin with, and try to slouch toward the future.

In Which I Am an Invertebrate

When I was a little kid, my parents used to deploy time-honored parental tricks for having a conversation right in front of me without my knowing what they were talking about. They spelled things, as many parents do, but because of my father's great love of words, they also threw in the occasional fifty-cent word they thought I wouldn't know. One day, when I was probably in the first or second grade, my father referred to some enemy of theirs as an "invertebrate," and I yelled, "THAT MEANS HE HAS NO SPINE!" I think that was the end of their attempts to talk over my head.

I realized recently that I may be an invertebrate myself (probably because my mother has been screeching at me about this problem until the veins stand out in her neck). I've always been aware of a reluctance on my part to express my real feelings to friends or romantic companions in a direct way (passive-aggressiveness is no problem), and I'm trying to improve on that, but my recent revelations revolve around more mundane issues.

Specifically, I'm having some trouble with my apartment. I've been renting this apartment for about four and a half months now, ever since I moved here. It's an okay space in a terrific location for a very reasonable rent, so I'm loath to move out of it unless I were to buy something. The problem is that there are a few things wrong with the apartment. For instance, in early January, I noticed that the temperature on my oven's knob bore no relationship whatsoever to the temperature inside the oven, ruining all food. Also, one burner of the stove didn't work properly, and the stove liked to turn itself off and on at random. I would probably be dead now if I had a gas stove, but since it's electric, I just live in fear of burning down the building and destroying all my possessions. Getting this oven business resolved is not as easy as complaining to the landlord. The landlord has created an extra layer between himself and his tenants by establishing two married tenants of extremely long standing as his on-site troubleshooters. These troubleshooters are very nice people, but the wife has a day job, and neither one of them moves very quickly to address problems. That's why I find myself over two months later still with the same piece of shit oven (and no rent deduction to compensate me for my inability to bake).

My mother keeps pestering me to make more of a fuss about this oven. She's right in saying that, as a tenant, I probably have all the rights as against my landlord. However, I am hesitant to put my bitch face on about this because the aforementioned troubleshooters have been here for decades and decades and will be here long after I have departed, and I'd rather maintain a friendly relationship with them to make my own residence here more pleasant. So, I've been maintaining a facade of Job-like patience in the face of these oven trials despite my desire to tell everyone involved to go to hell and give me a rent reduction as well.

My irritation bubbled over this weekend when the lights in my bathroom stopped working. My bathroom is a time capsule dating back to the 1950s, and lighting is provided by two fluorescent bulbs flanking the mirror. Right after I moved in, the right bulb stopped working. I ignored it and soldiered on with one functional bulb until the left bulb finally my mother came to visit two weeks ago and marched me to the hardware store to replace the light bulbs. For a few days, my bathroom was aglow, and then the bulbs started working intermittently, and then they stopped working entirely.

I emailed the troubleshooters about this yesterday in connection with a question about my oven. The lady troubleshooter responded to the oven inquiry but ignored the lighting issue. I responded thanking her for the oven update and letting her know, as pleasantly as possible, that I want an electrician in my apartment in the next day or two to restore light. (I don't think that being willing to spend three or four days without light in the bathroom marks me as an unreasonable or high-maintenance tenant.) My mother thinks I need to basically kick down the troubleshooters' door and demand an electrician in my apartment at once, but I'm afraid to be identified as a problem tenant and have them not renew my lease at the end of the year. So, my plan is craftier. I'm going to wait until Tuesday, and if I haven't heard a definite time when an electrician will be repairing my problem, I'm going to take matters into my own hands and call someone.

The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get

I still haven't heard back from Reefer Madness, but I'm busy preparing for our possible coffee outing by working myself into a frenzy about what we might discuss. Specifically, is he going to call me out about the stalking?

In the interest of letting go of the past, I'll be honest about what this stalking entailed. Bear in mind that Reefer Madness and I attended different high schools, so there was no opportunity to encounter him during the school day, whether intentionally or by chance. My stalking was confined to driving by his house (which was not on the way to anything) and generally being in the vicinity of where he practiced sports. Whether or not he ever noticed these things or saw me or heard about them is unknown, but I am certain that he knew I had feelings for him that long outlasted his feelings for me. Obviously, we are not talking about "stalking" in the prosecutable sense, but he was my inappropriate quarry.

Let's assume that we do actually get together. Even if our past association does not come up at the first meeting, if we spend more time together in the future, we will inevitably turn to the subject. It cannot be avoided. It is the elephant in the room of any future relationship we might have (even if the room itself is not yet constructed, or is derelict and in need of rebuilding, the elephant is already there). The mind must leap ahead several steps to get from the present moment to actually making plans to see one another to incorporating each other into our regular schedules, but I am so distressed over having to discuss my past behavior that I feel the need to organize my thoughts now so as not to be taken by surprise. (He is smart and cunning, so I can't rely on my superior intellect to dodge or bluster through questions.)

The most important step in choosing what I want to say if questioned on this topic is to ascertain why I was stalking him in the first place. I don't know exactly. Reefer Madness and I were, at the tender age of sixteen, engaged in a classic male-female struggle; the male pulled away from the relationship without explanation, leading the female to engage in crazy behavior in an effort to get closure and figure out why the relationship ended. Sex and the City addressed this very topic when Berger inexplicably broke up with Carrie, and those two were about twenty years older than Reefer Madness and myself, so we were obviously mature for our ages. So, part of the problem was that I never understood what caused the sudden reversal of his feelings about me. He and I never discussed it directly, relying instead on Iago as our biased and deeply flawed go-between. I had all these feelings that had developed for him that suddenly had no healthy outlet.

The other major piece of the puzzle was something for which Reefer Madness, or even the more sinister Iago, cannot be held accountable. Reefer Madness's apparent rejection of me in favor of my very best friend played into some insecurities that bedeviled my friendship with Sniffles for its entire fifteen-year duration. The way I saw things, Sniffles was this beautiful man-trap who would absorb all the male attention in the room, and I was the Velma. It meant a lot to me that Reefer Madness liked me even though he met both of us at the same time. It made me feel important, and it made me feel like he was special, because he could see something in me that was invisible to the other guys I knew. To hear that I was wrong about him and that he, like everyone else (I imagined), finally realized that Sniffles was the prettier one and the one upon whom all romantic attentions should be lavished devastated me. I was a seething cauldron of insecurities already, and this betrayal cranked the heat up to psycho levels. It is worth remembering that it is highly possible that Reefer Madness's defection to the Sniffles camp was entirely, or at least partly, fabricated by Iago as part of his campaign to be a total fucking asshole for no reason.

I obviously can't lay that whole load of personal issues on Reefer Madness no matter what happens between us, but I think that I could reasonably cut it down to saying, "I really liked you, and I thought you liked me too, and then all of a sudden you didn't like me anymore and I was hearing that you liked [Sniffles], and I was really hurt and ill-equipped to deal with it, so I'm sorry for anything I did that upset you, but I was processing my disappointment as best I could," and leave it at that. Bygones and all.

A Million Little Pieces

Next weekend, I'm getting together with the guy who destroyed my heart in the tenth grade. I haven't seen him in eleven or twelve years, but circumstances have conspired such that we find ourselves both living in the same city far from where we grew up.

Back in high school, this guy (let's call him Reefer Madness) and I were introduced by a mutual friend (let's call him Iago). Iago and I had gone to high school together and then he transferred to Reefer Madness's high school. Every once in awhile, I would get a phone call from Iago to hang out. I always suspected Iago had crush on me, but he was a flirtatious person, and he basically had a crush on every woman he knew, so it wasn't something that made me feel special or even singled out. I directed Iago's rampant libido toward my best friend at the time, Sniffles (not that he got anywhere with her), and, while he was intoxicated by the possibility of tapping Sniffles's ass, Iago got the idea of introducing Reefer Madness and me.

The problem was that Iago's idea was too good. Reefer Madness and I really liked each other. He told mutual friends of ours (other than Iago) how much he liked me and that he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend (God, we were so young then). At some point, Iago decided he didn't like this situation too much and Reefer Madness may have changed his mind about his feelings. So, Iago told me that Reefer Madness had decided he didn't like me anymore and he liked Sniffles instead. My little teenage heart was broken into a million little pieces. After that, I basically stalked Reefer Madness in a variety of ways of which I am now deeply ashamed. The only thing I can really say in my defense is that I couldn't process the idea that Reefer Madness would like me one day and like Sniffles the next, or that we could have such a promising future on the horizon that would be instantly gone.

Anyway, fast forward more than a decade, and here the two of us are, both living in a city far from home. I've known for a few months now that we are both living here, but I hadn't taken any action on that issue until yesterday. When I first moved here and discovered myself once again in close geographic proximity to my former love, I considered contacting him, but I decided against it. I figured that if he rejected me back in high school, he was unlikely to want to stroll down memory lane now and I would only embarrass myself and further convince him of my undesirability as a girlfriend by inviting him for coffee. I had put him out of my mind almost entirely until yesterday when, for no reason I could pinpoint, I couldn't get out of my mind the idea that I needed to get in touch with him.

I fought myself over this for a few hours until I finally decided that I really didn't have anything to lose by shooting him an email to say hello. I suffer from this condition that makes me think that while I have changed since high school, everyone else I haven't seen since then is exactly the same. It's a silly and moderately insulting way to think. I also reasoned that even if he didn't want to see me, he was unlikely to write me an email telling me what a loser I am. At worst, he would ignore my email, and nothing would ever come of it. At best, maybe I could add another friend to my stable here in my new town. So, I emailed him and told him I had heard that we were both living in the same town (read: I found out on Facebook), and that it might be fun to get together for coffee or a drink sometime and catch up.

To my surprise, he emailed me back relatively quickly and said it was good to hear from me and that it would be fun to get together some weekend and trade tales. I responded to ask if he wanted to try to make a plan for next weekend, but I have not heard back.

I talked to my mom about it, and I said that I am going to need to look as good as possible so that I can win here by showing him what a big mistake he made all those years ago (yes, I am that petty). My mom told me it wasn't about winning or losing, and I realized that she's right. It's about tying up the score. He's already won because I was totally in love with him and he turned me down. So, right now, it's Reefer Madness: 1, Me: 0. To actually win, I would have to, like, break off an engagement with him or something. And, unfortunately for me, the only way I'm going to tie up the score is through physical appearances because he's in town going to a prestigious medical school, so it's not like he ended up as trailer trash and I can shame him with my fancy job and material wealth.

Anyway, it remains to be seen whether we'll actually get together or not. I'm not sure I'll believe it until we're face to face. It'll be interesting to see what happens if we actually do get together. I wonder if we're going to talk about all the stuff that happened all those years ago. I don't intend to bring it up, but maybe he will. I'm not sure what else we'll have to talk about. Either way, it's crazy that we both ended up in the same place. I cried so much over this guy when I was in high school, and I can't believe I might see him again.