Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Statute of Limitations on Dating

I’ve been dying to write about this for a couple of weeks now, but somehow time got away from me. Two Thursdays ago, a familiar old name appeared in my email inbox. We’ll say that name was Ira Rubenstein.

Ira and I met online about 3.1 years ago and went out on about 3.1 dates. On the first date, I thought he was funny (he told me I was so adorable he wanted to carry me around in a satchel – who says that?!) and cute (balding with a nice smile) and I was very taken with his creative career (camera man) and background (Art Center grad). All that mixed with a few glasses of wine led me to break one of my (always attempted) rules of dating: no kissing on night one. I had high hopes for date two, as we had gotten along so well on the first go. But night two seemed to be all about trying to seduce me—complete with some laughable dirty talk and a bit too much groping for my taste (sorry mom). Unsure of how to proceed, I told him I wanted to get to know him (not his tongue or trouser snake) better and asked if we could go hiking on date three. We went, and he tried hard to charm me with his life story, but there was just something amiss. When he called for date four, I gave him my standard break-up line, “I just don’t feel like I’m connecting with you in the way I’m looking to connect with someone.”

I thought we were done. But then he dumped the mother of all ridiculosos on me. He called me one day to tell me that he met Bono. Anyone who knows me knows that I think the sun rises and sets with dear Bono, so Ira was definitely trying to stick it to my sweet spot. He told me that B had flown in on his private jet to do some clean ocean PSA (what?! right—because that’s where his passion lies—in keeping the Southern California ocean clean…). And, THIS IS THE BEST PART, when Ira met my Irish Prince he said, “I’m a huge fan, but I know an even bigger fan.” Meaning me. SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY?! WHO WOULD SAY THAT IF THEY MET BONO? No one, that’s who.

So here it is, three years later and Ira emails me to see if maybe we can pick up where we left off. He seems to remember things being really great between us. And I think there should be a law in place that prevents dumpees like Ira from contacting their dumpers outside a 6-month window after the break-up.

It’s different when you’re the dumper. Then it’s okay to track someone down and say, “Man, I was in a bad place back then and I didn’t know what I had when I had it with you.” (Yes, I’ve done this before.) But to email someone who clearly did not want you THEN, well that’s just crazy talk. Or in this case, type.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm.....Bono - that's a tough one. I say leave the past in the past, sometimes those pages are better left unturned.

Michael C said...

Yeah, it does seem a little long (that's what she said) to come around after 3.1 years. 3 years? Maybe. 3.1? Forget it!!!

megabrooke said...

Firstly, I love that you named him Ira. Now I kinda want to know what his real name is and would like to see a picture to see where said made up name roots from.

Anywhoots. I totally agree with what you said about the non-contact from the dumpee after a certain amount of time. It's one thing if, like you said, you're the dumper and then you rethink things, etc. etc. Or, if you leave the relationship on good terms and you're in a kind of... friendship thing where you still keep in touch.

Weird that all of a sudden he's contacting you out of the blue though? ....

What did you say to his Bono story?! Do you think it was made up?

Melissa Maris said...

Semichrmd - You're right, the past should be left...in the past...however I'm glad mine crept into the present and enabled me to write this post. :P

Michael - The .1 was totally what pushed me over the edge. Love the Michael Scott-esque joke. Brilliant.

Brookem - I emailed you his real name. And when he told me the Bono story I did not know what to say. All I could muster was, "Oh really?" Then I immediately called my other huge U2 fan friend and screamed the story at him. He was equally flabbergasted. There is NO WAY it was true. (I think I even performed an extensive Internet search and found nothing to substantiate it.)

Anonymous said...

I'm proud to say that I've never called back to try to "pick things up again" and would certainly never do it after six months! Of course, the one or two women in my life who I actually did, at one time, wish would call back, never did...