ALL ABOUT ME

You know, the funny thing is that two people in the last week have described me as "hard" in the sense of hard-nosed or unyielding. This is sort of odd, although it's true.

I am actually a very forgiving and flexible person, and I try every option first, but then once somebody reaches my limit, and I flip over into "giving up" or whatever, there's just nothing that can be done. I mean, I've already given you every chance, every option, and you blew it.

I think this confuses people, because they get used to me being forgiving and nice about stuff, and they think it will just continue forever.

But it's like my last stalker (not counting Mr. Wanky-wanky, who I don't think had technically reached stalker territory yet). You know, I was nice to him, and tried to help him out, but once he crossed that line, it was, "Don't contact me again or I'll get a restraining order," and that was it. It was meant sincerely. If I ever hear from him again in any way, he'll get a visit from the police. Period. No questions asked, no excuses made, nothing.

One of the people who called me hard was Laurence. We were discussing people who cheat on their wives. I said, basically, that asking my ex for a divorce was the hardest thing I've ever done, and that if I had to go through all of *that* to do the right thing, then I have no sympathy or time for people who just sleep around. I'm sorry, if you've decided that your relationship is screwed enough that you want to see someone else, then bloody well do the honorable thing and talk to your partner about it. It can't possibly be as difficult for you as it was for me, but I did it, and I did it *before* one of us went out and cheated on the other.

So does that make me hard? I suppose so.

Anyway, there's this kind of funny story about that, or at least it's funny to me.

Right before I left San Francisco, I found out that my friend Megan is friends with my ex-boyfriend Stephen, which is a really bizarre coincidence, especially since I've known Megan for a while and only just found this out.

Stephen has been sort of rude to Megan, and he was downright nasty to me.

Stephen is currently dating and living with a woman named Angie, who is insanely jealous of two people in this world--me, and my friend Laura. She's jealous with me, because she knows that for a while he was dating the two of us at the same time (not cheating or anything, he was dating more than one person, was very open about it, and I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that). She's jealous of Laura because she knows that Stephen is madly madly madly in love and lust with Laura and always will be. He's like this panting and pathetic puppy when it comes to her. Most of the reason he is that way is that Laura cops an attitude with him--she occasionally deigns to notice his existence, and Stephen is just enough of a twisted freak to wallow in that kind of treatment.

All right, so there's your background.

So anyway, Stephen is one of those people who finally crossed the line with me. He consistently was obnoxious to me and treated me like talking to me or spending time with me was doing me some kind of a favor. At some point, I got completely disgusted and that was it.

So the last time Laura was in town, she wanted to see Stephen. He said he'd pick her up at my office. When he got to my office, they buzzed me, and I sent Laura on out, but didn't come up to meet Stephen. I had no desire to see him, and so I didn't. I didn't make a big deal of it, I just couldn't be bothered to waste time going up and being polite to him, knowing full well that he'd treat me in his standard condescending attitude. Sorry, but I didn't have the time.

Knowing how he responded to Laura's treatment, you can imagine how much this bugged him. I didn't know at the time, and didn't care much. He's a worm.

Anyway, so Laura was talking to me, and she really really wants a vacation, and decided that she wants to spend it with Stephen, but she and I have both lost track of his email address and physical address. So I told her I would ask Megan to contact him and ask him to contact one of us with his address.

Megan wrote to him, and he told her she could give me his mailing address. She did, and I forwarded it to Laura.

This was a little snub on his part. It was a complete, "All right, I'll deign to let you contact me, but it will be by writing, so it will take a while."

I didn't think about this. Laura's actually the one who pointed it out to me. Basically, he's peeved about me not meeting him at the office, and now he thinks I'm trying to contact him, and this is his way of making me crawl back to him.

Laura also pointed out just what he's going to do when he realizes that I was only asking for the address for *her*--and that he is delaying his contact with the person who he salivates over the most. And furthermore, Angie is going to go to the mailbox and find a letter to Stephen from Laura waiting for her one day.

What is it they say about Karma? Whatever it is, I think she and I have something in common.