Beef Cake: Part 3 - "The Email"

(Continued from Beef Cake: Part 2) 

Today, I received an email from Beef Cake.  It wasn't a very nice email.  You could say he's a little pissed off and upset. (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see this one coming.)

Two weeks after we first met, I broke up with Beef Cake and I thought I did it gracefully and showed him, and the relationship, respect by actually telling him I wanted out.  I didn’t pull the no-call routine or send him a break-up text.  I was upfront and did it over the phone.  He wasn’t happy with the news and, naturally, he wanted to know my reasons for the break up, so I told him.

“Once I saw how the three most important females in your life treated you like a doormat, any attraction I had for you and/or respect went flying out the window.  I’ve had two weeks since we met to really think about this, but my feelings on your home life haven’t changed and I really don’t want to be a part of it.  I’m really sorry.”

Here’s my mistake – what I should have said was, “Hey, I’m just not feeling the chemistry after spending three days with you,” instead, I placed the blame on his baby mama drama.

Here’s his mistake - when someone says they don’t want to be involved with you anymore, believe them.  The person has made up their mind, it’s not up for discussion and the best thing to do is not to question it, and just move on.

And now, I’m mad at myself, because I ignored something after the first week of correspondence with him.

Beef Cake and I had been emailing each other every day for about a week.  We still had not spoken on the phone yet.  One day he sent me a video of his daughter, which I thought was really cute, until I turned up the volume and heard his voice for the very first time.

“Oh, my God…Beth!”

I was so upset that I ran downstairs to show her the video to get her opinion.  I plop my laptop down on kitchen bar, “Beth!  Watch this video from Beef Cake and tell me he doesn’t have a high pitched voice!”

(As a side-note, I live with Beth and she proofs my work.  Her comments on this blog were too funny, so I left them - they are the ones in pink caps.)

Beth watched the video and said I was being silly and that I needed to give him a chance because I had told her he was a really nice guy so far.  She thought that disqualifying him for something so silly was ridiculous.  (PS - BETH STILL THINKS THAT'S TRUE!!) 

But remember The Architect?  She said that about him, too and, well, we all know how that turned out. (I'M STOPPING W/ THE ADVICE! :)  The Architect was also a “nice guy” who looked good on paper.  But, after meeting him, I knew the chemistry wasn’t there.  But, my dear friend, Beth, (I MAY NOT BE THAT FOR LONG AT THIS RATE) convinced me that I needed to give The Architect another date.  Her theory is that you can’t tell whether or not you like someone after just one date.  (MY THEORY IS PEOPLE WILL SHOW YOU WHO THEY ARE ON THE FIRST DATE - IF YOUR PAYING ATTENTION. AND SOMETIMES....THE FROG REALLY IS THE PRINCE.) 

And now here she was telling me to do the same thing with Beef Cake. He did have a great body and sexy tattoos, but doesn’t squeaky voice trump great body with tattoos?

I even rewound the video to make sure I wasn’t hearing things.  Nope, I heard it right the first time.  He did not have a manly-man voice. The truth is, I thought Beef Cake sounded like Mike Tyson.

*smacks head*

No matter how much I tried to see his other great qualities, I just couldn’t get past the the voice thing.

And, while I’m picking him apart...why not throw in the fact that I didn’t like his smile either.  No wonder he never smiled in his photographs! 

Funny smile trumps great body, right?  How do I describe his smile?  It was something like this:

Or, think Fire Marshall Bill from In Living Color - but minus the wonky eye.

 Fire Marshall Bill

See?  All wrong!  I should have quit while I was ahead.

And, yes, let’s not make any mistake here; I’m not going to hide the fact that I spent three days with him. He was great.  He treated me like a princess, but I just wasn’t that excited to see him again.

So now, here we have Beef Cake - a classic dating scenario.  He got dumped and instead of accepting it and respecting my wishes, he has to take some jabs at me and point out my short-comings:

"I think that one of the things that bothers me the most about this situation, is your stunning lack of resilience…In a relationship, if two people care about each other, they take the good with the bad and try and help their significant others grow as a human beings….You never even gave me a chance to demonstrate my ability to accurately react to and rectify the situation, which you obviously found so repugnant that you were willing to write me off completely...If you can't understand where my sudden interest in a member of the opposite sex might cause some upheaval, just because of its notably hitherto significant absence, then I submit that there is some shortsightedness and inflexibility in your general perspective on male/female relationships."

OK, bring it.  Dump whatever you have to on me.  I don’t care, because bottom line, I just wasn’t that into you and your baby mama drama just exacerbated the situation.

That’s what I should have said, but instead I skipped part “A” and just put the emphasis on part “B”. I was hoping to use his baby mama drama as a scapegoat, and leave it at that. But now I see where that got me.  I didn't take my own advice and just tell him the real truth.

Normally, I would ignore his email and stick with the everyday "No Answer is Your Answer" rule. But, I don't think that is right.  Leaving him hanging would not be good Karma and giving it to him straight would be.   Just because I wasn't into him, didn't give me the right to dump on him.  I needed to be firm but straight-forward with him.

Honesty can sting like a bitch, but it’s something that I can wrap my head around.  Not into me?  OK, I get that, because I’ve been there myself.  Guys have dumped me for lack of chemistry, too.  But, I get it and it's OK!

It doesn't matter how good looking you are or how much money you have.  I’ve turned down the most handsome guys and I've turned down some very rich guys before, because I didn’t feel the chemistry.  Even when my girlfriends pleaded with me to “take one for the team,” I just couldn't!  But, oh, it would have been fun to have the peaks of this guy's five homes, Learjet and celebrity-ridden neighborhood in Malibu. Again, I just couldn’t.  I need to feel a connection with someone on an emotional, spiritual and physical level. I had it once before and it's powerful! I would have done anything for that guy, so Beef Cake’s remarks are baseless and he can kiss my foot!

Oh, and one more thing: Beef Cake didn’t make me laugh.  He did a great job at doting on me and, at times, I felt spoiled.  It was nice for a while, but laughter is where it’s at!  I come from a family where all we do is laugh – at everything and anything.   We’re animated, fun, witty, and so are my friends.  So, why would I choose a man that doesn’t possess the same qualities?

I just read Dr. Laura's The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands (which I loved) and she puts the emphasis on the fact that women like to beat around the bush and that guys don't read between the lines. So, I took her advice and responded to Beef Cake's email and just gave it to him straight:

"I have every right to make the decision not to be involved in such dysfunction.  Had we been in love and in a long-term relationship, yes, I would have put in more time, but let me remind you that we just met.

Bottom line, we were pen-pals for four weeks and then phone-pals for two weeks.  We met and, for me, the chemistry wasn't strong enough in person to pursue anything further with you.  It's like the girl who told you she had Herpes.  Why didn't you stay with her?  There are many couples who live with one partner having Herpes - or did you bail because of your 'stunning lack of resilience'? 

You see, we all have our deal breakers.  You have a lot more baggage than you lead me to believe.  It probably doesn't even seem like "baggage" to you, because you have been dealing with it for so long, but for a new person to step in and see all the bullshit you put up with from the three women in your life...again, why would anyone want to sign up for that?

Look, we tried.  We met, we both had a nice time - but unfortunately, it didn't work out.  Let's just move on."

LESSON LEARNED:  No matter what, I owe it to the other person to be blatantly honest. Nobody likes to be left wondering what happened and nobody reads between the lines.  I'm an adult and if I can't say how I truly feel about the other person, then I don't have any business dating.

NEXT!