misdirection
I suppose it's inevitable that the longer life goes on, the more times you'll find yourself sucked into the bullshit drama of one or another of your friends' or family's divorces or breakups.
A couple of years ago, it was Gabriel and Kornelija. Thankfully I haven't been party to virtually any of the drama between Danielle and Patrick (although I can't even remember how many years they've been separated, and I do know the divorce papers there still aren't signed, which has been like pulling teeth for Danielle to get him to do). Now? It's Jennifer and Eric.
What happened this morning was a genuine misunderstanding, but it still counts. Had Jennifer been thinking clearly, it never would have happened at all. Eric has gone off the deep end, and even I have already seen signs of psychosis: he's liking every post about Jennifer that comes on Facebook, and since I spent two days with her last weekend, I'd open the app and literally see a string of ten notifications in a row from him, because, for instance, he'd like a post I shared with a bunch of pictures, and then each of the individual photos as well. Just yesterday he liked a comment I had posted on the photo album he'd posted from their wedding . . . eight years ago. Of course it totally makes sense for a heartbroken man whose wife has left him to peruse old wedding photos, but my point here is that this is not a post that would suddenly, randomly surface on his news feed when it's nowhere near their anniversary -- finding this comment exchange from eight years ago takes some doing. Some relatively obsessive doing.
And then? He messaged Jennifer a screenshot of a comment exchange between him and me, in the thread below his wedding photo album from eight years ago on Facebook. Jennifer did not see the "8y" timestamp on these comments, so imagine how mystified I was when she sent me this message:
All your doing by commicating with Eric is helping him harass me
He likes to send your messages to me
. . . And I'm like, What messages? What the hell is she talking about?
Literally the only message between us in the past six months was at Dad and Sherri's anniversary dinner, when he sent me photos he took, which I asked him to. I didn't even respond as I thanked him in person. Bizarrely, the most recent message before that was from October, which was a picture he sent me of a portly man dressed in nothing but a green T-shirt, gray socks, and a stove pot somehow stuck on its own over his groin. I actually never responded to either of these messages on Facebook Messenger itself; the last message I sent him was last April, when I thanked him for bringing me tea the morning after my annual Birth Week overnight visit, which he's always done.
And don't get me wrong now. I still like Eric and think he's a good guy; I think he's genuinely heartbroken and I feel for him as far as that goes; I also think he's far too old to be handling this situation so spectacularly badly. The man is 51 years old. I have far more details about his boneheaded behavior that it's just not my place to share here, but trust me on this one. And sure, I would absolutely concede that Jennifer hasn't been perfect in all of this either -- it's never the case that a person in the midst of a separation or breakup is -- but even acknowledging that misses the point. There is still proportional significance of behaviors to consider. And while it may be true that I am getting one side of the story by only hearing about these things from Jennifer, I am also witness to what Eric is liking and posting on Facebook, and his online behavior is serving only to underscore and corroborate Jennifer's reports.
So anyway, back to what Jennifer messaged me this morning, which had me genuinely baffled -- until I figured it out, or so I thought. The only logical conclusion I could come to was that Eric was sending screenshots to the other Matthew she knows from the Post Office, and she typed in "Matthew" and sent this morning's messages to me even though she intended to send them to him. After asking if she was sure she sent that to the right person, I added, Oh wait you probably just sent this to the wrong Matthew, and then, in an attempt to diffuse things with a lighthearted touch, I added, Tell Matthew I said he should stop replying to messages from Eric, it's very annoying!
But then Jennifer said no, it was meant for me: Matthew doesn't respond to him at all. What the fuck? So then I said Then this makes no sense, and What the hell are you talking about?
She wrote, ok just a sec and I responded, He messaged me photos while we were at the party but if he’s sending you screenshots of other messages they must be from a long time ago
She replied, Maybe and then sent me the screenshot of their exchange, which included his screenshot of the comment exchange between him and me.
And I'm just thinking: . . . Uh.
I wrote back, It says right there these messages were from eight years ago
Jennifer asked where; she didn't see it; seconds later she wrote, lol ok nm and I found it. Then, I told you he's fucking delusional.
This was where I wasn't sure how best to respond, or if I should respond at all, because I must admit at this moment I was very annoyed. My instinct through all of this has been to be empathetic with Jennifer above all else, and to respond now in any way that showed my irritation would be a mistake. Relating to Jennifer on an emotional level can be a very tricky prospect, especially when she's in a heightened period of stress in her life. We've known each other literally all our lives, and I would venture to say I know how best to communicate with her better than Eric perhaps ever has.
Also: Jennifer is not an apologizer. She never has been. She even once told me, many years ago, about an argument she'd been in with another boyfriend (or another husband? I don't remember) in which he tried to accuse her of thinking she's perfect and has no faults. In a tactical move in the argument she chose to tell him some of the faults she knows she has, and the fact that she never apologizes was one of them. I've never forgotten that.
And I still thought to myself, If ever there were a time for her to apologize to me, it's now, but I won't get it, and honestly I just resigned myself to that expectation. Just as I did with Gabriel's sometimes genuinely shitty behavior while he was breaking up with Kornelija, I knew it best just to allow some space for blowing off steam as a means of grieving a relationship, even when it was unpleasant. But then I actually did get an apology, which I truly appreciated even if she did glide over it pretty quickly:
sorry, he's driving me insane
And then she moved on with other details about what's been going on. But I kind of thought, All right, I'll take it. That was more than I expected, and I suppose more than I gave her credit for. And to be fair -- sort of -- those little "8y" time stamps on the comments, within a screenshot, are fairly easy to miss. Especially if you're stressed and emotional and therefore not always thinking straight. Anyone could have made the same mistake. Honestly I'm most relieved I restrained myself from lashing out back at her, which would have only made everything worse, and then I'd have had only myself to blame.
It was an odd way to start the day this morning though.
Taking the conversation in a wildly different direction, and to national affairs that will be dated before we know it (I may look back at this post years from now and just think, Who the fuck was Beto O'Rourke?). Anyway! I have something to say about Beto O'Rourke.
He was basically a Democratic superstar as he campaigned to beat Texan Slimeball Ted Cruz for Senate last year. Town hall questions to which he offered pitch-perfect answers went viral; I could hardly get over how gorgeous he was; he seemed like a political dream (or dreamboat). I still think he could have made a great senator. But now, his re-launch onto the national stage in a wildly different context -- vying for the U.S. presidency rather than for a Senate seat -- has radically changed the conversation. Suddenly, he's shockingly tone deaf.
People can talk about how Lincoln also lost a bid for Senate before winning all they want. Beto O'Rouke isn't living in the 1860s. Now, O'Rourke has been in the US House of Representatives for six years, which means he has legislative experience and thus he's still wildly more qualified than, say, President Fuckwit. But for him to say things like "I'm just born to be in it" just smacks of a sense of entitlement that rubs a national constituency the wrong way, far more than it would a localized, statewide constituency -- even one as massive as Texas. A Texan electorate and a national electorate are two very, very different things.
Now, I should try to be fair: media takes comments out of context all the time; O'Rourke's heart is perhaps in the right place -- although it does take a certain psychopathy to feel "born" to be a part of the pollical insanity that is the American system. Someone has to, though, and it might as well be one of the good ones. But this choice, so soon after losing the senate race, literally months ago? It's just -- the more I read about this guy the less into him I get. I mean, I'd still vote for him far sooner than I would Bernie Sanders. None of them are perfect. I'm still gunning for Kamala Harris, and I would also happily vote for Elizabeth Warren, her idiotic history with her "Native American" ancestry claim notwithstanding. I've been seeing more and more of her lately and I have been consistently impressed.
Anyway, should I tell you what I did last night? I biked directly to Pacific Place after work to see the 4:45 showing of the poorly titled Giant Little Ones, which I liked a lot. A-minus, totally recommended! I made the choice to see that at the last minute, when I was rechecking what was playing there. I'm really glad I did.
I rode my bike the rest of the way home afterward, made myself a sandwich for dinner, and wrote my movie review. I watched Sunday night's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which had a really great interview with Monica Lewinsky, and then an episode of HBO's Crashing, which I fell way behind on (which is very easy to do now that shows are all streaming). I did get on Skype for a few minutes with Shobhit, whose constant throat-clearing still drives me insane even from literally the other side of the planet. I wonder if getting off dairy would make a difference with that? I've heard of that solving people's issues of this sort before. It would probably be hard for him to give up milk, but I have a feeling that could be a key factor. In any event that pretty much sums up my evening.
In other news I just got back from lunch with Karen at the Six-Seven restaurant down at the Edgewater Hotel -- my first time in about five months with the ability to bike down there in all of about five minutes. The weather is insanely warm this week so it was pleasant, although there's something creepy about that pleasantness because the weather is always so fucked up anymore. We literally had snow earlier this month.
Also, Karen's out of town on Thursday which was why this week's lunch was rescheduled to today. We split the requisite order of the gyro sandwich, and with the sunshine and clear skies, the view of Elliott Bay out the windows was admittedly spectacular. The conversation was always lovely as usual, even if there was nothing particularly worth noting in the details.
It was a quite nice bike ride back, and now it's back to work time.
[posted 1:13 pm]