I’ve been seeing this girl for a while now, but I’ve begin to notice that she’s texting me less and is pretty much “too busy” to call or accept a call. I decide to brace myself for the worst and begin withdrawing my own interest, as well.

I then receive the following text.

Girlfriend: “Hey, listen. I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure we’re compatible anymore. I hope you understand and that we can still be friends.”

Me: “Yeah, that’s cool. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

I send the text and go about my day. I don’t check my phone for another twenty minutes, and when I do, I see this.

Ex-Girlfriend: “…‘That’s cool’? Is that it?”

Ex-Girlfriend: “Not to be rude, but that’s such a shallow way of ending it!”

Ex-Girlfriend: “Hello?!”

Ex-Girlfriend: “Are you there?”

Me: “Chill, I am doing housework. I’m not entirely certain what you expect me to say, if I’m honest.”

Ex-Girlfriend: “You could at least beg me for another chance.”

Oh, great. She’s one of those girls.

Me: “Are you joking? Why would I fight for someone who has explicitly shown and said they do not want to pursue a relationship with me anymore?”

Ex-Girlfriend: “Well, maybe I was testing you.”

F****** WOW.

Me: “LOL, as if that’s any better. Test or not, I’m not going to chase you or beg you to give me a chance.”

Ex-Girlfriend: “Okay, well, let’s just forget about it, then. What are you doing tonight?”

Me: “Definitely not you. See you around.”

I dropped my phone and finished up my housework. Meanwhile, I received an absolute avalanche of texts and calls, most of which were massive love bombs, and even after all of that, she tried to pretend that her phone had been hacked. I didn’t actually go out to score nookie that night, but it was sure fun knowing that she got Uno-reversed so hard.

I’m single and not particularly interested in a new relationship, but my friend tells me about a friend he thinks I should meet since we have a lot in common. 

I agree to meet the guy for a coffee, and we immediately hit it off, spending all afternoon discussing our various nerdy interests. We end up going on a few dates, and I enjoy his company, so after a few weeks of seeing each other, I decide to invite him over to my place.

He comes over, we start to get down to business, and then he asks to use the bathroom. I show him where it is, and when he comes out, he’s wide-eyed and looking very spooked.

Guy: “Wow, you really shouldn’t have all that nasty stuff out in the open like that.”

Me: “What nasty stuff?”

Guy: “You know, the… the… stuff.”

Okay, now I get it. I keep my stash of pads and tampons on a shelf in the bathroom where it’s easy to reach and see, both for my own comfort and for guests in need of supplies.

Me: “Oh, okay. First of all, those are not nasty, and they’re on the shelf so anyone who visits can just grab what they need if they need it.”

Guy: “Why would anyone need that when they’re visiting?”

Me: “Because they might be on their period? It’s something that happens to a lot of people. Besides, my thirteen-year-old niece comes by with her friends a lot, and I don’t want them to have to ask for a tampon.”

Guy: “What? You’re encouraging them to be slutty! If they’re only thirteen, they shouldn’t even be having periods!”

Me: “Do you know how puberty works? That’s when most girls get their period!”

Guy: “No, it doesn’t start until you’ve had sex for the first time!”

Me: “What on earth gave you that idea?”

Guy: “That’s how it works! You have to poke a hole for the blood to come out! Everyone knows that!”

I spend a few moments trying to make sense of that before I decide that it’s not an argument worth having.

Me: “Okay. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

Guy: “Why? I thought we were going to have a good time tonight!”

Me: “Because someone with that poor of an understanding of female anatomy should under no circumstances be given access to it.”

He did leave, thankfully.

When I told my matchmaker friend about it, he was just as flabbergasted as I was. The subject had apparently never come up when they were talking to each other. Neither of us could figure out where this guy had gotten his “facts” from. This was an adult man in his mid-twenties, and we have sex-ed in Sweden.

Related:
Your Mansplaining Is Full Of Holes

I used to have a favourite restaurant in the city; whenever I left work on the weekend, I dined there. I was there often enough that I became a regular and got to know a couple of waiters who worked there, as well as the owner.

Then, I met a girl. She was pretty and smart and gelled very well with me, so we decided to become an item. The second anniversary of our relationship approached, and I thought it would be a good idea to have a special dinner at the restaurant I often went to, figuring that they would treat me extra nicely. Since they also had menu items labeled as gluten-free, I figured that accommodating my girlfriend’s celiac disease would be easy.

We decided to order a different dish each — a potato salad for her and cheese risotto for me. I stressed that I wanted them both gluten-free, and the waiter, who knew me, didn’t seem to have a problem with that.

Come time for the dishes to be served… and they are both covered in a thick layer of breadcrumbs. I was very well aware that those dishes did not, in fact, customarily come covered in bread. I called the waiter.

Me: “Yo, [Known Waiter], I think you’ve given me somebody else’s order!”

Known Waiter: “Oh, really? I thought you ordered the risotto and the potato salad.” 

Me: “Yes, but—”

Known Waiter: “Then there’s no issue. Go dig in, and don’t worry!”

He was smirking as he said this, and he left quickly. My girlfriend glared daggers at me, and I was left dumbfounded, but I recovered quickly enough to instead contact a waiter I didn’t know.

Unknown Waiter: “How can I help you, sir?”

Me: “I’d like to speak to the owner; your colleague is not being professional.”

Unknown Waiter: “Oh, right away, sir.”

He left. I went back to the table and stood there as my girlfriend gave me the silent treatment, in spite of my attempts to move past what I assumed had been an accident or, at least, a mean-spirited prank.

After a little while, the owner finally came to my table.

Me: “Hi, [Owner]. I have received these dishes in this state, after specifically asking them to be gluten-free. I pointed it out to—”

Owner: “Pffft, [My Name], I didn’t know you were so easy to rope into quack diets! Eat this and be merry—”

Me: “No, you don’t understand, [Owner]. My girlfriend can’t have gluten—”

Owner: “Can’t or won’t? She ain’t worth it. She’ll soon switch to eating only fruit or go full raw diet in a month.”

Me: “She’s celiac! It’s not a fad diet for her!”

Owner: “Yeah, sure, [My Name].”

I was about to ask my girlfriend to back me up… but she was already on the way to the door. I chased after her.

Me: “Baby, don’t go! I was trying to—”

Girlfriend: “F*** OFF, YOU EVIL CREEP!”

She bolted out of the establishment entirely and disappeared into the night. Enraged, I came back in and, resisting the temptation to use the owner as a punching bag or to cry my eyes out in public, I gathered my things, paid for my water, and walked out, ignoring the waiter asking me, baffled, why was I leaving without eating anything.

I have not been back, nor will I ever again. They can rot in H*** for all I care.

When I was young, women didn’t get to have their own bank accounts. I was fortunate that my family didn’t draw money from my account; many of my friends, when they tried to work to save up to buy something, had all of their money confiscated by their parents.

Anyway, I was a bit of a gearhead growing up. I was into cars, and I wanted a Jaguar. I wanted a Jag badly.

Now, it was extremely difficult back then to get a British car in the United States, and many people in Detroit especially acted like I was a traitor to Ford, GM, and the other American car manufacturers for wanting a British car.

For five years, I worked my a** off doing any odd jobs I could, especially helping at a mechanic’s shop when I could, to buy myself a Jag. (Although, back then, most mechanics were leery of letting a woman do gearhead work where the customers could see us. They often made me be a secretary.)

By the time I got my entrance papers for college, I had my Jag. My high school boyfriend was very jealous of my car. We were going on a date together, probably our last date before I left for college. (He’d gotten an internship with a mechanic.) He kept begging me to let him drive my car.

Finally, I gave in and let him drive it. We stopped on the side of the road and started to switch places, but while I was heading toward the passenger side, he leaped into the driver’s side and stole my car!

Along with everything in my purse.

Like most young women back then, I kept some change in my shoes in case I got robbed so I could use a pay phone — which I did, to call my dad. Technically, the car was in his name, and I knew that the police wouldn’t believe me that it was my car.

He came and picked me up, and we went to the police station to make a report. They recovered my car from the driveway of my boyfriend’s parents’ house. The police gave him a stern talking-to but refused to actually charge him with a crime.

Needless to say, we broke up that day.

I dated a girl very briefly. We took a trip together, and when we were crossing state lines, she said something like:

Girl: “Have you ever seen the lines that separate the states?”

Trying to figure out what she had just said, I asked her to elaborate.

Girl: “You know, on the map, they have the spaced-out lines so you can tell when you cross into another state.”

Me: *Jokingly* “Oh, yeah, you just have to get out and really look, but they’re there.”

A few days later, we were coming back over the state line.

Girl: “Can we pull over and look for those lines, please? I’d really like to see them.”

Me: “I thought you were kidding. There are not any form of lines that separate the states. I was kidding when you asked because I thought you weren’t serious.”

She was mad for the rest of the forty-five-minute drive home because I’d led her on. That relationship did not last very long.