Is That Supposed to be a Compliment?

One of the few connections I made online dating that had any sort of promise at all was met almost immediately with the challenge of distance. Cosmic circumstances brought him out of my state and into another with no definite return date. It was unfortunate because he had the makings of great potential.

We continued to chat for nine months or so, but never really broached the topic of where it would lead, because it couldn’t lead anywhere hundreds of miles away. I guess this isn’t entirely true. For some people the distance would have been a minor bump in the road. But I have endured so many medium-length distance relationships in my past life that I didn’t have much of a desire to delve into a long distance one.  Especially one that would likely end in tears or relocating to the southern U.S., which would entail an entirely different brand of weeping.

As it was, we never ventured beyond flirtatious daily gchats, a handful of emails, some texting and a lone phone call. Throw in a rather thoughtful birthday gift and it became an “if only” situation. The “if only” turned into “oh forget it” when we had this conversation. He apologized a couple days after that disaster, but the regularity of our discourse dropped to almost never and a couple weeks later I met the current boy, so I didn’t give much more thought to the matter. Just another missed connection.

Circumstances being what they were, you can imagine my surprise when I received a text from him a month later.  

Dude, this is probably totally inappropriate, but I found the “Oklahoma you” and I’m totally gaga!

My thought process broke down thusly:

1. Where did you come from?
2. What about that is inappropriate? Weird and unnecessary, yes, but I don’t know about inappropriate.
3. The real inappropriateness lies in your needless use of quotation marks.
4.  I don’t really want to think that there is another me out there somewhere, especially a version with a southern accent.
5. Is that supposed to be a compliment?
6. Who says gaga?

I said congrats, made some quip about my love life and passed along this blog address after he requested it (hopefully he’s forgotten that at this point, because I can’t imagine he’d be thrilled to read this). He then compared the situation to some Seinfeld episode that explains how men are more attractive to other women if they’re with a pretty girl. This made little sense to me. I have never seen the episode because I kind of hate Seinfeld, but I imagine you’d have to be seen in the vicinity of the pretty girl for it to count. We were never even in the same room let alone in a relationship. Whatever, he called me pretty, so I guess there’s that. But, honestly, the whole interaction came off as some sort of  “I found a girlfriend” victory dance.

I just didn’t see the need for that conversation to take place. If I had sent him some alluring text begging him to take me in the worst way, then fine, by all means ward me off by telling me about your ah-may-zing girlfriend. But this was more akin to screaming “DON’T TOUCH ME I’M TAKEN” as some pretty girl extends her hand for a simple handshake. I’m probably reading too much into it as per my M.O. I’m sure it was nothing more than a friendly notification, however unnecessary it may be. But guys, seriously, don’t send weird texts with thinly veiled backhanded compliments about how you found someone to fill the gaping hole in your existence to some girl you stopped corresponding with a month prior. She doesn’t really need to know how happy you are with someone slightly better than her.

Image via LOLbrary