Ron and Tammy, by Doris

If only I'd remembered my hat.

If only I hadn't realized it minutes before our bus was scheduled to arrive.

If only Rock weren't such a good friend that he trekked back to the theatre with me.

If only the hat wasn't in the first floor office and we would have had to go upstairs to find it, making us miss the bus we ended up taking.

If only I hadn't expressed an urge for hard liquor at the end of a long week.

If only we'd taken a different street to the grocery store and arrived a few minutes earlier or later.

If only I'd decided to go home rather than to Rock's.

If only any of these had happened, I wouldn't have had the Excalibur Encounter.

Oh yeah, and one more:

If only my Excalibur intuition weren't so goddamn strong.

I don't know if I believe in psychics, but I do believe in intuition/wavelength. Sometimes when I spend a lot of time around a person, I develop it. I've got countless examples of this where Rock is concerned.

With Excalibur, I always knew when he was going to say something big, or something I wasn't going to like. The air changed, buzzed so only I could hear.

And in the milliseconds before, when Rock and I were crossing the parking lot, I thought his name.

Only to look up from underneath my hat and see him.

(My hands-down favorite episode of the wildly underrated Parks and Recreation is last season's episode "Ron and Tammy." Not only are Nick Offerman and his real-life wife Megan Mullally brilliant, it has a great message that exes are exes for a reason. Anyway, there's a moment when Ron is going on about his own Evil Ex and suddenly, unprompted, he stands up, looks around and goes, "She's here, isn't she?" Well, this was my Ron and Tammy moment.)

I saw his eyes. I recognized the coat. I know it was him.

We didn't make eye contact, didn't say a word, didn't even physically run into each other.

I was with Rock, whom he knows and would recognize, but there was no acknowledgment of Rock either.

Oh, and he was with a girl who I assume is the girlfriend. I didn't get a good look at her. It felt like an invasion somehow, and anyway I was hustling for the entrance.

As we wandered down the produce aisle, Rock asked, "Do you want to leave?"

My eyes were shifting back and forth, my head swiveling almost 360 degrees.

"I don't want to, because what if they're still out there at the Redbox? Let's do a lap."

As we selected what we came for--frozen hangover food for Rock, chips and whiskey which I now REALLY needed for me--Rock was my rock. He checked down every aisle to make sure they weren't there. He reassured me that Excalibur hadn't actually seen me, and that he could have said hi if he did.

We never saw them again.

Back at Rock's apartment, I proceeded to drive my best friend crazy when all he wanted to do was fix potato skins and turn on the TV.

"Do you think he saw me?"

"No? Are you sure?"

"Well, at least I look good. Right?"

"I just couldn't do it, Rock. It's been too long of a week, and I didn't want to have an awkward conversation while you and the girlfriend were just standing there or whatever. And not two weeks ago I emailed the guy saying I didn't want to talk to him for a while. Oh yeah, and . . ."

"Doris. Chug your drink and stop rationalizing." Again, my voice of reason, now calmly popping potato skins in the oven.

"I know, I know, I'm being neurotic. I'll shut up in three minutes, I swear." I went into his bathroom, sat on the toilet and cracked the door just enough that we could keep talking. I didn't want any silence at that moment.

"You can talk about it, but you don't need to justify. I would have told you if I thought he had seen you. I would have told you if I thought saying hi was necessary. I really, really don't think he saw you. If he did, he could have said hi too, you know. I get you're weirded out. Just don't feel like you had to force an interaction you didn't want to have."

Friends, the boy has been talking like this since he was in high school. I think it was all the O.C. he watched.

So I did one last thing before we settled in to watch Australian comedy and pig out: I checked my phone. No text. No email.

Either he was abiding by my "no contact, please" edict, or he really didn't see me.

Thank God.

Oh, and here's the song I listened to this morning to wash the ex encounter taste out of my mouth. Nothing like rapping along with Nicki Minaj to make everything better.

Texts From an (Evil) Ex, by Doris

On Tuesday night, in the midst of texting with my Russian, I receive another message:

"Haven't talked to you in a while. What's up?"

Ex-calibur strikes a-fucking-gain.

Since early November, when I found out from other sources he has a serious girlfriend--this is after I hadn't heard from him in two months and I figured he had a relationship goin' on--Ex-calibur has texted me once before. Right after Thanksgiving, ostensibly to see how my Thanksgiving was.

And now he wants to know "What's up?"

UGH.

Back in November, I texted my Thanksgiving was great and I hoped his went well too. This was after a frantic text to Rock, wondering if I should even respond to this inanity. Rock said yes, because if I ignored the text, it would look like I was mad at him and therefore a bitch. As usual, Rock was right. So I texted Ex-calibur back, he said, "good to know" and that was that.

Back to Tuesday night.

I told him I was fine and went back to texting the Russian.

But Ex-calibur wasn't finished. He wanted to know how work was. Then, how I was doing outside of work.

Seriously?

I texted back polite but short answers, then ended the last text with, "Hope you are well. Have a good night!" At this point, I didn't care about being rude. I just wanted to get off the damn phone (or text?).

He responded, "Good night," so I guess he got the message.

Now, before you write me off as a total bitter bitch who doesn't want to be friends with her ex, please hear me out:

As I said in an early post, Ex-calibur did nothing wrong by getting a girlfriend. We were not in an exclusive relationship, and when I didn't hear from him in a while, I assumed that's what was going on. I wish him well, I really do.

That said, I have no interest in being friends right now.

I'm not saying I want him out of my life permanently. We have a shared history. It might indeed be nice to catch up sometime.

However, he has been in my life one way or the other, FOR FOURTEEN YEARS. I am 30. You do the math.

If this makes me an un-hip chick, so be it, but I need not to talk to Ex-calibur for a while. I need to live my life, date other dudes, acknowledge that he is a part of my past and my past informs my future and I can learn from him and all that, all while not speaking to him. Maybe someday we and our respective significant others can have dinner together and laugh. Maybe Ex-calibur and I can get a sense of closure as Rock did with Evil Ex #5 shortly before he moved.

I need at least six months before I make that decision.

And here's the other thing:

I don't think Ex-calibur texted me just to catch up.

He doesn't do that. Fourteen years with the man taught me that he uses shooting the shit as a warmup for dropping a big ole bomb.

I could have told him to stop beating around the bush and asked what's up.

But quite frankly, I was sick of his coyness and didn't feel like coaxing it out of him.

Maybe he and his girlfriend broke up. Maybe she's knocked up. Maybe they've shacked up. Honestly, a little Facebook investigation could probably provide me with answers.

But what's the point? What's happened has happened.

And obviously, he was too big of a wuss to tell me. Which is his problem and not mine.

Is it so bad if I don't want to know? Not that I'm super-jealous or sad or whatever. But he doesn't owe me an explanation. He's living his life, I'm living mine. If I hear the news from other people, I'll deal.

Complicated, I know.

If he texts me again, he's getting a very polite email saying I wish him well and perhaps we can be friends someday, but please do not contact me again for six months.

A cool girl would be hunky-dory, be there for him, try to coax the news out of him and be a fucking cheerleader.

I ain't a cool girl.

I'm Alive!, by Doris

Thanks to Rock for holding down the fort in my absence. As he stated in his last post, I was on a super-awesome vacation with my fam. I'm at the point in my life where for the most part I get along really well with my parents because, well, we're all adults and they're not trying to tell me what to do anymore. My sibs and I have always been really close. So a good time was had by all.

Mostly.

The bad news is, I was sick for the entire vacation. What I thought was a head cold only got progressively worse as the trip went on, resulted in a doctor's appointment the day after I got back, and still hasn't gone away (though now I have antibiotics and a get out of work free pass, thanks Doc!).

The good news is as follows:
1) Though I didn't stay out as late as my night-owl self would have normally, and I only got drunk once, on the last night of the trip, I managed to pull it together and have a ton of fun. (This also eliminated any chances of making out, because I'm not that mean.)

2) Said drunk last night of the trip was partly due to TWO MEN BUYING ME A DRINK! As in, the cocktail waitress came over and said, "the gentlemen on the right want to know if you'd like anything else." I stared at her openmouthed for about ten seconds before blurting my cocktail of choice. Not to sound naive, but I'm 30 years old and this is the first time anyone's ever wanted to send me a drink. WOOHOO!

I talked to the dudes and they were two very nice non-sleazy guys from Ohio. Coincidentally, my last crush who's now a good friend also hails from the Buckeye State. You go Ohio!

3) Through my coughing and snotty haze, I texted the Russian, who wants to see me again. We're in the midst of scheduling as he most likely has to check with his wife.

4) Straight Anthony Rapp of the annoying voice wants to go out again too! Eh, what the hell? If I'm still turned off after this one, I'm done, but a second date never hurt anyone.

5) While prostrate on the couch last night, I popped in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which I received for Christmas. Though it gets a little long toward the end, I was reminded of how much I like the overall concept. You see, even I have more than one evil ex if we're going by Ramona Flowers standards. (Mine are all boys, FYI.)

And it's funny Rock was just talking about evil exes.

Why is that funny?

Stay tuned . . .

Evil Ex #4, by Rock

I hate how big these are, but I'm too lazy to fix them and I can't stop now that I've started.

So remember how I lived somewhere else for 3 years? I met EE#4 right before I decided I was going to move there. We had an instant connection and really hit it off. We were looking for the same things in life and approached life pretty similarly. He called me "Daddy material." As in he would raise kids with me, not he wanted to dress me in leather.

Soon, the pressure of expiration dating became too much. He broke it off about a month before he went back to school and two months before I moved.

We would reconnect when I came back to town, and he was always my go-to "there's someone out there I could spend my life with" crush when I needed one.

In fact, one of the perks to moving back here (I thought) was that we could reconnect and see if we were right about what we thought was between us.

Then we spent a weekend together in San Francisco. We both realized how much we've changed, we actually bickered quite a bit, he admitted to being mean to me so I wouldn't try to sleep with him because he wasn't at a place where he could do that (here's a thought: just tell me it's not going to happen and trust that it won't), and it was all around a ridiculous weekend. I wish I could explain it further, but frankly it just feels like gossip. What it comes down to is I had some expectations I maybe shouldn't have had, and he was an ass about it. Half of the weekend was really fun and I love San Fran. Half of the weekend blew. We haven't talked since.

I don't know if I have any baggage, but it does illustrate a few lessons that I like to remember.

1- I don't handle subtext well. Sometimes we're just going to have to talk about feelings. If you don't like this, we're probably not going to work out. I know this lesson doesn't seem to fit in here, but it does.

2- Sometimes I'm wrong.

Evil Ex #3, by Rock

After the ridiculousness of Evil Exes #1 and 2, it's pretty silly that the issues I'm dealing with right now are mostly from EE#3.

After #2, I dated around a lot and had a lot of "two week relationships" where I'd go on a few dates with a guy before realizing that we weren't a good enough match to keep seeing each other and end it. These were mostly guys that wouldn't get past one date now, but back then someone liking me was enough for me to like them.

Then I met EE#3. EE#3 graduated from my department at my college the spring before, but I had never really known him. We had some mutual friends and got introduced at a bar one night. We ended up fooling around and making plans for a date.

We started seeing each other and though things were going well, EE#3 needed to take it SLOW. Like glacier-paced. It was months before he was okay with the boyfriend moniker.

Now that wasn't that big of a deal for me. Regardless of the label, if a relationship is meeting my needs, it's meeting my needs. What really got to me were his issues about communication.

In a need to assert his independence or something, he would often wait hours and hours before responding to my texts and calls. He owned this issue and admitted to it. I tried to explain that if ever didn't want to talk, that was fine. I didn't care. If I had a question about our plans or something, it would be nice if he could get over it and get back to me. If he was busy or something that was fine, but for him to just admit that he didn't feel like getting back to me was frustrating to say the least.

After four months, the relationship just wasn't progressing at all, and I was ready for it to evolve into something more serious. He wasn't willing to give it to me, and we parted ways, pretty amicably. I still hang out with him from time to time. He helped me shop at IKEA a few weeks ago when I moved back here in fact.

Why is he even considered an Evil Ex? Because every time I go to text or call 2.0 I worry that I'm bothering him. That he doesn't want to hear from me. Two things.

1- I realize you're going to have to take my word on this, but I am NOT a crazy stalker texter. I have dated those before. With me, we're talking an occasional "good morning, cutie" or "how was your day?" I shouldn't be worried about smothering someone with this level of communication.

2- 2.0 is always ecstatic to hear from me, or at least acts like it. He returns the affection. He talks about how I make him "smiley." He has initiated the conversation probably as much as I have.

Yet I still worry like crazy. Let's hope this relaxes.

EE#3 is also the epitome of a classic Rock trend. I tend to go for guys that I like more than they like me. I don't know if I consider myself a work in progress or if I just like a challenge. But guys who like me too much turn me off. That quote from Perks of Being a Wallflower comes to mind: "We accept the love we think we deserve." Lately I find myself deserving of a lot more though, which is good because I'm honored and amazed by how much this amazing guy seems to be into me. It's just right.