Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Oy Vey—Stalkers, Seat-Fillers and Succubi

OK, so now my mom is making Scott's blog, which I think is absolutely hilarious, but he seems a little scared that all these yentas will be privy to the details of his sex life! The Devil's Playground
So I've noticed a disturbing pattern lately that's popping up in the Manhattan/Internet dating microcosm: Stalking. I don't mean, scary, microwaving-bunnies kind of stalking, but somewhat more innocuous occurrences, played out via e-mail, text messages, phone calls, cyber-stalking, etc.
Following is the most interesting, pathetic, disturbing story I've heard of late, notwithstanding Scott's story of actual stalking, which I have yet to get the details of.
So there is this girl who is tangentially connected to my circle of girlfriends. She's pretty much a tagalong, who only comes out with us when one of the girls is feeling particularly sympathetic. This girl, let's call her Mary, stalks my girlfriends, calling, e-mailing and texting them about what we are doing until one of them feels compelled to respond out of sympathy. In the past couple of weeks, she has been out with us twice, mainly because someone felt sorry for her and then we made the mistake of talking about future plans in front of her. So she heard of the future plans and then made damn sure she was included in said plans.
Now, for months, Mary had been involved with some guy she met online. From what I can gather, she met this guy, they had sex a few times, which she mistook as them "dating" or being "in a relationship," while he probably just wanted to get laid and she was an easy target. The guy then disappeared, stopped taking her calls, removed his profile from the Web site. She called, texted and e-mailed to no avail; the guy had vanished. Then, she did the unthinkable—she snail mailed him?! Apparently, after he received her letter, written in pencil to boot, he got back in touch. Yeah, I don't blame him; he was probably scared for his life. He feeds her some story about being back with the ex or having lots of family obligations, blah, blah, blah. They hook up a few more times; she relentlessly pursues him, he continues to ignore her. Finally, after her repeated e-mails, phone calls and texts, he texts her back and tells her to leave him alone, that he is back with the ex once and for all.
She doesn't take no for an answer, continues to doggedly pursue him. She calls his cell; he hangs up. The other night, she was out with us. She takes my cell phone and calls his number. He picks up, then hangs up. He calls my number back; I let it go to voicemail, for I don't know the guy and don't care whether he gets my voicemail. She puts his phone number in my phonebook so that should he call me back, I'll know not to answer. She actually labels his number "Don't Answer!" The next day, she calls one of our mutual friends like five times to see if "Don't Answer" has called me. While out that night, we made the mistake of talking about Sara's birthday, to be celebrated Thursday at a restaurant on PA South. Despite our best efforts to ignore her, she repeatedly contacts several members of our crew to nail down Thursday's plans. And, she informs the girls, there is a new twist to the "Don't Answer" saga. Now, Don't Answer claims that the ex is pregnant with his child and is threatening to move to Florida with the unborn child. It's my personal belief that Don't Answer doesn't have an ex and is just pulling shit out of his ass in order to make psycho Mary leave him alone for good. But does the ex story stop Mary? Nooooooo. We manage to have a good time at Sara's birthday dinner by being ourselves and pretty much ignoring crazy Mary.
Mary, a narcissist who needs to be the center of attention, gets fed up by our exclusion of her, and, after one of us accidentally spills a glass of red wine, some of which gets on her hideous, rabbit-fur coat, storms out of the restaurant. This is not before however, she berates our adorable, sweetheart waiter, for her steak being undercooked.
"Relax," I tell her, "It's not Jeffrey's fault. He's not the chef." We've been served by Jeffrey before, and we like him. He's a nice, Jewish, boy with a master's in psychology from Columbia. The last time we were at the restaurant, he offered up some armchair psychology, free of charge. So, then, we were embarrassed at Mary's behavior, and, frankly, happy when she left.
"I'm so sorry, Jeffrey," I say after Mary's scene. "She's not really one of us. She's the tagalong; the toxic frenemy."
"Ha! I totally get it," he says, then recommends a comedian, Dane Cook, who talks about "the friend nobody likes." (More on this subject later, because I think we all have so-called "friends" we really don't like very much.)
Anywho, we think that Mary is pretty much done with us after this night, but, again, the girl just doesn't give up. The next night, she calls several of the girls to see what we are up to. Nobody returns her calls.
I kind of feel sorry for the guy; here he thinks that he can drive crazy Mary away by concocting this meshuga story, but instead of driving her away for good, it's making her pursue him even more. I think it would be less painful for both of them if he would tell her, in so many words, "Look, biatch, you are one insane motherfucker, I was just using you for sex, now get over it and leave me the hell alone." Let's just hope there aren't any bunnies in the vicinity of Don't Answer's apartment.