About six years ago, I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. I’ve already written about how awful my apartment was in that town. But I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this guy that I dated while I lived there. “Dated” is actually kind of a loose term. It was during a time when I was very lonely and depressed, so I was drinking a lot more than normal. He was just the guy who happened to be around for a few drunk make-out sessions. For the record, I never slept with him, because apparently even when I’m sh*t-faced, I still have some shred of good judgment.

His name was Michael, although he told me that everyone called him Leroy. I don’t know why. I refused to call him that, and it pissed him off that I insisted on calling him Michael. Of course, now he has the nickname PsychoMike. I honestly don’t remember what PsychoMike did for a living, I think it had something to do with stereo equipment. We hung out/dated for a couple of months. When one of my co-workers had a Christmas party at her house, I brought him as my date, which turned out to be a huge mistake. He followed me into the bathroom when I went to go re-apply my lipstick and tried to have sex with me in there. My boss and my boss’s boss were less than 20 feet away from the bathroom door, so I was having none of that. We got into an argument about it later, and I’m pretty sure that’s the night we kinda-sorta “broke up” (since technically he was never a boyfriend in the first place, there was nothing to officially break up, but whatever).

For the next few weeks, everytime I saw him out around town, I would ignore him, and then he would call me at 3 a.m. and scream into my answering machine, calling me a bitch and the c-word and all kinds of other lovely language. Yeah, he was a winner. Oh, also, one of my friend’s boyfriends pointed out that he sort of looked like the mad scientist’s little sidekick on South Park, and honestly? Even when I was dating him, I could sort of see the resemblance. Short, bald, bug-eyed, bad clothes, the whole thing. I have no excuses, just that all of this happened during a particularly low point in my life.

Over the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve gotten the occasional email from him. The last one was well over two years ago, and it honestly scared the bejeezus out of me, so I never answered him. I thought that was the end of it. Then last week, I got this in my inbox:

hey there cindy…… long long time no speak…… anyway, was searching through my VERY old address book and spotted your e-mail and thought i’d say what’s up!!!…. just to refresh your memory it’s mike from lovely worcester….. refresh your memory a little more…… remember you/ myself went to holiday party few years back …… like i said found your e-mail and thought i would say hello…..

Um, ok. Like the only thing I’d remember about him was that Christmas party, not the fact that we dated for two months prior to that. Right. I started to write him back with a very pleasant chit-chatty email about what I’ve been up to lately, and it included things like, “oh hey, remember my friend Melissa? She got married and had a baby boy last year.” (Which is true, yay for Melissa.)

Then I remembered the last email he sent to me (back in 2003-2004 timeframe), and I decided that the best way to deal with The Crazy is to confront The Crazy head-on. So I scrapped the email I had originally written and went with this instead:

Hi Mike,

Yes, of course I remember you. I think the last time you emailed me, you told me you were in love with me and you wanted me to send you some of my panties or something like that. Honestly, you kinda freaked me out. Hope there isn’t any of that business going on anymore.

By the way, I got married about a year ago. His name is Dave, he’s British, he’s a computer geek like I am, and he makes me laugh like no one I’ve ever met in my life. So I’m very happy these days.

Hope you’re doing well.

Cindy

I know it was sort of bitchy and snide, but I really hoped that would be the end of it. Of course, The Crazy always has to respond:

HEY THERE CINDY… FIRST AND FOREMOST CONGRATS! LASTLY…. VERY SORRY I “FREAKED YOU OUT” CRETAINLY, WAS NOT MY INTENTION… ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE NICE… IT’S ALL ABOUT SPENDING TIME W/ SOMEONE WHO MAKES YA LAUGH…. I’M DOING WELL THANKS

And that was that. (Btw, all of the above emails are completely copied and pasted. I don’t know why he writes in all caps sometimes and not others. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.) I didn’t reply because I honestly don’t want to keep the communication lines open with this guy. Oh, and that bit about him being in love with me and wanting me to mail him my panties? That actually happened. Swear to God.

The whole thing just reminded me of why I’m so grateful to have Dave, because dude, I seriously traded up. (Aside to Dave: Love you, babe.)