Not this woman, who is my wife

This woman calls me up to see if I will romance her. We were in the same social circle since middle school, when I passed her a friendly note and her mother had me hauled in front of the school psychologist. He told me from seeming experience that this girl was not worth the effort.

That was the only overture I ever made. Until forced by an extracurricular, I did not exchange another word with her until eleventh grade. I was civil by necessity, but I never ceased being wary.

She, however, decided at some point in her adulthood that I was always a backup prospect. A man in whom she devoted the totality of her being when he was not that into her outside an easy lay would dump her. She would hit me up on social media before her bed was cold, trying to friend and talk to me anew. When she found a new guy, she would quietly unfriend me, if I let her connect with me in the first place that time. It would be disloyal to her new lover to be friends with other men, after all, and I no longer had utility to her.

After my relationship with Melanie found its inevitable end (brilliant, restless, lesbian), she berated me about being addicted to love. I needed to learn to be by myself like she had. This was preceded by mentioning that I was considering someday dating again. Losing Melanie didn't mean I was done with relationships. I wasn't looking for anything long term for a while, though. (Two months, as it turned out.)

Even then, I understood that she was not saying these things to me. She admonished at a mirror, albeit one she hoped would sweep her off her feet like the prince in a Hallmark Christmas movie.

The last time she messaged me, she asked if I was still married. This was a booty call, or its kissing cousin. I affirmed I was happily married and would remain so for the rest of my life if possible.

She did not appreciate that I didn't hold her a place in line.

She never asked me on a date, mind you. Had she, if I were single and in the right mood (or ignoring my intuition), I might have accepted. Asking me for a date might not have been feasible to her. She has old-fashioned predilections, shades of Blanche Devereaux. A woman is swept off her feet. Nothing less will do.

She hit me up, I was rarely single and, when I was, she lectured me. I couldn't tell you the last time I saw her in person. Still, she tried to contact me whenever she was single.

My proxy, I see on social media yet another enormous life event she dove into to keep a guy. Not her fiance, though I estimate she can claim at least five that I can lazily account. She is free to do as she wishes with her life. I hardly care to stop her. But she worries me like some fractured image, something I might have been if I didn't take responsibility, if I tried again to find my worth against someone for whom I was only ever an easy option.

I might have gone on a date with her, but that would have been the extent of it for me. I doubt I would have easily been rid of her after, at least without Hollywood melodrama. I don't know what made her this fixated, this desperate for male validation. It isn't my business to verge into relational forensics, though it must have started in college and never let up.

Onto her next soulmate, everything she posts is about how brave she is for picking up her pieces from all her neglectful, stupid, villainous exes. It is not about these men, but her identification as the victim of romance. I understand the cliche that some women get to a certain age and all they want is it get married. She is a woman who needs to have worked through her issues years before ending up serially engaged.

Of course, she is cute. I am making her sound like some sort of unhinged Miss Havisham. She is pretty, kind, sweet, and talented. She is a wonderful person to most people she meets, and a good friend to those not on her list. Without being too cynical, she would not have the sort of bad luck she does have with men if she were hard on the eyes. However, she is fanatical about trying to fill that missing piece of her. She reflects a part of me I have fought to heal, and she has picked into scarring. She couldn't bother me this much if I didn't hate how much of myself I saw in her actions.

I would be friendly if I saw her in person, but we aren't friends. By dint that she poked me after every of her breakups to see if I might want to poke her back, as it were, and given that she thought she had a right to ask if I were divorced or willing to cheat with her (because assuring her I was still married did not stop her from asking if I wanted to meet up), we were never friends. Friends see one another as people, and I was only even an option to her.

It prickles because I know I have been like that. Not to her severity, something no doubt exacerbated by age. I have held people in reserve, whom I would have called if anything had happened in any relationship into a year of dating Melanie.

There have been others for whom I knew I was the other option. It was too intimate and presumptuous. This was always a shadow over the friendship. When I made explicit to them that I refused to be in their harem, they cared less to know me.

When I was a teenager, a couple girls cheated on their boyfriends with me, though I did not realize until after dozens of kisses were exchanged. I was annoyed that they had kissed me under false pretenses, but at least I knew where I stood with them. At least they made clear what they wanted, though not enough to prefer me over their commitment. At least, to them, I was a person in their arms and not the next number on their Rolodex when their relationship soured (as it must if they were cheating). Now, I would hate the misuse. Then, I understood better why they did it.

For my subject here, I cannot be the only she holds in reserve without consent. Being friendly in eighth grade is not on the same planet as wanting to cheat on my wife at thirty-eight. Was that ill-advised note enough that I earned an eternal place in her mind as a "maybe?"

When this man leaves her, which I hope doesn't happen to spite her track record, she will contact me, wondering if I will play into her fantasy. Again, I will assure her I am not interested in being a number on her list.

Soon in Xenology: Toxicity.

last watched: Angel: the Series
reading: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
listening: Damien Rice