personality crash

So I have a friend named Tony that I met over the summer at a second Saturday/art gallery thing. He showed me a lot of attention the first night I met him, telling me how he thought I was so cool and pretty and that we would get along. Now I am usually wary of people showing so much interest so soon, but I sort of gave this guy a break. I was dating someone at the time so I told him I wasn’t trying to date anyone, and he was okay with that. We exchanged numbers and kept in slight contact, as we never added each other as facebook friends.

I ended up running into him again a few months ago at my usual bar, and he was telling me how he had never met another girl like me and how he was so excited to have me back in his life (all real crazy to me) which I found odd because it’s not like he knew me… at all. We had only spent like an hour together at the art show and I gave him a ride home because he didn’t have his car that night. When I was hanging out with him at the bar, he glommed onto me like we were a couple… when in fact he was totally cock-blocking me from trying to talk to a hot guy. So anyway, this guy wouldn’t leave me alone and finally I just bounced. Said bye to him and went home.

He added me on facebook a few days later. He was pretty good about not blowing me up, which I thought was nice. I don’t find him attractive, and although he is really nice to me, I felt like the fact that he was a little too intrusive right off the bat was unattractive. Anyway, I decided to be nice to the guy. He was pretty funny on facebook and wasn’t being too facebook-clingy, so I figured everything was fine.

Well over the weekend I wanted to play some tennis. I posted a thing on facebook about who would want to play and he started posting a whole bunch of comments saying how he wants to play and how we can do doubles and how we can dress up and have fun. That wasn’t my whole idea, I mean, having fun is fine, but I legitimately wanted to get in some tennis practice. A few people said they were in, so I planned on meeting everyone at the park at 2. I told Tony I would pick him up at noon so I could run a couple errands. Turns out that he hasn’t played tennis in 10 fucking years and he didn’t even have a racket. Seriously? You talk all this shit on my facebook page and you play like an 8 year old girl? What the fuck. Also he made me wait 15 minutes so he could finish burning me a CD (which sucked, by the way).

So anyway, I pick him up and we go to Target. Once we got into I noticed that he has his hat on backwards and his big sunglasses still on.

“Are you one of those people who wears their sunglasses inside? It looks retarded.”

“Well, I don’t like to wear my hat backwards without my sunglasses on.”

“So take your sunglasses off and put your hat forwards, you’re not Britney Spears.”

After he does that, he grabs my hand to hold it. AWKWARD. I was not wanting to hold his hand. First of all, I don’t even want a relationship with anyone, especially not him. I guess I just assumed he knew that we were just going to be friends and nothing else. I pretended like I needed to go down a certain aisle to get something, so I was able to free myself from his hand. I grabbed a bag of cat food that I had to hold with both hands so he wouldn’t try to hold my hand again. He picks out a tennis racket. We leave.

After Target, I had to go to the school to get some paperwork. That took five minutes. Then he asks me if we can drive 15 minutes out of the way to go to Arden to get a camera so he can take pictures of us playing tennis. I said that was okay because we still had a bunch of time. So we get to Arden and he finds out that the camera he wants doesn’t come with any film.

“Can we go down on Fulton to the store to get some film?”

“I am not fucking driving anywhere else for film.”

“But it’s right down the street. You just go down Arden and then left on Fulton and then it’s like two lights down.”

“Fine.”

So I turn left on Arden and get to Fulton and then turn left again… LIKE HE SAID.

“Oh no wait, where are we, oh you needed to turn right on Fulton.”

“You said ‘left.’”

“No I meant left on Arden.”

“Yes, and then you motioned with your hand to go left again on Fulton.”

I let out a low growl to show my frustration with him, and he just keeps on yammering away about shit I don’t fucking care about. I really start getting annoyed.

“So, like, what’s your life mantra? What do you live by?”

“The fuck kind of question is that? What do I live by? I live by not having a fucking mantra.”

“No, like, you’re an artist right?”

“Yes.”

“So don’t artists have philosophies and stuff?”

“Dude, I am not Leonardo DaVinci, I just live day to day and get the shit done that I need to get done, and I read and I hang out with my friends. I only get philosophical when talking about religion. I am not all new age-y with a mantra or whatever you’re talking about. Right now I am hungry so let’s go eat.”

Turns out the camera place was next door to a Lebanese restaurant that I have been wanting to try. He went in to the camera place and I sat down at the restaurant. Time started to tick by and I still had to go home to change and get my tennis gear. It looked like lunch would put us over the 2:00 scheduled time for tennis.

After we ate we got back in my car to go home. Mind you, every time I would try to answer a question that he asked, he would talk over me. I don’t think he ever actually let me fully answer a question. So we are driving, and I am being kind of quiet, and he is going on and on about himself and other shit that I don’t care about. Like about how he DJs and makes music that I think is crap, and how he is the only person in the world with certain music. Again, could care less.

“So the best part of my day was holding hands with you in Target.”

“Oh really.”

“Yeah, well, I mean I liked other parts of the day too – are you upset with me? You seem like you’re annoyed.”

“Sorry I am kind of in a funk today and I just want to play some tennis. I am annoyed that we have been running around and it’s stressing me out. Also you keep talking and sometimes I just like to be –“

“Well I didn’t have to go with you to the school and I wanted to do all this stuff for you so we could have a fun time playing tennis. All the camera stuff and everything is for you. I thought we could just go and have a good time and take pretty pictures so you could remember this day in the future and remember how much fun you had.”

“I wanted to actually get in some legitimate practice and you haven’t even played –“

“I thought we were just going to have fun.”

“Okay. Now I am pissed. You are annoying me and you keep talking –“

“I keep talking over you, huh.”

“There, you did it again. You know what? I am going to drop you off at home. I don’t want to date you nor play tennis with you. You’re not going to even be good at tennis and I want to get some practice in, not wait for you to go retrieve all the balls you hit over the net.”

“I don’t want to date you either, I am not romantically interested in you.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Why the fuck did you try to hold my hand in Target? Dude, don’t get upset with me because you’re trying to hold my hand and I am telling you I don’t want to date you. You’re the one with the mixed signals, not me. You’re stressing me out and frankly, I’m getting pissed off with you. You won’t stop fucking talking and you keep cutting me off when I try to talk. I am dropping you off at home and I don’t want to play tennis or hang out with you anymore.”

“Okay. I am sorry. I mean I am just trying to joke around with you and have fun.”

“I don’t find it funny. I find it annoying and I don’t even want to think about how annoying playing tennis will be. You’re not even going to be good.”

So I took him home, dropped him off and said few words and finally he got out of my car. I made it to tennis 45 minutes late, where I practiced my serve until my friend Wendy showed up to play. We only played for about an hour, and I attribute my tiredness to being stressed out from putting up with the Man-Boy all day.

FUCK. I can’t win with people. Where the hell are the normal people anymore?