"OK, Hannah. When we stop talking because of you, there will be nothing. No plan, no future. We will only be has-beens. You want to amount to something? Well, here is the brutal f***ing truth, and you can hate me, you can be disgusted, you can feel whatever it is that you wanna feel, because frankly, I am beyond caring. I don't give a d*** if you vomit on your own time. But I have always been one to care about MY own interest first and I warned you that YOUR actions would have consequences, and you have always known that, from the very beginning. And if you suddenly can't stomach that, well then I'm a fool for having fallen for you in the first place. But I don't have time to be a fool. I have more important people to talk to and a future to construct. I have always realized you are nothing but weak and feeble-minded for me and a loss of you is as replaceable as a Kleenex to me. So consider this a farewell and good riddance." – a Facebook message I received in October 2015
To the guy who thought he could claim me from 4,000 miles away,
I thought we were done with this. But when I saw you at my graduation and you kissed my cheeks like we were friendly, I realized that you were worse than I thought.
Flashback to last fall. I reconnected with someone I knew through a mutual friend and from school who was now studying abroad in Europe. We talked almost every day for a month or two: he would mail me postcards, I would send him Jolly Ranchers. After a while he started hinting that he was interested in being more than friends. I blew it off because of the logistics and timing, until I started dating someone and told him about it.
"But I called dibs," he said.
"You can't call dibs on a person, especially not from 4,000 miles away," I responded.
Ever the political schemer, he came up with a plan: we could have an open relationship with my word that the minute he stepped foot on American soil, I would drop everything (including the guy I was seeing, whether or not he knew about it) to be with him. If I didn't agree to his terms, his ultimatum was that we would never be more than friends, as in, for eternity.
I laughed and told him that his expectation was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. He didn't talk to me for 2 weeks, until one Sunday I received a call from a long-distance number and answered the phone. He had decided to move on and to pretend like nothing happen, and we starting talking again as friends (I made sure this line was clear).
Until one day he messaged me asking if I wanted to go see a movie. Apparently, he had made plans to fly in for a surprise visit. I was not about to be in a dark room alone with him, so I suggested we meet for lunch instead. He told me over FaceTime that if I didn't want to agree to his terms, that he refused to see me at all while he was in town. He reminded me that "there are actions and there are consequences to those actions" (actual quote) and that these were the consequences of my actions for refusing to pledge myself to date him.
I had coffee with our mutual friend and found out that he hadn't even been in the U.S. over the weekend. I realized that he had lied about the whole thing to test me and when I stood my ground, he put the blame on me and tried to manipulate me.
I addressed it with him and his response quickly shifted from passive-aggressive to full-blown aggressive, as you can see from the initial message. We didn't talk again, until I saw him at my graduation during a very awkward exchange, and afterward when he made many futile attempts to convince me to see him. From what I heard, he made a bet worth 25 slaps with our mutual friend that he would be able to seduce me into kissing him and getting "back" together with him. I would've respected him more if he had stayed angry with me, but instead he saw me as a conquest, a prize to be won.
Our friend won the bet, naturally. I'm still waiting for the video evidence of its consequences.
To the guy who thought he could claim me, from 4,000 to 0 miles away: I am not yours, nor will I ever be. But thank you for showing me the warning signs of someone who is controlling, manipulative and sexist, someone who holds the common male perspective that women owe them something in return for their attention or purchases, someone who sees women who disagree with him (in politics and otherwise) as fixable through mansplaining. I'll make sure to steer clear of your type in the future.
