The Lewinsky Effect

My friend Monica'd herself right in front of me last night.  It was strange, but looking back, unfortunately predictable.  At the start of the night, she was on one end of the spectrum but at the end...she wasn't on my couch anymore.  Backing up...

A girl I was once very close to, even lived with her for a year, moved to Houston about a year and half ago now.  She's a had a very hard time leaving behind certain things about her former home.  In particular, the men she once (cough) obsessed over.  Even with the miles and hours between her and those scumbags, something in her wouldn't EVER just snap and let go.  I remember even last Christmas, she was dating a nice boy--Brandon back in her new Houston hometown.  I was visited with her over manicures when she told me that she had fooled around with intelli-scumbag, thus, cheating on nice-boy-Brandon.  Brandon was boring, she told me.  When Brandon went back to his ex-girlfriend not long after (not sure if she ever told him about cheating with intelli-scum) she didn't seem bored at all.  In fact, she flew into a phone rage (what did the ex girlfriend have, wasn't she an ex for a reason, blah blah blah).

A bit of back story.  There are two scumbags still living in my current town that she once had relations and intense (but seemingly unrequited) feels for.  Intelli-scrum, will be so named because he is considered around his workplace to be wise and all-knowing (although, his actions, particularly lately have made me question that notion).  The other scum...well, we'll call him Hood-scum.  He is a (former?) drug dealer.  I actually remember when she baked him a pot-leaf shaped cake after he got off probation.  Yaaay.  What a cool guy.  Both scums lead her to believe (although, I'm not so sure that she didn't have their relationships seriously blown out of proportion in her own mind) that there was something serious to their encounters.  None of this was ever apparent to anyone else--to be fair, maybe that just wasn't their style?  But she was constantly talking wedding bells...and they had never been on dates.  

My friend came into town to have dinner with me last night.  We've grown appart, and I notice things about her that bother me now--much more than they once did--or maybe we've changed.  She isn't much interested in other people though.  She would whip out her phone to text if I started to mention what was going on with me.  She was texting both scums.  She told me, "Well...I was SUPPOSE to have lunch with SOMEONE today, but I never heard back."  Honestly, that sort of thing from either scum wouldn't surprise me.  It turned out to be Hood.

"I texted him, just to make sure he was okay,"she explained.  "Normally the only time he blows me off is when something really awful is going on in his life." (wrong.  Unless every single time she calls, something terribly wrong is happening in his life...and she can always make him a potleaf cake to cheer him up.)

As we could both tell, when leaving my work (both guys are also in the same building)--there was nothing wrong.  He confirmed that when he responded to her text.  Maybe that's what started the ball rolling.  She told me she was no longer in love with Hood, nay, no longer in love with either one of them.  I toasted to that.  When I tried to be honest with her and tell her I thought she was better than both of them and they were wasting her time--she always got angry with me.  I thought it was good to come to her own conclusions--which at this point in the evening, seemed to be clear and firm.

While on her, I'm a badass independent woman kick she told me that she had recently seen good-boy-Brandon of Houston fame.  She told me that they had gone to a pizza parlor and had a magical time.  Fireworks and everything (he was no longer boring at all!)  So at the end of the night, she says, she just had to ask: was he still with her?  (the "her" stressed as though this person was more of clog in the drain than a girl she had just never met.)  Yes.  He was.  Well.  Did she know he was out with her, right now?  No she didn't.

My friend folds her arms and looks at me like, "wouldn't you know it."  She proudly goes on to tell me (and I'm sure this wasn't exaggerated for my benefit whatsoever) that she informed him how weak and pathetic he was--how she could have him back in three weeks if she really wanted him but it wasn't her style to steal a guy away from a girl.  EVEN THOUGH- she stresses--that ex-girlfriend did it to her.  

I'm nodding along and I guess this is all good.  It's like, her boo-ya moment (do people still say that) and she's feeling like a queen--plus, she's not going to do anything stupid and pathetic and desperate and try and win him back.  Because by doing that...it seemed as though she had some dignity.  Although, really, the whole speech and weakling talk probably wasn't needed to really be dignified...but whatever, it's a start.

This was one end of the spectrum.  Maybe it was the drinking that shifted things.  Maybe conversation or some poking or something.  

My friend continues to text.  Instead of texting her missed date, Hood, she is retaliating by texting intelli-scum.  Mentally, it all makes sense--although neither one knew the other played any role.  She baited him.  Her other phone had been stolen--assumably by a student.  She hoped he wouldn't look through it.  Intelli-scum (being male and thus having a penis) is intrigued.  Why?  What's on the phone.

Pictures of some guy's junk.  BOOM!  You just got lit up Intelli-scum!  It practically reeked it was so obvious to me what was happening.  My friend-- I'm so desirable to other guys that they are sending me pictures of their schlongs.  Are you jealous?

But she had to jump in there and save his delicate little heart.  There are also pictures of her on the camera phone.  Ooooh.  Now this is interesting.  This leads the text-a-thon (all while...weren't she and I suppose to be catching up and having dinner?  Check?) that goes to familiar territory.  The last text--the one she stumbles over reads something about how she has great boobs.

What does it mean?! she agonizes. (um?)  I throw in- I think he has a girlfriend.  I've seen a girl up there a lot.  I've heard people mention that he is serious with someone.  She admits that she has heard the same thing--but months ago.  Oh well.

We met up with friends at another bar.  Oh my god-don't they want to know about all of this texting craziness?!  One friend announces upon hearing the saga, "Oh I like his girlfriend!  She's really nice!"  My friend is now sullen.  She drags off to get another drink.  The other friend leans across the table and says, Oh so now she's mad at me?  Drinks, I shrug.  I wouldn't worry about it.

We leave not long after.  She has become quiet until she and I are about to get into our cars.  First, she invites herself to crash on my couch.  Okay.  I did have a friend get a DUI not long ago.  Maybe it's best not to let her drive 45 minutes back to her parent's house.  Then she goes into an angry fit.  She has needs, and she's going to have them met, girlfriends be damned.  She hasn't had action since Thanksgiving and it's not like they would have sex or anything, just fool around.  

She kept saying, "I don't care.  I don't care who this bitch is."  She needed to get hers.  What is he saying, I ask--having heard he really liked this girl (as in, he made her his girlfriend when he never even took my friend to a movie).  He's driving around, she moans in frustration.  Probably going over to her house.

I don't care about that girl, she snorts again.  If I'm not on the couch in the morning, don't worry about me, she says folding her arms.  I might go over there if he says it's okay.  I am caught.  Holier than now me wants to say something about how shitty that is--and how she completely went to the other end of the spectrum in the course of a couple of classes of wine.  Where was the dignity or the backbone?  Where was the girl code?  Where was the person who had said, not more than two hours before, that she wasn't the kind of girl who would steal a guy away?

I didn't say anything.  It was very tempting.  Considering the way she hangs all over assholes who don't give her the time of day, I could probably give her a serious verbal lashing, only to have her come back to me, convinced that she was a lesbian.  I wanted to tell her that I thought what she was doing was awful--even if she didn't know or care about the other girl, she was actively working to destroy her relationship.  Also, she was going to put herself in other place of ridicule--with a guy who only screwed her when he was lonely and horny.  He would never make an honest woman out of her.  Ever.  She was going to be the whore that they talked about--laughed about.  They did, and they do.  I've tried to tell her before.  With a little more tact and kindness.  She blew up on me.  I wasn't interested in being on the other end of her short fuse and I also have gotten to a point where I think she needs professional help.  

We went home and I got her settled on the couch.  When I opened the door to my room this morning, I really expected her to be there.  I had thought, and hoped that maybe she would grow a backbone or that Intelli-scum would decide his relationship was worth more than one night with a girl that he didn't really like.  The vibe that I got from the text-a-thon was that he didn't want anything to do with my friend.  As I looked at the empty pillow and blankets I wonder what happened.  Did he cave?  Did he actually, really want for her to come over so that he could get a quick and meaningless fling in while she is in town?  Did she just go over there and yell and cry at him like I've seen her do in the past?  Maybe she just got so heated up, she drove all the way home.

I'm curious, but I won't call to ask.  Afterall, she told me not to worry.