Fanning old flames...

I just realized that I totally jacked up the formatting of my last post AND I cut off half of James's original article! But like I said, it was past 3:30 in the morning when I entered that last post and I hadn't slept all night. Then, in the middle of posting, my ride to the airport showed up and I had to jet... literally! Apologies, Jamesy! But I'm sure everyone got the gist and, by the way, I received a lot of positive feedback about your material. You can be a guest blogger @ Lovely Brown Girl anytime! :)

The 30th birthday celebration is officially over and the time spent in the Caribbean resulted in a delicious tan and five extra pounds!! But it was well worth it. I have NEVER had so much fun on a vacation. EVER! Glorious, glorious fun! The day after I returned to the States, I woke up with a fat lip, which then quickly progressed to a majorly swollen face! I was horrified when I looked at my reflection. I ended up calling out sick that day and spent the day icing my face and popping Benadryl like candy, but it was to no avail because the next day I woke up looking like Hitch! I'm telling you, my face looked a hot mess! So I called out again. At this point, I'm sure my boss thought I was making all of this up in an attempt to extend my vacation. But no such luck... I called out sick because I was really, really not in a position to show my face to anyone outside of my immediate family. My mother drove me to the doctor on Thursday and she kept stealing glances at me and making these weird faces (my mother is a lot like me in that she has a hard time controlling her facial expressions!). "Why do you keep looking at me like I'm some walking freak show?!" I snapped. "Sorry," she mumbled, quickly turning away. Yeah... my face was THAT bad. It was even beyond a face that "only a mother could love". My doctor, whom I ordinarily love, had very little to offer in terms of what was happening to me. She suggested that it could be a result of sun poisoning. And, believe me, I was definitely in the sun enough to have been poisoned. I was laying out from sun-up to sun-down, which was probably not a good idea seeing as I didn't use any sunblock the whole time I was away. (Hey, I am a BROWN girl, remember? We don't burn!) She also said it was possible that I could've gotten it from a tropical fruit like pineapple, or maybe, possibly I'd been bitten by some tropical bug during the night and my body was reacting. Whatever the case, I looked a hot mess and earned myself two additional sick days tacked on to my already too-long vacation and that resulted in a one-day work week that started and ended TODAY!

I still looked a mess when I walked in to work, but at least my boss knew I had not been lying to her. The minute I walked in, she gasped. Apparently, my face was taking everyone by surprise! But, whatever. She wanted me to come in to work, and I came in. Now, she was going to have to deal with looking at me all day. That's what she gets! I was sitting at my desk catching up on emails when an IM pops up from my friend Deon. D and I went to high school together and he's definitely a looker, but he just doesn't see it. An interested woman would have to hit him over the head with a frying pan before he would get that she was interested. He can be just that dense when it comes to affairs of the heart. That's why it didn't surprise me when I read this:

4:01 PM Deon: hey i got a message from a girl i went on a date with 7 years ago
on facebook
4:02 PM so im really confused
why she would contact me?
Brown Girl: lol
Deon: she is married w/ kids
BG: maybe she just wanted to say hi?
LOL
what did the mssg say?
Deon: Hi Deon,
I hope you remember me...it's Melissa!
We met about 7 years ago at the grocery store, went on a couple of "dates"...I've always wondered how you were. Let me know if you remember me, okay...
4:03 PM BG: uhh... clearly she's unhappily married?!
LOL
wow
Deon: theres more
BG: uh oh
4:04 PM ok
Deon: me: Yes it's me... How is everything?
her: I'm great. Married with two beautiful daughters, Krista is 4 and Grace is 2. I live in Delaware and I've been working at a hotel now for 5 years. How are you? Married? Kids? You still look the same...
Deon: Congrats on Marriage and the kids. I'm good. Single and living in DC
4:05 PM BG: k
i see where this is going
LOL
Deon: her: Still single, huh? I thought for sure you would be married with beautiful babies by now. I would love to see you and catch-up...I will be in DC on K Street next week for happy hour. A bunch of my friends and I are celebrating our birthdays with dinner and a little dancing. If you can make it, let me know...My cell number is XXX-XXX-XXXX
Deon: Things have been really busy lately...so I'll let you know next week
her: So, still single? I find that hard to believe. The Deon I remember was quite the charmer, witty, and has the most beautiful eyes ever!
4:09 PM BG: ooooh boy
yeah, that sounds like trouble
LOL!!
Deon: yeah ... thats what i thought as well
4:10 PM thought this was strange
not sure what to do about this

Wow. A MARRIED woman is making an attempt to link up with Deon - a single man she once dated - and proceeds to throw a slew of compliments his way in an attempt to lure him to the meeting place. I find it interesting that she would be so bold. And I wonder what would make Melissa contact Deon so many years later. Facebook and the internet, man... their power is often used for evil and not for good. But I just find stories like this so interesting. I mean, sure... I often think back to guys that I've dated in the past and wonder what happened to them. And sometimes, I even reach out just to say hey and see if anything interesting is going on with them. A handful of them were even cute and/or intriguing enough for me to be a little flirtatious when I reached out. But will I continue to do that sort of thing when I'm married? Geez, I hope not! And, believe it or not, it's not the first time I've heard something like this.

Several months ago, I had a conversation with Mystery Man about something similar. An old girlfriend from college emailed him out of the blue. This girl had broken his heart by dumping him for some jock and then marrying him a few years later. She'd Googled him and found his website and sent an email gushing about how she never should've married the jock and, instead, should've stayed with him. Clearly, she was unhappily married (with children), and she was mourning what "could've been" had she continued her relationship with MM. So, she tells him that she is coming to his city to visit an aunt in February and she hoped that the two of them could get together.

"You know she's making up a reason to visit. I bet she probably doesn't even have an aunt in your city?"

"You don't think so?" he asked.

"Heck no!" I laughed.

"So, when she comes to visit this phantom aunt, are you going to see her?"

"'Phantom' aunt?! That's funny!" he says.

"Well, are you?"

"Probably not. I might have to travel for work that weekend. Or at least that's what I'm going to tell her."

Dude, what?! "Probably not?!" This woman is married!! Anyway, I guess I shouldn't judge him because clearly she's the one who initiated this... and she's the one who is making up fake family members to visit in hopes of rekindling an old flame with her high school boyfriend.

Man, even though this happened days ago, I am still LOLing at unhappily married women contacting men from their pasts and making FB and email propositions. But actually, this is not a laughing matter. This is actually really, really sad. When your marriage is that bad, it seems to me that instead of trying to rekindle sparks, you should instead focus on either improving the marriage that you have, or taking steps to get out of it... BEFORE you go trying to start an extra-relationship with some old boyfriend. Granted, these two women are not representative of the myriad married women in the world, but the fact that I personally know of at least two who are trying to reconnect with old "friends" over the internet leads me to believe that this may be a pretty common occurrence.

I always knew that dating sucked, but... does marriage suck just as bad? I'm starting to lose hope again. *sigh*