A few things happen as one glides gracefully (or, in my case, not at all gracefully) through her twenties: you find out you can no longer drink a full bottle of tequila without ending up in a body bag; you realize Forever 21 bodycon dresses are flattering on exactly no one, and, my personal favorite, you just stop giving a fuck about what people think. And by “people,” I mean every fuckboy who’s told you, at 9:23pm on a Friday, to meet him at a just-above-shitty bar, where he’ll proceed to “generously” ply you with vodka soda after vodka soda, after which he’ll order an Uber and escort you back to his kingdom…aka, the crappy fourth floor walk-up he shares with two guys from his college lacrosse team.
What. A. Gentleman.
In my Oprah-esque quest for basic bitch brand spiritual enlightenment, I recently decided to make some changes. In addition to switching from 12 iced coffees and a cheese stick per day to one kombucha and an organic cheese stick per day (#mybodyisatemple), I committed to living out the one piece of advice even Buddha did not think of: “You teach people how to treat you.” (Thanks for that, Dr. Phil.)
The universe must have been listening, because this email landed in my inbox last week:
First, why do I pay $600 a month for therapy? I obviously just need a Hinge subscription. Or a job there. These people understand how to practice self-care as it relates to mending my cold, dead heart.
Second, which prince in my Rolodex of not-so-charming suitors should receive this box? While the old me would never dream of calling out a fuckboy’s fucked-up set of behaviors (no good text is ever accompanied with a wink face emoji, girls), I was about up to here *points to the top of the Empire State Building* with these dudes getting away with murder.
So I entered my credit card information, hit “order,” and had it sent to the most recent offender: a lacrosse-playing, vodka soda slinging, finance working “good guy” who had, two months earlier, spent an entire evening professing his “love” for me. And not just any old love…a burning, unrequited love that had apparently been “eating him up inside” for the better part of five years.
PRO TIP: Don’t believe any guy if he makes a speech like this at 4am on the street corner adjacent to your apartment.
Because I refuse to accept I’m not Cameron Diaz in The Holiday, I believed him.
To make a long story short, our “romance” fizzled approximately three weeks later when I explained I needed some level of commitment from him beyond “I’ll text you this weekend.” This didn’t seem like a tall task considering he was “in love with me” from afar for five years, but I have a real talent for underestimating the power of someone who played a rich person sport at a NESCAC school.
Back to the Fuckboy Kit—that week, I kept an eagle eye on the package tracking. When it arrived at his doorstep (probably along with a Bonobos delivery, tbh), I imagined several scenarios playing out: either I would receive a condescending text calling me “nuts,” or I would hear nothing. Which would obviously be worse, because I require constant attention.
Approximately eight hours after the package arrived at Mr. Wonderful’s den of fuckery, my phone rang.
No, you are not reading a piece of fiction. My fuckboy actually picked up the phone to share a reaction beyond “haha.”
And would you believe the next part? He apologized for being a grade-A, immature douche canoe.
“I guess I kinda freaked out,” he said. And then, in the least surprising statement of 2017, he admitted the following: “I’ve definitely avoided commitment of any sort. This was a pretty funny way to call me out. Sorry for being a massive dick.”
If you believe in fairy tales, we’re going to dinner next week. Can’t wait to tell this story at our wedding, where he will most definitely be wearing the “Husband Material” hat.
