The Ex-Files: Vindictiveness Abounds In Grade School

Well, I didn't think I'd be writing about Monica so soon after my last post, but there has been a development. While we were together, we did some geocaching together, and I found some of her caches. In one case I found her cache all by my lonesome. In the other cases I found them with her--she wanted to show them to me. In the game of Geocaching you go and find the cache, physically sign the log, then post a log online. That's what I did.

Last night I got several emails from the geocaching site informing me that my logs had been deleted. Tonight I got over a dozen more to the same effect. Monica decided to delete all of my logs. She decided to delete them even though she knows I found them and signed the logs. I guess she has decided that I am no longer worthy to even associate with her, however tangential it may be.

This kind of behavior I can only describe as juvenile, to the point of grade school. When we broke up she insisted that I deliver all of "her" stuff to her apartment (even though I had bought and paid for it all), and do it on her schedule. To avoid any unpleasantness, I carted it all to her apartment office on a day I could make it and delivered it. She turned around and gave half of it away. Then she unfriended me on Facebook. Then she called and left a nasty voicemail on my phone a couple of weeks after the breakup. Now she has decided to try to get back at me by taking away points in a game. Demanding "her" stuff back was pretty brazen, but somewhat understandable. Unfriending me and engaging in name-calling transcends sophomoric. Taking away points in a game? Could we be in grade school? I remember doing stuff like that when I was in third grade.

I hope this is the last episode in the Ex-Files for awhile--I detest soap operas.

The Ex-Files: First SWAG Of The Year

Tonight I made my return to SWAG. I haven't been in awhile mainly due to working 2nd shift at work. I was really looking forward to seeing a few people, but I wasn't prepared for what I found. When I got there, there were a bunch of people. The party room at the restaurant was already half full before the event had even officially started, and all the people I wanted to see were either already engaged, or not there yet. I joined in the banality, hoping for some relationship recap and also hoping for no ex-girlfriend. Neither was I to have.

Apparently the gathering was to celebrate February birthdays, and Monica was one of them. She had responded to someone there that she would be at the event. I just ordered my food, stayed in the discussions, and ignored her when she actually showed up. Neither of us talked to the other. I signed her birthday card. It's a toss up whether she can read the untidy scrawl that is my signature. If she can, I wonder what she will do with the card (if she even keeps it at all). I did talk with some of the people I wanted to, but nothing substantial. I played Monica's last, hateful voicemail for a few people. The reaction was the same--shocked and hurt. Leslie, who I really wanted to talk to, was completely engaged the entire evening, but she said she wanted to hear what happened later on.

Monica and I were able to coexist in the same room with each other. I was actively avoiding her. I suspect she was actively avoiding me as well. I know I shouldn't care what she said, but I'm sure she talked about me, and I'm curious as to what was said. I don't care if it was negative, just so long as it was the truth. Ah well, it's probably not meant to be, and as far as outings go, it wasn't altogether a failure, just not what I was wanting.

Labor Day Caching

Today was interesting. It started out inauspiciously. I got home ultra late (or early) and got only about four hours sleep. When I woke up I saw Monica had called me 21 times. No, that's not a mistake. The call count on my iPhone had the number 21 on it. I thought it was just a glitch. I proceeded to shower and get ready, but I was running a little late, so I called Monica to let her know.

Monica sounded like she was about to die. No, she said, she had called me like 60 times. She was feeling really bad and had contemplated going to the ER. Yikes! I thought. She claimed that she was feeling better now, but I made her call her friend and give us another hour anyway just to make sure she was feeling like going.

I got to her apartment, and she wasn't ready. She said she'd be ready, and that she was feeling better. She wanted to go, and I thought that she looked ok to go, so once she was ready we drove to Dallas to her friend John's apartment.

Over in Dallas we hooked up with John and went to our first cache. It was a historical marker that had info that redirected us to the actual object. It went fine. So did our next couple. We hit a wall when we started bush whacking our way to find one little container among hundreds of trees, and we soon became hot, tired, cross and disillusioned. We broke for lunch and tried a WhereIGo cache. We were doing ok right up until the last when something went awry, and we couldn't get the ultimate coordinates. Drat!

We did a cemetery cache next, and thankfully that was easier to find. We found it fairly quickly, and we found the redirector coordinates, so we were in better spirits. Not so much when we went to find the bonus cache. It was next to a creek on a steep bluff. We tried two different approaches to find it, risking life and limb in the process. Neither worked, so we left tired and cross again. We got a final steer back to the last part of the WhereIGo and finished up that one before we departed for John's apartment.

Once there we picked up John's partner Drew and went for dinner at a place called Zini's. The food there was good, but they were out of what I ordered, and Monica had to try twice to get a decent drink with her dinner. Monica, Drew and John all talked while I sat and listened. Monica, Drew and John all work for the Crocs shoe store chain, so they were talking work. After that we walked around the neighborhood that John and Drew live in before Monica and I left for Arlington. I think it was a good day, but there were certainly issues.

Next weekend Monica and I have tickets to the Fort Worth symphony, then we're going to downshift and just stay in the rest of the time.

Another Wednesday SWAG

Wednesday nights see a group of geocachers get together in south west Arlington. They call themselves the South West Arlington Geocachers, or SWAG for short. Monica has been going for some time. I haven't been because I haven't been active in geocaching for some time, but since I met Monica I have more or less reentered that world. Besides, it's a handy excuse to see her midweek.

I went tonight to SWAG, and Monica and I paired off immediately. We talked and had fun with the others there, but I wondered how what kind of vibes we were sending off and who had noticed, if anyone, that Monica and I appeared "together." As it turns out, at least one person did notice, but more on that later.

Monica and I stayed until we decided to get some ice cream, so we went to Braum's. We talked more there over a sundae and a dip of Splenda-ed ice cream until we both left to get some sleep for work. This weekend I said I'd take Mon to another movie on Friday, and to the butterfly farm at Cedar Ridge Preserve in Dallas on Sunday. All was agreeable, so more dates are now on the calendar.

The Stupid Things I Do to Increase My Chances

Working second shift is a drag. It's a drag because it is a lot more demanding time-wise than first shift, especially if you do your business/relaxing in the day and go to work at the end of the day like I do. Consequently it plays hell with evening social activities.

Last night was a prime example. I had not planned on going to the Wednesday night Geocachers get together at No Frills grill, but Monica, the girl I met last Friday, wanted me to come. She's coming to my house on Friday to take in the new Futuramas, so I guess it's a kind of date. Wanting (or hoping) to increase my chances of fostering the relationship, I elected to take off work, go to the get together, then stay ultra late to make up the time.

I had fun, but now I'm behind at work. Tonight is the last night of the week, and it'll be a long one. I hope it was worth it.

Downshifting and Hiding

This is one of those days where singleness is something to be desired. Today my parental units drove down from Lubbock to stay with me for the weekend. Being around my mother is always stressful, and I already saw her last week while I was up in Lubbock for the high school reunion. So my solution was to hide, at least for tonight.

There were just two little tricks to that: working second shift and going to one of my friend's Friday the 13th event. Working second shift turned out to not be a big deal due to the fact that 2nd shift starts after 12 noon, so working my hours around that was no big deal. (Finding the help I needed at work to get my tasks done, now that wasn't at all easy.) I worked until nearly 7pm, then I went to the Friday the 13th thing.

The Friday the 13th event is connected with another of my hobbies: geocaching. I have a long and sordid history with geocaching, and I quit actively caching months (if not years) ago, so I wasn't exactly looking forward to talking about caching for several hours tonight. But, seeing as how I was hiding, I decided to go and have as good a time as I could. That, and the event was organized by a single girl about my age, so not only could I hide, I also had a prospect!

I hid out at the event, well, dinner really, for a couple of hours. I saw a lot of friends from the geocaching community, and amazingly, we really didn't talk about caching all that much. There was a lot of talk about my weight loss and other personal things, which was exactly what I needed after a day of frustration and a weekend of stress. I talked at length with one lady who had had a bariatric surgery, and we compared notes. I saw one of my colleagues from work who had just gotten back tonight from a business trip. I talked with his wife for a little while to compare work notes. There were some door prizes, and even though I didn't win, it was nice just to be there in the atmosphere.

During the night, I talked with Monica, the single girl event organizer. I had met her before years ago at another geocaching event, and at the time she was engaged to a guy, so I really didn't get to know her that well. Now that she is a free agent again, I talked with her at length. It turns out we have a lot of the same interests, and we have a few divergent ones that could be fun to explore. She's 30, and I'm 31, so there is no problem with age differential. After dinner, when everybody else took off, we stayed and talked for another two and a half hours in the parking lot in front of the restaurant. It was a good, long conversation coving a lot of ground, and I think we might have connected somewhat. She likes Futurama, but hasn't seen any of the new episodes, so sometime this week I'll call her and invite her to see the new season that I have DVRed. This could be fun, folks! Stay tuned!