what have you been up to?

The Kiwi and I have both been seeing other people in the last 3 years. A while ago I was under the impression that I was dating this guy. A couple of things lead me to reach this conclusion. There was the kissing, the phone calls, and the fact that he wanted to see me at least 3 times a week, he offered to help me move house… you can see how I was mistaken. Anyway, one night he was around at my house for dinner(which he invited himself for btw), and just casually mentioned that he had a new girlfriend who lives in Melbourne. I was like, “Oh.”

I thought, well, at least he is funny and smart and entertaining, we can still hang out and be friends. Once again though, I was mistaken. Not about him still wanting to be friends with me (duh, who wouldn’t, I’m loads of fun!) but about him being funny and entertaining. Turned out he was an egomaniac with a superiority complex. I invited him to a house party at mine, where he proceeded to turn up WITH HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND and without telling me he was bringing her. All my other friends said, “Who is that pair of miserable assholes?” as they moped around trying to pretend that they were cooler than everyone else, when it became quite apparent that they were the only ones not having any fun.

Besides that, he would try little sneaky criticisms of my behaviour and personality, not that I ever let him get away with any of it. It was weird, because he behaved like he didn’t like me at all, and yet he still wanted to see me all the time. But it quickly became apparent to me that I had to stop seeing completely, because it was too much hard work for absolutely no reward. No room for charity, I have heaps of friends who are actually fun and happy and like me. I guess he must have reached the same conclusion, because he phased me out before I had the chance to phase him out. The cheek!

All of this was a few months ago. About 6 weeks ago, my phone rang, and it was him. I just missed the call, so I sent him a text message that said “you rang?” No response. Until I was back at my old job last week clearing out my email inbox, and there was an email there from him. It said, yes, I rang, “sorry, I got sidetracked.” (sidetracked for 5 weeks mind you). So I rang him back, just to let him know that I wasn’t working at that job anymore, and he asked me what I've been up to? I said, "I’ve started a new career, left the old job, completed my new job training course, sat the qualification exam, got a new flatmate, got a new car, been to Melbourne, been to Launceston, been to Thailand, seen this band, seen that band, gone to a Ball….what have you been up to?" He said, “Not much.. um... I changed the logo on my company to pink…”. I could only smirk.

The clincher is of course that on Monday I ran into him, and the horse-faced girlfriend walking down the street. I said, how was your weekend? He said, oh, we’ve just been watching dvds all weekend. Which gave me the perfect opportunity to really emphasise my point – “Well, I’ve just been in Adelaide for a work conference/awards night with my new company.” I was trying very hard not to take a leaf out of his book and feel superior, but…