There is no "Amber" in "Not Boyfriend"

I think my new motto is "there is no 'i' in 'i hate you.'" Even though there is. One of my favorite things is Joe's rendition of therapist talk -- therapists talk about using 'I' messages: "when you do x, I feel y." Crap like that. Instead of saying "when you do x, you're an ass." So what Joe says is "I you make me feel like shit." I love it.

Now why, you may ask, am I using such strong words as hate? And about who? It's Not Boyfriend. Ok, I don't hate him, but I he makes me feel like shit. So perhaps I hate that he makes me feel that way. Let's go with that. For some bizarre and unknown reason, I decided to call him last night, even though he hasn't returned my once monthly calls for the past 3 months. Clearly, I can't take a hint. He answered because he didn't recognize my number, which to me says "erased from phone." In my defense, I had to look up his number to call him because I actually HAVE erased his number from my phone. Now that I think about it though, it kinda makes it worse because I had to put some effort into the whole thing. If only I had been drunk, I probably would have lost interest before finding the number and all of this could have been averted. Note to self...

Anyhoo, it was a really awkward conversation. REALLY AWKWARD. Like this:
Him: "What's new?"
Me: "oh, you know, the usual -- work and school (But see how I left out the part about my funny cats?). What's new with you?"
Him: "Oh, just working a lot. So what else have you been doing, just school?"
Me: "Um, yep. Just school." As I'm thinking "for real dude? Because I just said that." And I'm also thinking "Why, WHY did I call him?"

Seriously, this went on for what felt like an eternity. ONES of MINUTES. This was not small talk. It was excruciating to an as yet unreached level. And the first time EVER that we've struggled for conversation. I think that part of that stemmed from the fact that when I said I would let him go (after the sheer agony of the above alleged "conversation," I just couldn't take it anymore), he's like "yeah, since I'm in the car with 5 guys and they're probably having a hard time keeping quiet" and then there was boy giggling in the background. Because god knows you can't have a decent conversation with a GIRL when your BOYS are in the car. And then he said "I'll give you a call" to which I responded in a "Ok, yeah, I'll BET you will" sort of tone "Yeah. Take Care." And I hung up. And maybe I cried for a minute. Because yes, I still sorta miss him. Ass. Assity ass ass ass. I'm pissed that he thinks it's fine to just totally stop calling with no explanation and I'm pissed that I still miss him and I'm pissed that I let those things bother me.

One thing I totally miss is that whenever he'd call, my phone would play the first part of "Regulators" by Warren G, because it had lines from "Young Guns" in it and that's one of his favorite movies. He used to tell me that he wasn't sure if I was happy that he called me because I wanted to talk to him or because I loved the ring tone. I did love that ring tone...but I guess it's pretty obvious that I was actually really happy to hear from him. And so a while back, the girls and I were talking about how I needed to get back on the dating horse. It was actually one of our more amusing and memorable conversations. Anyway, when I told Karen today about the "conversation" with DEFINITELY Not Boyfriend, she said "well, I guess you just have to find a new horse." Ok. So I will, using what I can call my NEW new motto, which I think Warren G really summed up best when he sampled Emilio Estevez saying "Regulators! Mount up."

See how I brought that all together? I'll bet you were wondering how it all related. That's just how we roll here at Stream of Consciousness Central.