Don’t Expect Me To Stroke Your Ego
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
Over two years ago, I briefly dated a guy I dubbed “Flaky Jon” after his on-again/off-again interests. I finally told him to stop emailing me when he felt down, and to get his ego stroked somewhere else. Well, after a year of zero contact, he just emailed me through Facebook (where I am now going to block him). But I went to look at his page, I saw his posts of him with his girlfriend and their barfy sweet messages back and forth on his public wall.
So now I’m asking myself, what part of “don’t contact me just to get your ego stroked” doesn’t he get? Why email me to say “just thought of you and hope you’re doing well” when you’re happily dating someone and we were never friends outside of the failed dating attempt? What is the purpose of that? I don’t get it and am hoping you can shed some light on this mysterious and annoying behavior.
Signed,
I Don’t Stroke Egos
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Dear Don’t Stroke Egos,
I’m so glad you wrote in because it has reminded me to never contact an old boyfriend. Oh crap, too late. I already did. I should delete my Facebook profile; how will I ever live this down? He probably thinks my marriage is on the rocks and that I suffer from a fragile ego.
It’s unfortunate that Apple has yet to develop an iPhone telepathy app, or I would tell you exactly why Flaky Jon contacted you. Instead, we’ll have to use conjecture and projection.
It could be he is using Facebook messaging as a preemptive booty call. He wants to keep the back door open just in case things don’t work out with his sweet and barfy girlfriend.
Or it could be he contacted you for the same innocent reasons I’ve contacted old flames (hint: it isn’t because I want to dry hump them like it’s 1991 all over again.) Of the few I’ve emailed, it’s for one of two reasons. A) I genuinely liked them as a person, not just as a meat stick, and I’m curious as to how they are doing in life. Or B) I want to know if they got fat, especially if they dumped me.
So maybe Flaky Jon wants a back-up girlfriend, maybe he just wants to see if you’ve gotten fat. (And if you have, I don’t blame you for blocking him.) Until Apple develops that telepathy app, we’ll never know for sure.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
