The Meanest Thing Ever Said

M's best friend just called me.

RAGE.

My skin may begin peeling back at any moment, falling to my office floor in scorched pieces. Think: that scene where all the Nazi's die in _Raiders of the Lost Arc_. You know the one I mean. And if you don't, go stand over there with the rest of the slow children. I have no time for you now.

I am too FURIOUS.

We will call M's friend "Idiot" because he is one. My relationship with him, while I was dating M, could be described as follows: I was nice to him because he was M's friend. My relationship with him, Post M: I used him for information. Clear?

Since M and I broke up, Idiot has called often. He is the kind of person who stays with you on the phone so long that your ear gets hot and you start worrying about brain cancer. During the first two months after I found about M's cheating, I spoke on the phone with Idiot occasionally because I missed M.

Idiot reminded me of M.

I tried not to talk to Idiot about M.

Sometimes that worked. But rarely.

As I gradually came out of my post-break-up stupor, I started to come to my senses and stopped
returning Idiot's calls. Idiot is totally without tact, which made talking to him very painful. Idiot is clueless when it comes to women, so his queries about the female condition are repetitive and remedial. Idiot may or may not have a crush on me, which makes me uncomfortable and totally uninterested in continuing to speak with him. Lastly, Idiot KNEW THAT M WAS FUCKING KAREN, THE UNHOLY SLUTWHORE FROM HELL, AND DIDN'T TELL ME. Though my anger regarding this last was late in coming to the party in my brain, when it arrived it was salivating and hairy-knuckled and it ate all of the other guests and then went on to tear the heads off of kittens and babies.

In other words, there are many things I want for Idiot. Most of them have already been catalogued in great detail by The Marquis de Sade. None of them include, "To be his bestest friend."

When he called in November, I did not pick up. When he emailed, I did not respond. Ditto: December. Along comes January, and you would think that the guy would get the picture already and leave me fucking ALONE.

You would also think that my reasons for ceasing to have contact with him would be rather apparent. Those reasons being: I dated his best friend for eleven months. I had no basis for being friends with Idiot other than that I was dating his best friend. His best friend lied to me for a good part of that eleven month period and fucked a woman named Karen (known on these pages previously only as The Unholy Slutwhore From Hell). Idiot knew this and didn't tell me.

You! Sam! Michael! Guys! First of all: Do I look fat in these jeans? Second of all: What about this situation is so mysterious to Idiot?

Well, if you're going to give me advice now, and if that advice is going to be something along the lines of, "Be straight with him. Next time he calls, pick up the phone and tell him that you don't want him in your life. Yo." I did that.

Around the beginning of January, when I returned from Christmas to find multiple messages on my answering machine from Idiot, and when--that same afternoon--he called again. Twice. I finally picked up the phone to have a talk with him.

"Idiot," I said on that fateful afternoon, "I don't think I can be your friend. It is too hard. I am tempted to talk to you about M and that is not fair to you, and that is not fair to me. And I think it is better if we don't talk anymore."

So Idiot responds, "You know M has a new girlfriend. Or should I not tell you that?"

AR..un..ghh...I...rmm...trying...resist...re..si..st....

To my credit, I don't break out my poodle skirt and start twisting my phone cord around my finger while singing, "Tell me more. Tell me more. Was it love at first sight?"

Nor do I go all Sylvia Plath and start scraping a kitchen knife over my wrists. (Yet. I wasn't coordinated enough to hold the phone and scrape at the same time.)

But, we all know that I don't stop him.

"She's sweet," he begins.

Of course she is.

"He's--you know--a little rough around the edges and she has a really great way of handling that. But, if it makes you feel any better, he went home for two weeks at Christmas and was worried because he didn't miss her. So he's not sure that she's the one. What do you think? Do you think if he didn't miss her she's not 'It'?"

I stutter, "I don't think he can miss people."

Here it comes. Wait for it. Wait. He's about to say The Meanest Thing Ever Said.

"Sure he does. He missed Karen."

...

...

He missed Karen.

Wow.

I still can't believe the Idiot would actually tell me that my ex-boyfriend. Who I loved. Missed. MISSED. The woman he fucked behind my back.

...

...

It dazzles the mind.

...

...

WELL, anyway, even I am not that sick and self-sacrificing.

"Look, Idiot," I respond, "That is exactly the type of thing that makes me not able to talk to you. I don't want to know about M. I don't. I want to be happy and move on with my life and forget I ever knew him or you. Good-bye."

And I hung up.

Since then, you have all been witness to my M detoxification. I have, in effect, been blogging that man right out of my hair.

I've blogged out my concerns about M's New Girlfriend until, frankly, I've more or less stopped thinking about her. And, I'm making progress with M as well. I didn't, for example, respond to his pathetic "Thinking of you" text message in December (which he sent *she notes with a satisfied grin* while he was dating this new girl).

I have not called him. Even while drunk in taxis late at night. You should be impressed about this. It's amazing. It is, I believe, a testament to my strength and ageless wisdom. At least, that's what Nelson Mandella said when he wrote to congratulate me on the achievement.

So, WHY would Idiot call me--after ALL OF THAT--just weeks later--to tell me that...

...he met Deryl Hannah.

And he thinks I look like her.

RAGE. On so many levels. Daryl Fucking Hannah? RAGE.