Tag: stage 5 clingers

…disclaimer brought to you by Phoebe Buffay – “now I can’t stress this point too strongly…this story isn’t real”:

You have a friend. Your friend is not so good at the dating. It seems her only options are, “beating heart ripped out of chest” or “running away from stage 5 clingers.”

But, she’s been Mopey McMoperson for a fucking year over a douchelord who is an emotional sadist, so you tell her to get back out there and try her luck, because the path to ever lasting love does not involve watching Netflix at 4 am.

So, she gets online. Right away, she is matched with a guy who seems polite and normal. Their first date consists of beers at a sports bar.

Her date is nice but seems overly enthused. Which she is not used to, really, so she thinks it is weird he’s overly affectionate, like how when he gets up to go to the bathroom less than 45 minutes into the date kisses her as he gets up from the table.

But, as we’ve already determined, your friend is inept, so maybe that’s normal? She’s not sure. It’s also weird that he seems so gung ho over her when he hasn’t asked her many questions about herself, so maybe he’d just be that excited over a plant. Who knows.

At the end of the date, Mr. Seemingly-Normal-Until-the-Other-Shoe-Drops-But-We’ll-Get-to-That asks her to go home with him but she politely declines because it’s not like they were dry humping at the table and she gave him any indication that the evening was headed in that direction.

But they DO plan a second date, and he tells her that he will make her dinner at his place which in RETROSPECT was not a good idea.

As date number two approaches, your friend begins to get more nervous, as is par for the course with her, because she scares easily when people genuinely like her. But, she goes and tries to have a positive attitude but in the millisecond that she sees him when he comes to retrieve her from the parking lot she’s all, “yeah, no” and then spends most of the date pretty much like this:

Now, it is important to mention that she wanted to be honest with this guy so told him that she wasn’t sure what she was looking for but that she was still struggling with feelings for her ex because I guess it is easier to be honest when you have nothing invested and maybe being honest up front is the better way to go. But HIS response was something along the lines of, “well, I am ready to commit to you exclusively right now…or we can just have sex.” Pause for reaction.

Now, at this point she’s regretting that they aren’t in public so she can’t just peace the fuck out and at some point must have agreed that they could still hang out and see what happens because when she gets home (two hours later, which seemed like at least eight) he has texted her to tell her that she is going to LOVE what he is planning and where he is taking her later on in the week. She is confused – she thought she meant hanging out in a causal sense like hanging out without expectations or whatnot and he’s in a completely different chapter planning surprise dates that she is not comfortable with.

So, the next day she decides to rip off the band-aid and just tell him that she can’t see him anymore. She sends this via text because that is allowed after only two dates and no exchange of last names, correct?

He doesn’t immediately respond, so she feels like she is in the clear and is relieved. Just disappearing without explanation is kind of shitty and as much as it sucks, even over text, to tell someone you don’t want to see them anymore, she felt like she did the right thing.

But nope – spoke too soon. The responses start coming in. First a text: why, what’s up? Followed by another one: I was really hoping you wouldn’t tell me this over text. Followed by a phone call. Immediately followed by another phone call AND voice mail. (And that, my friends, is an A+ in How to Get Blocked 101)

Which okay – come on, dude. Really? First of all, I cannot tell you how many dudes have disappeared on me (I mean YOUR FRIEND) after we’d (they’d) been through more than two dates, second of all this all seems a little excessive considering she was upfront about her feelings and third of all, there are surely people reading this who feel like in the below GIF your friend is clearly Rachel and they are everyone else and this depicts them trying to get her to make reasonably logical decisions in general when it comes to dating (like maybe don’t go to a dude’s apartment on the second date because it might unleash the Stage 5).

 

And your friend is all

ANYWAY. This entirely made up story is just another in the endless “dating sucks” stories we see on a daily basis. Fun times.