Lost in Txtlation

These are the cookie crumbs for my depreciating mind.

Month: March 2018

Let’s play dating telephone, without the phone.

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Question: What’s more dangerous these days then the lack of inflection in a text?

Anwer: A friend reading that text out of context without the inflection and being asked to “interpret” it.

This has been going on way before texting existed but before you could scroll back up through a conversation you had with someone else, you had to remember the experience and then explain it in your words. Most of the time this one factor “in your words” needing you to explain how you interpreted the situation would give a friend the ability to go, “Ok this is your crazy showing” or go “Nope that shit is fucked and you need to get a restraining order”.

But not today. Today we get judged based off our ability to drop a stand up routine straight out of the gate. “Make me laugh and love sarcasm!” Do I look like Eddie Murphy? I mean he is one sexy bitch, but let me at least get your name first before I entertain you for free. What happened to “be yourself” you may ask? Well no one wants “yourself” because that may include having a shitty day and wanting to talk about it. Not to say everyone hates it, some people understand interaction and compassion and don’t feel like you are bringing them down by being in the moment. But for the majority that want an adventure and sarcasm, good luck saying anything other than George Carlin’s greatest hits as an intro.

Also don’t share. They don’t want you to have walls, they want you to be this open book, but the minute you share something with them, be it a piece of writing that is in context to the conversation, a photo, or a past story, they immediately go: “Well fuck, now he thinks I am that person, I am not that person, fuck, am I that person, why do I need to explain myself to this person I don’t know, fuck I need to show this to a friend!”

Now you are done. The minute it is in their head and they don’t bring it up right away to you to clarify it’s over before it even had a chance to start. The friend will obviously side with them over you the random creeper on an “online dating” platform. Because, it is never them who is the problem, it is always the other person. They have their shit together. They are open. They have a Myers briggs profile. They know their astrological sign. And so without you knowing, they are taking your text, the one line or two or ten that they selected and letting it fester in their brain, picking it apart to the point where logic is no longer even in the equation, mixed with a second or third opinion of someone else who has no idea who you are. Then they wait, they formulate, they speculate. This is where the game of telephone with their own psychi starts.

You basically now killed their first born with your charming Eddie Murphy stand up one liner. Somewhere in between the first text and the few hours you were excitedly waiting for them to be done with their evening so you could continue talking and (the key part) “GETTING TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER”, they have started their textual breakup for a relationship that never got started. A textual spew that is created for one reason and one reason alone, to make them feel less insecure about themselves. To give them the upper hand in a situation where no one needed the upper hand. To lull themselves into false sense of approval. “OK, he is going to get defensive when I say the following, and when that happens, me and my friends will have been right”. What they are missing is the fact that we probably have known each other for less than a 24 hour period and when you throw a wall of text at me saying “You are X Y AND Z” of course I am going to try to defend myself. I mean honestly at this point I should just turn off texting, but alas I am not that strong. So, I, as calmly as I can via text, try to figure out what is happening, why it is happening, when I said all these things I am being accused of saying, even though I am 99% sure I didn’t, and where they got expounded so out of proportion. Problem is it is impossible, I cannot make out where it is derived from anymore. But I already know the outcome here regardless of even if I was to deliver a speech that rivaled that of Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men definitively proving my “innocence”.

So in under 24 hours we are about to have our first fight. We have skipped the line, did not pass go, and when directly to jail. Guilty unable to prove innocence just waiting until someone hits the block button.

And it is always the same shit:

“I have to prove myself”(talked about this with stop caring)

“I feel judged”(you feeling judged is not on me, that is something you are holding onto)

“You are so defensive, why would you be like that”(cause you are yelling at me for shit I don’t even understand at this point)

“You said people do this horrible stuff, I AM NOT THAT PERSON” (yes people, not you… I was giving you the benefit of the oh fuck it, you just kinda proved my point)

“You need a therapist”(ok.. After these interactions I don’t disagree.)

“I am just the innocent bystander here”(who literally just made up an entire fake scenario you needed to spew at me instead of just moving on, so you felt vindicated from a story you made up)

“See you are still being defensive.” (you are still texting me bullshit, having counterpoints is not being defensive, back in my day this was called debate, conversation, or interaction. But we did it with voices and face to face, try it sometime, you may be surprised at how the other person may not be yelling at you and may actually be calm, collected, and a bit surprised.)

“You are judging me for things I haven’t done” (nope, I am talking about my past openly, you are applying it to yourself out of context for some reason, actually the reason is probably you holding onto something from YOUR past, the same thing you said: you wish I would not apply my own past to you.)

“My friends were right” (hahahaha)

The problem is I could continue this. It only goes on and on. But it is based in a baseless world of inflection-less words. Words people don’t seem to understand can be changed or clarified these days if more context is needed. But nope, let’s form the worst case scenarios and just go bat shit crazy on someone else.

I run across this enough and I wonder, hmm, perhaps I am the crazy one. But then I take a step back and realize, nope I just avoided a seriously fucked up scenario with a person who will fester ideas and not tell me until they are sure they have a winning Trump card. Problem is, there was never a contest or argument to be won. So, maybe I share too soon, but if it allows me to weed out these types of people who can only see one dimensionally in a very 3 dimensional world, I guess I can endure the frustration and angst a little bit more.

This is one of those cases by the way where I suggest the usage of the block button. And we all know how I feel about that.

We need to start getting hurt again.

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We are breeding a generation of pampered “feelings”. We are breeding a generation protected by the “block” button. We are breeding a generation of “ghosts”. We don’t understand what it is like to plan how you are going to meet a person face to face to let them know that things just aren’t working out.(because we used to believe a phone call, not a text, was too informal and rude) A ritual that used to take time, consideration, and thought. An uncomfortable situation, but one that ultimately gave closure be it with tears, screams, or a kiss on the cheek. You will remember this moment and grow from it. You won’t remember the person you erased from your life.

But why take the time to consider someone else’s feelings when we have been taught by every app, every program, every avenue of our life, that we can just “mute” the other person and focus on ourselves.

When I say a generation, I don’t just mean “millenials” or “Gen Z”, I mean everyone who is adopting online dating into their life. It is easier this way. It is convenient. Because honestly, no one likes being hurt, so if you show us a way to avoid it we will. It is part of human nature. We forget that our lack of pain, often brings it to others. But we are sheltering it so much, that instead of touching the hot pot and learning not to do it again, we “ghost” the stove.

Example: You are talking to someone, something during said conversation triggers you in one way or another, you say nothing. You wait until the conversation is over, and start frantically searching for the “block button” before they realize they even made a mistake or slipped up on a sentence that could have had different meaning. There are no second chances, there is just the rush to purge. Because immediately after the purge you don’t have to feel bad, have a moment of self reflection or healing. You just swipe right and start talking to the next person, waiting for them to trigger you and the process repeats.

I have talked about this “ready to purge” state in depth before on another podcast. But I believe we need to look further than the consequence of our society and look at the process of resolving it. Receiving a little heartache or prepping human consideration in how you deliver the bad news to another is one of the missing ingredients. How can you grow, when you have all these apps and online portals holding your hand with the “block button” at the ready?

There is no more growing from our experiences, only pushing them down into a repressed memory state, called the block list. We have taken the human connection out of the human connection and it is hurting us as a species. The amount of times you could totally avoid the “weird text I got from my friends friend”, by just giving the other person the humane benefit of an explanation. But why should you do that? Facebook, instagram, okcupid, tinder, they all just have the block button. Why should I do anything above and beyond what society is shoving down my throat as the norm? Well I guess here in lies the rub. You don’t have to, but you should. You should start getting hurt again. You should be open to “hurting” as well. Because ultimately it will make you stronger, kinder, more compassionate, and less of an automated process in a system designed to keep you entwined. 99 out of 100 times someone will be happier to “move on” if you are honest with them, then waking up to “this person doesn’t exist”. It leaves a feeling of emptiness and a pit in the other person’s stomach, wondering if the app broke or if they did something terrible or if they just weren’t good enough. Logical, no, but illogical thoughts in illogical moments brought on by these apps are logical.

You think Tinder’s business model benefits from you finding love? Do you think Hinge really wants to be the “dating app you delete”. No, it benefits from you coming back. Why else would it have a 6 month or 12 month subscription up front?! Think about that for a second.

So perhaps instead of using these tools that these apps present to us in such a disconnected from human feeling and emotion, we should start using the apps the way we want. When they then stop working in the way we expect, we stop using them all together, forcing them to work for us and not the other way around. This is a business, we speak with our wallets. Stop paying to be manipulated, and claim your right to start getting hurt again, because what you may learn is, when you open yourself up to being “hurt”, inadvertently you decrease it. Not that you won’t feel the heart ache or pit in your stomach, but you allow yourself the mindspace to heal and grow from the hurt, getting you out there sooner to meet the person you are meant to be with. Not hiding from all the people you are afraid they might be.

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Through my many experiences and even with my jaded sense of humanity, I still try to see the beauty of a moment.

Lost In Txtlation

Please stop caring!

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I meet so many people who are under the assumption that I want them to “impress me” when I meet them. That I want them to be the ultimate version of themselves that is unsustainable for any elongated period of time. To be this person who will make me love them.

Only one problem, if I do fall in love with that person, when you stop caring, who the hell am I left with?

See, this is a major issue for me. I have written how “Love is not enough”. And this feeds directly into that. I myself am the same with my family as I am with my bosses as I am with my friends as I am with a first date. I don’t know how to be different. I only know how to give my all of who I am today, tomorrow, etc. I feel like it would be exhausting to create an alter ego to please you. If you don’t like who I am here and now, that is OK. I am happy to feel it out and go our separate ways if it isn’t meant to be.

But that is not what I encounter 99% of the time. 99% of the time I finally get to know the real person after I have told them “this isn’t going to work” because all of a sudden, a veil of “expectations” has been lifted from their shoulders and they make inappropriate jokes, use my bathroom, and tell me things they would tell their best friends. Isn’t the whole point of finding a partner to find a best friend you can have sex with? Share with? Experience everyday with?

From experience you may assume that is not the case, and it is about tricking the other person to put a ring on it, then letting it all loose and what then… yelling SURPRISE!

When I ask you what you want for dinner this isn’t code for “Figure out what he likes and pick that”. When I ask you how you are today, this isn’t code for “Great!” just to make the facade of happiness. See the problem on my end, and I have explained a little bit of it via “Give my Brain a Breather”, is that once I feel as though I can see the expressions and feel the connection, I often don’t look for the “facade”. The veil of “I will totally clean his dishes cause I want him to like me more”. To me I am thinking, wow how nice she is, and what a kind gesture that I can expect in the future. Not “well that was nice since we just met, but god if she does that after we fall in love, this shit is over!”. So when I end things in a relationship because I feel as though something is wrong, or too perfect, it often is because it was. And then this new person I meet is one hundred times more interesting. But at this point it is way too late to forget all the past experiences and meet them with a clean slate.

So please, please, please, please, stop caring! Stop treating me like anyone other than a best friend. Let me into the parts of you that might scare you. Who cares if we don’t work out, at least we gave it an honest try, with an honest version of ourselves, and didn’t waste time trying to please one another off of assumptions and half baked ideals created in our own minds. Because my problem is, because I don’t do it, I often don’t look for it in you, thus missing it completely and being caught way off guard when I get to meet this “real” you. The you I thought I could fall in love with.

Sex and Txts, an “OOMT” chapter

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This is part of the ongoing series called “OOMT”

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SETUP: I met this girl, had our first date, which went phenomenal! We walked around the city, ran in a fountain because it was super hot out, laid in a park together, pee’d behind a building together(always a good sign of a keeper). I mean we are talking no inhibitions, amazing conversation, and some amazing kissing. So of course we are gonna have date two! Shit date 2 and 3 and 4 were also fantastic. We even facetimed a bunch of times in between. The connection felt great! No sex involved at this point and everything seemed great with texts throughout the days and just good communication.

So we decide to spend a weekend together. Like a whole weekend, overnight bag and all. She comes over and I make her dinner. While we are sitting in the kitchen and I am cooking, I had just watched a video about Elon Musk’s theory that we are all living in a simulation, so wanting to talk about it I start to explain what I saw in case she hadn’t seen it(I am considerate when it comes to subjects that people may not have background to) and when I am about half way through my explanation of what it was she stops me mid way and says “I don’t know what that is, who Elon Musk is, I feel like you are just making me feel stupid”. I was like whoa… wtf. So we got quiet and I continued making dinner since obviously conversation was dead at this point. See this should have been my OOMT moment where I realized it was all going to go to shit, but alas, I figured maybe she just had a bad day and was hangry.

We ate and discussed the fact that she totally snapped at me trying to have a conversation to which I was told her ex “constantly made me feel stupid”. So I was like hmm rock and hard place here… how do I bring up conversation about things she might not know and not make her go have PTSD. Oh well another time.

Anyway rest of the night went well. Went to the roof, had some wine, it was nice.

So now the rest of the weekend is a blur because I was completely dehydrated and malnutritioned since the rest of the weekend was spent sexing. Yup, pure unadulterated sex, grab a glass of water, sex again. Sounds pretty fantastic right? Well, there is this one thing on my end, I am a little difficult to figure out. And by figure out I mean make me orgasm lol. You daft fucks. I definitely don’t fit into the “30 second guy” role. Shit I spend so much time trying to please the girl I am with, I often forget to even think about myself. You can read more about that here if you want. But back to the story at hand. During said coitus, I also have a bit of a difficult time explaining what I want someone to do, pretty much because all the blood from my brain is now in my pee pee. So while I can answer yes or no questions pretty well, I cannot recite the Gettysburg address. 

I make sure to let my partner know this as well!

This is where things can often fall apart with someone who, I should have caught onto earlier, has self confidence issues. See for me, if I cannot figure out a girl sexually, I have done research over time and will continue to do it to make sure I understand what they like. But you have to be really confident in your sexuality and abilities for this.If you doubt yourself, having someone not able to orgasm without a little bit of effort and knowledge beyond, put it in your hole, when most guys are 1 2 squirters, usually ends up with “I give up”, followed by silence, followed by “do you not find me attractive?”, followed by me playing therapist versus enjoying the moment, once again staring at my ceiling going, “ahhh fuck me”, in every definition of the phrase.

Believe it or not we haven’t gotten to the OOMT yet. We continued through the weekend with this weird but satisfying sex regardless. And she told me while we were laying for a break once that she would like me to tell her more about what I like at some point when I had more blood in my brain and not my dick. I was like sure! That was awesome. I appreciated that acknowledgment that “during” is not always the best time to get in depth on this shit.

Anyway, sextravaganza weekend ends and she heads home.

Later that day, I decide to ask her via text if I can send her an article I read once that I saved which I believe explains what I like really well, so the next time she might have a little more insight. I also followed it with the obvious, “had a wonderful time” “everything felt great” “you had asked me to talk to you more about it” yadda yadda.

A few hours passes, which was a little bit weird considering how she usually texted me back within 15 minutes or less. So I text her something about something else happening that I thought she would get a kick out of at this point, since I figure she is busy and will see these when she is free.

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OOMT: Well what I didn’t know was that few hours was used over analysing me ASKING if I could send this article(not actually sending it) and becoming super insecure and pissed about it. Not talking to me and expressing her thoughts, but literally festering everything inside her for what would be one of the most vindictive ways to respond to a text you dislike I have experienced to date.

PING, I get a Video Text, not of her but of her friends making fun of me for EVERYTHING we had been talking about that weekend, even if it had NOTHING to do with the part that bothered her(me asking if she would be ok with me sending an article, not even sending it), having a board game night for my birthday, me wanting to have an intellectual conversation about Elon musk the night before, sexual shit we were talking about… this was her response instead of just saying “hey this bothered me”.

It was so middle school “talk to your girlfriends before actually talking to the person who it matters with first” ya know the person who you just fucked for 48 hours straight, spent a week or more getting to know prior, and then taking it an extra step and make a video with your friends bashing me and calling me a douchebag, while she laughs in the background. Friends who would now always see me as some creep due to a distorted concept of context.

That shit hurt. I opened my home to her. I opened my life to her. I shared. And it was a sucker punch from someone not being considerate of another human. It was someone literally just someone so insecure and closed off with themselves they had to lash out through talking to other people about personal conversations and then using that insulting video to try to get me to apologize for something I didn’t even know was an issue. Apparently taking out on me past relationship baggage(that we all suffer from, some just choose to see everyone as an individual). When I responded with “Well I guess this is over, I am sorry I upset you”. She wrote back, why can’t you just apologize?! Apparently she was expecting me not to say “well this is over” and move on but to apologize for something I didn’t actually know was a problem yet.

She then proceeded to tell me “I am glad I see how you deal with personal intimate matters” when she was the one who literally sent me a video of her friends pulling apart every intimate thing we had talked about and even non intimate things like a board game night, as if I was some nerdy kid in middle school getting railed on for not wearing the cool kid shoes. Don’t get me wrong I am glad this happened as soon as it did, but man that was a sucker punch that left a mark for the time being.

Just sitting there with a pit in my stomach that someone could literally get so worked up and so nasty so quickly. You just never know who anyone is. And the insecurity of hers projected to me as if I was some fucking asshole and this was a first date, someone who she didn’t text on a regular basis, and didn’t just fuck their brains out for 48 hours, during which she was saying how much she liked me and thought I was a great guy. She just flipped her shit on me in seconds.

She literally said “I made the video so you could feel how embarrassed I felt” to which I said, “my text to you was PRIVATE. Yet the video you sent me was NOT, it was your friends ripping apart everything we had talked about over the past few days even if it had nothing to do with the part that made you feel embarrassed while you laughed in the background.”

And yes I know there are always two sides to every story. But I promise one thing: I was honest at every step. And she held a lot in apparently that I didn’t even realize. It just felt shitty to be bombarded by a personal conversation made so public for no apparent reason other than “ I want you to feel embarrassed”.

Obviously I am happy I know who she really is now. But for fucks sake, why does it need to be a sucker punch every, single, time.

I was later told via text I was asking her to articulate things too soon, but considering I never asked for anything romantic or relationship related to be articulated I can only assume this is in reference to conversation topics I brought up about world events. To which she said “scared” her. Odd choice of words for articulating thoughts. As well she told me she would get nervous on FaceTime when we used it because she hadn’t done it before (for talking only) but in reality this meant she felt things were moving too fast. Even though it was never articulated to be such. And she just spent 48 hours boning me…  It is an obvious bad match, but it still amazes me how different the entire situation was seen from her end. And how little I was informed of her view until she decided to shame me to her friends for things I enjoyed in life, as if every moment we spent together was all bad. People who hold in everything that bothers them and then lash out at a later date when it adds up and boils over for them are scary to me because, it just shows how little information you are actually getting in the everyday interactions as opposed to what’s really in their head. I always thought the point of time and getting to know someone was to be able to assess them on the interactions you have not hold it all as ammo for a later date, while not taking into consideration context of every interaction up till then and what you learned in the time you knew them. Instead it is like they stopped getting to know you when they found the first issue, and just starting loading the gun. Then looking back on prior people who shot them to justify their inevitable murder by projecting past relationships all over the place. I hope she gets time to heal for whoever she meets next. It really does suck to have to be treated as if you are already walking in the mistakes of others. Because after sending a video like that and then she repeatedly said “I am the bigger person to say I apologize for it” is like punching you in the balls first then saying oh “my bad” now say sorry for the thing you did that you didn’t know you did because I can’t articulate it.

AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT I GOT THIS MESSAGE A WEEK LATER:

You have got to be kidding me. “I meant no ill intent” hahahahahhaahha. And if she liked me so much.. oh never mind you all get it by now. Apparently you need to block friends of friends now after shit goes down.

The real question is, if someone likes you so much, why let their friend “roast” you in the first place 😛

And then 2 weeks later she wished me a happy birthday over text. I must have REALLY “embarrassed” her for her to want to contact me again instead of moving on, on my birthday, even though I said goodbye after that crap she pulled. Block time me thinks. Reminds me of the old high school ex that calls you and txts you every year until college is over on important days.

Oh well best birthday gift ever: confirmation my text was not actually that bad. This does show she has a very kind side mixed with her neurotic side. It’s just too bad her neurotic side is so damn conniving.

And now I tangent for a moment:

I have done a lot of self reflection on relationships as you know from my writing and I think the missed wire here was she actually was communicating , in her own way, things to me, but in my world and way of seeing the world I wasn’t getting the message because it was so diluted and indirect that I just saw it as comments not statements. It is becoming very clear that her insecurities were very much hidden but to her very obvious because of the insecurities. A vicious cycle for a very open person to run into. This is similar to my ideas of Observation VS Analysis.

I desperately need someone in my life who understands that a question doesn’t only consist of cause and effect, but causes and effects. When I am told, asked, or see something I immediately in what can only be described as a subconscious millisecond, think of every possible scenario for what I am experiencing. It might be far fetched, stupid, the wrong choice, and the right ones, but the key here is that without even trying, I have just broken down a billion scenarios in the blink of an eye, and therefore when I answer or ask, I expect the person in the conversation with me to be able to continue forward having already ruled out the, what I would call “obvious”. No I am not blowing my own horn of self righteousness here, I am being honest, there are so many people who literally don’t think past the surface. Through experience and meeting different people you learn this.

An “OOMT” Chapter: Cats and 18 minute girl

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This is part of the ongoing series called “OOMT

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Setup: I post specifically on my profile “I have cats” I only have one left but I keep it as multiple because my cats are little whores and just wanna be all up in your shit. So obviously if you are allergic to cats, the part where it says “I have cats, DON’T BE ALLERGIC TO CATS” is probably where you should move on. But alas… we have “18 minute girl”.

18MG comes over to my place after a few dates and we are sitting in my living room having some wine. My cat smelling a new human and being the whore she is decides to go full on head butt mode, ya know the adorable cute thing dogs do when they want your attention? The same dogs that this girl wrote about loving in her profile (cause I read)… And I am like woohooo my cat approves of her!

OOMT: Oh but no, she irrationally starts to freak out, like little whiny noises, her eyes start darting around the room, and she takes all of her limbs and puts them on top of my chair to be off the floor away from the cat as much as possible. My tiny little adorable cat that seconds before was laying on my lap being adorable. I am like, “‘”are you ok?” To which I get, “I am allergic to cats!” and I am like oh, well didn’t you read my profile? I told ya I had cats even in our conversations I talked about them. To which she says, “Yes but I didn’t think I would come over much.” ….. right… I am not sure what to do but before I can do anything she literally shreaks as my cat tries to get on her lap. I immediately grab my cat away and ask what is wrong? Are you seriously allergic, is that why you just screamed? Should we leave? Now I am concerned for her. She says, “Cat’s scare the shit out of me.” Oh boy, now I am more intrigued than anything.

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Rubbing my cat on my lap like Dr. Claw from an episode of Inspector Gadget, I am sitting there wondering how the hell someone can be scared of a cat. I inquire more and get some half assed story of a cat that licked her while she was sleeping as a kid or some innocent thing that scarred her for life… So I am observant, I noticed that she hasn’t itched or worried about the cat hair from the chair she sat in since we got there and inquire more about her “allergies”. To which she sticks to being allergic but backs it up with, well I sneeze from hair sometimes. Not, actual “allergies” but the way she said it was literally like saying, sometimes I yawn therefore I must have a narcolepsy.

So I now get a chance to ask if I should put her in the other room so she isn’t scared anymore… she kinda nods. As I am closing the door, and am asking her how she thought we would be able to have a relationship if she knew I had a cat and she was “allergic”/scared shitless of them(besides the fact that she didn’t think she would come over that much… to which obviously I sarcastically responded with, well what happens if we got serious and we moved in together.. eventually you would live with my cat), the following words ring out from her mouth and I will never forget them.

“But if we got to that point, I figured you could just give the cat to the vet.” My jaw drops. I let her continue as I am not sure if I heard properly. I think I mutter something like, “but, uhm.. they would put my cat down, why the vet, why not adoption etc” maybe this was all flying through my head and not out loud I forget. She continues “I mean so what, it’s a cat. It’s not like it is a dog.”

My brain arranges itself very quickly and I immediately respond “I have known my cat for 18 years and you have been in my house for 18 minutes, who the fuck do you think is going to win here? Are you fucking kidding me? You have to be fucking with me right now.”

She dead panned, dead faced, in all seriousness, looks me in the eyes and says, “No. I am not a cat.”

And thus ends the adventure with and why she shall always remain in my mind, 18 minute girl.

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