I got three phone calls in rapid succession recently from a number I didn’t recognize. I don’t know about you, but I don’t answer numbers that aren’t already in my address book unless I’ve recently put something up on Craigslist. When I called the number back I hit an obnoxious voicemail of a recorded song instead of identifying phrase telling me whose phone I’d just rung up. (I thought that went out with pagers around the year 2000, but maybe I’m just out of the loop.)

Here’s the text message exchange that followed:

UnIdentified caller: Hey, how are you?
Me: Uhhh, who is this?
UnIdentified caller: This is Samson, we had lunch once.
Me: Oh, I deleted your number. You should do the same thing with mine!

Here’s the deal, I went on a lunch date with Samson following a semi-weird message exchange online about a month ago. Ten minutes into lunch I was wondering if I could pretend my non-existent dog had been hit by a car, or that friend was in the midst of a Chris Brown moment, or maybe my already dead grandmother had just suffered a stroke–anything to get the fuck out of this restaurant without causing a scene.

What could make me, an avid people watcher, so desperate to book it out of there? It was the debate we got into within ten minutes of meeting. This wasn’t just any debate, mind you. He decided to unleash his inner eco-fag and lectured (a very appropriate choice of words in this case) me on how ‘we’ should “force big business to be more environmentally friendly.” While that is a cute idea in the land of lollipops and holiday-affiliated semi-deities that give children presents, it’s not realistic. The fact is that at present time being ecologically sound is not economically wise; it’s too expensive, time consuming, and a long list of other things meaning no big name business making large financial contributions to political cantidates has to think about. This debate got increasingly heated as he became frustrated with the fact that he was incapable of defending his point of view. If there’s one thing I get a kick out of, it’s making people see flaws in whatever point of view they just tried to desperately to cram down my throat without being able to back it up.

I’d like to mention the fact that this guy was one of those “professional student” types. You know, living in his parents basement and changing from one major to another at the drop of a hat… interested only in appearing well-educated and worldly based off what he’d picked up from several 200-level philosophy courses. People like this only look smart when speaking to someone who doesn’t know anything about the topic, or can’t hold their own in a debate. I do not fall into either of those categories, and so once the check was paid I made haste with the exit.

After that I ignored his calls, texts, and other attempts to contact me. If you aren’t feeling it after the first time you meet, there’s no reason to bother speaking to that person again. I thought after weeks without a response he’d get it. What is it about text messaging that makes people feel empowered enough to try to start an argument when it’s best to just let it be, anyway?

UnIdentified caller: Do you have anything to say for yourself?
Me: Maybe you missed the implication in my last text: I’m not interested!
UnIdentified caller: Well I’m glad you finally had the balls to tell me instead of avoiding me!
Me: Lulz!
UnIdentified caller: For the record I think you’re a grade-a bitch. Go fuck yourself, forever, have a nice night.
Me: If you could take the hint instead of crying about it, that would be great. Have fun in your mom’s basement lamenting about girls that don’t feel they should have to justify not being interested in you.

This was followed with a flurry of texts I didn’t reply to, some highlights include the fact that I am an “ice queen” who will “someday be humbled” and that I should “grow some balls.” Listen guys, let me tell you something: one unpleasant lunch date you decided we should go Dutch on (reason #1 we will never be going out again) followed by me not responding to any of your attempts to contact me is a pretty clear statement that I don’t want to talk to you. Beyond that I am a girl, I do not have balls nor would I like a pair of my own. And frankly after that, why would you want for me to make you look bad a second time?

I thought the “fuck you, forever” was a nice touch, especially considering it was followed by “have a nice night.” Sometimes my life is just a live feed of passiveaggressivenotes.com. Looks like Samson will either need to start meeting less intelligent girls, or ones with a Captain Planet fetish.

You guys have read about my adventures in e-dating and have clearly noticed the fact that few dudes last past three or four outings. One time I met a dude off the internet, and he was actually pretty cool. Attractive, smart, fun in bed; the trifecta of a good time. He was going to be leaving end of January for military shit overseas and things were flowing appropriately for that type of separation to be looming in the future. While it seemed like something legit could result, I wasn’t worried about it; I figured he’d leave and that would be the end of that.

I left town for New Years, and our communication became increasingly infrequent. This was the kind of guy whose phone died while he was out with friends so he borrowed his friend’s phone to keep texting (and then call) me; not responding to a text letting him know I was back in town for several weeks seems like a textbook case of loss of interest to me.

I’m a strong believer that ladies should not chase men or buses. When dudes flake I wind up putting all that energy into getting shit done. DMAC, m’dears. I was bummed that I didn’t get the last few weeks of quality romping out of it, but that was about it.

Until the Mormon (okay – former Mormon, but it’s what he’s being referred to for storytelling purposes) sent me a text in response to the last thing I had sent him a few weeks prior. Guys out there, that’s some super ballsy shit to try to pull with any girl. We always remember how long it’s been since the last time we spoke, and you acting like you haven’t been ignoring us adds insult to injury. So I sent him a sassy message which pretty clearly let him know to fuck off.

I think it’s pretty clear from that text how I feel: not into it. So him getting sassy back was at the least, unexpected. So I went the extra mile, linking The Oatmeal’s list of commonly misspelled words.

Well at least he sort of got the message about the misspelled words thing. Except not. I’m not even going into the implication that I was referring to myself as large.

As far as I can tell there’s only a few cardinal sins in the Kingdom of Manhood. One of them is leaving yourself open to insults regarding your mother. Trust me, I came up with some fucking doozies. Why I decided to take the high road is beyond me, but I missed out on a great opportunity to unleash the fury on this dude.

A three text follow up, all within seconds of each other. Really? Yeah, really. The rest of the exchange pretty well speaks for itself, I think.

C’mon Mormon boy, no dude in their 20′s goes over a week without looking at their phone. If he had missed it surely his message to me would not have been a response to to it. A “sorry I blew you off” or even an “I’ve been super busy”–fine! It’s just… I hate rude, indirect people. A couple weeks is some ‘go fuck yourself’ shit, IMO. But he wasn’t done yet! Oh no.

This whole exchange was already super funny. Did anyone else’s eyebrows go up at that last text? More importantly, do dudes really say shit like that? This is the type of thing I would expect out of the mouth of a mildly psychotic emotional masochist… see also: girl. It’s one thing to play games, but the “I’m testing you to see if you really like me” thing went out with high school & having sex in the front seats of compact cars as far as I’m concerned.

On the offhand chance that I was doing that whole “crazy ass chick” thing without realizing it, I related the whole exchange to three of my straight guy friends. The overall response seems to be that none of the guys I asked about all this will ever date me for fear of losing an argument to me, and that his goodbye schpiel borders on fag-like. Sounds like a pretty fair assessment to me.

At this point I figured the Mormon was done; he’d told me off via text message and now I could delete his number from my phone… except he called me the next afternoon. In retrospect I should’ve just let the call hit voicemail but I figured it would at least be funny… and it was.

He proceeded to apologize for not calling me for several weeks, told me I was “really cool” and that he enjoyed all the time we had spent together. Most of this conversation was a litany of excuses, so let me throw out the two highlights.

Me: “So you blow me off for two weeks and then apologize, following a text telling me how apologies are never sincere. You realize you look like a total tool right now, right?”

Mormon: “Yeah but it wasn’t that I blew you off… I just forget to call people. So when I don’t hear from anyone for a while I realize I haven’t returned any calls or texts. But really, I feel bad. I apologize.”

Me: “Just so you know, regardless of how casual a situation you’re in there’s still a certain amount of etiquette required. Not talking to a girl for a few weeks that you were sleeping with, then hitting her up while drunk to argue is not saying anything to me except that you’re hard up for sex before you ship out.”

Mormon: “I am not hard up for sex, thank you.”

Hung yourself with that one, buddy. Have fun with whatever five you’ll be boinking until you leave. Best of luck in Afghanistan by the way. Avoid those land mines, chicks are rarely willing overlook when you’re missing both a leg and manners.