Michell, my Belle - and you're sad because you're true.
A few years ago, when I was young and only slightly power mad and re-latively preposterous, I met a man.
We'll call him Michell. Michell's real name was Mike - but having acquired a taste for escargots and now very multi-cultural - had his name legally changed to some French variation or the other.
Michell loved to talk for hours on the phone, explaining his love of Islam, latest theory of nirvana, navel-lint or Palestina shawls. I didn't. We could not be friends and I told him as much. It didn't stop him from calling. Each time he called I told him the same thing "Listen, maybe you didn't understand me the last time, but I really don't want to be friends with you. Stop calling me, please."
I thought it couldn't get clearer than that. One time my "We can't be friends oh god why don't you listen and a stingray eat you" policy wavered - he called me crying on the phone. I'm a sucker for crying guys, something about the fascinating and copious amounts of snot that accompany it. At first I thought the actual "Booo-hooo" (transcribed word for word) was a joke, and I started to chuckle. Until I realized that this was his way of expressing some grave heinous wrong that had been done to him.
"Jen...Jenny! I went to..."
Where? Did he go to the doctor? Had he caught the AIDS? Dare I dream?
"..the barbershop. They RUINED MY HAIR:"
I hung up. After that I thought it best to just not answer the phone for three months. Regardless who called - I was jaded. This, until I thought it safe to put the phone back on the hook. How wrong I was. One of the first people to call after the phone was back in order was Michell. I let it ring the twenty times it took for him to give up then bent over, lifted the phone off the hook, and went back to the riveting internetting I was doing at the time.
An hour or two later, I hear a sorrowful moan. "Jeeeeennnn...." I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Obviously someone on TV had just lost his most beloved and beautiful and brilliant brain surgeon of a girlfriend,named after me. How appropriate!
Ten minutes later: "JEEEeeeeeeEEnny. JEEEENNNNY"
These are my options. Either I'm going mad, or the guy on television is. It took three more "JeeeeeEEENNY"'s to realize that it was coming from the phone. There was someone on the other end. Someone who had been listening to me mumbling to myself, laughing at some random youtube and trying to outdo my personal best in loud farts FOR THE PAST TWO HOURS.
I lifted the phone to my ear and whispered "Hello...?"
"Hi! It's Michell. Boy you take long to answer the phone."
I guess you can guess my response from now. It wasn't much different from the one I gave him face to face when we met in the street two years later.
The other day I open up facebook to find another friend request.
It was then I knew it was time to give up. it was Michell, the only white once Muslim in training who thought he could hop his way to Nirvana, literally hop repeatedly till he reached some higher existential plane through religious practice. It's not these guys:
Michell had now changed his name yet again to Mordekai, his posts now in Yiddish, his request simple: "Be my friend?"
I'm now withdrawing from facebook. It's not worth it. Stimulating as the thought of meeting loved and lost ones is, the fear of meeting the irretrievably lost frightens me even more.
We'll call him Michell. Michell's real name was Mike - but having acquired a taste for escargots and now very multi-cultural - had his name legally changed to some French variation or the other.
Michell loved to talk for hours on the phone, explaining his love of Islam, latest theory of nirvana, navel-lint or Palestina shawls. I didn't. We could not be friends and I told him as much. It didn't stop him from calling. Each time he called I told him the same thing "Listen, maybe you didn't understand me the last time, but I really don't want to be friends with you. Stop calling me, please."
I thought it couldn't get clearer than that. One time my "We can't be friends oh god why don't you listen and a stingray eat you" policy wavered - he called me crying on the phone. I'm a sucker for crying guys, something about the fascinating and copious amounts of snot that accompany it. At first I thought the actual "Booo-hooo" (transcribed word for word) was a joke, and I started to chuckle. Until I realized that this was his way of expressing some grave heinous wrong that had been done to him.
"Jen...Jenny! I went to..."
Where? Did he go to the doctor? Had he caught the AIDS? Dare I dream?
"..the barbershop. They RUINED MY HAIR:"
I hung up. After that I thought it best to just not answer the phone for three months. Regardless who called - I was jaded. This, until I thought it safe to put the phone back on the hook. How wrong I was. One of the first people to call after the phone was back in order was Michell. I let it ring the twenty times it took for him to give up then bent over, lifted the phone off the hook, and went back to the riveting internetting I was doing at the time.
An hour or two later, I hear a sorrowful moan. "Jeeeeennnn...." I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Obviously someone on TV had just lost his most beloved and beautiful and brilliant brain surgeon of a girlfriend,named after me. How appropriate!
Ten minutes later: "JEEEeeeeeeEEnny. JEEEENNNNY"
These are my options. Either I'm going mad, or the guy on television is. It took three more "JeeeeeEEENNY"'s to realize that it was coming from the phone. There was someone on the other end. Someone who had been listening to me mumbling to myself, laughing at some random youtube and trying to outdo my personal best in loud farts FOR THE PAST TWO HOURS.
I lifted the phone to my ear and whispered "Hello...?"
"Hi! It's Michell. Boy you take long to answer the phone."
I guess you can guess my response from now. It wasn't much different from the one I gave him face to face when we met in the street two years later.
The other day I open up facebook to find another friend request.
It was then I knew it was time to give up. it was Michell, the only white once Muslim in training who thought he could hop his way to Nirvana, literally hop repeatedly till he reached some higher existential plane through religious practice. It's not these guys:
Michell had now changed his name yet again to Mordekai, his posts now in Yiddish, his request simple: "Be my friend?"
I'm now withdrawing from facebook. It's not worth it. Stimulating as the thought of meeting loved and lost ones is, the fear of meeting the irretrievably lost frightens me even more.
