“Girl, ‘Smokey Joe’ is taking some woman to Jamaica,” a friend of mine called and said – sounding uncharacteristically frantic.
“So. You hate him,” I replied. “Wait; please don’t tell me that you are jealous … that a man you are repulsed by is taking a woman you don’t know on a trip you can’t possibly have the time to take. Do you even have a passport?”
Well, at least she does have her passport.
I’m sure the back story is a prerequisite for the rest of the story, so I’ll get on with it.
“Smokey Joe” is my friend’s guy friend – “friend” being the operative word. He has been in love with her for the past four years, and while she is physically repulsed by the idea of any kind of romantic dealings with him they have great conversations.
She tried to hush the instinctive gag reflex that rears its head whenever the slightest thought of “liking him like that” came into her head because by all intents and purposes he is a good man.
He’s a fun person to be around and they can hang on the phone all day, but that’s about the size of their relationship in her eyes. She is not attracted to him at all, and he is pretty selfish and unromantic. To make matters worse, he has some, well, let’s just say extra-curricular activities that she doesn’t at all agree with (the hint is in his name).
She really tried for AN ENTIRE YEAR to cultivate the idea of them as a couple, but about four months ago she had to break the news to “Smokey” that it isn’t working out.
He called her “low class” and whined to her family about how she dumped him. They stopped hanging for awhile, but drifted back into the friend zone and the relationship angle never came back up.
Okay, now everybody is up to speed so I can move forward with how she found out and the Lifetime movie moment that came out of it.
They went to an event as friends. Afterwards, they played catch up and he told her that he was going to Jamaica with his new boo.
And in response to that she reacted in a way that I can’t imagine I’d ever recover from. She had an emotional meltdown and broke down crying – which had to make for the longest ride home in the world.
She said that she tried to fight back the tears which made for an awkwardly silent moment.
But then “Smokey Joe” said, “Well, say something.”
She replied, “There’s really nothing to say.”
And tears and shivers instantly ensued.
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you,” he said.
But it wasn’t about him. She said that in that moment she relived all of the breakups from all of the men who mattered, and the fact that “Smokey Joe” was getting his groove back was the aftershock that caused her emotional house of cards to crumble.
Now he’s calling to check up on her like she really cares – which is awkward, because she wants to tell him it had nothing to do with him at all. I’m not mad at him for doing so – actually it’s pretty sweet – just not what she wants.
We get into this whole debate about her being superficial and that she has to have feelings for him. I mean for real, if he didn’t matter why did she group him in with the other men who tossed her heart out of the window, right?
I’m torn between thinking that she’s bothered by the fact that he was able to move on so quickly or by what her notions of what love should look like have cost her. I am not judging, because everybody has that person that you just don’t feel that way about no matter what they do – or what you do.
“I’m just tired of people leaving me,” she said.
“But you left him,” I replied.
“You know what I mean,” she snapped back.
“Actually, I don’t.”
