exes

Paddy came up this weekend. He let me drive his old ‘68 volvo, his “project car” since 2000. It’s always been a pile of rust, even worse since he crashed it a few times, but it is fun to drive and has sentimental value (I know, it isn’t exactly a small trinket, but whatever).

We met for drinks with his old flame Anna, who has just broken up with her live-in boyfriend the night before. They have been friends for years and I respect that. No, really. However, I hesitate to actually call her his ex, since they only ever dated very briefly–like two weeks. I’ve never liked her, not because she dated him and I think I have anything to worry about, but really, because she is annoying. The very first time I met her was in 2003, when Paddy and I were dating before I left for Canada. We were all at the local crappy bar. I didn’t know about them, but she was acting so weird, jealous and needy that I knew something was up. She was so desperate for attention that she literally did a cartwheel on the sidewalk in front of the bar, hence her lasting nickname amongst my friends that she has never heard: “somersault girl.” I know it isn’t quite the same thing as a cartwheel, but we were drunk. That was irritating enough, but then she did the unforgivable. She said she was going to give me, Di and another friend of ours a ride back to Paddy’s for the after party, but after everyone else had already secured rides or gotten on their bikes and left, she drove up and said she didn’t want to because her car was messy. She stranded us. Granted, it was college town and we were able to get a cab eventually, but it was so transparent and rude. Once we got there, she made a big stink about something and stomped off, after it was already very very late. So Paddy went out to find her, which infuriated me. I hate women that run off just so that everyone can make a big deal about finding them. It is a very specific type.

Nowadays, I am always very nice and polite to this woman, especially since I’m secure in my relationship with Paddy (back then I wasn’t, so I was much madder about the whole thing). I’ve tried to get past the whole thing, but then she says things like she said to me last night. All last night she was rehashing her icky relationship with her boyfriend: he’d say he wanted to marry her, then he’d want to break up, marry, break up, marry, ad nauseum. I felt bad for her, since nobody needs to be jerked around. Then, when Paddy went to get more drinks, she says, more or less, that she told her boyfriend that if he wasn’t sure then he should have let her go a long time ago, like her and Paddy. Even though it would have been wonderful if she could have been in love with Paddy, since he is so great, but she just couldn’t. So she let him go. At first, I thought she surely must be talking about a different Paddy, because who would say such a thing to someone’s girlfriend? Letting me know that their old “relationship” was a topic in her new one…her nostalgia for my boyfriend is not something I would like to know about. Apparently, she thinks that he thinks that she is the one that got away. Or something. I beg to differ. I told Paddy about it when we were walking home and he said that if anything the fact that nothing ever really happened with her was a lucky escape because she is such a pain in the ass. He apologized for her horribleness and we had a laugh.