The Flake Files: Ghostbusters!

Musical selection of the day: The Parity Complex: Flames^[1]

This post, and any that come after it with a similar title, were inspired by The Douchebag Diaries, which was the title of a blog entry on someone else's blog that I read a few days ago, in which she discussed adventures in online dating and some of the various perils and pitfalls that lie within. I found the title amusing, and I considered ripping it off for my own purposes (although I think I prefer The Douchebag Chronicles a bit more), but as "douchebag" is typically a word applied to male members of the species, and I am not particularly interested in said types of human, I wanted to choose something else with which to label my own tales of woe and misadventures. However, I think it would have been a bit harsh to go with The Bitch Books and certainly more than over-the-top if I'd chosen The Cunt Chronicles. Maybe Pussy Prose or Estrogen Epics would have been more apropos, but instead, we're going with a rather gender-neutral title: The Flake Files.

The theme here is not necessarily going to be to describe my online-dating escapades in any great detail; there are (and were) likely to be people that I'll come across that I end up meeting where's just simply no connection. We might have a pleasant enough conversation, share a few laughs, but at the end of the night we go our separate ways and don't bother to communicate any further. There's nothing at all wrong with that, and I suspect that will end up being the majority of encounters anyway. There might also be people that I get on with quite well, but for one reason or another things don't continue past a given point. Those people are not deserving of ridicule; things just didn't click, but at least they showed up. Nay, The Flake Files are going to be dedicated to the people who do weird shit that defies logic or who make outlandish claims on their profiles that they cannot substantiate or which are flat out wrong.^[2]

NOTE: Anyone who has come across this blog and seen the entries in which I've talked about other people will note that I've always used just their initials. I do this largely out of respect and privacy; certainly the person I'm talking about is likely to know that they are the subject of discussion if we know each other IRL, but I don't need to publicize said interactions unnecessarily. However, if you're unfortunate enough to make it into The Flake Files, I'm going to use your real name, because I think you're a tool and you deserve whatever public shaming can be directed your way as a result of my tiny little blog. Don't like it? Don't want to end up here? Easy. Show the fuck up and don't be a dick.

And so, with that, our first installment of The Flake Files is about someone who, well, failed to show the fuck up. What the hell, Amber? We had been talking about music and festivals and various bands on OKCupid, and it seemed like things were going along rather nicely, so I invited her to go see a play. She said yes, and we also exchanged phone numbers and email addresses, and moved our conversation to text message rather than OKC's somewhat-borked app interface.

Again, things seemed to be going along rather well once we moved to text messages. We exchanged pictures of our cats, we shared some links to music that we liked, and I learned what a chinchilla looks like. I was looking forward to meeting her in person, because she seemed to be pretty cool and shared musical interests at least might mean someone to occasionally go out with to get my dance on.

You can all see where this is going, I'm sure. The day of the event rolled around, and I texted her early in the day to ask what time she wanted to meet up; we'd originally talked about getting dinner or a beverage or something prior to the play. No response. A few hours later, with the start time of the event just a couple hours away, I wrote her a second time, asking if we were meeting up at all, and to let me know one way or the other.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Here's where things didn't need to go completely AWOL. I understand that shit happens, things come up, and all manner of misfortunes can occur unexpectedly. Hell, sometimes people just change their minds and decide that they don't want to go out. All of these things are perfectly OK, as long as you show some basic courtesy and let me know you can't make it. I don't even care what your reason is; if we're meeting for the first time, you certainly don't owe me a long explanation. Just say that you can't make it, and tell me whether or not you want to reschedule for some later date. If you don't want to meet at all, THAT'S FINE! I will hold no ill will towards you; I'm a big blackbird, I can handle it.

But when you don't say dick, well... you're a dick. I texted her one final time when the play was supposed to start and said that I hoped she was just blowing me off and that everything was otherwise OK. I mean, it's entirely possible that she got hit by a bus or some other major misfortune occurred where she wasn't able to communicate her inability to attend. Those things do happen, and I understand that. Hell, I might even be willing to give someone a second chance if they called or texted with a solid excuse a few days later (maybe). However, barring that level of calamity, there's just no fucking excuse for ghosting someone.

There's a phrase that I used to use quite frequently that I think I need to bring back into the vernacular: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!

For fuck's sake, seriously, people. I will never claim that I never do anything wrong or that I have all the answers, but I just cannot comprehend why it's so damn hard to say SOMETHING. Even if what you have to say is illogical and makes you look like a complete dickbag (CL will know what I mean by this), at least you gave the other person some measure of goodbye.^[3] I remember telling S one time that if she ever would prefer that I just fuck off and disappear that she just had to say so. And guess what? There was an issue where she said that she thought we needed time to reset - so we didn't talk for a couple of months, but the next time we ran into each other, everything was cool. She made a request. Said request was honored, and we are still friends. I have no idea what happened here, and so I can only reach one conclusion.

Welcome to The Flake Files, Amber J.

BTW, in case anyone is wondering, I'm not actually angry. I don't waste my anger on petty matters like this. It's more a "what-the-fuck-ever" kind of situation where I'm laughing at the absurdity of life.

Next up? Who knows? It would be nice if this is a one-and-done series of posts. There are three people left from this iteration of online dating misadventures that I'm still talking to, and I actually don't think any of them will end up the subject of a blog entry. I've already met two of them in person (and they were both cool) and the third one is the author of The Douchebag Diaries (so I would expect a certain level of mutual respect). We shall see.