freak magnet

Okay, I’d been having this dilemma about calling that boy I’d mentioned a few entries ago. I called him on Wednesday night and was supposed to call back later in the evening, but then there was some drama and I never called him back. Because everyone keeps telling me that guys don’t call to have conversations, they call to ask you out, and I have been kind of ambivalent about dating him.

So all day yesterday I was thinking of a way to get out of calling back, because I really didn’t feel like making useless chit-chat with him, and Elizabeth and I talked about it for awhile and came up with a plan where I would chug a beer and then call him.

I didn’t actually chug the beer, but while I was out yesterday he called my cell phone and didn’t leave a message, so then I felt guilty and called him around 10:00 last night.

We talked for a little while and I began to warm up to the useless chit-chat, being a little flirty, telling my stories, turning on the sparkle and wit and charm that I occasionally pull out of nowhere. I still, however, was remarkably ambivalent about whether or not I wanted to date him.

Then I hear a woman’s voice say, “Who the hell are you talking to?”

And he says, “Lorie.”

Woman: “Is that the girl you met at Corned Beef?”

K: “I didn’t meet her there; I’ve known her since high school.”

So I ask, “Who’s that? Your mom?” because I think he lives with his parents, and he says, “No, that’s Michelle.”

Me, all innocently and nonchalantly: “Oh, who’s Michelle?”

K: “She’s my girlfriend.”

Now.

When we were out, I had specifically asked him if he had a girlfriend. In fact, my oh-so-smooth way of doing it was to drunkenly slur, “So, where’s your girlfriend?” at a completely inexplicable moment in the evening. At that time, he didn’t waffle around, he wasn’t unclear – in fact, what he specifically said, verbatim, was, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

On the one hand, this is great news, because it lets me off the hook. On the other hand, what happened next was that he and his girlfriend got in a very Jerry Springer-esque fight while I was still on the phone.

At least twice I tried to get out of the call, saying, “Hey, it sounds like a bad time, I’ll let you go, et cetera,” and he would respond with things like, “No, I’m allowed to have friends” and then would yell something like, “Back off, woman!” at the girlfriend.

Eventually he made her go away, somehow, and kept talking to me for another ten-fifteen minutes, until, out of nowhere, he says, “Well, I’m going to go take a shower now. Talk to you later.”

And I just hung up the phone and stared at it like, what in the world was that all about?

There’s a camp that believes he will leave his girlfriend for me. But you know what? No. I don’t want any part in that, for these reasons:

a) His girlfriend is clearly crazy and would probably track me down and key my car if I dated him;
b) That is WAY the hell too much drama, even for me;
c) I don’t want anything to do with a guy who will lie about whether or not he has a girlfriend so that he can flirt with chicks at bars.

So, at least I am now totally in the clear to ignore his calls from now on, assuming he ever even calls again. But why did he call in the first place? It wasn’t like we talked about anything interesting.

And anyway, am I a freak magnet or something?