Naughty Little Girlfriend

Word Count: 1287

SIS: Scarlette shares the secret to being a bad girlfriend

     I write this column in order to expose the dating difficulties in a very rural area, but sometimes I wonder if people are single because they have walked down the relationship path one too many times and they aren’t willing to sacrifice their sanity again. 

     In most realms of my life I am at least rational. So why is it that whenever I am “in a relationship” I resort to the most primitive behaviors? 

     I try to resist the basic call of my kind, but occasionally I resort to the handbook of Bad Girlfriend Antics.

     I went about 3 years without having a “real” boyfriend. When I say real, I mean one who lives in the same zip code as I do and that has regular access not only to me, but my domain. 

     Until I started dating Board Shorts, I had forgotten what it was like to have another person in my life on a regular basis – which isn’t a bad thing, except I lack a lot in the domestic department. Meaning I do dishes when there isn’t room in the sink to fill a vessel with water and I do laundry when I have no more clothes that are clean. 

     These activities normally take place sometime on the weekend, while I am wearing some sort of outfit from my high school athletic days. 

     I am busy and the last thing that I want to do after working 9 or 10 hours is more work. I just want to go home, have some snacks and watch reality TV. I don’t think it’s a crime, but it’s not very sexy either.

     It was last Friday when Board Shorts and I had our first tiff. He was planning some sort of Man Extravaganza out of town that weekend and I was staying in Sandpoint planning on catching up on some of the cleaning that I’ve been putting off for at least 4 or 5 months. Our plans were to go to dinner after he packed.

     I was fine with the Man Extravaganza and staying home. My plans involved Starbucks, wine and an “I Love New York” marathon – all activities that Board Shorts doesn’t really enjoy. 

     So Friday night rolls around and I start waiting and waiting – and waiting. 

     Apparently the packing of man paraphernalia rivals any packing that I have done for a one night excursion. I guess packing 4 or 5 pairs of shoes and some coordinating outfits takes considerably less time than motorized vehicles and coolers. 

     By 6 o’clock I decided to go get some drinks with friends and meet him downtown when he was done packing. 

     I was still fine with our plans. In fact, I was secretly congratulating myself on being Girlfriend of the Year because I wasn’t freaking out over his lateness. My flexibility and grace were admirable. 

     But by 8:30 I was drunk, hungry and starting to feel neglected – and he was still packing.

     In my starvation fueled haze I started to stew. Bad Girlfriend antic number one. In my mind I was sure that he was making secret plans for his trip. And when he left (which was only going to be for 24 hours) he wouldn’t even miss me. In fact, he probably didn’t even care about me at all. I mean why the hell else would he let me starve like that? He probably thinks I’m fat and that I could stand to miss a meal or two – what an ass!

     By the time Board Shorts met me, I was in no mood to eat or anything else for that matter. I was ready for a good old-fashioned showdown. So we finished our drinks and went to my house – where normally we could have had a few words, made up and the rest would be history. 

     But as the relationship gods would have it, that wasn’t in the cards.

     We got to my house and, in my mind, I said something really profound, like: you broke plans with me, now I’m going to die of starvation, because you don’t even care about me. 

     In his mind, I think he heard me attack him and, as he was sober, my genius statement made no sense. In his rebuttal – this is not a joke – he asked me if I got my laundry done. 

     OK. There you have it. The number one and two ways of making Scarlette go careening off the deep end. 

     One: Break plans, especially ones involving food. 

     And two: Acknowledge her ineptitude at all things domestic. 

     He may as well have pissed on my favorite shoes because now I wasn’t just moping and feeling sorry for myself, I was angry – drunk angry, the worst kind.

     That’s when I engaged in Bad Girlfriend antic number two – which is cry, cry, cry. 

     Let me let all of you men out there in on a little secret: when your girlfriend starts bawling her eyes out over an argument that didn’t involve you sleeping with another woman, a physical altercation or spending all your money on your drug habit, then she is out of ammunition. 

     Pure and simple, she knows that she is being a ridiculous freak and that she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. What she is hoping is that when she cries, you will feel bad and then forget what an ass she’s being. 

     I’m sure there are some variations to this “move,” but I assure you when an animal is cornered (a female human) she will fight with her most deadliest of all weapons: tears.

     I wish that I could say that it ended there, but in fact it did not. 

     Though we made up that evening that did not stop me from going straight to Bad Girlfriend antic number three, which is pretend like you are not mad when in fact you are truly pissed.

    He left the next morning and I spent the rest of the weekend pissed that he broke plans with me – convinced that he didn’t care about me at all.  

     I ate myself into a flaming hot cheeto-coma and then I shopped like I didn’t have a care. And to top it all off: I didn’t finish my laundry. Ha. 

     Well, to make a long story short, by Monday morning I was wearing clothes from 1998 (no clean clothes), bloated from the cheetos and my boyfriend wasn’t speaking to me. Happy FREAKING Monday. 

     Now I was crying and there was no one there to observe the water works, except his picture on my screen saver.

     Damn it. 

     He is so cute, and we have so much fun together.

     I spent the day moping one minute and being hopping mad the next. Needless to say I wasn’t in my right mind. In fact, I might have been experiencing some rare form of relationship psychosis. 

     Sad. Pathetic. Ridiculous. I could go on, but alas there is a lesson in every story – right? 

     The fact is that relationships are a lot of work and the golden rule in relationships is that “sometimes you have to be sorry, even when you don’t know why.” Oh and there’s all that stuff about communicating and sharing your feelings, blah, blah, blah. 

     Regardless, I didn’t want to fight anymore and if that involved apologizing, well, so be it. In all honesty I was sorry, not for being mad per se, but definitely for the fiasco that followed the initial anger.

     We made up. It was a learning experience. I learned amongst many things that you really can’t fake your way out of being mad, and hopefully he learned not to engage in arguments with an inebriated woman on the brink of starvation.

Waiting to Frolic in The Green Pastures,

Scarlette Quille